Free Republic

Obama needs to ensure he gets well compensated after leaving office for a job well done protecting, defending and further enriching the global oligarch class. This is precisely why he’s so adamant about passing the TPP during the upcoming lame duck session of Congress, when he knows “representatives” who no longer face reelection can be coerced or bribed into voting for this monumental public betrayal. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ins’t really a free trade deal, it’s a way for global oligarchs to consolidate, grow and protect their enormous wealth. The investor-state dispute settlement system (ISDS) is perhaps the most nefarious...

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Colin Powell urged friendly nations Tuesday to sign bilateral pacts to prevent American peacekeepers from appearing before the new International Criminal Court. "We are having discussions with all of our European Union and other friends around the world ... we have serious concerns with the ICC," Powell said at a news briefing. He rejected suggestions that the United States has been pushing EU-aspiring countries, using military aid as a weapon, into signing bilateral treaties that would prevent them from surrendering U.S. soldiers to the ICC. "We're not bludgeoning or threatening any of our friends; we're...

Now that the ICC is a reality, the stirrings of criticism and fear that have been engendered by the new forum for prosecuting crimes against humanity are once percolating to a rapid boil. Some of the most paranoid recall the image of General Hap Arnold, hero of the American air forces during World War Two, reflecting only half tongue-in-cheek that it was a good thing the Allies won the war, or it might be he -- not Herman Goering -- in the dock at Nuremberg. But what exactly is the Court’s shortcoming that has folks such as Jesse Helms, R-N.C.,...