The U.S. case against the court (ICC) is bogus on its face.

Mpls Red Star ^ | Jul 2, 2002

[wallcrawlr]

The senseless American effort to undermine and marginalize the International Criminal Court must come to an end. The U.S. case against the court is bogus on its face. The real problem is the Bush administration's wholesale rejection of multilateralism and its desire to curry favor with the extreme right of its political base.

[gr8eman]

Where's the B.S. alert!

[goldstategop]

It is irrelevant what U.S allies think. I do not want our military service personnel or American citizens to be subject to the jurisdiction of an international tribunal not answerable to our elected officials and in which Americans do not enjoy the protections afforded by our Constitution's Bill Of Rights. One of the grievances of our forefathers was the British practice of hauling Americans overseas to be made to answer in British courts for crimes against the Crown. This is the same practice whose abuses where one of the factors that led to the American Revolution. We're opposed to the International Criminal Court as a matter of principle: our rights and freedoms as Americans are at risk and need to be upheld. That is why we have withdrawn from the Treaty establishing the ICC and have not joined it. There should never arise a situation in which American nationals cannot rely on the intervention and the protection of their country.

[capt. norm]

This socialist wants us to give up our sovereignty, throw out the Constitution and throw ourselves upon the mercy of people who have already proven that they don't like us.

[wimpycat]

What critics of U.S. criticism of the ICC fail to understand is that it makes no difference what the chances are for abuse. It makes no difference if every other democracy has signed on except us. All the rest of it makes no difference either.

What is wrong with the ICC is that it assumes jurisdiction over U.S. troops and U.S. government officials, and that is absolutely UNCONSTITUTIONAL. They think that we think our guys are "above the law", but that is not true at all. Our guys are not above U.S. law, and that's the ONLY LAW for them.

I'm not talking about regular citizens, because even now private U.S. citizens in foreign countries are subject to the laws of the countries they are in; but any U.S. service personnel carrying out official duties and other officials representing the U.S. are under only one jurisdiction--the U.S. Courts. To even recognize the ICC would be to surrender our sovereignty.

[MindBender26]

Bush administration's wholesale rejection of multilateralism:

Do we see aproblem here. Clinton's multilateralism got us Arafat, bin Laden, etc.

P.S. In my part of Florida, Multilateralism while operating a car, boat or aircraft or in the presence of a minor will get you 8 to 10 in the State Pen.

[DoughtyOne]

Completely lost on the Hague is the fact that we are still in Bosnia some 7 or eight years after the fact. Those were supposed to be one or two year opperations. Here we go again. Name one damned place in the world where the UN has entered a nation, solved a problem and left. Name one!

The US is left to mop up for year after year after year. European troops suffer the same fate. It sucks!

The ICC has some nerve thinking that it can sit as a full-time court that can take action against the citizens of any nation on it's own whim! Screw that nonsense! It'll be a cold day in hell before I sign on to any outside agency, be it the UN or an ICC type of entity, that can supercede our national sovereignty. I'd sooner nuke the entity that tries it.

The United States is a soverign nation. What can't the UN or the ICC understand about that? Sovereign nations answer to no one. There is war and there is peace. That's the only two alternatives. The idea that we're going to stand still while some dog n pony show in Europe rules the world, is ludacrist!

[MindBender26]

Unfortunately, it is not unconstitutional. But it is just plain stupid. In the aftermath of the "Blackhawk Down" episode, the surviving US troops would probably have been tried for murder.

[goldstategop]

Exactly. I am not prepared to see us become part of the United States of the Earth. The Left would love to have that become a reality so they can impose unpopular schemes upon the American people whether they want them or not. The bottom line is a World Government is the surest shortest route to tyranny. It is important in this day and age to make sure there will be no compromise in the maintenance of our national sovereignty.

[metesky]

But say the court had existed when Iraq's Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. In that situation, the court would have had ample power to act, not only because of war crimes committed in Kuwait, but also because Saddam had previously used chemicals to wipe out an entire village of Kurds in northern Iraq. The court most definitely would have sworn out an international arrest warrant for Saddam. How much more legitimate and easier that would have made subsequent U.N. dealings with Iraq.

See! If they just issued a warrant for Saddam, the Iraquis would have just handed him over!

How simple. Why didn't we think of that at the time?

(/sarcasm)

[First_Salute]

This is one of the many leftist mystiques:

If you have not done anything wrong, the present increase in government power should not concern you.

From which, of late, we've had people argue for more state security, more home and property invasions, more denial of individual rights ... to the point of "anything goes as long as I feel safe."

The governing class's guidance for, and the mantra among all subjects.

No thank you.

[goldstategop]

And in that situation we could do nothing about it. An ICC would allow hostile countries to subject Americans to harm and deprivation of liberty for the real or imagined violations of international law. We would lose our national sovereignty simply by virtue of the fact other countries would sit in judgment of our citizens. And what is even worse than the loss of our national sovereignty is the realization that to get Americans freed, we would have to accept foreign dictates in what is usually considered a matter of domestic policy. Bottom line: in a World Government Americans would have no say, no rights, no appeal and the ultimate decision would carry by the sheer weight of mere numbers. We could be outvoted and overruled if some coalition of countries objected to our policies and we would have to change them to conform to their preferences about how our country should be governed. Its not too hard to see why the ICC represents a threat to American national sovereignty, the American way of life, and our ideals of limited constitutional government answerable to the people.

[wimpycat]

How is it not unconstitutional? What about the provision about the Supreme Court having original jurisdiction over Ambassadors, Consuls, etc.?

[bfree]

The American fear is so much nonsense. All U.S. allies say so, and so does the treaty

How comforting to know our allies(?)know what is best for the United States. I'm hard pressed to think of what allies we really have. The rest of the world needs us far more than we need them. We need to get the hell out of the UN.

[NittanyLion]

Well, the case against this court is so clearcut there's no need to argue against the many misrepresentations in this article. All I can say is, thank God Bush pulled us out of the ICC.

[Tex-Con-Man]

Want an inside look at the REAL liberal wet dream?

Kyoto enforced by the ICC.
Brought before Chief Justice Gorbachev.


The clock is ticking.

[goldstategop]

You're talking about a different issue. Our Supreme Court has jurisdiction in cases involving the protection of our national sovereignty in which international controversies are at issue. On the other hand the ICC involves nothing less than the transfer of our national sovereignty to an unelected distant body that for the first time in human history will have the power to arrest, prosecute, try, convict, and sentence Americans for international law violations regardless of whether their own country thinks they committed any wrong doing. And if this ICC is wrong there is no appeal. And the Leftists assure us with a straight face "Just trust us; it will be an extremely remote possibility it could ever happen to any American." Take one extremely remote possibility and a precedent will have already been established. Again this is exactly why America must not subject its citizens to the jurisdiction of ANY international executive or judicial organ.

[First_Salute]

Why is there no mention of the truly large atrocities committed by the extreme left-wing in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune?

Will Castro and the communists of Cuba be arrested?

Will the communists of Southeast Asia be arrested?

Will the communists of Asia be arrested?

Heart of darkness: Cambodia's Killing Fields

 August 8, 2001 [CNN online]

Few Cambodian families did not lose at least one member to the Khmer Rouge

By CNN's Joe Havely

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- The fields of Choeung Ek on the outskirts of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, carry a dark secret.

Across the baked earth scraps of cloth and human bone poke through the soil and are slowly bleached white by the harsh tropical sun.

In the center stands a glass-walled shrine containing more than 8,000 skulls -- the remains of just a few of those who died here.

These are the Killing Fields of Cambodia.

Here, just a few kilometers from the center of Phnom Penh, tens of thousands of people met their deaths -- entire families wiped out.

Many of those killed were intellectuals or trained professionals -- people considered counter-revolutionaries by the Khmer Rouge leadership bent on turning Cambodia into a [communist, socialist, leftist, fascist] peasant's paradise. (In " [ ] " --- mine, F_S)

Towards the end of its rule, as the regime became increasingly paranoid and turned on itself, many once senior Khmer Rouge cadres also met their end at Choeung Ek.

Men, women and children -- some just a few months old -- were killed here, often in the most violent and brutal ways.

With bullets in short supply, the condemned were forced to kneel before an open grave then stabbed through the head with a sharpened bamboo stake.

Just one example of the horrors these now silent fields have witnessed.

Reign of terror

The fields of Choeung Ek contain more than 100 mass graves

In the corner of the field stands a tree -- tall, flourishing and peaceful now. A fading sign next to it, accompanied by a rudimentary painting, betrays its terrible past.

Against its trunk the heads of babies were smashed by young men brainwashed into believing their actions would free Cambodia from colonial imperialism.

But Choeung Ek is far from unique.

The evidence of the Khmer Rouge's brutal reign of terror litters the Cambodian countryside.

More mass graves are being discovered all the time.

In all about 1.7 million people are thought to have died as a result of the regime's policies -- either through starvation, execution or sheer exhaustion.

Paranoia

Beginning with the forced evacuation of Cambodia's towns and cities the Khmer Rouge set about transforming the countryside into a massive system of collective farms.

Even monks were not immune from the Khmer Rouge brutality

Machinery was non-existent -- mass labor was seen as the way to overcome any obstacle.

Burdened by inefficiency and the ideological paranoia of their masters tens of thousands were worked to death -- others were executed for stealing just a few grains of rice to supplement their meager rations.

Behind it all was a group bearing the sinister title of 'Angkar', or The Organization, the preferred nom de guerre of the Khmer Rouge.

At its head was the so-called Brother Number One, the now infamous leader Pol Pot.

Yet for all the death and misery the Khmer Rouge wrought on this small Southeast Asian nation, no one has stood trial for the group's crimes.

Pol Pot died in his jungle hideaway in 1998, held under house arrest by a Khmer Rouge that had by then turned on its former leader.

Other former leaders have defected to the government in return for amnesty and now live a life of privilege mostly in the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin, in western Cambodia.

Former Brother Number One Pol Pot died
under house arrest in 1998

After years of debate and uncertainty the government says it is now willing to go ahead with bringing some members of the regime to trial -- who exactly that will be remains to be seen.

Only two leading members are currently in custody -- Ta Mok, the one legged Khmer Rouge military leader, known as "the Butcher"; and Kaing Khek Iev, or "Duch", the former chief executioner and head of the S-21 security prison, most of whose inmates ended their days in the fields of Choeung Ek.

How much longer they will remain in jail remains to be seen.

For many Cambodians the horrors of the past will never be fully laid to rest until those who brought about this country's suffering are brought to justice.

Reuters contributed to this report.

[First_Salute]

Will the liberals and leftists in America, who insisted upon the non-use of D.D.T. around the world, be arrested for the deaths of millions of people who then suffered, slowly their deaths from malaria?

[He Rides A White Horse]

So far, 74 nations have ratified the treaty, including almost every democracy in the world except the United States.

Great. It would appear that the author has 74 nations to choose from as his new home.