From: no_offline_contact@example.com   
      
   On 2026-01-08 2:43 p.m., Adam H. Kerman wrote:   
   > Rhino  wrote:   
   >> 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:   
   >   
   >>>>> . . .   
   >   
   >>>>> Capturing [Maduro] 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.   
   >   
   > Thank you for typing this out.   
   >   
   >> ========================================================================   
   >> 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.   
   >   
   > Huh. I thought Stalin had pushed for this, since they love their show   
   > trials.   
   >   
   The show trials were the exact OPPOSITE of anything resembling proper   
   judicial procedure. The defendants had essentially been tortured into   
   confessing and the defense attorneys appointed for them had a habit of   
   condemning their clients even more viciously than the prosecutors!   
      
   The show trials didn't even miss a beat when important evidence was   
   shown to be false. For example, Trotsky's son was part of one of the   
   trials and he admitted to having met with other conspirators at the   
   Bristol Hotel in Copenhagen on a specific date. Later testimony revealed   
   that the Bristol Hotel had burned down a few years BEFORE this meeting   
   and had never been rebuilt. This was just ignored and the conviction   
   rendered regardless.   
      
   >> ...   
   >   
   >> 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.   
   >   
   > I had no idea. Talk about your disaster, a war to suppress the expansion   
   > of Protestantism ended up expanding it, while killing more than half of   
   > the adult male population of central Europe. The Peace of Westphalia   
   > established the principle of international law that boundaries, no   
   > matter how disruptive they are to peace and commerce, are inviolate and   
   > you aren't allowed to go to war over them.   
   >   
   > Hahahahahahahahahahaha   
   >   
   >> ...   
   You mean the way Hamas honoured the borders of Gaza and stayed strictly   
   inside them on Oct 7, 2023? Or the way Trump honoured the borders of   
   Venezuela and left Maduro alone?   
      
   Yeah, that's definitely not one of the better-observed principles of   
   modern nations (or wannabe nations in the case of Hamas).   
      
   --   
   Rhino   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)