Did Sokka commit the war crime of false flag? (ATLA S01E17) Based on Avatar The Last Airbender S01E17, Sokka is ostensibly a war criminal, at least based on our laws. See eg here and here. From International Committee of the Red Cross - Practice Relating to Rule 62. Improper Use of Flags or Military Emblems, Insignia or Uniforms of the Adversary: According to custom, it is permissible for a belligerent warship to use false colours and to disguise her outward appearance in other ways in order to deceive an enemy, provided that prior to going into action the warship shows her true colours. Aircraft are not, however, enentitled to use false markings. From false flag Wikipedia page In land warfare, such operations are generally deemed acceptable under certain circumstances, such as to deceive enemies, provided the deception is not perfidious and that all such deceptions are discarded before opening fire upon the enemy. Similarly, in naval warfare such a deception is considered permissible, provided the false flag is lowered and the true flag raised before engaging in battle. What happened: Sokka a member of the water nation defended against an attack by the fire nation. During such defense, Sokka was in a hot air balloon that had the fire nation insignia. Sokka did not change to water nation flag or anything before counter-attacking. Question: Did Sokka commit the war crime of false flag, assuming our laws applied? Or did Sokka commit some other war crime for such actions?
No. Assuming both the Fire Nation and Water Tribes are signatories to the Geneva conventions, the rules only apply to uniformed members of the signatory member nations. Such as the water tribes have uniformed members, Sokka is not (at least not at this time, as its shown that Southern Water Tribe warriors use black and white face paint when in battle and Sokka does don this paint prior to going into key battles. Additionally, the Mechanist is more likely the &quot;pilot&quot; of the balloon and has no uniform that ties him to any Nation's military. Additionally, neither is acting under apparent orders from a higher ranking member of a foreign military. All involved look to be refugees and travelers trying to keep away from the military and would be subject to the Fire Nation Criminal Justice System (In the Fire Nation Criminal Justice System, the people are represented by two separate but equal entities: The military, who capture enemies of the Fire Lord, and the Crematorium who prosecutes them. These are their stories DOING DOING).
Yes Providing the attack was otherwise made in accordance with the rules of war, enemy civilian leaders who are directly responsible for the prosecution of the conflict (so, the Minister of Defence, yes, the Minister of Housing, no) are combatants under International Humanitarian Law.
Yes, for most of them. Article 42.7 TEU If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States. Commitments and cooperation in this area shall be consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which, for those States which are members of it, remains the foundation of their collective defence and the forum for its implementation. The &quot;specific character&quot; for &quot;certain Member States&quot; refers to states with a traditional military neutrality, notably Austria, Ireland, and Sweden. Those EU states which are also NATO members would not have that excuse since they agreed, in principle, to use military force to protect others, so they cannot say they are constitutionally incapable of doing so in the EU case. This is why the EU does not, generally, admit members with open territorial conflicts. Probably no, for the rest of NATO Article 5 The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. This is in a way weaker than the EU clause, &quot;such action as it deems necessary&quot; might allow individual countries to do less than going to war if that is unnecessary. Also, NATO-but-not-EU countries might claim that a Russian attack on EU forces in an EU-but-not-NATO country does not constitute an attack in the treaty area: Article 6 For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack: on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, [...] How to interpret a Russian counter-counter-attack on NATO countries after those counter-attack Russia in accordance with collective defense after a Russian attack on a non-NATO country would become a political issue. As pointed out in the comments, the practical application of either TEU 42.7 or NATO Article 5 would be intensely political, not just in the &quot;indirect&quot; case but also where it seems to be clear-cut. Nations might rally to the flag or drag their feet, depending on the details. Or even depending on totally unrelated issues where they want to get concessions. Or they might alert their forces and deploy them on different flanks than the one under attack, because that flank feels exposed.
Are Texas schools required to display posters with an Arabic translation of &quot;In God We Trust&quot;? No. The activist (Chaz Stevens?) not only misses the legislative intent behind the motto, but it actually would be a violation of the Establishment Clause if a government displayed the flags he donated. Is there any case law that corroborates the implicit claim that sentences in these kind of laws should be interpreted as referring to those sentences or a translation of those sentences into another language, instead of to simply those sentences as rendered in the law, in English? In the particular case of &quot;In God We Trust&quot;, the legislative intent is very specific about the language in which the motto is to be displayed. See Aronow v. U.S., 432 F.2d 242 n.3 (1970): It will be of great spiritual and psychological value to our country to have a clearly designated national motto of inspirational quality in plain, popularly accepted English. (emphasis added, citing House Report No. 1959. 1956 Cong. &amp; Admin.News, p. 3720). The legend in the activist's flags is in Arabic, and therefore not in plain, popularly accepted English. The activist's purpose would violate the Establishment Clause because the legend in the activist's flag is less religion-neutral than the national motto. The transliteration of the legend at issue is nakhnu nathaq bi-(Al)lahi (I might be wrong in some vocals of the middle word), thereby making an unequivocal reference to Allah, the god of muslims. This might amount to governmental sponsorship of a religion, the Islam, insofar as in the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. Neutrality would require the legend to be nakhnu nathaq bi-(a)l-ilahi ( نحن نثق بالاه), since ilah means [a] god. Although &quot;God&quot; in uppercase and used as proper noun is attached to judeo-christian theology, this religious bias is historically perceived as rather negligible when compared with the practicality of inspiring &quot;patriotism&quot; and akin values. See, for instance, Aronow at 243 and n.2. Similarly, Gaylord v. U.S., 74 F.3d 214, 216-217 (1996): a reasonable observer, aware of the purpose, context, and history of the phrase &quot;In God we trust,&quot; would not consider its use or its reproduction on U.S. currency to be an endorsement of religion. Linguistically, the activist's legend even alters the emphasis of the national motto. By starting with nakhnu (which means &quot;we&quot;), the import of the legend is that &quot;We, not others, are the ones who trust Allah&quot;. By contrast, the national of the motto connotes an emphasis on the noun &quot;God&quot;, not on &quot;we&quot;. To preserve the emphasis the national motto makes, the activist's legend should have been bi-(a)l-ilahi nathaq or something close thereto.
Does this theory have any basis in current or historical fact? Not really. The sovereign citizen movement uses legal terms, but not correctly, and often confounded with Biblical doctrine, and hones in on stylistic matters that are not legally material now and weren't legally material at any time historically, like capitalization rules (which, actually, were historically wildly inconsistent, see, e.g., an image of the original U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence). There was an era from roughly the mid-1800s to the early 1900s when the law was very hung up on the precise wording of deeds (e.g., a deed to &quot;John&quot; rather than to &quot;John and his heirs, successors and assigns&quot; created a life estate rather than transferring full ownership of land), or stating precisely the right things in a legal complaint to have a right to legal relief (when what was required to be stated was discernible only from legal authorities like decades of case law reports or legal treatises). But, while that was an era when technicalities and legal fictions that would seem to a layman to be similar to those of the sovereign citizen movement were important legally, none of the actual technicalities and legal fictions that were historically important in the law are actually utilized by the sovereign citizen movement. Instead, it makes up technicalities and legal fictions that never existed historically, in the service of a defiant, anti-government agenda in which it is easy to impose liability on others but hard to impose liability on adherents of the movement, while the historical technicalities and legal fictions served the opposite role - with a pro-government agenda in which it was hard for non-professionals utilizing red tape filled bureaucracies to impose liability on others but was easiest to do with regard to people who defied authority, like sovereign citizens. Likewise, there has never been any means by which individuals can evade liability for taxes, for criminal conduct, or for civil liability committed by them personally, then or now. The question restates the common misconception that: For example, a plumber may operate in the capacity of an LLC to avoid personal civil (though probably not criminal) liability for any mishaps that may happen while on the job. But, in fact, even with all of the modern limited liability entity formalities complied with, this isn't actually true. One can never have limited liability for work that one personally carries out. Limited liability only protects you from contractual liabilities and from vicarious liability for the acts of your agents and employees. And, doing so still does not insulate you from criminal liability for acts of your agents and employees for the most part due to RICO and solicitation and conspiracy offenses. One can never evade liability in the manner that the sovereign citizen movement suggests, even if one complies with actual legally recognized formalities.
The Radiocommunications Agency (now OFCOM) issued some guidance about this in 2001. The specific offence is defined by s5 Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949: Any person who ... uses any wireless telegraphy apparatus with intent to obtain information as to the contents, sender or addressee of any message (whether sent by means of wireless telegraphy or not) of which neither the person using the apparatus nor a person on whose behalf he is acting is an intended recipient ... shall be guilty of an offence under this Act. It's also an offence under s5(1)(b)(ii) to disclose the contents of any such message, so the reception and disclosure of radio messages not sent by or addressed to you are both offences. I don't know if there have been any successful prosecutions specifically for monitoring aircraft communications. I doubt whether a hobbyist listening for his own enjoyment would attract the attention of the authorities, but if he started to publish recordings of the traffic then that might well do it.
In Wisconsin, right after the perjury law, they have a law prohibiting "false swearing". It applies if a person: Makes or subscribes 2 inconsistent statements under oath or affirmation or upon signing a statement pursuant to s. 887.015 in regard to any matter respecting which an oath, affirmation, or statement is, in each case, authorized or required by law or required by any public officer or governmental agency as a prerequisite to such officer or agency taking some official action, under circumstances which demonstrate that the witness or subscriber knew at least one of the statements to be false when made. The period of limitations within which prosecution may be commenced runs from the time of the first statement. So even if they couldn't actually get you for perjury, they could get you for violating this law. Perjury and false swearing are both class H felonies, so you can expect the same punishment. I am going to guess that the existence of this law suggests that it was needed to cover what would otherwise be a loophole in the perjury law, but I can't say for sure.
Your premise that &quot;the law did not exist previously&quot; is, from the perspective of how courts work, mistaken. The law always existed, it's just that some people (maybe even judges) mistakenly thought the law didn't exist (actually, &quot;meant something else&quot;). Many people have wrong ideas about what the law says, but ignorance of misunderstanding of the law is no excuse. Even having an understandable wrong belief is no excuse. There is an area in which ignorance of the law is excused. Violation of a person's civil rights under color of law is a civil wrong for which the officer can be sued. See Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730 and citations therein: Respondents may nevertheless be shielded from liability for their constitutionally impermissible conduct if their actions did not violate &quot;clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.&quot; Thus an officer may not use a qualified immunity defense if the court finds that an action is a civil rights violation and this &quot;clarification&quot; of the law is new.