Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/09/10/why-they-hate-us.html
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Well, of course he does. Anything else would be uncharacteristic.
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Oh, it gets worse than that.
The ICC is also the only international organization that can prosecute governments or government officials for war crimes or crimes against humanity which they have committed against their own people.
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Erik Prince needs some cover before trump privatizes the war.
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Courts are too important be used for political grandstanding stunts like “prosecuting genocidal war criminals.” Instead let’s focus on the things that really matter, like “suing the Fake News for slander when they report things that the President of the United States finds unflattering.”
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I’m not particularly interested in defending Trump, but there’s a lot of people talking about this as if it’s new, whereas the US not only has never signed up to the ICC, but for over 16 years has had statue law allowing the US to potentially invade the Netherlands if US service personnel are being tried by it. For all the sabre rattling, here at least Trump’s administration is merely restating long established US policy.
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But we’re more than glad to use the ICC to prosecute people people from poor countries.
Ever since Obama refused to investigate our crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan it’s painfully clear that we need to join the ICC
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As with everything 45, it’s not that the horrible shit our government has done and is doing is anything “new.” It’s that he’s making it even fucking worse than it already was…
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Obama never went as far as saying “the US will allow our own personnel to be subject to the authority of the ICC” but the administration was certainly a lot friendlier to the idea of the Court’s existence.
Hillary Clinton, 2009:
Then-Secretary Clinton stated that it is a “great regret” that the US is not a member of the ICC but said that “we have supported the work of the court and will continue to do so under the Obama Administration.”
Obama Administration, 2015:
“We will work with the international community to prevent and call to account those responsible for the worst human rights abuses, including through support to the International Criminal Court, consistent with U.S. law and our commitment to protecting our personnel. Moreover, we will continue to mobilize allies and partners to strengthen our collective efforts to prevent and respond to mass atrocities using all our instruments of national power.”
Trump Administration, 2018:
“We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us.”
One of these statements is not like the others.
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kissinger
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They’re emblematic of the difference between the parties. From the GOP, crude arrogance; from the Dems, polished deception.
Ultimately, it’s eternal war and imperialism either way. The words don’t matter that much to the people being murdered.
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Yeah, what ever happened to orange hitler’s secret police plot, anyways? did they just put on ICE uniforms or something?
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Have you read Rome Statutes? I have, although some of the language is beyond my competence.
One of the issues is that the US government is supposed to ensure the constitutional rights of US citizens accused of crimes, and the ICC is not based on that system.
One thing that stands out is the ability of a prosecutor to appeal an acquittal. Or try the acquitted accused at a later date if the prosecutor feels that additional evidence warrants retrial.
Jury of your peers, or any sort of jury at all? Nope. Plan on appealing your sentence to a higher court? No, you can appeal to the same court that just convicted you (not by a unanimous agreement, but by simple majority.)
They do include trial without undue delay and presumption of innocence, but I am not sure we can expect those things to mean the same thing they do here.
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How does that compare with Nuremburg or Guantanamo?
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I may be ignorant, but has any US war criminal ever been prosecuted? The US have probably commited more war crimes as a nation and it’s citizens as individuals than any other nation since WWII.
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As Prentiz says, nothing new here. Bush signed the American Servicemembers Protection Act into law in 2002, which was intended to intimidate countries that ratified the treaty for the International Criminal Court (ICC). The new law also authorized the use of military force to liberate any American or citizen of a U.S.-allied country being held by the court, which is located in The Hague, leading it to be dubbed the ‘Hague invasion clause’.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/03/us-hague-invasion-act-becomes-law
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Occasionally someone is sentenced to house arrest for a year or two if the publicity gets too embarrassing.
The only guy to stand trial for the Haditha massacre was a Sergeant who was given a pay cut and a reduction in rank.
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The US government can guarantee the constiutional rights of US citiens accused of crimes against humanity by trying them in US courts.
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