>Interesting. Perhaps he meant the U.S. will not deploy any in the future to those locations? I imagine the threat of removing those troops hangs over the head of each country in which they are currently deployed. Or pre-existing agreements must be honored, who knows for sure? Troops have been prosecuted by host nations numerous times in the past when they broke the law and committed a crime in the host nation. Whenever you are deployed to another country you are briefed on current laws and informed that you must obey the host nation laws or you can be prosecuted by the host nation. I think the key issue here is 'war crimes' so it would only pertain to nations which we deploy troops to for combat purposes. Many times though (depending on the crime) the U.S. is simply asked to immediately remove the soldier from the country and that is done.

I'd imagine that generally these things are done with tact and diplomacy. I think crimes are for lower ranks and war crimes are for upper ranks. :-) Perhaps the seperating line is colnel or major?