Posted on 06/21/2007 9:45:15 AM PDT by anotherview
Jun. 21, 2007 17:38 | Updated Jun. 21, 2007 17:46
House urges UN to charge Ahmadinejad
By BY HILARY LEILA KRIEGER AND JTA
The US House of Representatives urged the UN Security Council Wednesday to charge Iran's president under genocide conventions.
The non-binding resolution, initiated by Reps. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Steve Rothman (D-N.J.), passed by 411-2. It cites an October 27 speech in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad allegedly called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and calls for the Security Council to charge him under its 1948 convention for the prevention of genocide.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) attempted to read into the record alternate translations of Ahmadinejad s remarks that suggest the Iranian leader was calling Israel to come to an end through democratic means, and not through violence.
"I am unequivocal in my support for the security and survival of Israel, and I do have serious concerns with the remarks made by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran," said Kucinich, a long-shot candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. "But I object to resolutions that lay the groundwork for an offensive, unprovoked war."
One of the alternate translations was by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
Kucinich and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), a long-shot contender for the Republican presidential nomination, were the only votes against. The sponsors of the resolution cited the UN charter to support their argument that Ahmadinejad should be charged.
The charter - which Iran has accepted - requires all UN member states to 'refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.'
"When the leader of an armed nation such as Iran calls for the destruction of a fellow member state of the United Nations, the UN must prosecute and punish him," Rothman said. "It is my hope that this resolution will effectively increase pressure on the United Nations to hold Iranian President Ahmadinejad accountable for his genocidal words and prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons."
The success and effectiveness of treaties depends directly upon the honesty, integrity and sincerity of the parties involved. When certain parties to a treaty demonstrate by both their words and their deeds that they have no intention of abiding by said treaty, then the treaty is worthless, and so are any allegedly punitive diplomatic sanctions enacted under the (non-existent) authority of said treaty.
Such a gesture is, in the brutal reality of the threats we face, merely a feel-good substitute for taking effective action by those obsessed with the illusive and elusive promises of diplomacy. It's a cop-out that lets them posture as if they're "doing something" while avoiding actually doing it.
Treaties have their place, but as the Founding Fathers understood, they are useful only for so long as all the respective parties act in good faith. Iran is not acting in good faith, no matter what treaties they have signed, and it's time to grown up, put aside childish things (and childish diplomacy) and deal with this existential threat to our country and to Western civilization effectively and forthrightly.
Both Iran and Syria are killing our military personnel in Iraq. These are acts of war. In fact, Iran has been waging war against us since 1979. The US Constitution provides ample authority for our leaders to deal with this, and there is no need to subordinate our national sovereignty to the UN or the "world community" in order to do this. The political establishment's long-asserted legalistic sophistry that "treaties are superior to the US Constitution" which has been falsely asserted for half a century has hamstrung our will and our ability to discern this essential truth.
So, to your question "do you mean to excuse a country from living up to its treaties?, my answer is no, I'm all for insisting on compliance AS LONG AS IT APPEARS THERE ARE REASONABLE INTENTIONS TO ACT IN GOOD FAITH. That is no longer true with Iran. In fact, it is obvious they are merely engaged in dissembling to buy time to complete their nuclear first-strike capability.
The time for diplomacy is past. It is time to take out this rogue regime and their WMD capability. We have already waited too late, and the cost will be horrendous. If we fail to act, it will prove fatal to the civilized world as we know it.
The US didn't invade Yugoslavia.
For that matter, what’s keeping the UN from trying to arrest President Bush for the same thing in Iraq?
Probably the UN's own resolution against Saddam Hussein's regime.
Y’all want UN troops showing up at your door using UN laws as trumping the constitution, well good for you!
The UN does not have the authority so to do under the Charter. The US is also a permanent member of the Security Council, so this is practically impossible as well as legally impossible.
As for me, I think I’ll just stick to American law and let other folks in their countries stick to their laws.
The UN Charter is American law, ratified by the US Congress.
It doesn’t grant his/her interpretation the force of law
Thanks for reluctantly reiterating my point.
Wow! Ptolemy was right after all!
A terrible analogy. Ptolemy and Copernicus' rival theories could be resolved simply by having the proper technology to actually observe the natural phenomena they were theorizing about.
You do not vote on physical reality.
You do, however, vote on policy.
And Ron Paul's policy is not supported by 99.53% of the electorate.
You must not be a Ron Paul supporter then, because he’s opposed to the US in Iraq despite the fact that they had been at war with us since 1991.
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
----------------------------
I think it's a good idea irrespective of Ron Paul's opinion. I'd speculate that Ronald Reagan didn't implement the Genocide Convention hoping it wouldn't be used. Wonder if he asked Ron's opinion before signing?
------------------------
Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987 - Ronald Reagan address - transcript
US Department of State Bulletin, Jan, 1989
President Reagan's remarks at the signing ceremony of the Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987 in Chicago on November 4, 1988, and the text of a White House fact sheet.
PRESIDENT'S REMARKS'
We gather today to bear witness to the past and learn from its awful example to make sure we are not condemned to relive its crimes. I am today signing the Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987, which will permit the United States to become party to the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide that was approved by the UN General Assembly in 1948.
During the Second World War, mankind witnessed the most heinous of crimes-the Holocaust. After the war, the nations of the world came together and drafted the genocide convention as a howl of anguish and an effort to prevent and punish future acts of genocide. The United States signed the convention and in 1949, President Truman requested the Senate's advice and consent to ratification.
In 1986, the Senate gave its consent conditioned upon enactment of implementing legislation. We finally close the circle today by signing the implementing legislation that will permit the United States to ratify the convention and formally join 97 nations of the world in condemning genocide and treating it as a crime.
I am delighted to fulfill the promise made by Harry TI-uman to all the peoples of the world-and especially the Jewish people. I remember what the Holocaust meant to me as I watched the films of the death camps after the Nazi defeat in World War Two. Slavs, Gypsies, and others died in the fires as well. And we've seen other horrors this century-in the Ukraine, in Cambodia, in Ethiopia. They only renew our rage and righteous fury and make this moment all the more significant for me and all Americans.
Under this legislation, any U.S. national or any person in the United States who kills members of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group with the specific intent of destroying that group in whole or in substantial part, may spend his or her life in prison. Lesser acts of violence are punishable by as much as 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million. While I would have preferred that Congress had adopted the Administration's proposal to permit the death penalty for those convicted of committing genocidal murders, this legislation still represents a strong and clear statement by the United States that it will punish acts of genocide with the force of law and the righteousness of justice.
Timing of the enactment is particularly fitting, for we are commemorating a Week of Remembrance of the Kristallnacht, the infamous "night of broken glass," which occurred 50 years ago on November 9, 1938. That night, Nazis in Germany and Austria conducted a nationwide pogrom against the Jewish people. By the morning of November 10th, scores of Jews were dead, hundreds bleeding, shops and homes in ruins, and synagogues defiled and debased. That was the night that began the Holocaust, the night that should have alerted the world to the gruesome design of the final solution.
This legislation resulted from the cooperation of our Administration and many in Congress-such as Congressmen Henry Hyde, Jack Davis, and John Porter, and Senator Bill Proxmire-to ensure that the United States redoubles its efforts to gain universal observance of human rights.
We pay tribute to those who suffered that night and all the nights that followed upon it with our action today.
Show of hands. Who’s going to vote for Ron Paul? Raise your hand now, so I’ll know whose posts not to bother reading, unless I need a good laugh.
No, I'm not supporting Paul in his candidacy for President. I do support him in his lifelong attempts to get Americans to remember their Constitution and the principles upon which their country was founded. Sometimes he gets it wrong. He's a flawed human being, as are we all.
Regarding Iraq, if President Bush had gone to Congress in the days following 9-11 and had requested and received a Constitutional declaration of war, Ron Paul would probably be on board. In hindsight, it's clear that's exactly what Bush should have done.
“Because we’re a million times more principled than you slobs.”
LOL!
Nope. Ron Paul gave speeches opposing intervention in Iraq before we went in.
Good for Paul and Kucinich. We shouldn’t be in favor of the UN conducting international tribunals.
Ron Paul would have supported a declaration of war against Iraq specifically in the days following 9/11?
I doubt it, I doubt the President that's why the authorization to use force named our enemy as those who attacked us on 9/11, a "John Doe" kind of thing.
And no, it absolutely was not a Declaration of War, a distinction Paul supporters blabber about every time his lone votes come up. It was an Authorization for Use of Military Force, against those "planned, authorized, committed, or aided" the 9/11 attacks.
Just as a year latter Congress passed an Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq, not a Declaration of War.
Ron Paul voted for the 2001 Authorization, which paints contensions that his no vote in 2003 was a principled, consistant defense of the Constitution as a fraud.
ROFL! They would make quite the team.
Are you pro-UN?
Near as I can make out, America's first foreign war (against the Barbary pirates) used nearly identical "authorization to use force" language as Congress used for Afghanistan and Iraq.
No. But that doesn't excuse member nations who willingly joined from violating their treaties.
Plus, I find it sweet irony to use the UN as a weapon to advance US interest for a change.
If Paul voted No on the 2003 Authorization for Use of Military Force on “principle”, the same “principle” would have caused him to vote No on the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force. It had nothing to do with an Authorization vs a Declaration, and everything to do with opposing the Iraq war. Which is his perrogative.
Of course, with Paul's logic, none of those would qualify correctly if we used the word 'force' instead of one of the specific words in those lines, even if the legal backing and reasoning is the same..
Our first and longest. Obviously the Presidents prosecuting it, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Monroe, and the Congress of the time didn't understand the intentions of the founders when it came to war. No one told them you need the word Declaration. Maybe Ron can go back in a time machine and tell them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.