[Old Sarge]

Trying a head of state in an international tribunal for crimes committed within his own country is a terrible precedent.

It's already on the books.

Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, who succeeded Adolf Hitler as Fuhrer of Nazi Germany on 01 MAY 45, was tried in 1946 at Nuremberg for crimes that occurred within German borders, as well as on the high seas.

I believe he was convicted of the second charge, and sentenced to 10 years incarceration.

[Carry_Okie]

Thanks for the detail. It was a bad thing then, and it's a bad thing now.

Repeating the precedents of a communist Roosevelt administration is not what I would expect of a president "putting the UN on notice." It's too close to tacitly acknowledging the ICC.

I'm a little touchy about multilateral institutions violating national sovereignty these days, especially when the process has been operated under European aegis and was tacitly blessed by the Clinton adminstration. Without national sovereignty, a vote for representative government becomes meaningless because that government is unable to effect policies reflecting the will of the people much less protect individual rights.