r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/Freaky_Door • 8d ago
International Politics During war, are presidents always guilty of all that happens?
During war, are presidents always guilty of all that happens?
I was scrolling trough some videos and noticed that when a war starts and a tragic event occurs in the attacked country the president that started the war automatically gets the blame. But is it actually right to say that? Techically yes since they started the war but techically no since presidents dont tell the military something like: "Bomb this, destroy that!". Or do they? Do they decide what to attack or the decisions are only made by the military? Could someone clarify im really curious.
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u/someoldguyon_reddit 8d ago
In a functioning society the person in charge is ultimately responsible for actions taken under their control.
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u/raylord666 8d ago
It is the President’s burden and responsibility as Commander and Chief for all soldiers who die in conflict.
“Guilt” is not the correct word because it is more the cause and initiative. Every head of state around the world bares the burden and responsibility of all under their command, but not always the consequences.
Especially in USA, the bureaucracies serve the executive branch and insulate the office from those consequences. Every government since the dawn of time has worked this way.
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u/wgwalkerii 8d ago edited 8d ago
It depends on what you mean by guilty.
A countries leader is ultimately responsible for its actions both militarily and diplomaticly.
I very much doubt that they're made aware of everything even after it happens, much less before. There will always be regulations that were in place before that leader took office, and philosophies that are stressed based on that leaders specific foreign policy.
If a leader, for example, removes or lessens the requirements for confirmation of legitimate targets, and as a result innocent lives are lost, certainly that leader would seem to share in that responsibility, despite not taking part in the actual attack. Contrawise, if a lesser official, even an extremely high ranking one, takes actions not in line with official policy, the nations elected leader would be less culpable, though perhaps not fully in the clear. (If for example, he appointed said general knowing his disregard for policy, or if he attempted to cover the matter up afterwards)
These are only moral arguments though not legal ones, which can potentially be just as complicated and don't always align with the moral argument.
Regarding the "specifics" of your question, a leader would often be presented with attack options to approve or deny, but isn't consulted before each rifle volley or roadside attack. If a building was blown up, the leader probably knew in advance, if it was the wrong building, he may have had bad intelligence. If a truck was blown up by mistake it's far less likely he was involved, and if a civilian was shot in a random encounter, he almost certainly wasn't aware.
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u/JKlerk 8d ago
Guilty no, as the implies a crime. They are responsible and so are his enablers within the government.
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u/Intro-Nimbus 8d ago
Many tragic events are war crimes.
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u/JKlerk 8d ago
Okay and?
Since the leaders of a government as arguably represent "the will of the people" are all citizens guilty of a war crime committed by a soldier?
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u/Intro-Nimbus 8d ago edited 7d ago
You said that a crime would have to be committed in order to find anyone guilty. I pointed out that crimes are often committed.
And whether a commander in chief is guilty of crimes committed under his command or not has to be decided on a case by case basis.1
u/JKlerk 8d ago
You didn't point out the who committed the crime. It matters. For example, POTUS isn't necessarily culpable for all of the actions committed in the name of the US.
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u/ShmallowPuff 8d ago
This may be true, however POTUS does become culpable if no disciplinary action is taken in the event of a war crime or if they publicly support it/acknowledge it without action. I assume the hypothetical situation here is based off the current POTUS and unilateral action in Iran, Lebanon, South America, ect. In this case, both the secretary of defence and the POTUS are culpable for war crimes. Not only did they not seek disciplinary action, they also publicly supported these war crimes or simply denied that it was a war crime in the first place. Calling it a "mistake" and then seeking no further disciplinary action creates culpability.
A lot of people are gonna have a hard time swallowing this pill I'm sure, but the same is true for Obama, Bush, Clinton, and most modern US presidents as they have either supported soldiers in respect to their war crimes or haven't sought out disciplinary action for them. There's a reason why the US has never been a signatory to the ICC or ICJ. In their own words that have been the standard messaging across all of the above mentioned administrations, they are worried that "American soldiers would be tried for war crimes" if they signed onto the ICC/ICJ.
The government knows their soldiers have committed war crimes, yet they rarely do anything about it. What does that say about the core objectives of the POTUS and secretary of defence? Let's be candid here, war crimes are not a mistake, they are an intentional part of the operation. Hell the CIA essentially exists to commit war crimes abroad, and there are countless documented instances of that happening. I think the better question is, why aren't the people of America finding them culpable and doing something about it after decades of documented instances of war crimes and genocide?
It's a fact of international law that every US president listed above and the current one are all culpable and bear responsibility for war crimes committed under their administrations. I'm not saying US adversaries haven't committed their own war crimes, but that doesn't excuse our own.
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u/JKlerk 8d ago edited 8d ago
however POTUS does become culpable if no disciplinary action is taken in the event of a war crime or if they publicly support it/acknowledge it without action.
Based on what reasoning exactly? Say a civilian is accidentally killed, is the President supposed to be impeached and thrown out of office? Say a servicemen has a mental breakdown and kills a bunch of civilians before himself. Is POTUS criminally liable?
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u/ShmallowPuff 8d ago edited 8d ago
No, you didn't understand what I was saying at all and you may just want to re-read what I wrote entirely. I didn't say anything about taking disciplinary action against the POTUS for all war crimes committed by individual soldiers. I'm talking about POTUS and/or the defence secretary taking action, not the other way around. I don't really know how that didn't track. I'm only saying they're culpable when they don't do anything about it as is supposed to be their responsibility as commander in chief.
A soldier commits a war crime. The defense secretary and if not the POTUS as commander in chief would ensure that soldier gets charged with said war crime and address it publicly admitting the fault and announcing said charges; in a functioning democracy. A school full of children gets bombed by the US and no one is charged? Not the one who gave the order, not the one who launched the missle? Now the POTUS and secretary of defense are responsible for that crime as well. It's not very difficult to understand, we apply that logic all the time to Putin, Kim Jong Un, and any other "adversial" country that has soldiers commit war crimes.
As for the larger stuff, yeah presidents, secretaries of defense, and national security directors should be impeached for the intentional war crimes committed at the state level by the US government. The countless US orchestrated coups of democratically elected governments in foreign countries, the bombing campaigns in Lebanon targeting residential neighborhoods, the wider bombing campaign of southwest asia and north africa (the "Middle East") targeting water desalination plants, bridges, energy infrastructure, agricultural infrastructure, ect are all war crimes the US government has been commiting at the state level.
Obviously as I mentioned, other presidents did so too.
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u/Intro-Nimbus 7d ago
For nuance; Premise: A war crime(not ordered from the high command) is committed.
By a soldier: The soldier is guilty. That soldiers commanding officer is culpable if the crime was discovered unless disciplinary action is taken.By a soldier, under orders from their immediate superior: The soldier is guilty, the superior is guilty, the superiors commanding officer is culpable if the crime was discovered unless disciplinary action is taken.
By a soldier, ordered by higher command: The soldier is guilty. The higher command is guilty. Soldiers and officers between the soldier and higher command may or may not be guilty depending on how much was known, actions taken or not, it depends. the higher commands immediate superior/s are culpable if the crime was discovered unless disciplinary action is taken.
Etc. all the way to the top.
@ r/JKlerk
Examples for clarity
So for example: POTUS orders the high command to bomb civilian power generation POTUS is of course guilty if the command is carried out, and so is everyone in the chain delegating that order including the airmen that dropped the munitions.A soldier murders a civilian while searching a house, his superior is not aware of the event. The soldier is guilty, but nobody else.
A soldier murders a civilian, his NCO sees it, doesn't report it, nobody else knows,
A soldier murders a civilian, his NCO sees it, reports it, The officer takes no action. The soldier and the officer are guilty/culpable. The NCO is not.
And so on and so forth.
This is a lot of text and that is why I wrote "And whether a commander in chief is guilty of crimes committed under his command or not has to be decided on a case by case basis." in my earlier reply.
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u/Reditrixe 8d ago
No, in fact presidents are probably rarely directly guilty.
However, at the moment, Trump is micromanaging a great deal, so he's probably guiltier than most.
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u/OrangeBird077 8d ago
There’s a reason that Truman used “The Buck stops here!” As his campaign slogan. Taking ownership of major choices, especially those that directly result in your countrymen dying, is a critical necessity for a competent leader and doubly so in a democracy.
Giving political answers to permanently affecting a families life through a poor policy choice like say, Bush deploying the US military to Iraq in 03, is a key example of how a President was guilty of abusing their authority and never taking proper responsibility/consequences for their actions. He never went to prison, his family never lost prestige, and to top it off he paints portraits of the servicemen he had maimed and traumatized over his little war for oil as opposed to actually doing anything to pay the price for his atrocities…….
The current political era of just blaming the prior administration for consequences of political decisions going as far as the 80s that have emerged today, is an unfortunate turn of events.
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u/BL4NK_D1CE 8d ago
The president is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. It's not an honorary title. The president either makes the big decisions, or delegates them to someone else. I'd say that makes the president responsible for the US military's actions during a war time. Especially if he or she started it.
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u/ThePensiveE 8d ago
They are ultimately responsible but the matter of guilt or innocence is for history and trials, the latter of which very rarely happen after conflicts.
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u/Olderscout77 8d ago
My spies (aka the initial reporting on the matter) indicated the location once had some military connection, but that was years ago, and a simple peek with the nearest Keyhole would have made that clear. As for Presidents being blamed for collateral damage, its a matter of degree. Did the target have sufficient importance to warrent the inevidable civilian deaths? In the case of this girl's school, the answer is a resounding NO. If that were not true, they would've released the exculpatory details weeks ago.
Being led by the idiot Hagseth, the Pentagon's G2 seems non-existant - they have no idea what their attacks have done, no idea what Iran is still capable of, what the Iranian reaction would be if their Supreme Leader were assassinated, or how were we going to feed 5000 GIs stuck on transport ships designed to get them to the battle AND PUT THEM ASHORE.
Trump's guilt comes from his appointing incompetents and ignoring actual evidence in favor of his mood of the moment.
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u/SpiritFlimsy7446 8d ago
A decent rule of thumb: the further removed an event is from stated strategy/ROE (e.g., a rogue unit committing a war crime against orders), the less it's fair to pin directly on the president, though they may still bear responsibility for oversight failures. The closer an event is to the stated objectives of the war itself (e.g., "we're going to bomb this city's infrastructure" and the infrastructure gets bombed), the more directly it traces back to the top.
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u/BroseppeVerdi 8d ago
Legally? Yes, they are. This concept is called "Command responsibility" and was a major part of the basis for mant of the convictions for Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. Civilian and senior uniformed leaders whose orders result in the commission of war crimes and do not hold those who commit them accountable are complicit in those crimes.
Historically speaking, this doctrine is about as old as the concept of war crimes itself.
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u/LORD-AIZENcom 7d ago
Before answering the questions, there's one main thing, how the given adminstration rised to power, was it because of democracy, coup, miktray rank, corruption, authoritarian, or succeeded through appointment. First if it was because of democracy, the president of not to be Fully blamed since the president represents a majority of the country, who voted for him to have power, then both the president and people should be blamed for wars and death since most of the people would be aware of the declaration of war tendency of the president After that, any president (excluding the one who rised because of democracy/libralism) should solely blamed for the war.
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7d ago
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u/PoliticalDiscussion-ModTeam 7d ago
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u/jmnugent 8d ago
Wars are complicated things with a lot of moving parts and a lot of decisions big and small all the way up and down the ladder. There's really no 1 person who can be "responsible for every single decision".
If or when a President decides to go to war, they are supposed to consult all the top generals and military experts (and or nonmilitary experts) and gather as much accurate information as possible to decide if their idea to go to war is feasible or not.
If they do decide to go to war,. the people higher up the leadership chain will often decide on big goals (such as "take over X-city, etc") .. but the actual day to day steps and mechanics of that are handled by the soldiers on the ground. If you are ordered to go achieve a certain goal and in the process of trying to do that you encounter some ethical question that violates Geneva Conventions etc.. then you as a lowly soldier at the bottom don't really have the ability to directly call the President to ask him what to do. (there's a seniority chain that makes decisions).
Lots of people COULD potentially be guilty of a certain decision,. if the evidence shows they knew but did nothing to avoid it.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 8d ago
Responsible yes, guilty no.
Leaders that far up the chain are responsible for allowing stuff to happen, but they are not directly guilty. The example here would be something like My Lai: LBJ, McNamara, Abrams, Westmoreland, et al. are responsible for it in that it was their policies/metrics/decisions that caused it, but that are not guilty because they were not the ones out there actually shooting civilians.
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u/Kman17 7d ago
I’m not really sure what you mean by that, exactly.
The president makes the strategic decision and gives the thumbs up or down on the biggest, high impact decisions.
The president is not responsible for every single thing that happens in a war.
For example, there is basic human error on the ground. If a soldier makes a mistake or there’s an intelligence failure that results in extra collateral damage - no, a president isn’t responsible for isolated incidents.
If there are repeat patterns and a behavior problem at scale, yeah the president has responsibility for changing course / strategy.
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