We have to dispel the notion that the US, UK, and Canada are on always on the side of justice and that we can do no wrong. If this was the case, we would happily welcome the scrutiny of the ICC in our wars and international affairs, as we would (in theory) have nothing to hide. Vijay Prashad writing for Counterpunch disagrees.
Clearly, this is not the case.
“The United States is not a party to the International Criminal Court (ICC). It had helped establish the Court, but then reversed course and refused to allow itself to be under the ICC’s jurisdiction. In 2002, the U.S. Congress passed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, which allows the U.S. government to “use all means” to protect its troops from the ICC prosecutors. Article 98 of the Rome Statute does not require states to turn over wanted personnel from a third party if these states had signed an immunity agreement with the third party; the U.S. government has therefore encouraged states to sign these “article 98 agreements” to give its troops immunity from prosecution.
The enormity of evidence of war crimes by U.S. troops and U.S.-affiliated troops in Afghanistan and Iraq weighed on the credibility of the ICC. In 2016, after a decade of investigation, the ICC released a report that offered hope to the Afghan people. The ICC said that there is “a reasonable basis” to pursue further investigation of war crimes by various forces inside Afghanistan—such as the Taliban, the Haqqani network, and the United States military forces alongside the Central Intelligence Agency. The next year, the ICC went forward with more detailed acknowledgment of the possibility of war crimes. Pressure on the ICC’s prosecutor mounted.
Pressure on the Court
This is where everything seemed to end. The Trump administration, via John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, made it clear to the ICC that if they pursued a case against the U.S., then the Trump administration would go after the ICC prosecutor and judges personally. An application for a U.S. visa by Fatou Bensouda, the ICC prosecutor, was denied; she had intended to come to the U.S. to appear before the United Nations. This was a shot across the bow of the Court. The U.S. was not going to play nice. Not long thereafter, in April 2019, the ICC said that it would not go ahead with a war crimes case against the United States, or indeed against any of the belligerents in Afghanistan. The Court said it would “not serve the interests of justice” to pursue this investigation.
Trump responded to this decision by calling the ICC “illegitimate” and—at the same time—that the ICC’s judgment was “a victory, not only for these patriots, but for the rule of law.”
Staff at the ICC were dismayed by the ICC’s decision. They were eager to challenge it, fearing that if they let the U.S. mafia tactics prevent their own procedures then the ICC would lose whatever shred of legitimacy remains. As it is, the ICC is seen as being deployed mainly against the enemies of the United States; there have been no serious investigations of any power that is closely aligned with the United States.”
We have one set of rules for the rest of the world and another version that we apply to ourselves. The exceptionalism that is portrayed in our media and repeated by our political classes needs to be dispelled. We should not be above the ICC’s reach, nor should we be impeding the investigations that it undertakes. Yet it is the reality we inhabit.
Most nations will act with a certain level of impunity when it comes to their interests at home and abroad. We in the West need to acknowledge that through our actions, are no better or worse then the countries we seek to censure through the ICC and the war crimes it prosecutes.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
7 comments
December 3, 2019 at 6:46 am
Bob Browning
And another major item for international justice would be a real democratically run United Nations w a dominant police force and w/o the U.S.’s dictatorial powers.
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December 3, 2019 at 7:19 am
tildeb
“We in the West need to acknowledge that through our actions, are no better or worse then the countries we seek to censure through the ICC and the war crimes it prosecutes.”
False equivalency.
This is the tactic used to level a playing field that in effect makes a civilian casualty equivalent to state run mass murder. It is a standard tactic used by critics and ideologues to make it seem that anything less than perfection is equivalent to participating in a double standard. It is used all the time to convince people that there is no difference between the actions of a totalitarian state and the mistakes of a liberal democracy.
It is the same tactic used to pretend men can be women by simply saying so because there is some grey area in some particular and rare cases; it discards the binary difference – the aggregate difference that is clear and obvious in almost all cases – and proposes that the tiny fraction is what accurately describes the aggregate, that defines away the clear and obvious differences and makes a equivalency that is false. There is a clear and obvious difference between the aggregate foreign policy actions of the West regarding human rights and freedoms and, say, the Taliban. Anyone who is fooled into thinking otherwise is… well, foolish almost beyond reason.
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December 3, 2019 at 12:01 pm
The Arbourist
@tildeb
Is the US sponsored coup in Bolivia a ‘mistake’ of liberal democracy? Perhaps the coup in Chile in 1974 was also just a misguided intention.
” in effect makes a civilian casualty equivalent to state run mass murder. It is a standard tactic used by critics and ideologues to make it seem that anything less than perfection”
The 17 years in Afghanistan and Iraq have made the world and Western interests decidedly less safe and this is not a slight oversight, or a excess of democratic intent. But, rather, a pursuit of the national interest that supersedes any sort of universal ‘rights and freedoms’ we hold to be dear, because once they oppose (other nation states and their people) our national interests those people lose those their rights.
The notion that international rules should apply equally to all nation states falls is ploy? Should not the criminality of the 2003 war in Iraq be punished, as it was through false pretenses that the US and its allies invaded a sovereign country, destroyed its civilian infrastructure and directly/indirectly caused the deaths of 100,000 Iraqi citizens?
Every American president, if fairly judged by international standards, is guilty of war-crimes and should be brought to justice. It won’t, of course, because we’re the good guys. The case of GWB is particular egregious, but the criminality extends through Obama’s tenure and of course 45’s term as well (just on the continued use of drones to assassinate people alone).
Should Cuba be allowed to run black bag operations against the US and make assassination attempts on the US presidents life? Clearly, it is in their national interest to do so as the US continues to strangle their economy and hurt their national interest. Any casualties of Cuban misguided intervention should be considered excesses of socialism and noted, but not acted upon with regards to the ICC.
A double standard clearly exists. It exists because we hold the big stick and can unilaterally declare that the international rules of the ICC don’t apply to us and our actions in the national interest. The actions of GWB in Iraq cannot be described as a ‘naive an misguided venture’. Apologists for American exceptionalism use this dodge in an attempt to justify the wielding of raw imperial power across the world. Vietnam has been described as a mistake made with the best of noble intentions, yet it was slaughter on a mass scale by American forces, just on raw tonnage of bombs dropped alone.
The power differential is real, and just because the US can dress up their imperialism in the guise of fighting for rights and liberal democracy does not change end results for the casualties of war – dead is still dead whether by noble misguided intent, or deliberate imperial venture.
This isn’t about the US bashing, but rather recognizing the power differential that exists in the world. Expecting those who made the rules to follow them when no other power can keep them in check is a not a defensible position. Why would any nation remain accountable to international rules when one has overwhelming military might? The US does not, and neither would any other country if placed in a similar situation. If having a liberal democratic patina to make the imperial actions and atrocities go down smoother, please go right ahead.
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December 3, 2019 at 12:05 pm
The Arbourist
@tildeb
I wish the arguments of many of the radical genderists were this structured. They seem to gotten away from the intersex ploy for the most part. Their arguments are now mainly about creating confusion and rely on threatening or socially shaming those who argue against them. It is all in attempt to obfuscate the fact that past aggrieved emotional appeals, no basis exists for what they espouse.
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December 3, 2019 at 3:13 pm
tildeb
Yes, there is a very real power differential in the world. And yes, the US has done and funded some very underhanded staff and interference. But ask yourself this: would you choose to live in the US or… well… pick your country that has some representative under trial at the ICC. There’s your answer. There really is a significant and meaningful difference between the US/West and the rest of the world. And that difference is not trivial.
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December 3, 2019 at 4:39 pm
The Arbourist
@tildeb
I think a good choice is Canada, as far as places to live are concerned. Maybe Norway, or other Scandinavian country. As for living in the US, I’m not sure I’d be a fit for the current reactionary prosperity gospel groove they have going on down there. :>
I’m a big fan of the West and living in the West. Part of the fun of living here is that we get to criticize our governments when they fall short of the aspirations and goals they set out for themselves and society. Canada talks a good peacekeeping game, but then continues to sell arms to Saudi Arabia. *shrugs* Our life goes on – the people who are on the business end of the APC’s – maybe not so much. A decidedly cold realpolitik is how the world works, and what keeps the current status-quo chugging along.
So, if people I don’t know and are far away have to die to maintain my way of life, I guess that is what I (we) have to live with. I’d like to think that the human race has more empathy that what’s currently on display, but the evidence points very much to the opposite of my aspirations.
I would be more surprised if the US wasn’t acting the way it does in terms of foreign policy and its military ventures, it is what empires do. Until we solve the problem of scarcity of resources for the world, I don’t foresee any fundamental changes happening.
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December 3, 2019 at 8:56 pm
tildeb
The US ’empire-building’ is a process of slowly but surely spreading Western values to local citizenry… sometimes by nefarious means of undermining governments. This is not a product of the Western ‘imperialism’ but a means to achieve friendlier governments that share some common basis in public values. It’s the worst kind of foreign policy… but better than any other.
In contrast, committing a genocide is more of a product approach. The US does not do this. Weaponizing children soldiers is a product. The US does not do this. Implementing ‘re-education’ of millions of citizens like the Uyghurs is a product. The US does not do this. Mass killings of Cambodians and Bosnians is a product. The US does not so this. Overthrowing a government is not in itself a product because you don;t know what you will eventually get but the US does do this. And it favours the means to have influence beyond brute force which means greater economic influence. The US does do this… as does China and Russia.
So when you hear critics like Chomsky try to pretend the US is no better or no worse than any other political ideology by using selected examples of a product, then this is a false equivalency because the US really does have to report to its citizens on a regular basis and such results are a mistake if the US does undertake them for whatever short-term benefits they may presume to gain by doing so but, sure enough, ends up costing far more politically than taking these shortcuts. And sure, there are many examples, but the process is not equivalent to the brutality we find by those charged at the ICC for crimes against humanity. They are not equivalent.
And the ’empire’ by the US is not the same as exercising suzerain policies, which is exactly what majors powers do. If the US invades, they leave. Against what I think is much better judgement, the US does not tear down national institutions and replace them wholesale with Western institutions based on Western enlightenment values as they did after the last world war to smashing success (which I think is the ONLY way to bring about lasting peace worth justifying lives lost); that’s how we end up with idiotic ‘peace-keeping’ policies that put our soldiers in harm’s way and end up costing us far more than what such exercises gain… usually in the form of trading lives to put off the inevitable.
Canada is not a peace keeping nation in spite of the sales job national politicians assume. Any reading of history will indicate exactly the opposite: we have been and shall continue to be a warrior nation. So such peace-keeping missions are simply politics of influence by a different name and Canada really has business sending our soldiers into harm’s way unless the goal is to destroy what was and replace it with institutions based on superior Western values, not least of which is universal human rights… not as a product but as a process conquered nations must implement themselves (like the conquered nations of WWII).
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