Posted on 06/29/2002 5:41:56 AM PDT by konijn
Edited on 09/03/2002 4:50:41 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
We hear it said these days that the United States should show more sensitivity to the concerns and interests of our European allies. No doubt true. But it would be nice if the Europeans showed a little understanding now and then, too.
Take the current flap over the International Criminal Court. The treaty establishing the court goes into effect tomorrow. The Bush administration, which has withdrawn President Clinton's ill-advised signature of that treaty, is demanding immunity from prosecution by the ICC for any American soldiers serving abroad as peacekeepers. American officials fear some independent-minded prosecutor, answerable to no one, might someday bring charges against an American for war crimes.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
"So now the crunch point has come, and the Bush administration is quite rightly playing hardball."
We should pull our troops out of Europe and let the Eurosnots fend for themselves.
And then we should charge that idiot Clinton with treason.
It's similar to the fact that we don't arrest police officers for speeding when they are responding to an incident. Bill Clinton is a traitor and an idiot for signing this, and I hope that I someday get the opportunity to spit on his grave.
Eurosnots. I love it!
Plenty of legitimate reservations on the ICC, but your analogy is flawed: An ICC isnt concerned about speeding, its concerned about gunning people down for a parking violation. The US did not follow international law procedures it had agreed to when Iraq invaded Kuwait, in other words it totally ignored established diplomatic proceedures put in place to resolve such disputes and rushed headlong into war. It was a set-up. Our actions in that war far exceeded the claimed goal of evicting Iraq.
You simply cannot flick on and off international laws THAT YOU SIGNED ONTO and maintain respect and credibility in the world.
The same with Osama and the Taliban, their reaction to our demands was quite reasonable "show us the evidence", while our stance was not reasonable "No. No negotiations. Nor will we follow lawful procedures one tittle -- Hand him over or we'll kill you".
Do you really think the US would have NOT invaded Afghanistan if they had handed over Osama and his leadership? Do you think that would have been wise to simply be content with that?
No, the whole thing was a ruse and an unwarranted demonstration of our exclusive 'right' to ignore lawful conduct when we choose.
In your example, it is simular to:
"Open up, its the Police"
"You got a warrant?"
Followed by the rat-a-tat-tat of our machine gun fire through the door.
We dont ignore the law when a murder or a grotesque crime has been committed, not should we do so for international matters.
Why? At the very least, because we agreed, and because we believe in law and sovereignty NOT EMPIRIALISTIC PEROGATIVES
Get the warrant, then act on it.
I hardly know where to begin. It was precisely because we observed our goal of evicting Iraq that we stopped once they had fled that country. Today, the big internal criticism is that we didn't go far enough and oust Saddam at the time. If you're suggesting that we could have liberated Kuwait through existing diplomatic channels such as the UN, you are suffering from terminal utopian delusions.
As far as your utopian suggestion that we should have laid out all the evidence to the Taliban leadership linking bin Laden to the September 11 attacks, get your head out of your butt. We knew it, they knew it, and the rest of the world knew it. We DID give them fair warning. They had WEEKS after Bush set out his demands of them in his address to Congress.
We do not live in your utopian world where every nation abides by some universal code of conduct and all disputes could be resolved through chatting. If we did, the USA wouldn't have to act unilaterally to resolve problems.
The real world has people and nations who don't play by the rules, and it's through raw power that we can contain them. I don't give a rat's ass about what that does to our credibility among utopians. It's about respect from and deterrence to those who don't follow the rules of civilized behavior. We don't need anyone's permission to act in our own self-interest. Sorry you don't agree.
Our soldiers are better used defending our own borders than aiding Muslim agression in the Balkins. Europe can go pound sand with their terrorist pals.
On the other hand, The United States must never submit to the authority of an international court. That would be a major step towards reversing the decision of 1776, which many of us will be celebrating once more in five days.
William Flax
No, not at all. Im stating we had the moral obligation to abide by international law mechanisms WE AGREED TO that are designed to settle such disputes. This has nothing to do with their anticipated success or failure in the same way you are not allowed to kill someone simply because you think they will not be successfully tried for murder.
As far as your utopian suggestion that we should have laid out all the evidence to the Taliban leadership linking bin Laden to the September 11 attacks, get your head out of your butt. We knew it, they knew it, and the rest of the world knew it.
We should have, AT THE VERY LEAST, presented the evidence as best we could while preserving our intelligence security. Would a slight nod at protocol be so excrutiating?
We do not live in your utopian world where every nation abides by some universal code of conduct and all disputes could be resolved through chatting.
We do not live in a world of perfect justice either but we still pursue the mechanisms of justice.
The real world has people and nations who don't play by the rules, and it's through raw power that we can contain them. It's about respect from and deterrence to those who don't follow the rules of civilized behavior.
And the real world has people who don't respect the law, but we don't (yet) unleash a jackbooted totaltarianism on society in order to terrorize the lawless into thier place.
My very point is this: The lawless actions of the US is the very source of our fear of anti-US sentiment in the world that makes us reluctant to give international law a means of legitimacy and functionality.
Either we respect the principles of law on all levels or we support what amounts to thuggery labeled as statesmanship -- an acceptance that might makes right.
If we support the latter, then we cannot hold onto the moral superiority when we condemn terrorist acts, these acts simply become the coin of the 'diplomacy' we have validated.
Keep in mind that I am arguing in the realm of 'principle' here (as a direction to strive toward) and realize the more pragmatic problems of an implementation of the ICC (many of which, as I pointed out, arise from our continued arrogance and high-handedness in these matters).
But we refuse even to nod, to humble ourselves for a single second. Pride indeed goeth before the fall. The immense power of the US translates into an extra need to acknowlege the law. It is an important PR issue whose comparative cost is so minimal it is dwarfed to the point of infinity by the efficiencies endowed us by sheer brute strength.
Power tempered with reason is justice, but justice without formality and somber dignity is vigilantism, jihad.
We think the way we do simply because we happen to live in America. Its that simple.
I see now that we should have allowed Saddam to take over Kuwait, after all, they certainly haven't been grateful that we rescued them. We could have waited until Saddam used them all in one of his little chemical experiments.
The ICC is no problem to us. We just won't participate in any peacekeeping missions. Of course, the europeans will have to increase their taxes considerably since they'll have to defend themselves.
Well shoot, if we're not going to participate in peacekeeping missions, why do we have to bother being a member of the UN. Let's see, how much of an increase in taxes do you suppose it will take for the rest of the countries to come up with the 25% of the budget the US pays now?
Pretty much on target. If we are going to deem ourselves policeman, judge, jury and executioner of the world, we cannot afford the duplicity of caprice. It delegitimizes.
On the other hand, if we are going to be mere world citizens then we need to abide by our founders warnings of 'foreign entanglements'.
Are we going to be an empire under yoke or a sovereign.
Oh well.
Look, they want to reduce us to a mere bit player sitting around a table somewhere being vetoed and overriden by BS little nations so that everything is "fair"
Well it ain't "fair"
1) We do have the military might to ensure that our people are protected, irregardless of what they want. It's reality, deal with it.
2) Even if they had a similar or superior military capacity, they have neither the temprament nor the collective intelligence to use it evenhandedly. So we still couldn't just default to them and their little wishes because they would be impossible for us to accept morally.
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.