[Dryerase] World’s cop needs to be above the law, unaccountable

[Shawn G]

Here is a media watch piece from this weeks AGR


MEDIA WATCH

World’s cop needs to be above the law, unaccountable

By Sean Marquis (AGR)

In a July 15 article that may as well have been a White House press release, 
Time magazine gave a very pro-administration stance as to why “the US should 
be wary of the International Criminal Court [ICC].”

The headline of the article by Michael Elliot said it all: “In this case, 
might makes right.”

The crux of Elliot’s argument is that the US has the most powerful military 
in the world and the “ubiquity of American power has bred a natural 
resentment.” And in their “resentment” other, weaker nations will bring 
baseless ICC suits against the US, endangering the welfare of US military 
personnel “or Defense Secretary, for that matter.”

The problem with Time’s article is that the argument Elliot attempts to use 
against the ICC is one of the very reasons for the ICC.

Elliot writes: “The US is uniquely powerful, with a near monopoly on the 
ability to project force globally.” Elliot claims that this is one of the 
“sound reasons for exempting American troops and officials from the ICC’s 
purview.”

Elliot claims that the world’s sole superpower (or “hyperpower” as coined by 
French officials), with a “near monopoly” on global military power, must be 
exempt from global accountability of that power.

The US’s own system of government is supposedly based on “checks and 
balances” so that no one branch of government could gain too much power. But 
Elliot and Time feel it is ok that “might makes right” and the US 
military/policeman of the world needs no checks and balances.

In a sop to one of the three balancing branches of the US government, Elliot 
writes that US “Congress…is not a rubber stamp; it has a constitutional role 
in international affairs, and it takes it seriously.”

Elliot must not be aware that Congress takes its role so “seriously” that 
the Senate is currently “seriously” contemplating giving its “constitutional 
role” of international trade negotiations over to the president via “Fast 
Track” — a move already approved “seriously” by the House of 
Representatives.

But “seriously,” Elliot has the audacity to say that the US is not alone in 
its fight against the ICC -- it currently has China, India, and Russia on 
its side. Hardly a great team. Both China and Russia have left a long list 
of human rights violations in their wake and India currently has several 
hundred thousand of its soldiers on its border with Pakistan in a recent 
spark-up of its ongoing ethno-religious conflict with that country — going 
so far as to have both nations threaten the use of nuclear weapons in recent 
months.

With such a stunning team in its corner, what Elliot says the US is really 
concerned about is that under the ICC “the way would be open for a foreign 
prosecutor to frivolously accuse a US soldier…of war crimes,” and that the 
US would “run the risk of prosecutions in foreign courts brought by 
grandstanding magistrates looking for easy popularity.”

Elliot does not mention the US firebombing of Dresden in WWII, the Mai Lai 
massacre in Vietnam, NATO bombing of civilian targets in Yugoslavia, or the 
entire illegal invasion of Panama by then-US president George H. W. Bush. In 
Elliot’s article such things are not mentioned and therefore not in the 
realm of possible war crimes committed by US personnel and heads of state. 
There are only “frivolous” lawsuits brought by “grandstanding magistrates.”

The Time article also follows the government line that the US is against the 
ICC because “Washington wants protection for its peacekeepers.” The claim 
here is that the US is primarily concerned about “peacekeepers” involved in 
United Nations or NATO-backed interventions.

But in the second-to-last paragraph of the article the lie is given to this 
argument by the author’s own statement: “It often falls on the US, as the 
most powerful nation on the planet, to apply force so as to mitigate evil. 
True, the US uses its power primarily in its own interest.” The spin here is 
that offensive US military power is used to “mitigate evil” and therefore 
the unquestioned implication is that US military power is used to promote 
“good” — whatever that may be. To accept this is to not question Elliot’s 
next statement that US power is used “in its own interest.” Questions not 
asked are: what are US interests? and are they “good”?

Inadvertently -- or ironically -- Time magazine itself suggests some people 
who may question US-proposed impunity from prosecution under the ICC.

Across the bottom of two pages preceding Elliot’s article, ran a brief list 
of some US “friendly fire” and civilian killing incidents in its terror war 
on Afghanistan.

Mentioned are the recent US bombing of a wedding in Kakarak and the two 
separate US bombings of the same Red Cross compound last October.

Also mentioned is that on Feb. 4 “A missile kills three men; one was tall, 
like Osama bin Laden,” and that the “US defends the hit.” Apparently if you 
are a tall Afghani you are a legitimate target of “the most powerful nation 
on the planet.”

So when you put it all together, Time magazine is saying that if you are a 
tall Afghani wedding guest near a Red Cross building and the US drops a bomb 
on you, your family may be inclined to convince a grandstanding magistrate 
to bring a frivolous lawsuit against the most powerful nation on the planet.

Then again, “might makes right.”





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