US to International Criminal Court: Go to Hell

Last month the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, opened a preliminary inquiry into possible war crimes in Afghanistan. All three sides involved were included: The Taliban, the Afghan government, and yes, the United States. The US, one of just 7 countries to vote against establishing the ICC in 2002, (120 approved), went ballistic. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened ICC members, staff and their families, ominously charging: “We want to identify those responsible for this partisan investigation and their family members who may want to travel to the United States or engage in activity that’s inconsistent with making sure we protect Americans.” They should not worry too much about harassment upon entering the US as their visas will likely be denied or revoked.

It wasn’t always this way. A century ago the US championed the establishment of the ICC in the Versailles Treaty ending WWI. Tho not established then, the US spearheaded an ad hoc version of it with the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crime trials following WWII. Some were executed, many were imprisoned; a few even acquitted, demonstrating their fairness. It took another 57 years for the UN to gather those 120 signatories, sans Uncle Sam, to realize a noble goal: justice for war criminals. In the past 18 years the ICC has opened 12 official and 9 preliminary investigations, indicting 45 for war crimes.

But the US, once in the forefront of war crime justice, is fleeing for its life from likely prosecution of high officials going back to our illegal, immoral and criminal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq beginning in 2001. Those invasions cemented US opposition to a worthy venture in justice in complete opposition to US perpetual warfare in the Middle East and Africa.

The US is not the world’s most indispensable nation….just its most unaccountable one.