Posted on 07/10/2002 6:20:52 AM PDT by OPS4
Globalist Court Can Bite the U.S. Leftists Who Support It Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com Wednesday, July 10, 2002 WASHINGTON – Some of the loudest proponents of the International Criminal Court (ICC) may someday learn the hard way that its vague punitive language can apply to them too. There are even indications that the man who signed the ICC treaty during his last days in office may be hauled before a separate but similar foreign court.
A Washington Times dispatch out of Zagreb, Croatia reports the Balkans war crimes tribunal "is examining whether charges are warranted against former President Bill Clinton and his aides for supporting a 1995 military offensive by Croatia that recaptured territory then held by Serbian rebel forces.”
The demand to indict Clinton comes from the Croatian World Congress, which also names Clinton’s National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, National Security Adviser Samuel "Sandy” Berger, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia Peter Gailbraith.
The story quotes a spokeswoman for a prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as saying there is an active investigation of the charge.
Actions and threats by international courts in recent years have convinced many critics that they are focal points of anti-U.S. hatred. There is a firm belief or suspicion among citizens here and in some high government places that these bodies are set up in large part to weaken the U.S. in confronting its enemies, just as they are convinced the Kyoto "global warming” treaty was set up to weaken the U.S. economy.
Clinton's Damage Never Ends
Even when he signed the ICC treaty, Clinton said it was flawed. He did not submit it to the Senate for ratification.
President Bush has rejected U.S. participation in the tribunal, for which he has been roundly criticized by overseas friends and enemies alike. Among the critics are our "allies” in the European Union who showed little disdain for American military power when it was there to pull their chestnuts out of the fire in two world wars and defend them from being overrun by the Soviets during the Cold War.
But despite all the hue and cry, the U.S. does not stand alone in its skepticism of the ICC. Fred Gedrich of Freedom Alliance reminded NewsMax.com that "two thirds of the world’s governments, representing five-sixths of the world’s 6 billion population, are not on board with this court. The group includes China, India, Japan, Russia and Israel.”
The Balkans court that now is considering indicting Clinton angered U.S. officials two years ago by looking into a complaint against NATO commanders for their role in the 1999 U.S.-led bombing of Yugoslavia.
It is irrelevant that many patriotic Americans opposed that war, convinced that it was a quagmire waged in large part to distract the public from the recently impeached Clinton’s legal problems. The point is the court’s actions against NATO commanders would have set a precedent for hauling Americans before foreign tribunals without any of the constitutional protections guaranteed all U.S. citizens.
NewsMax.com has reviewed the Rome Statute that created the ICC. It is filled with language allowing for no end of armchair second-guessing on the part of anyone who has a beef with the U.S. pursuit of its own defense in the war on terrorism.
Article 6 defines genocide as acts "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group as such.”
Does Treaty Ban Abortion?
One of the acts specified in the article is "Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”
An alert NewsMax reader, Timothy Yocum, interprets this to mean some of the world’s most fervent abortion promoters could find themselves in trouble with the new world tribunal on this count.
"Does not the UN in almost EVERY branch engage in such activity?” he writes, "China! India! All the third world nations where the UN is promoting aggressive birth control/abortion! Planned Parenthood would be doomed under this statute, and Hillary Clinton, with all of her touting at UN Feminist Women of World Events!”
Margaret Sanger, one of the primary founders of Planned Parenthood, it will be remembered, advocated abortion to reduce the black population.
"Crimes Against Humanity,” according to the treaty, could cover "persecution against any identifiable group or collectively on political, ethnic, cultural, religious” grounds "impermissible under international law.”
Notwithstanding President Bush’s emphasis on going after terrorists, NOT all Muslims, the mere fact that most of those who conducted terrorism against us on Sept. 11 and have threatened us since then did so "in the name of Allah” has put us in the position of having to go after people who happen to be radical fundamentalist Muslims. The language in the above paragraph could conceivably result in an ICC prosecutor’s decision to indict American officials on phony charges related to the treaty’s wording.
Under the heading "War Crimes,” the ICC includes "Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives.”
This one could have been used against Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman in World War II. FDR’s "terror bombings” against Germany were controversial in this country, especially after the war was over and there was time to look at them from the advantage of hindsight. So too with Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, even though that initiative was taken to save thousands of American lives.
If the U.S. can’t defend itself without fearing an America-hating international court waiting to pounce, then the ability of this nation to act in its own best interests can be severely compromised.
Another "war crime” is defined as "declaring that no quarter will be given.”
So much for FDR’s "unconditional surrender” policy against the Nazis. Bad judgment, in the opinion of historians who say Roosevelt’s refusal to encourage German plots against Hitler – contemplated by high military officials of the Fuehrer's army – would have shortened the war in Europe by two years. But again, this is not the prerogative of a second-guessing, unaccountable armchair tribunal.
And it is in fact unaccountable, notwithstanding a letter to Bush signed by 44 of the most notorious congressional left-wingers, protesting his decision to unsign the treaty. Among the usual suspects lending their names to this May 22 missive to the White House were Tom Lantos, D-Calif.; Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I.; Barbara Lee, D-Calif.; Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga.; Barney Frank, D-Mass.; James Moran, D-Va.; Jim McDermott, D-Wash.; and Pete Stark, D-Calif.
Syndicated columnist George Will, on the other hand, writes that if anything, the president’s skepticism of the ICC "is not sufficiently thorough.”
Will says although the court is supposed to uphold the rule of law, it is actually "inimical to the rule of law” because "it affronts the principle that every institution wielding power over others should be accountable to s-o-m-e-o-n-e.”
That sums it up. This world tribunal is unwieldy and does not have to justify its conduct or actions to anyone. It lends credence to the notion that those who have warned over the years that the U.N. and other international entities would ultimately morph into a "world government” were not paranoid, after all.
Roger that. If we don't put the Constitution above getting Clinton, then Clinton will have succeeded. His entire term was an attempt to tear up the Constitution. We can't do that for him.
Screw these people. They will use it to dictate to America how we should run our country and affairs.
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