I cannot understand how The US can be threatening up to 2000 Iraqis with war crimes charges if it is at the same time refusing to be part of the International Criminal Court. Are they planning on setting up their own court? Will they make up their own rules on who they can charge and why? My understanding is the US pulled out of the court so Americans would not fall under its jurdistiction when countires such as France, Russia, etc. charge them as war criminals. This strikes me along with most other aspects of this war as the heights of hypocrisy.
Anyway my basic question is: How are they going to charge them?
The US has declined to participate in the ICC for exactly the same reasons the US should withdraw from the UN and eject its sorry, rotting carcass from our soil.
There is one factor that separates the US from every other member nation in the UN, and the same factor separates us from the participants in the ICC.
Every other nation in both bodies NEEDS those bodies as a collective source of legitimacy and/or strength. The US does not.
So the US is legitimate and justified in all the actions it takes as a result of the fact that it simply exists? I think that’s pushing it a little. No one is justified in their actions as a result of merely living. The US must have some form of legitimacy derived from the international community.
The US threatens because they’re a bunch of hypocrites.
Second, Willy_ph, do you really think that the US is just threatening Saddam and Iraq just for the hell of it? If so you are an idiot. Saddam is a brutal man who kills those that disagree with him. The US didn’t start this fight. Saddam did. Saddam has started wars. The US didn’t. Sadam has been balking the UN inspectors, not the US. Get a clue. Also, for the record, note the French. They wouldn’t fight a wet paper bag to save their mothers. They are a bunch of wimps. (Hyperbole intended)
Third, tell me when the US has ever threatened a country when there was no provocation.
I think everyone is missing the op point (by the way Tbone I say you are wise beyond your years that will make you 7 years old).
U.S.A rejects the international penal court, an yet thay claim they will judge the Irakies war criminals? How are they going to do that? Because if they accept the argument that the nature of the crimes males them universal crimes (in the sense that any country can judge them) I think they will be shooting themselves. After all the legitimacy of this war is doubtfull, what if a French tribunal starts making noise? (Granted Bush will never face a judge but it wil be on the news).
The whole gist of my not getting this:
If we are a part of the UN, an organization that we (the USA) were instrumental in setting up, what does ignoring it when we don’t like what they say … say about our dedication to it?