US Εxceptionalism in War Crimes and human rights abuses

The Issue here Gary is; – the West want the continuation of these “wars” and the more terror weapons the terrorists have, the more they can control the mass public with laws to “curtain” the terrorists. Just look at the draconian laws and incredible abuse of personal freedom and liberties that followed in the wake of the 9/11 own goal!

With the pull out of Afghanistan imminent, there has to be something else to move onto – “War is inherent in capitalism” – Karl Marx. The evidence for all to see is as plain as a nose on a face – since the First World War, [the loss of the Gold Standard and the introduction of FIAT money], this world has continually been at war. War spread by capitalist democracy as the vehicle of the Joo Central Banks. With Capitalism, there can be no standing still, you either grow or get swallowed up. The scenario is now set for the “bubble to burst” as a result of the rampant growth in the amount of printed money and the supposed US National debt. Yanks, controlled by their Joo based Federal Reserve – [incidentally, look at a US banknote and you will see it is the property of the Federal Reserve, not the Property of the Government] and continuously exported war and destruction around the world to secure growth of wealth. Look at the latest example in Libya – all the country’s infrastructure was targeted and destroyed by bombing – which in itself is a war crime – FUSUK moves in with a the Central Banks loan money to help to rebuild; money that the Central Banks get the Fed Reserve to print, The Fed Reserve charges the US govt for the privilege of printing that money and then charges the US government interest on the money “loaned” while at the same time, getting the FUSUK sponsored companies to pay interest on the money that was loaned to “rebuild” what they had destroyed! . How all very convenient – a neat little “money-go-round” and the banks get richer and richer for printing Monopoly money. Same thing happened in Iraq – they are trying the same scenario in Syria.

Now Jooland is threatening an “Shock and Awe” against Iran, which will be nothing more than blatant open aggression against a sovereign state – yet another war crime to chalk up against the whole Axis of Evil! .

The Al Qaeda groups [established and supported by FUSUKI – yes you can guess what country is the “I”] are the perfect terrorist group to give chemical weapons too. They are sufficiently ingrained in the Western psyche as the number one bogymen as to allow any laws or conditions to be implemented to “Stop” them! Let them take over Syria and then they can “threaten Jooland” and we can have a real ding-dong war in the region.

The only way we can stop them is to get rid of Israeli government and the Zionists in control of FUSUK governments. It is the administrations we need to target, not the leaders – the leaders are every bit as much puppets as most others are – notice how many US Presidents we have had since WWII and yet we have continually been at war???! Are you going to argue that ALL the Presidents have been warmongers?? No, it’s been the grey suits behind the presidents that are the problem – the Central Bank controlled Zionists.

Now Jooland is threatening an “Shock and Awe” against Iran, which will be nothing more than blatant open aggression against a sovereign state – yet another war crime to chalk up against the whole Axis of Evil! .

The amusing thing is that it will be heralded as an example of preemptive self defence... Israels right to defend itself!

The irony in the amusement is that when Japan preemptively self defended in December 7th, 1941 the general attitude in the US was quite different.

Clearly the message is that countries under sanction have no rights to self defence or anything else for that matter, while Israel, like the US has the right to do anything.

few people point out that the US of A gave those chemical weapons to saddam with whom he commited many atrocities

Kysusha wrote:incidentally, look at a US banknote and you will see it is the property of the Federal Reserve, not the Property of the Government

Just to nitpick: that's like saying a document or item labeled as property of the Department of Defense isn't government property. The Federal Reserve is actually part of the government; it was established by Congress and has both public and private aspects. The Board is appointed by the President and approved by Congress, and there is Congressional oversight although the Fed can make a lot of policy independently. The Fed is basically the Treasury Department's bank, which is partly why it is not part of the Treasury Department.

Just to nitpick: that's like saying a document or item labeled as property of the Department of Defense isn't government property.

But hang on... if that nitpick is valid then couldn't you make the argument that the CIA is also part of the US government and therefore its actions are therefore US government actions too.

Wasn't the CIA created to avoid accountability?

Isn't that alone reason to deny the US any official position of world leader or world police?

The key there is that both CIA and the Fed can operate somewhat independently of official government policy to achieve their own goals. They do however both submit to government oversight, i.e. their own goals are government-approved.

As far as being the world's police force, here's an idea: get people to stop asking us to do it. I don't mean relatively unilateral actions like Iraq 2003, either. If you don't want us to act that way (which I don't think we should anyway), then eliminate the voices complaining for action in places like Rwanda.

As far as being the world's police force, here's an idea: get people to stop asking us to do it. I don't mean relatively unilateral actions like Iraq 2003, either. If you don't want us to act that way (which I don't think we should anyway), then eliminate the voices complaining for action in places like Rwanda.

Don't try to be cute Sean... you know full well that there will always be voices asking the US to come in and overthrow their enemies and that such voices are used when the US wants to come in and overthrow and just as easily ignored when it doesn't suit the US.

Hence calls from anti Gaddafi forces get a no fly zone and lots of weapons, while calls for more democracy in Bahrain fall on deaf ears.

Don't shift the blame to the voices... they have always been there and always will.

I'm not shifting blame, I just want people to acknowledge that the voices are also part of the problem.

Do we need to stop listening to people like the Libyan rebels who are not in fact the Libyan government (or at least weren't back then)? That much is obvious. Internal problems should be handled internally, be it Libya, Syria, or Rwanda. Or the FRY, for that matter. This should, however, apply to everyone, with everyone meaning external state actors imposing themselves on the internal problems of another state. We should've left the Libyan separatists alone. Others should've also done the same thing in 2008.

Come now Sean... are you trying to tell us that the US went in to various countries because they were asked?

I would suggest it is rather more likely they made the decision to go in without even listening for voices... the voices came later, or indeed could have been fabricated to support a decision already made.

There is no rush to give Bahrain democracy.

They went in to "free" Kuwaite from Iraqi occupation, but they didn't do it to give Kuwaite democracy either... it was to secure Saudi oil from Saddams grasp.

GarryB wrote:Come now Sean... are you trying to tell us that the US went in to various countries because they were asked?

Of course not, at least not all of the time. We're quite capable of unilateral action, thank you very much But when an external actor like the UN or NATO or an internal actor like the government of a foreign state asks/suggests/requests intervention/assistance with some issue, they are serving as part of the overall problem. Were we to adopt a sort of international relations isolationist but international economic opportunist stance we might find ourselves involved in far less crap around the world.

Although, personally, that might not be a bright idea either. From one perspective, I'd sometimes rather my government be screwing up your country...because at the end of the day that means it has that much less time to spend screwing up mine!

Oh, and to the original question...chemical weapons should probably not be considered WMDs, as they do not technically cause mass destruction. Mass-casualty weapons, sure. Politically considering them WMDs for the purpose of retaliation, I am perfectly fine with that, although that does tend to contradict the other statement to a degree.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Central Intelligence Agency

"...The involvement of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in cocaine trafficking in Central America during the Reagan Administration as part of the Contra war in Nicaragua has been the subject of several official and journalistic investigations since the mid-1980s.

In 1986, the Reagan Administration acknowledged that funds from cocaine smuggling helped fund the Contra rebels, but stated that it was not authorized by the US government or resistance leaders. The Kerry Committee found that Contra drug links included payments to known drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department to carry out humanitarian assistance to the Contras.

..... A CIA internal investigation found that agents had worked with drug traffickers to support the Contra program, but found no evidence of any conspiracy by CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States."

Allegations of CIA drug trafficking
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Central Intelligence Agency

Some sources say that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been involved in several drug trafficking operations. Some of these reports claim that congressional evidence indicates that the CIA worked with groups which it knew were involved in drug trafficking, so that these groups would provide them with useful intelligence and material support, in exchange for allowing their criminal activities to continue,[1] and impeding or preventing their arrest, indictment, and imprisonment by U.S. law enforcement agencies.[2]

Counter-Intelligence: Shining a Light on Black Operations by Metanoia films is a five part documentary.[3] Part 2, 'Deep state' "focuses on close historical links between the Mafia and CIA and the role of narcotics trafficking in all major CIA covert operations."[4]

   "Peter Dale Scott, who is interviewed at length, stresses the instrumental role of the CIA in ALL global narcotics trafficking. The converse is also true. Citing the French Connection (centered in Marseilles) and the Golden Triangle (in Southeast Asia) as prime examples, he makes the case that all major narcotics hubs collapse following CIA withdrawal from the region."[
Allegations of CIA drug trafficking
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking

In 1989, the United States invaded Panama as part of Operation Just Cause, which involved 25,000 American troops. Gen. Manuel Noriega, head of government of Panama, had been giving military assistance to Contra groups in Nicaragua at the request of the U.S.—which, in exchange, allowed him to continue his drug-trafficking activities—which they had known about since the 1960s.[34][35] When the DEA tried to indict Noriega in 1971, the CIA prevented them from doing so.[34] The CIA, which was then directed by future president George H. W. Bush, provided Noriega with hundreds of thousands of dollars per year as payment for his work in Latin America.[34] However, when CIA pilot Eugene Hasenfus was shot down over Nicaragua by the Sandinistas, documents aboard the plane revealed many of the CIA's activities in Latin America, and the CIA's connections with Noriega became a public relations "liability" for the U.S. government, which finally allowed the DEA to indict him for drug trafficking, after decades of allowing his drug operations to proceed unchecked.[34] Operation Just Cause, whose ostensible purpose was to capture Noriega, pushed the former Panamanian leader into the Papal Nuncio where he surrendered to U.S. authorities. His trial took place in Miami, where he was sentenced to 45 years in prison.[34]

Noriega's prison sentence was reduced from 30 years to 17 years for good behavior.[36] After serving 17 years in detention and imprisonment, his prison sentence ended on September 9, 2007.[37] He was held under U.S. custody before being extradited to French custody where he was sentenced to 7 years for laundering money from Colombian drug cartels.[38]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking#Panama

Involvement with CIA

Although the relationship did not become contractual until 1967, Noriega worked with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from the late 1950s until the 1980s.[9] In 1988 grand juries in Tampa and Miami indicted him on U.S. federal drug charges.[10][11]

The 1988 Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations concluded: "The saga of Panama's General Manuel Antonio Noriega represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures for the United States. Throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, Noriega was able to manipulate U.S. policy toward his country, while skillfully accumulating near-absolute power in Panama. It is clear that each U.S. government agency which had a relationship with Noriega turned a blind eye to his corruption and drug dealing, even as he was emerging as a key player on behalf of the Medellín Cartel (a member of which was notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar)." Noriega was allowed to establish "the hemisphere's first 'narcokleptocracy'".[12] One of the large financial institutions that he was able to use to launder money was the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which was shut down at the end of the Cold War by the FBI. Noriega shared his cell with ex-BCCI executives in the facility known as "Club Fed".

In the 1988 U.S. presidential election, Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis highlighted this history in a campaign commercial attacking his opponent, Vice President (and former CIA Director) George H. W. Bush, for his close relationship with "Panamanian drug lord Noriega."[13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Noriega#cite_note-32

Noriega's prison sentence was reduced from 30 years to 17 years for good behavior.[36] After serving 17 years in detention and imprisonment, his prison sentence ended on September 9, 2007.[37] He was held under U.S. custody before being extradited to French custody where he was sentenced to 7 years for laundering money from Colombian drug cartels.[38]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking#Panama[/quote]

How Drug Cartels Work With CIA and Others in Central America

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLIOdAHNBsg

1980s, CENTRAL AMERICA

The San Jose Mercury News series documents just one thread of the interwoven operations linking the CIA, the contras and the cocaine cartels. Obsessed with overthrowing the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, Reagan administration officials tolerated drug trafficking as long as the traffickers gave support to the contras. In 1989, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations (the Kerry committee) concluded a three-year investigation by stating:

"There was substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the war zones on the part of individual Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots mercenaries who worked with the Contras, and Contra supporters throughout the region.... U.S. officials involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua.... In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. govemment had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter.... Senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems." (Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, a Report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and Intemational Operations, 1989)

In Costa Rica, which served as the "Southern Front" for the contras (Honduras being the Northern Front), there were several different ClA-contra networks involved in drug trafficking. In addition to those servicing the Meneses-Blandon operation detailed by the Mercury News, and Noriega's operation, there was CIA operative John Hull, whose farms along Costa Rica's border with Nicaragua were the main staging area for the contras. Hull and other ClA-connected contra supporters and pilots teamed up with George Morales, a major Miami-based Colombian drug trafficker who later admitted to giving $3 million in cash and several planes to contra leaders. In 1989, after the Costa Rica government indicted Hull for drug trafficking, a DEA-hired plane clandestinely and illegally flew the CIA operative to Miami, via Haiti. The U.S. repeatedly thwarted Costa Rican efforts to extradite Hull back to Costa Rica to stand trial.

Another Costa Rican-based drug ring involved a group of Cuban Americans whom the CIA had hired as military trainers for the contras. Many had long been involved with the CIA and drug trafficking They used contra planes and a Costa Rican-based shrimp company, which laundered money for the CIA, to move cocaine to the U.S.

Costa Rica was not the only route. Guatemala, whose military intelligence service — closely associated with the CIA — harbored many drug traffickers, according to the DEA, was another way station along the cocaine highway. Additionally, the Medellin Cartel's Miami accountant, Ramon Milian Rodriguez, testified that he funneled nearly $10 million to Nicaraguan contras through long-time CIA operative Felix Rodriguez, who was based at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador.

The contras provided both protection and infrastructure (planes, pilots, airstrips, warehouses, front companies and banks) to these ClA-linked drug networks. At least four transport companies under investigation for drug trafficking received US government contracts to carry non-lethal supplies to the contras. Southern Air Transport, "formerly" ClA-owned, and later under Pentagon contract, was involved in the drug running as well. Cocaine-laden planes flew to Florida, Texas, Louisiana and other locations, including several military bases. Designated as 'Contra Craft,' these shipments were not to be inspected. When some authority wasn't clued in, and made an arrest, powerful strings were pulled on behalf of dropping the case, acquittal, reduced sentence, or deportation.

http://www.serendipity.li/cia/blum1.html

Relations with the Colombian government

"Once authorities were made aware of "questionable activities", the group would be put under Federal Drug Task Force surveillance. Evidence would be gathered, compiled and presented to a grand jury, resulting in indictments, arrests and prison sentences, for those convicted. The number of Colombian cartel leaders actually taken into custody as a result of these operations was very few. Mostly, non-Colombians conspiring with the Cartel were the "fruits" of these indictments.[citation needed]

Most Colombians targeted, as well as those named in such indictments, lived and stayed in Colombia, or fled before indictments were unsealed. However, by 1993 most, if not all, cartel fugitives had been imprisoned or hunted and gunned down by the Colombian National Police trained and assisted by specialized military units and the CIA

The last of Escobar's lieutenants to be assassinated was Juan Diego Arcila Henao, who had been released from a Colombian prison in 2002 and hidden in Venezuela to avoid the vengeance of Los Pepes. However he was gunned down in his Jeep Cherokee as he exited the parking area of his home in Cumana, Venezuela in April of 2007.<El Tiempo, Bogotá Abril 18, 2007>

While it is broadly believed that the group "Los Pepes" have been instrumental in the assassination of the cartel's members over the last 17 years, it is still in dispute whether the mantle is just a screen designed to deflect political repercussions from both the Colombian and United States governments' involvement in these assassinations.[citation needed]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medell%C3%ADn_Cartel


You would ask how this and other groups or cartels operated with such impunity ande force, for so long. A proper answer to that question will inevitably yield government officers engaging in criminal activities. Drug trade is a political crime of the elites. Otherwise it could not exist the way it does.

http://m.thenation.com/blog/203617-us-soldiers-and-contractors-sexually-abused-least-54-children-colombia

When Colombian men rape Colombian women, it is news. When US soldiers and private defense contractors are the rapists, not so much. Last week, FAIR noticed that not one major media organization in the United States has covered the charge, reported in Colombia (and online in English by the invaluable Medellín-based >Colombia Reports), "that US military soldiers and contractors had sexually abused at least fifty-four children in Colombia between 2003 and 2007 and, in all cases, the rapists were never punished–either in Colombia or stateside–due to American military personnel being immune from prosecution under diplomatic immunity agreements between the two countries." Nor, as far as I can tell, have any of the State Department's allied human rights groups made mention of the allegations.

The media silence goes hand in hand with the official immunity granted not just to US diplomats, but soldiers and employees of shadowy private security firms hired by Washington to carry out much of Plan Colombia. One of the rapes occurred in 2007 and was reported in the Colombian press. It was allegedly committed by Army sergeant Michael J. Coen and an employee of a private security contractor, César Ruiz. The victim was a 12-year-old girl. "They abducted her, they drugged her, they took her to the air base near the town of Melgar and raped her, they took videos of her," the victim's mother told reporters. Then they drove her into town and pushed her out of their car in front of a church. The crime was well covered in Colombia, but a search of Proquest news turned up only one item in English the United States, a translation of a piece that was part of reporting in Spanish published by the Nuevo Herald (affiliated with the Miami Herald) by Gonzalo Guillén and Gerardo Reyes:

The U.S. government has made little effort to investigate a U.S. army sergeant and a Mexican civil contractor implicated in Colombia in the rape of a 12-year-old girl in August 2007, according to an El Nuevo Herald investigation. The suspects, Sgt. Michael Coen and contractor Cesar Ruiz, were taken out of Colombia under diplomatic immunity, and do not face criminal charges in the United States in the rape in a room at Colombia's German Olano Air Force Base in Melgar, 62 miles west of Bogota.

Meanwhile the US media is looking for all sorts of dirt in Russia and just making up lies about.

kvs wrote:http://m.thenation.com/blog/203617-us-soldiers-and-contractors-sexually-abused-least-54-children-colombia

When Colombian men rape Colombian women, it is news. When US soldiers and private defense contractors are the rapists, not so much. Last week, FAIR noticed that not one major media organization in the United States has covered the charge, reported in Colombia (and online in English by the invaluable Medellín-based >Colombia Reports), "that US military soldiers and contractors had sexually abused at least fifty-four children in Colombia between 2003 and 2007 and, in all cases, the rapists were never punished–either in Colombia or stateside–due to American military personnel being immune from prosecution under diplomatic immunity agreements between the two countries." Nor, as far as I can tell, have any of the State Department's allied human rights groups made mention of the allegations.

The media silence goes hand in hand with the official immunity granted not just to US diplomats, but soldiers and employees of shadowy private security firms hired by Washington to carry out much of Plan Colombia. One of the rapes occurred in 2007 and was reported in the Colombian press. It was allegedly committed by Army sergeant Michael J. Coen and an employee of a private security contractor, César Ruiz. The victim was a 12-year-old girl. "They abducted her, they drugged her, they took her to the air base near the town of Melgar and raped her, they took videos of her," the victim's mother told reporters. Then they drove her into town and pushed her out of their car in front of a church. The crime was well covered in Colombia, but a search of Proquest news turned up only one item in English the United States, a translation of a piece that was part of reporting in Spanish published by the Nuevo Herald (affiliated with the Miami Herald) by Gonzalo Guillén and Gerardo Reyes:

The U.S. government has made little effort to investigate a U.S. army sergeant and a Mexican civil contractor implicated in Colombia in the rape of a 12-year-old girl in August 2007, according to an El Nuevo Herald investigation.  The suspects, Sgt. Michael Coen and contractor Cesar Ruiz, were taken out of Colombia under diplomatic immunity, and do not face criminal charges in the United States in the rape in a room at Colombia's German Olano Air Force Base in Melgar, 62 miles west of Bogota.

Meanwhile the US media is looking for all sorts of dirt in Russia and just making up lies about.

Takes plenty of Vaseline to be a US vassal state.

I think any country that agrees to diplomatic immunity for the US military is completely stupid.  American foreign policy is notorius for committing evil acts in foreign countries. I know the US sometimes tries to bribe poor foreign governments in return for diplomatic immunity but I think any government that caves in is a sell out.        

http://fair.org/blog/2015/03/26/colombian-report-on-us-militarys-child-rapes-not-newsworthy-to-us-news-outlets/comment-page-1/#comments

andalusia wrote:I think any country that agrees to diplomatic immunity for the US military is completely stupid. American foreign policy is notorius for committing evil acts in foreign countries. I know the US sometimes tries to bribe poor foreign governments in return for diplomatic immunity but I think any government that caves in is a sell out.

Spain is one of those countries, that also negotiates it's own status of forces agreements with every single country where Spanish troops and militarised police (Guardia Civil) are deployed abroad like Iraq or Central African Republic, where British soldiers repeatedly raped and mutilated an Iraqi civilian and French troops sodomised boys as young as age nine at the end of 2013 while protecting CAR civilians.

Ranting about US military is a bit childish when there are is a plethora of examples from other armies to the point of UN running paternity tests amid peacekeeper sexual abuse claims.

Ranting about US military is a bit childish:

No they are not. While your examples of these other western powers militaries did is unjustified; the French did vow to prosecute any soldiers involved. In the Colombian example, these US troops that did these horrendous crimes probably will get off because of the diplomatic immunity agreement between the two governments.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/International_War_Crimes/US_Against_ICC.html

Hey Whir try reading this:

Why does the US fear the ICC might be used by other nations for “political” purposes? Why would the US not want its personnel investigated and, if warranted, tried for crimes against humanity? The answer is complex but lies along the lines of its very involved foreign policies.

For decades, the US has been involved in various regions around the world, sometimes propping up dictators and other unpopular regimes. The US has been known to sell many arms and provide training to many human rights abusers. Much of this was done during the Cold War, and the US often said it did this because it was better than these nations “going Communist.” Invoking the “Domino Theory”, if just one nation was to fall outside its sphere of influence, then others could follow. Hence, the US became very involved in most areas of the world.

Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute and professor emeritus at the University of California, has written many books on Japan and Asia, and about US hegemonic power. In 2000, his book, Blowback; The Costs and Consequences of American Empire was published (Henry Holt/Owl Books). In it, he details some context for the US opposition to the ICC and is quoted at some length here:



Largely by design, much of America’s imperial politics takes place well below the sight lines of the American public. Throughout the world in the wake of the Cold War, official and unofficial U.S. representatives have been acting, often in covert ways, to prop up repressive regimes or their militaries and police forces, sometimes against significant segements of their own populaces. Such policies are likely to produce future instances of blowback who origins, on arrival, will seem anything but self-evident to the American public.

Every now and then, however, America’s responsibility for its imperial policies briefly comes into public view. One such moment occurred ... [when much of the] world voted to establish an international criminal court.

... With his opening speech to the conference [In Rome when the ICC was being established] American ambassador Bill Richardson managed to infuriate virtually every human rights group on earth and led many delegates to accuse the United States of “neo-colonial aspirations.” The United States, he said, would support only a court that received its cases solely from the U.N. Security Council, where a single American vote can veto any action.

American officials claim that they must protect their two hundred thousand troops permanently deployed in forty countries from “politically motivated charges.” They maintain that, due to America’s “special global responsibilities,” no proceedings can be permitted to take place against its soldiers or clandestine agents unless the United States itself agrees to them. In essence, America’s leaders believe that their “lone superpower” must be above the very concept of international law — unless defined and controlled by them.

The terms of the treaty setting up the court specifically include as war crimes rape, forced pregnancy, torture, and the forcible recruitment of children into the military. The United States objected to including these acts within the court’s jurisdiction, claiming that the court should concern itself only with genocide. The French at first joined the United States in opposing the treaty because ... France feared that its officers and men could be charged with complicity in [the Rwandan] genocide [where France had trained the Hutu-controlled Rwandan military]. Afer a clause was added to the treaty allowing signatories to exempt themselves from the court’s jurisdiction for its first seven years, France ... agreed to sign.

This escape clause was still not enough for the United States. Its representatives held that because the “world’s greatest military and economic power ... is expected” to intervene in humanitarian catastrophes wherever they occur, this “unique position” makes its personnel especially vulnerable to the mandate of an international criminal court capable of arresting and trying individuals. He did not deal with the question of whether war crimes charges against Americans might on some occasions be warranted, nor did he, of course, raise the possibility that if his country intervened less often in the affairs of other states where none of its vital interests were involved, it might avoid the possibility of even a capricious indictment.

— Chalmers Johnson, Blowback; The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, (Henry Holt/Owl Books, 2000/2001), pp.64-67

Chalmers continues, noting historian Rudolph Rummel’s estimate that in the 20th century, 170 million civilians have been victims of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. He notes the observation of Michael Scharf of the American Society of International Law that although there was a pledge of “never again” during the Nuremburg Trials after World War II, that pledge seems to have become “again and again”. This therefore raises the importance of international treaties, laws, and institutions such as the ICC. Chalmers continues:

At Nuremburg, the United States pioneered the idea of holding government leaders responsible for war crimes, and it is one of the few countries that has an assistant secretary of state for human rights. Its pundits and lawmakers endlessly criticize other nations for failing to meet American standards in the treatment of human beings under their jurisdiction. No country has been more active than the United States in publicizing the idea of “human rights,” even if it has been notably silent in some cases, ignoring, implicitly condoning, or even endorsing acts of state terrorism by regimes with which it has been closely associated.... The American government displays one face to its own people (and its English-speaking allies) but another in areas where the support of repressive regimes seems necesasry to maintain American imperial dominance. Whenever this contradiction is revealed as in Rome, Americans try to cover it up with rhetoric about the national burden of being the “indispensible nation,” or what the ... world’s “reluctant sheriff.”

— Chalmers Johnson, Blowback; The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, (Henry Holt/Owl Books, 2000/2001), p.68

It would appear then, that a key fear the US has in the ICC is that its own crimes (or support for such crimes) against humanity will be highlighted by an international institution if it is not under the control of the US (or, by proxy, the United Nations Security Council). This would then undermine the ability of the US to project its power around the world, something its neo-conservative Bush Administration want to exploit as the sole remaining super power, as explained on this site’s section on Military Expansion.

Good! And yet the Japanese remain American Asslickers.

jhelb wrote:Good! And yet the Japanese remain American Asslickers.

+1