Bush, troops, and the ICC

I was pleasantly surprised to read this morning that the Bush Administration has withdrawn its UN resolution to secure an extension of immunity for American soldiers from the International Criminal Court:

The United States bowed Wednesday to broad opposition on the Security Council and announced it was dropping its effort to gain immunity for its troops from prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

"The United States has decided not to proceed further with consideration and action on the draft at this time in order to avoid a prolonged and divisive debate," James B. Cunningham, the deputy American ambassador, said...

American diplomats, who had been confident of obtaining a routine "technical rollover" of the measure, appeared to have miscalculated the impact of the publicity given the American mistreatment of Iraqi detainees.

I wonder how this apparent acquiescence to Kofi Annan and the Security Council is going to play with the more conservative elements of the Republican base. For purely partisan reasons, I do wish that the far-right would put up a fine old isolationist in the Pat Buchanan mold, someone who could rail about the Bush policies on immigration and and the president's apparent willingness to allow US troops to be tried for war crimes by the ICC.

Comments

[Xrlq]

For purely partisan reasons, I do wish that the far-right would put up a fine old isolationist in the Pat Buchanan mold, someone who could rail about the Bush policies on immigration and and the president's apparent willingness to allow US troops to be tried for war crimes by the ICC.

For non-partisan reasons, I also wish the GOP would do something about illegal immigration, and I don't mean implementing Bush's non-amnesty amnesty.

As to the ICC, Bush has done all he can by un-signing the turkey of a treaty that would have bound us to it, and by extracting promises not to prosecute Americans from as many individual counties as possible. If I were as partisan as you, I would have cheered Clinton's politically stupid decision to sign on to ICC and Kyoto in the first place. But I'm not; I'm a patriot first, and a partisan second - a distant second. As such, I'd rather see the Dems go sensible than see them pursue moonbat politics, even if Democrat moonbats help Republicans win elections (which I'm sure, they do, at least in close races).

[James]

It is worth noting that this move does not open the way for US troops in Iraq to be taken to the ICC, since neither the US nor Iraq is currently a signatory to the Treaty of Rome.

It's a step in a good direction, but there's still further to go.

[Col Steve]

Neither this President nor the last President are/were willing to allow US military personnel to be tried by the ICC.

Clinton's words:

"We do so to reaffirm our strong support for international accountability," Clinton said in a statement. "We do so as well because we wish to remain engaged in making the ICC an instrument of impartial and effective justice."
Clinton added, however, that his administration still has "concerns about significant flaws in the treaty." Clinton said in his statement that because of his concerns, he would not submit the treaty for ratification and would not recommend that President-elect George W. Bush do so either.

Without Sentate ratification (which I doubt you could find more than 5 senators to state they support the treaty as written), the whole issue is rather moot.

Look at one passage from the ICC summary of the treaty:

Without doubt, the most important principle of the Statute of Rome is that the Court complements national jurisdictions and that it may only exercise its jurisdiction if the States concerned are unable or unwilling to prosecute the perpetrators of crimes which fall within the competence of the Court.

I find it ironic how quick folks are willing to either bemoan the fact we can't bring US troops to the ICC on one side (when there are already court-martials underway which makes the possibility of going to the ICC a non-issue) or rant how we are a nation the espouses the rule of law but somehow should not participate in a process to try to extend the rule of law to a gap in the international system that has existed in the past - that individuals in a leadership position of significant character can plan or otherwise participate in the commission of atrocity crimes and yet enjoy virtual impunity.

Or sad that we look at this only in the lens of how it will affect the upcoming Presidential election.

I hope it's a non-issue in that area and either President Bush or a potential President Kerry will simply advocate scrapping the whole document and starting over with the endstate in mind as opposed to letting the process and bureaucrats dominate.