Bart, you said:
>"I just remembered (maybe we're talking about
the same thing) before the war,
> Bush twisted the arm of some world body
(UN?) to make it illegal to charge
> any American with any war crime - does anyone
else remember that?
> I'm sure it's in the back issues..."
I think you're talking about the International
Criminal Court. The ICC is
a concerted effort by the international community
to hold war criminals
accountable. Bush wouldn't sign up because he
doesn't want Americans
to be subject to the same standards that apply
to everyone else.
Incidentally, Human Rights Watch released a report
a couple of months ago
concluding that Bush was deliberately holding
up the UN resolutions on
Darfur because he was having an ego war with
the UN and the ICC.
Here's a quote from the report:
"The United States is blocking U.N. Security Council
action on the human
rights crisis in Darfur on account of the Bush
administration’s hostility
to the International Criminal Court, Human Rights
Watch said today. On
Tuesday, the United States proposed splitting
a U.N. Security Council
draft resolution on Sudan into three separate
resolutions, none of which
would authorize a tribunal to prosecute crimes
against humanity in Darfur."
So, essentially, the UN is trying to pass a single
resolution so that
things can move as quickly as possible in Darfur.
The resolution would
cover the prosecutions of those guilty of genocide,
implementation of a
sanctions regime and the dispatching of peace-keeping
forces. Those things
would be under way right now if Bush wasn't so
determined to undermine
multilateralism. Disgusting, isn't it?
here's the link to the Human Rights Watch report:
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/03/24/sudan10367.htm
Bart, I love your blog and read you every day.
I'm in Scotland and I love your take on US and
world news.
Keep up the good work.
Stella J