The U.S. withdrew from the Rome Treaty on 6 May 2002. UCMJ applies however, and that then hangs on a tenuous distinction on what constitutes legitimate targets, which the rhetoric from Sec Def and POTUS are making fairly clearly to be untenable defences. That then places every single service person in the unfortunate position of being given a potentially unlawful command to carry out.
Only a problem outside of the U.S., but it may have the same sort of long term trauma as prior wars have when the moral justification is ambiguous, which is one of the factors in the level of suicide that is prevalent in vets.
Sad thing is, not much of this is surprising, yet POTUS was considered the best choice; Faust would have smiled at this as it plays out.
Totally agree. Unfortunately US service personnel having to carry out unlawful commands isn't new.
The suicide rate as you say reflects that. Decent American veterans who realised their country wasn't quite what they thought.
Unfortunately the current regime is only going to reinforce that.