Pl, I think woolly meant a war in which the US are on an offensive, rather than the Defensive missions that they take with the UN.
At least I hope so.
wolly said:
I don’t think it is a pretext- I think the U.S. is truly concerned about abuses of the ICC, especially since our troops are predominantly involved in the majority of UN missions. Think back several months to the World Summit on Racism where the conference was hijacked and turned into an anti-U.S. & Israel vehicle.
Is there some specific incident where UN peacekeeping troops were immune from prosecution because there wasn’t a proper venue for trial?
What, exactly, is the UN or the ICC’s definition of when a sovereign country is ‘unable’ to handle a criminal trial against a person accused of committing a crime?
Would anything prevent the UN from trying an American citizen for a crime allegedly commited in the United States where that citizen was found ‘not guilty’ by a jury?
Do any specific provisions limit them ONLY to crimes of war and genocide, or can they decided that a state (like say, Texas) that has a death penalty is ‘unable’ to adequately try an accused murderer?
I was referring to the position of the alleged al-qaeda/Taleban held at Guantanamo and also the alleged ‘dirty bomber’ .
But we’re zooming off from the OP, so we’ll just say it’s not a fair comparison.
Silly games. Stupid and silly games is what Bush et al are up to. In a recent thread in GD several posters put it pretty well by positing something along these lines; for or against ICC backing out of the process is just stupidly bad for the image of the US. It probably wouldn’t have been ratified anyway, but at least the US would have looked better.
As for the fear that you boys and girls seem to harbor about being tried under other laws than those of the US I am totally lost. What’s the difference with or without ICC?
First of all the US most often has veto capacity on most seats she holds on most any international committee she joins.
Second of all along the lines of Teddy Roosevelt’s ‘speak softly and carry a large cudgel’ the US can, if really needed get pretty much whatever she wants in the world.
Last but not least as has been pointed out the ICC would only act if the country of citizenship refuses or underlets to do so. NOT refuses to find someone guilty, but refuses to try fairly and according to due process. Would the US?
I’m a fervent US defender over here, but I must say that this soggy bottom slime dripping, auto copulating, slippery, isolationist, holier than thou bull shit puts an otherwise great nation to shame in an all too predictable way.
It seems the White House has decided to put out the glowing embers of anti-Americanism in Europe with gasoline, plus show some of it’s enemies that it’s a one way street and that justice isn’t blind after all.
Well done dumbasses.
Sparc
I see no problem with the decision. I’m still not clear what the problem is. We don’t want our citizens tried outside of our court system. ooooooooooooooo what the fuck are we thinking??
I don’t get it.
And just who decides what is mean’t by ‘try fairly and according to due process’?
Someone who thinks our laws are too harsh or not harsh enough, someone who thinks that the defendant should be tried again because the jury system here ‘wrongly’ acquited?
I don’t trust the ICC any further than I can throw it.
Plus, the ICC can prosecute if it feels that the investigation was not genuine. Read: disagrees with the results. Sorry, but there is absolutely zero chance that this court doesn’t become extremely politicized. I’m glad the US isn’t a part of it. It’s only trouble. If, in 20 years, the ICC has proven its worth and fairness, I’ll rethink it.
Not only that, but I agree that peacekeeping troops should be pulled out of actions in countries that HAVE signed it, because the troops become liable there. If Europe doesn’t like it, they can solve their own damn problems. Who gives a shit whether Europe is anti-American or not? Not me.
[quotecatsix
I don’t trust the ICC any further than I can throw it.[/quote]
IIRC the ICC hardly exists yet so I don’t know what it is that you don’t trust?
I’m not saying you personally mean this, but that statement comes across as saying I don’t trust any of those un-American dumbasses in the rest of the world to be reasonable. Fair enough, I don’t even trust my own government to be completely sane. It’s just that it’s a pretty counter productive thing to throw that kind of opinion in the face of the world and then it’s even dumber to say that one won’t cooperate because one doesn’t trust ‘the others’. Right! Let’s just kill all international cooperation and go back to the 20s and 30s – great fun that was eh!
The chosen path is especially silly as there are better and more diplomatic ways ahead that still afford the possibility to one’s ground, or at least buy some time and appease emotions before one bails out. This rash behavior and all too obvious ‘we don’t trust you other guys’ crap is what looks isolationist and paranoid with the whole thing.
As for your first question that has been addressed in GD, I think the thread has come alive again BTW.
Sparc
That’s a smart way of keeping your friends!
I’ll tell you who; America when America needs its allies in Europe and its allies in Europe when they want to help America and need the public support for it.
Oh but I forgot, America needs no help, right?
Good thing that’s bilateral. I say we go back to a state of cold war. Better yet, let’s have it out all over again on the Marne or why not even in Boston harbor.
War on terrorism? Ah fuck that, we have more important fish to fry amongst friends.
Sparc, I am one of those people who thinks that the less big government there is over my head, the better.
I’ve already got a local, county, state and federal government to distrust, and I’d rather not add an international one that sees itself as above the Constitution (I somewhat naively still think the Constitution’s got value).
It doesn’t matter who it is, really, it’s that another body wants legislative and judicial authority, and I don’t tend to trust people who want power. Hell I don’t trust the US federal government, why would I want more over my head?
catsix,
I’m no lover of the big state machinery myself, quite to the contrary. I’m a federalist without doubt, but I am definitely not ‘statist’. That’s not the point here though. This is international relations and part of the game is having healthy trust relationships with the allies you think you can trust and that you need against the ones you know for a fact that you can’t trust.
It’s pretty moronic to drop diplomatic hand grenades around you in that respect when you don’t need to. Bush could have tagged along and waited to see where the ICC thing was going, instead he fired on all cylinders and threw the baby out with the bath water.
Further the ICC is not a new level of government. It’s a tool by the existing governments that already cooperate in for instance the War Tribunal at The Hague. As far as I understand it couldn’t and it doesn’t set itself above the US constitution.
I’m not completely sure in where I personally stand on the ICC to be honest. It all sounds a little half baked to me. I am however sure that the Bush administration is acting like an elephant in a glass shop re the issue. This dumb crap with pulling out of this or that peace keeping mission with the ICC as an excuse is just inflammatory.
Sparc
I haven’t yet made up my mind on the ICC. Moreover, I think even those who support the substance of the current strain of U.S. unilateralism have to cringe at how Bushs gone about implementing it.
Having said that, I can at least appreciate the American point of view. From the U.S. perspective, it appears that everyone expects the U.S. to take the lead in difficult situations, even in areas where it doesn’t feel it has that strong of an interest. The U.S. already finds this somewhat exasperating. However, now the world is demanding the right to second-guess the U.S. when it does get involved.
It’s fitting that this confrontation has come up over the Balkans. If you’ll recall the history, the U.S. was very hesitant to act in Bosnia because it didn’t see that it was in its national interest to do so. Ultimately, disgust at the ineffective dithering of the U.N. and Europe forced America’s hand. What the U.S. is effectively saying now is, “You want peacekeeping in Bosnia? Fine. Go keep the peace. It should never have been a U.S. problem in the first place.”
This is probably the biggest downside I can see to the ICC. It is likely to reinforce isolationism not only in the U.S. but in other countries as well. The ICC changes the calculus of national interest, at least somewhat, because countries weigh the risk of ICC liability when considering participating in peacekeeping missions. For some countries, this won’t be a big consideration, for others, like the U.S., it will.
I think a better idea would have been to exempt armed forces acting under a U.N. mandate from ICC jurisdiction.
But you trust the for runner of the ICC to try Nazi war criminals and balkan criminals?
I believe that the US have some valid issues with the ICC and the ICC has a lot of wrinkles to iron out.
I am just annoyed with the US threatening to fuck up vital Peace keeping missions just because they cant get their way.
And I would like to draw a distinction for the Americans reading this (although most of you will know it anyway)
Being critical of American policy is not, I repeat NOT, Anti- American.
Well, to Bush it is. If you’re not with us, you’re against us, right? 
How about keeping your words out of my mouth?
A temporary court with a specific aim set up after a global war is a little bit different than a permanent court set up with vague language and an unclear mission.
And if a tribunal set up to try the ringleaders of the Holocaust tried to stay around permanently to determine by its own standards who is and isn’t capable of handling trials within their own borders, I’d find that pretty suspicious too.
What’s next, a standing UN police force to ensure that everyone adheres to what the ICC says? There’s no reason a temporary tribunal couldn’t be convened in cases of genocide and the like. What purpose is served by making this court permanent other than to try to turn it into a body above national sovereignty?
The ICC will only be active for War crimes and acts of Genocide. I dont see it as being anything more than the temporary courts that are in place at the moment, just it would have a permanent grounding to operate from.
The ICC will not be trying governments or states, from my understanding.
Regardless, as I’ve said, The ICC has a lot of issues to work out and using existing peace missions as a bargaining chip to ensure the US’s ass is covered is a low thing to do. Thats what prompted me to start this thread.
That ‘permanent grounding’ sounds a little too much like ‘sovereignty’ for me to be comfortable with it.
Just to check:
By “fuck up vital Peace keeping missions” you mean “isn’t doing the U.N.'s dirty work?” and by “can’t get their way” means “refuses to sign a document that’s clearly NOT in our national interest?”
We have no obligation to particpate in wars that we don’t choose to and we have no obligation to sign up for anything we don’t feel is in our best interest. Frankly, the noise I’m hearing from the U.N. is kind of sickening.
It feels like the following analogy:
Imagine your neighbor calls you over to help clean out his septic tank (that he refused to (or is incapable to) clean himself). You wade down in the muck and years of shit that he’s just ignored, and then, while down in the muck trying to repair the damage, he says that you’re being a cheapskate 'cause you wouldn’t pay for dinner the other night and demands that you to sign a document stating that if he doesn’t like the job you’re doing for him (unpaid and unthanked), he can take you to court and sue you and jail you.
Frankly, a hearty “Fuck you. Clean it up yourself, I’m leaving.” seems like a fairly mild answer.
And now the neighbor is snivelling 'cause we wouldn’t finish cleaning out the septic tank and cause we wouldn’t sign something that we don’t see as in our interest.
The U.N. types have to learn that “Buuuttt we waaaaaaannt you tooo!” really isn’t enough to get us to abrogate our constitution, abrogate our justice system and give up a slice (granted, a small one) of national soverengty.
Y’know what would have been refreshing? (Utterly impossible, but refreshing?) After the Global Kangaroo Court was proposed and the U.S. said “Not Interested”, if the U.N. had said "Y’know? The U.S. takes on FAR more than it’s share of military missions and gets involved (at our request) FAR more than they need to. They also have a damned good (though not spotless) record of dealing with their own war-crimes (ex: Mai-Lai) themselves. Let’s show some fucking gratitude and exempt 'em as a small gestur…"bwahhahahahhaha. < cough > haha. Sorry. I couldn’t keep a straight face.
To quote from the first link on page one
To which I respond “Fuck you Ms. Short. The rest of the world can blow what they “think” out it’s collective ass.” Argumentum ad populum is a sure sign of a bankrupt argument.
Since I don’t buy this “globalization” baloney and I only want to see U.S. soldiers involved in wars where the U.S. has a direct interest, I’m perfectly fine with us pulling out of ALL wars (“peace keeping missions”? Feh. It’s a war. I hate that euphemism) where we don’t directly benefit.
Fenris
Fenris, I suggest you write your congressman, and ask him to put forth that the US withdraw from all UN activity. By definition, the US doesn’t have a “direct interest” in all UN activities its forces participate in.
It’s kinda sad to see a smart guy like yourself falling for the dogmatic black/white approach the US government seem to take. The debate is about the pros and cons of the ICC, not about the US participation in UN missions. Had the US not threatened to withdraw from current missions, you wouldn’t even have thought of that argument.
“Cleaning up the UN’s dirty work”? Please. This is getting us nowhere.
I’m also curious as to how you’ll show me the ICC is clearly not in the US’ best interest. That would only be the case if US military forces are planning on comitting genocide or something along those lines.