Bolton Fires At ICC

Cue the outrage, hysteria, and screaming tantrums from Americans’ enemies, both foreign and domestic.  President Trump’s National Security Adviser, John Bolton just severely rebuked the International Criminal Court (ICC) and threatened that America will retaliate against them if this foreign body follows through with its attempt to prosecute American military and intelligence personnel for supposed war crimes committed during the conflict in Afghanistan.

Yeah, our enemies are going to blow their tops over this because the only thing that they hate more than our warfighters and intelligence operatives is the idea of America as a sovereign nation unbounded by foreign control, restrictions, and authority.

Of course, what the liberals and progressives who will be screaming are either ignorant of- or in wilful denial thereof is that the US is not signatory to the ICC and is not one of its state-parties and is therefor outside of its jurisdiction since the amendments to the ICC’s powers during 2010 Review Conference of the Rome Statute made the ICC unable to prosecute individuals of a non-state party, e.g., the US.  Additionally, US federal law, specifically the 2002 American Service-Members’ Protection Act (ASPA), prohibits any agency or entity of the United States Government or of any State or local government, including any court, from cooperating with this body in just about any fashion whatsoever.

But then, this isn’t about facts or laws. This is all about our domestic enemies’ pathology.

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The Expected Yammering

Navanethem "Navi" Pillay - U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and avowed enemy of AmericaUnsurprisingly, it took little more than moments for the filth in the United Nations, now little more than a OIC front-group, to start whining, bleating, and yammering about America’s extermination of Osama bin Laden.

It took less than a full day before they started quasi-demanding that we explain ourselves and justify our actions to them.

Details of their arrogance from Reuters via Yahoo News:

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations’ top human rights official called on the United States Tuesday to give the U.N. details about Osama bin Laden’s killing and said that all counter-terrorism operations must respect international law.

But Navi Pillay, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that the al Qaeda leader, killed in a U.S. operation in Pakistan, had committed crimes against humanity as self-confessed mastermind of “the most appalling acts of terrorism,” including the September 11, 2001 attacks on America.

It was always clear that taking bin Laden alive was likely to be difficult, she said, noting that U.S. authorities had stated that they intended to arrest him if possible.

“This was a complex operation and it would be helpful if we knew the precise facts surrounding his killing. The United Nations has consistently emphasized that all counter-terrorism acts must respect international law,” Pillay said in a statement issued in response to a Reuters request.

In Washington, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder defended as lawful Tuesday the U.S. operation to go into Pakistan that resulted in the death of bin Laden and the taking of his body.

“If he was captured and brought before a court, I have no doubt he would have been charged with the most serious crimes, including the mass murder of civilians that took place on 9/11, which were planned and systematic and in my view amounted to crime against humanity,” said Pillay, a former U.N. war crimes judge.

From what I can see, the details of Operation Geronimo and the reasoning behind it could be easy summed up in a short memo to this jumped-up piece of filth trying to justify her own job by yapping at her betters:

Memo to UN fuckwads
Any Further Questions, Navi?

Her stupid claim that Osama bin Laden would be “charged with the most serious crimes” is one of the laughable statements I’ve heard come out of anyone within the UN in some time. Of course Osama bin Laden would be charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and quite that quite readily and speedily.

Convicting it and getting an appropriate sentence enacted upon it under ICC rules is another matter altogether. It would probably die of old age in it’s UN-mandated, carefully comfortable place of incarceration before the ICC ever finished their arguments over jurisdictionality.

Worse, as Richard Goldstone proved to the Civilized World, such a “trial” would swiftly turn into an ongoing attack upon America’s War on Terror.

Navanethem Pillay’s and the UN expected yammering should be met by either America’s silence, the memo shown above, or an eviction notice.

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ICC Oversteps Authority

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has once again attempted to overstep its authority by involving itself in matters which are outside of its jurisdiction. On Monday 14 July, ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo will submit to the Judges of Pre-Trial Chamber I his evidence on crimes committed in the whole of Darfur over the last five years. Specifically he is requesting an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on the charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for the systematic killings in Sudan’s western Darfur region since 2003.

At first read this seems to be a fine idea. It isn’t.

The The International Criminal Court derives its powers from the Rome Statute signed into treaty on 17 July 1998 and entered into force on July 1, 2002. The Rome Statute is an international treaty which specifically grants the ICC jurisdiction in only in those States which formally expressed their consent to be bound by its provisions. These States voluntarily became “Parties” to the Statute. The 106 Nations who are currently States Parties to the Rome Statute do not include Sudan! The ICC has absolutely no jurisdiction over the Sudanese or their President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

As bad as the situation is in Sudan, especially the Darfur region, I believe it is an even worse situation in the long run for an international body such as the ICC to be gratuitously overstepping its authority and ignoring the dictates and limitations of the treaty that created it and empowered its actions.

I’m fairly sure that the apologetics used to rationalize the ICC’s frankly extra-legal endeavors are that what is happening in the Darfur region of Sudan is an ongoing parade of atrocities, many – possibly most – of them committed systematically at the bequest of al-Bashir’s government. That’s fine and emotionally satisfying, but if one condones such actions by the ICC, then one must also condone the actions of Israel, the US, China, Russia, and any other nation that steps outside of international law and treaties to “do what it deems is necessary” to end an atrocity or protect itself.

For what little it’s worth the Sudanese government has exhibited a fierce defiance of the ICC. They even threatened to try Moreno-Ocampo in a Sudanese court for “terrorism” after the ICC Prosecutor tried to apprehend and arrest Sudanese State Minister Ahmed Haroun, one of the Sudanese citizens facing a previous ICC warrant, as he was about to go on a trip to Saudi Arabia.

NOTE: I really hate feeling the need to make posts such as this one. On a personal level I’d happily sell my life to visit the same horrors upon the Sudanese government and their forces that they’ve visited on the people of Darfur. One has to look beyond that though and see the ramifications the actions taken to redress these issues.

Thank you ever so much, Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, for forcing me to side with al-Bashir and his ilk on anything! May the Gods create a special Hell for you rot within for eternity.

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