International Criminal Court Investigates US Soldiers in Afghanistan

Friday, 11 September 2009 02:30

Luis Moreno Ocampo As if the U.S. military presence abroad hasn't caused enough trouble already (especially considering recent revelations about the hideously immoral behavior of our guns for hire at the Afghan embassy), our placement of soldiers abroad, coupled with our on again, off again flirtation with international agreements under the rubric of the UN have now opened the door, potentially, for U.S. soldiers to be tried under the ridiculous, but dangerous, International Criminal Court.

First, why should we consider the ICC to be ridiculous? Isn't it supposed to be the court that can be relied on to protect the innocent from the depredations of otherwise unaccountable dictators?

While that may be the propaganda, there is more than enough reason to question the reality. First, the ICC is an arm of the United Nations, an unaccountable world body that admits Communists and dictators alike. Fidel Castro? No problem at the UN. That guy from Libya? No problem at the UN. Communist China? Sure, why not. The USSR, back when there was a USSR? Why of course.

The UN is no friend of freedom, that's for sure. Take a look at the organization's Universal Declaration of Human Rights for example. That document starts out fine, or so it would seem, but quickly deteriorates.

Article 17, for instance, says that "Everyone has the right to own property." But that right, according to the UN, can be watered down and eroded in order to support several other "rights." These include Article 22 which promises that "Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization … of the economic, social, and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity…." In other words, property owners, people who have worked hard for what they have earned, under the UN Declaration could be stripped of their property to support economic needs of others.

Of course that happens in the U.S., too, but it is unconstitutional, and certainly not something that Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence when he described the unalienable rights of each person.

What else does the UN Declaration have in store? Well, at the end, it notes that the rights it enumerates, can be revoked by the UN itself. Article 29 reads:

These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Clearly, the UN is no friend of freedom as understood by the Founding Fathers and the American system of government.

So it's more than alarming that the UN's ICC is now hunting for Americans in Afghanistan. According to the Guardian, a UK paper, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the ICC prosecutor, is heading an investigation into U.S. troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. According to the paper: "US soldiers acting for Nato are being investigated for alleged torture of prisoners and use of excessive force."

Said Moreno Ocampo: "What we are trying to assess is ... different types of allegations, including massive attacks, collateral damage exceeding what is considered proper, and torture."

There is nothing the international socialists running the UN and the ICC would rather see than U.S. soldiers tried before the international court for war crimes. It would, without question, be a stunning propaganda coup.

But, we have only ourselves to thank for setting the stage for just such an outcome. First, President Bill Clinton championed the ICC prior to its creation, and despite the fact that U.S. is not party to the ICC because the Senate has never ratified a treaty to that effect, it hasn't stopped the ICC itself from claiming jurisdiction over the United States. Indeed, according to the Guardian, currently "a dispute over whether US soldiers can be tried by the ICC is under way at the court's headquarters in the Netherlands."

Despite the fact that the Bush administration rescinded the US signature from the Rome statute creating the court in 2002, don't think that that action now makes the U.S. immune to the ICC's activities. As candidate Obama, the current president praised the ICC, stating:

Now that it’s operational, we are learning more and more about how the ICC functions. The court has pursued charges only in cases of the most serious and systematic crimes and it is in America’s interests that these most heinous of criminals, like the perpetrators of the genocide in Darfur, are held accountable. These actions are a credit to the cause of justice and deserve full American support and cooperation.

That doesn't sound too reassuring. If the current ICC prosecutor gets his way and brings U.S. soldiers to trail before his court without interference from the Obama administration, we'll only have ourselves to blame for voting into office politicians that over the past 20 years aided and abetted the creation of the International Kangaroo Court.