alt.hn

6/11/2026 at 2:22:05 PM

War Crimes Seem to Be Official US Policy Now

 https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/war-crimes-seem-to-be-official-us

by JumpCrisscross

6/11/2026 at 3:05:38 PM

This thread will get flagged and disappear, probably because at least someone in HN leadership realises just how bad this reflects on the USA and its people.

But people in the USA should realise this:

An entire generation is growing up now, who hate, dislike or at least distrust the USA.

Where I have the feeling the US will come to its senses, eventually, hopefully; my children tell me that they and all their classmates see no difference between China, Russia, USA or Israel. None of these countries seem particularly trustworthy to them.

At the "Model United Nations" my oldest, who had to represent the United States realistically was surprised to learn just how immensely hypocritical, self-serving, arrogant and sometimes just plain evil the viewpoints of the USA are. And have been, for his entire life now.

That's the generation that has to do business with the USA in 10-20 years time.

Buckle up.

by spiderfarmer

6/11/2026 at 11:20:13 PM

> probably because at least someone in HN leadership realises

Lol - actually because at most no one in HN leadership realised the thread even existed.

Here's a tip for improved accuracy on HN speculation: if your speculation implicitly assumes moderator omniscience, it's probably wrong.

We don't moderate HN based on what reflects badly or goodly on $country or $people. We're just trying to have an internet forum that doesn't suck, i.e. remains interesting and hovers semi-stably above internet median.

by dang

6/11/2026 at 3:15:28 PM

"An entire generation is growing up now, who hate, dislike or at least distrust the USA."

Same as it always was.

by paleotrope

6/11/2026 at 4:13:56 PM

I guarantee you it isn't the same. Even anti-atlantists here were more 'we should imitate them' than 'we should fight against their culture'. Nowadays even my very Catholic, very right wing, very pro-Bush/Irak war family is quite cross with the US.

by orwin

6/11/2026 at 7:30:14 PM

> probably because at least someone in HN leadership realises just how bad this reflects on the USA and its people.

flags are user-driven

by exolymph

6/11/2026 at 9:23:27 PM

No you dont get it. A conspiracy is afoot.

by nh23423fefe

6/13/2026 at 6:43:14 PM

paranoid polarization is just how fascism works.

by cyanydeez

6/11/2026 at 5:26:58 PM

Rome (US) will always have its critics.

It’s our job to make sure they don’t have any power.

by cmxch

6/11/2026 at 3:16:29 PM

You were correct, it got flagged. Personally I held the belief that people shat too much on the USA, then the current regime started and I feel a fool.

by dana-s

6/11/2026 at 3:28:33 PM

If I am not mistaken, it is not a war crime as per the Geneva Convention. It could be a war crime under Additional Protocol I (1977) or the Rome Statute (1998) but the US hasn't ratified these. It clearly is a last choice reaction by the US, and it's better than the alternative of carpet bombing.

Tell me, why is it legal for Iran to bomb oil tankers of other countries?

by OutOfHere

6/11/2026 at 5:10:28 PM

Do you not see the difference between controlling territorial waters and bombing civilian water infrastructure

by wak90

6/11/2026 at 5:59:29 PM

Huh. It is not entirely in Iran's territorial water. It is partially in Oman's water. Iran is attempting to control what does not belong to it.

Moreover, under the law of the sea, the Strait of Hormuz is as an international strait. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_strait

by OutOfHere

6/11/2026 at 9:04:24 PM

Lol the US didn't ratify that either

by wak90

6/12/2026 at 12:58:44 PM

> Tell me, why is it legal for Iran to bomb oil tankers of other countries?

Why is it "legal" for the US to shoot oil tankers of other nations ? And murder sailors of neutral nations in PROPER international waters such as the Indian ocean ?

by lenkite

6/11/2026 at 6:28:52 PM

Deliberately attacking a purely civilian object violates the principle of distinction, which is bedrock customary law the US has never disputed.

> “better than carpet bombing”

The lawful alternative is attacking military targets, not worse civilian targets.

> “why is it legal for Iran to bomb oil tankers?”

Iran’s conduct being illegal doesn’t legalize this strike. Whataboutism is a scourge.

by nickvec

6/11/2026 at 8:24:09 PM

Customary law is not formal law. Trump flies above the bedrock.

The thing to realize is that US could have destroyed 10-100x more civilian infrastructure. Instead it only gave Iran a small taste of what it's capable of. In undertaking this action, just as with the nukes in WWII, the gambit is to end the war quickly, not to prolong it. I am not saying whether the gambit will work, but why is prolonging war not illegal?

Spatial whataboutism is perfectly fair in war. A tit-for-tat strategy forms a highly stabilizing bedrock.

by OutOfHere

6/11/2026 at 2:54:57 PM

The US certainly has a mixed track record here. But the culture of lawlessness in this administration is hard to overstate. Every crime committed by this regime is followed by a "what about" argument from a pundit, citing an example where someone in time, committed a vaguely similar offense. But no regime in US history did so many crimes so often. This is historically corrupt and criminal; everything else is disingenuous false equivalency.

by josefritzishere

6/11/2026 at 2:58:04 PM

For anyone who hasn't, I recommend reading up on Watergate and watching the resignation speech.

It represents the kind of presidential conduct that a few decades ago was considered so abhorrent that the president should immediately resign over it.

by avaer

6/11/2026 at 3:05:18 PM

Well initially Nixon was following a similar playbook to what you see Trump et al pull off successfully today. He only resigned when it became clear the he had lost too many votes in the Senate and would lose the impeachment vote. That took a few months from when the story initially broke.

by rtkwe

6/11/2026 at 4:35:14 PM

> But no regime in US history did so many crimes so often.

Native Americans would beg to differ, as would formerly enslaved people. Both historical injustices and the ongoing suffering of people abroad unfortunately feel distant to many, so the cruelty becomes abstract, and to some, unreal.

by soraminazuki

6/11/2026 at 3:01:09 PM

Now? There is reason why United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

It's their policy for decades. There is no bigger threat for world peace than US (and maybe Israel).

by Markoff

6/11/2026 at 3:13:56 PM

Not maybe. Israel is the whole reason the USA is losing its mind (and its war) in Iran right now.

by spiderfarmer

6/12/2026 at 6:28:51 AM

I don't think Israel was reason for Iraq invasion, Serbia bombing or kidnapping Venezuelan president and many other US attacks on other countries.

by Markoff

6/12/2026 at 4:24:01 PM

Not fully, but it was a goal of Netanyahu/Israel to destroy Iraq, as they do for Iran. Netanyahu was there in congress to testify (lie) about weapons of mass destruction as the US attacked Iraq.

by Hikikomori

6/12/2026 at 1:40:26 PM

[dead]

by stefantalpalaru

6/11/2026 at 2:49:47 PM

"Now" is doing a metric ton of heavy lifting in that headline.

by blitzar

6/11/2026 at 2:50:37 PM

Remember when America firebombed civilians during World War Two?

by newsclues

6/11/2026 at 3:06:29 PM

That was, sadly, very much an "everybody does this" thing, from Guernica to Chongqing to Coventry.

But yes, there are two possible lessons from those horrors:

- never again must this happen to anyone: the construction of international peace frameworks, the ICC, and human rights law

- what is currently happening, which is very different

by pjc50

6/11/2026 at 2:53:59 PM

Wasn’t regret for and fear of the scale of that damage partly why we supported the Geneva Convention?

by JumpCrisscross

6/11/2026 at 2:57:20 PM

Ever heard about Laos?

"Between December of 1964 and March of 1973, the US launched more than 270 million cluster bombs on Laos during Operation Barrel Roll. This number is equivalent to dropping a full plane cargo load every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day, for 9 years. Laos is thus the most heavily bombed country in the world."

"The legacy of this once secret war continues today. More than 80,000,000 undetonated bombs are strewn across the country threatening the lives of its people."

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/laos-the-most-heavily-bo...

"Since the end of the operation in 1973, over 20,000 people have died or been injured by these remaining bombs. At any moment, a farmer may strike one while plowing or a child may find one while playing. (...) Estimates suggest that as many as 100 civilians fall victim every year"

by acqq

6/11/2026 at 3:01:04 PM

I’m not remotely claiming we didn’t do war crimes afterwards. Just that the firebombing, if I recall correctly, was explicitly cited as a reason why we needed rules going forward.

by JumpCrisscross

6/11/2026 at 3:06:56 PM

Unfortunately that knowledge seems to have been lost with the passage of time.

by blitzar

6/11/2026 at 5:34:42 PM

Quick question, who were the aggressors in that war? What had they done previously that might have warranted it?

by jst1fthsdys

6/11/2026 at 5:36:04 PM

The aggressors not being the targets of the firebombing is central to the concerns here. They weren't military targets (largely).

by hawkice

6/11/2026 at 5:48:40 PM

It was total war though, and they were the aggressors who had slaughtered millions of civilians previously. The Germans and Japanese got what they deserved.

Iran and their people are not the aggressors here. They do not deserve it.

by jst1fthsdys

6/12/2026 at 2:44:46 AM

My brother in Christ, why do you think the Geneva conventions were made!?

by Tadpole9181

6/11/2026 at 2:55:24 PM

[flagged]

by blitzar

6/11/2026 at 3:00:51 PM

No, the fire bombing of Japan did far more damage than the nuclear bombs. What made early nuclear bombs scary is that instead of needing hundreds of bombers you now only needed one for the same amount of damage

by wongarsu

6/11/2026 at 2:58:29 PM

There are degrees to these things. A nation's leader repeatedly and explicitly declaring intent to commit genocide is makes that "lift" an extremely light one.

by boothby

6/12/2026 at 8:19:13 PM

Ah. ...first time?

Sorry but we've been committing war crimes as a matter of policy for decades at least.

by fallingfrog

6/11/2026 at 11:59:08 PM

judaeo christian genocide cults like zionisim are behind all of the worst atrocities in this century, there "policy" is unspeakable deranged insanity, and there actions, bit by bit, serve as the rope that hangs them, and it might sound a bit strange to hear them rant,here,with the nonsensical rationalisations, but they know no shame

by metalman

6/12/2026 at 2:36:35 AM

You know what we don’t see in here? Judaeo Christians or Zionists demonizing Muslims.

All the hatred is flowing in one direction, and that tells you all you need to know about the difference between the two sides.

by throw469944

6/12/2026 at 10:32:51 AM

zionist desperation is a beutifull thing. Palastinians and others who have and are bieng rape tortured by zionists are overcomming there shame to calmly recount there experience, which by now has been shared by so many. Having been reduced so far that all they have left is the truth, they are offering it, and now there are millions of people every day faceing this and demanding a reconing.

by metalman

6/12/2026 at 3:06:07 PM

Hmmm. Off the top of my head in the current century: Yemen civil war (150,000 killed). Syrian civil war (500,000 killed). Sudan (150,000 to 400,000 killed, rape used as a weapon). Constant kidnapping of schoolkids in Africa by Islamic gangs. Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines. Islamic violence in Thailand (over 6,500 killed recently). Ongoing repression of women in Afghanistan. 3000 (regime admitted numbers) to 30,000 murdered in Iran by the Shia Islamic regime. Violence against Christians in Congo. ISIS with their take-over, religious sanctioned slave auctions, religious sanctioned sale/forced marriages of Yazidi women (at least one of whom ended up in forced 'marriage' in Gaza). The violence/abuse that is Iraq/Iran Islamic religious leader approved/sanctioned 'temporary' marriages to underage girls (the BBC has done many articles trying to bring light on).

Look at Christian populations in Islamic countries and their numbers dramatically decreasing this century. Christians in Iraq 1.2 million in 2011, 120,000 in 2024, over a million displaced peoples. Syria 1.5 million to 300,000, 1.2 million displaced peoples. Hamas conducts violence against the 2% Christian population in Gaza. There are some 18 million displaced Christians world wide.

Reality seems to disprove the premise unless you meant to include all Abrahamic faiths and include Islam in your violent religions list.

by _DeadFred_

6/11/2026 at 3:52:02 PM

Why in the world is this flagged?

by dataflow

6/11/2026 at 4:54:28 PM

Just guessing, but I assume because it’s arguably off-topic as defined by the HN guidelines. I don’t think it should be flagged, though.

“Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.”

by nickvec

6/11/2026 at 9:38:55 PM

This being evidence of an interesting new phenomenon is literally the entire premise of the blog post though. And it sure as hell didn't look like it was covered on the main news headlines; I know I only heard about it because of HN. The author is pretty clearly claiming this is a new phenomenon literally in the title itself!

by dataflow

6/11/2026 at 11:29:48 PM

It's new, but is it "interesting?" Does it "satisfy intellectual curiosity?"

Many people here will consider this categorically off topic and flag accordingly because politics doesn't satisfy theirs. Even if it's a good article, and even if the discussion is on-topic and civil.

by krapp

6/12/2026 at 1:38:24 AM

What is "intellectual curiosity" that doesn't include curiosity about whether, when, and how often the world superpower commits a war crime? For reference just the other day we had [1] on the front page. Was knowing the consumer price index for the month really all that much more satisfying of "intellectual curiosity" than this?

[1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm

by dataflow

6/12/2026 at 4:44:50 AM

>What is "intellectual curiosity" that doesn't include curiosity about whether, when, and how often the world superpower commits a war crime?

It means "anything good hackers find interesting" and anything that "sparks curious conversation."

What does that mean? I don't exactly know. Certainly nothing objective. In practice it means whatever the people flagging the thread decide it does.

by krapp

6/11/2026 at 3:00:03 PM

[dead]

by tristanj

6/11/2026 at 2:59:32 PM

It's called war crime only if you lost

by mugiseyebrows

6/11/2026 at 3:30:59 PM

“It says here in this history book that luckily, the good guys have won every single time. What are the odds?” -Norm MacDonald

by ryandvm

6/11/2026 at 4:36:31 PM

And it's only called pedophilia if convicted

by toxicunderGroov

6/11/2026 at 3:53:19 PM

[flagged]

by misano

6/11/2026 at 5:30:04 PM

> The human rights abuses committed by the Islamic Republic regime

What about the human rights abuses by the democratic regime of ISUS? Do we deserve some war crimes too?

by jst1fthsdys

6/11/2026 at 6:57:51 PM

It's like, oh, we shouldn't do anything against Hitler because our army might commit war crimes. The reason for the opponents of war is war crimes? Can we have a war without committing crimes? If it's not possible, then the question boils down to whether it's worth it? And you have to throw the moral abacus at whether war, with its possibilities, is morally preferable or the tragedies that happen without it. The Islamic Republic regime is the most evil government the world has ever seen.

by misano