alt Hacker News> threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population
If Trump's tweet meets this bar, it's a meaningless rule. The purpose wasn't to scare civilians. It was to scare Iran's leadership. What it probably wound up doing was scaring American leadership into talking the President down from his ledge.
Replies
subscribed • yesterday at 8:20 AM
He does, he's unhinged and no one from his government / chain of command is willing to stop him.
He doesn't sound dangerous because he's cunning and smart, he's unpredictable because he's demented and his court is fine with it.
Cool that's a nice workaround of the Geneva conventions - any threat you make while negotiations are underway is actually a negotiation strategy! The law tends not to be friendly to such workarounds in my experience, especially if it's trivially easy to enact ("be in negotiations"). Or perhaps you can help me understand what distinguishes this situation in the way you suggest.