From: no_offline_contact@example.com   
      
   On 2026-01-07 10:52 p.m., Adam H. Kerman wrote:   
   > BTR1701  wrote:   
   >> Jan 7, 2026 at 4:23:37 PM PST, Adam H. Kerman  wrote:   
   >   
   >>> Michael Kelly, professor with several sub specialties in international   
   >>> law, explained what was wrong with Maduro's capture in terms of   
   >>> international law. He was a guest on C-SPAN Washington Journal 1/7/2026.   
   >   
   >>> First, Trump was blowing up boats, claiming narco-terroris. That was   
   >>> war, not law enforcement. No evidence was preserved. No one was captured   
   >>> to be put on trial.   
   >   
   >>> If there's a war, then Maduro was a legitimate military target as he   
   >>> gives orders to the military.   
   >   
   >>> But... if Trump kills him in an act of war, then that means Trump   
   >>> recognized him as legitimate head of state.   
   >   
   >> Why? We kill a lot of enemy citizens during wars. Doesn't mean we believe   
   >> they're all heads of state.   
   >   
   >>> Capturing him and putting him on trial is a violation of international   
   >>> law.   
   >   
   >> Isn't that what they did with the Nazis at Nuremberg?   
   >   
   > He's saying specifically that a head of state is immune from prosecution   
   > by a foreign government. Killing him as an act of war is not a violatiom   
   > of international law. Putting him on trial is.   
   >   
   > It makes no sense.   
   >   
   > I've never studied what law Nazis were charged under.   
   >   
   30 odd years ago, I read a book about the Nuremberg Trials written by   
   one of the American prosecutors, who was very very old at the time of   
   writing and publication. I still have the book: The Anatomy of the   
   Nuremberg Trials by Telford Taylor. (I see it is available on the gray   
   as an audiobook.) If I remember correctly, he acknowledged that there   
   really wasn't much proper legal basis for the court and its proceedings.   
      
   I've just grabbed the book and I see that Chapter 1 talks about the   
   legal foundations of the trials. (I'm speaking of the famous first set   
   of trials that dealt with the top Nazis; there were 11 other sets of   
   trials afterwards dealing with lesser figures.) Already I've found a few   
   passages that talk about precedents for the trial.   
      
   I'm not about to type out the whole first chapter or even major parts of   
   it but these snippets should address the point at hand.   
      
   ========================================================================   
   The ideas which led to the expanded principles of the Nuremberg Trials   
   were largely developed by a group of New York lawyers during the autumn   
   and winter of 1944-1945, most notably by Henry L. Stimson, John J.   
   McCloy, Murray Bernays, William C. Chanler, Samuel Rosenman, Robert H.   
   Jackson, and (though we do not usually think of him as a lawyer)   
   President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.   
      
   Initially, and in my view most important, was the decision of Stimson,   
   then Secretary of War, to pass over the military courts-martial   
   generally used for the trial of military crimes and establish an   
   international court. On September 9, 1944, he wrote to the President: "I   
   am disposed to believe that at least as to the top Nazi officials, we   
   should participate in an international tribunal to try them." The result   
   was the unprecedented creation of the International Military Tribunal,   
   the most important and, I believe, successful new entity in the   
   enforcement of the laws of war.   
      
   ...   
      
   But what law was the International Military Tribunal enforcing? Ordinary   
   courts and trials were based on the statutes of sovereign nations.   
   However, the IMT was no ordinary court. It was established by the United   
   States and three major European nations, and the laws by which the IMT   
   was bound were not the laws of those or of any other nations. For its   
   rules on crime the IMT looked primarily to the international "laws of   
   war", violations of which are called "war crimes".   
      
   ========================================================================   
      
   At which point he launches into pages of discussion of events going back   
   as far as the Thirty Years war (1618-1648) that dealt with previous   
   attempts to deal with war crimes.   
      
   >>> But now he gets American justice and might be acquitted!   
   >   
   >>> In other words, fair trial is a violation of international law. The   
   >>> professor implied that killing him as an act of war would not have   
   >>> violated international law.   
   >   
   >>> Frank, I have a sick headache.   
      
      
   --   
   Rhino   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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