Bush Wants U.S. Citizens to Be Able to Commit War Crimes Without Prosecution


U.S. suspends aid to 35 countries who won't grant complete immunity to U.S. citizens in the newly-formed world court, which will prosecute human rights violations and war crimes.

The Shrub yet again shows his great foreign relations understanding. If other countries won't give free rein to U.S. citizens to violate human rights and commit war crimes, well then, we'll just take our military aid and go home and ignore them. Neener neener neener.

Right.

This from a mailing list to which I belong: The New York Times today has an article titled "U.S. Suspends Aid to 35 Countries Over New International Court."

Interesting bits include:

The original provision passed by Congress in the antiterrorism law emphasized American service members, but the administration has interpreted it to include all citizens of the United States.

Interesting that "the administration" is interpreting what Congress passed as a law. But not all that surprising.

Lincoln P. Bloomfield Jr., the assistant secretary for political military affairs, said the administration had no intention of undermining the court.

Instead, he said, the administration wants to preserve its right to remain outside its purview, especially with a rise in the number of attempts to charge American officials with war crimes.

"Our opposition is not meant to be a lack of respect for the jurists involved in the I.C.C.," Mr. Bloomfield said. "It is concern that there could be politically motivated charges against American citizens. Several standing officials have been under war crimes indictment in Belgium this year for their roles in the 1991 gulf war."

He said those included Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

Oh REALLY? Now that's news to me. How about you? Did you know that some of our admin are under indictment for war crimes in Belgium, over the Gulf War?

Ya learn somethin' new every day. Yeah.

Posted: Wed - July 2, 2003 at 02:15 PM        

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