> I think the bigger question is why they were using microsoft products in the first place.
There used to be this quaint idea of rule of law and things like that. We can always argue that governments were happy to get dirty and occasionally illegal, and they certainly were. But a) it was universally seen as a bad thing, and b) no country would have done it so blatantly and openly. Perversely, this narrative was important to advance the US’ interests because it opened opportunities for American companies to go deep into foreign administrations. Which they did.
So yeah, the clock ticked and now we’re in a new and exciting era for geopolitics and who knows what system will prevail in the end. What is certain is that the US abdicated their leadership.
> USA has been very hostile to the ICC under trump, but its not exactly a huge shift, bush was also incredibly hostile. It seems borderline incompetent to use a microsoft cloud offering given the political situation.
There is a difference between hostility as in "we won’t take part and won’t cooperate in any way" and "we’re also going to pressure private companies to steal your stuff". The ICC is also full of NATO countries and allies so any form of hostility has to be calibrated to keep them on your side. If you care about alliances, that is.
> Not to mention given the type of work they do, seems like hosting stuff off site at all is a bad plan.
Indeed. To be fair, it seems like a bad plan for most large companies with anything that looks like industrial secrets, let alone a government or such a supra-national organisation.
> So yeah, the clock ticked and now we’re in a new and exciting era for geopolitics and who knows what system will prevail in the end. What is certain is that the US abdicated their leadership.
In fact John Yoo, most famous for authoring the "Torture Memos" for Dubya over 20 years ago, has been perhaps the most prominent legal thinker arguing in favor of the actions Trump's taken against the ICC:
What can the incoming Trump administration do? It could impose severe sanctions on the ICC judges and its prosecutor, Karim Ahmad Khan, who engineered this debacle, by blocking their ability to transact business through our banking system, for example. It could threaten severe sanctions against any nation that arrested Netanyahu or Gallant pursuant to the ICC warrants. It could also display its contempt for the ICC by inviting the Israeli premier to the White House and Congress.
Furthermore, the Trump administration should take action against nations that are funding and supporting the ICC so generously. Some of the ICC’s largest financial benefactors, including Japan and the European Union nations, are also dependent on the United States for their security. Yet while asking Washington, D.C., to protect them, they finance a global institution that hamstrings our ability to do so. If Tokyo, for example, wants the United States to lead a new alliance to contain China, Trump can demand that Japan eliminate its subsidy for an international institution that seeks to undermine the American national sovereignty he was elected to restore.
There's a nearly straight through-line from the logic and approach to executive power Yoo helped architect under Bush and these attacks on the ICC under Trump. It's just that many have decided to bizarrely retcon the Bush administration into respected elder statesman instead of the lawless war criminals they were and are.
> In fact John Yoo, most famous for authoring the "Torture Memos" for Dubya over 20 years ago, has been perhaps the most prominent legal thinker arguing in favor of the actions Trump's taken against the ICC
True. Trump did not appear suddenly out of nowhere and he’s only able to do what he does thanks to people who prepared for this and have been pushing us down the slope for the last couple of decades. Thanks for the quote, it’s important we remember this sort of things.
> It's just that many have decided to bizarrely retcon the Bush administration into respected elder statesman instead of the lawless war criminals they were and are.
I think that’s the fact that Bush is at least able to finish a sentence. But yeah, you’re right. It was the golden age of enhanced interrogation techniques by masked men in black in illegal prisons in foreign countries.
I don't think that Trump himself really thinks all the things he's pushing for - I think most of it is coming from people who aren't him, and he's just the figurehead. It's not clear he's capable of understanding what he's doing, at this point, since he has dementia. I think the more emotional-outburst type stuff, like "You have 100% tariffs? We'll have 200% tariffs!" is him though.
There used to be this quaint idea of rule of law and things like that. We can always argue that governments were happy to get dirty and occasionally illegal, and they certainly were. But a) it was universally seen as a bad thing, and b) no country would have done it so blatantly and openly. Perversely, this narrative was important to advance the US’ interests because it opened opportunities for American companies to go deep into foreign administrations. Which they did.
So yeah, the clock ticked and now we’re in a new and exciting era for geopolitics and who knows what system will prevail in the end. What is certain is that the US abdicated their leadership.
> USA has been very hostile to the ICC under trump, but its not exactly a huge shift, bush was also incredibly hostile. It seems borderline incompetent to use a microsoft cloud offering given the political situation.
There is a difference between hostility as in "we won’t take part and won’t cooperate in any way" and "we’re also going to pressure private companies to steal your stuff". The ICC is also full of NATO countries and allies so any form of hostility has to be calibrated to keep them on your side. If you care about alliances, that is.
> Not to mention given the type of work they do, seems like hosting stuff off site at all is a bad plan.
Indeed. To be fair, it seems like a bad plan for most large companies with anything that looks like industrial secrets, let alone a government or such a supra-national organisation.