Riddle Me This...
If we're so above board and righteous in our dealings with prisoners, Iraq and the War on Terror, why (according to this report) are we trying to blackmail other countries into granting us immunity from the International Criminal Court?
I still don't quite get the argument on this one. The argument seems to go "We're a sovereign nation, we should not be subject to external rule or rulings", while at the same time we turn around and violate the sovereignity of other nations by invading them.
Perfectly valid in the case of Afghanistan, they harbored a known enemy of our country and in so doing, made themselves a fair target. Not so valid in the case of Iraq, which had no WMDs, had few (if any) ties to terrorist organizations (certainly far fewer than there are now that we've invaded), and were not considered an immenent threat even to their closest neighbors, much less the United States.
So, if we're lily pure and fair in our dealings and our motives, what have we to fear from the ICC? And why, if we're a nation of justice, a nation which supposedly does NOT approve of the rich buying their way out of situations the poor can't, do we think it's perfectly valid to try to buy our way out of this one?
Could it be that Bush and company know more about our misbehaviors than we do, and want to make sure we're immune from prosecution before the news breaks?
If you're not speeding, and don't plan to speed, why would you bribe a police officer to make you immune from speeding tickets?
Copyright (c) June 24, 2005 by Liam Johnson. http://www.liamjohnson.net
posted by Liam at 6/24/2005 02:07:00 AM
4 Comments:
Just look at the members of the ICC, their history on prosecution, and the politics they have played in the past and one can visualize the fear that any General would have. (By the way, we are NOT lilly white in our actions, but we DO prosecute our own; Abu Graibe)
Friday, June 24, 2005 1:54:00 PM
Your point is well taken, I only have issue with one item...
I don't believe we really prosecuted anyone for Abu Graib. Oh, sure, we took out a few "small fish", but I believe they were scapegoats, thrown to the wolves to protect the truly guilty. I just don't believe that Lyndie England and her cohorts came up with the idea to do this stuff on their own, or that they were able to do such massive levels of abuse without their superiors finding out about it.
I mean, clearly they didn't feel they were doing anything outside of orders, or else they wouldn't have taken photos and sent them home to brag! (That is, after all, how they got caught. One of the people sent the photos back to some friends, saying "Look at the fun crap we're doing to those arab sons of bitches", and one of their friends was more disgusted than amused and turned them in.)
But really, if what they were doing was against orders, I can't imagine they'd have been so stupid as to brag about what they were doing. Plus the fact that Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay are both experiencing the same things, and then add in the memo written by our Attorney General (then assistent AG) saying that the rules against torture didn't apply to Bush, and re-defining torture to only include anything which caused organ damage or death, and it seems pretty convincing to me that there's a might higher level of acceptance (perhaps even encouragement) for these actions than we've been led to believe.
So no, I don't think we've prosecuted anyone truly RESPONSIBLE for Abu Graib. I think what we've done is essentially akin to going in to Enron and putting the administrative assistants in prison.
Liam.
Friday, June 24, 2005 2:17:00 PM
(Whoops)
Make that "...that there's a MUCH higher level..."
Sorry, typing too quickly...
Friday, June 24, 2005 2:18:00 PM
Liam, I have come to expect that whenever a prosecution takes place in a circumstance like Abu Graibe, that the ones closest to the action get fried and the higher ups who either actually approved the action or tacitly allowed it to occur, slide through with the protection that their position allows.
Friday, June 24, 2005 7:45:00 PM
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