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Bush Administration Tries to Protect Citizens From New Globalist Court Wes Vernon, NewsMax.comWASHINGTON – The Bush administration is fighting to protect American citizens from being hauled before the new International Criminal Court on trumped-up, politically motivated charges. The U.N. court's potential for mischief also threatens the ability of the U.S. to carry out the war against terrorism. But there is a practical way that grassroots citizens can help in the effort to protect our soldiers and officials during this congressional recess for Independence Day. Attack on Sovereignty Just in Time for Independence Day The ICC, official as of Monday, was created by a United Nations treaty, ratified by more than 70 nations. On New Year's Eve, as the year 2000 was fading, lame-duck President Bill Clinton signed the treaty for the U.S. Under our Constitution, however, only a two-thirds vote of the Senate can ratify it. And even Clinton himself acknowledged that there were sovereignty problems with the ICC. A few days later, on Jan. 6, 2001, NewsMax.com reported that the ICC, under the treaty, could reach out and grab American citizens and put them on trial without any of the rights afforded in the U.S. Constitution. On May 6 of this year, President Bush officially rejected the treaty. He said the United States would not only refuse to recognize the court’s authority over any American, but also take any means necessary to extricate any U.S. citizen hauled before the tribunal. Over the weekend, the U.S. vetoed a six-month extension of the United Nations' "peacekeeping" mission in Bosnia, but then agreed to a three-day extension to try to find a solution. In so doing, the Bush administration was letting the world know that the U.N. could not have it both ways. No longer would Americans would be sent into harm's way on a U.N. mission, but without protection from some politically ambitious judge or prosecutor playing the armchair second-guessing game of bringing them before the ICC on an ill-defined charge of "crimes against humanity.” Speaking for the U.S. at the time of the veto in the U.N. Security Council, Ambassador John D. Negroponte noted that contributing U.S. soldiers around the world to maintain peace was something the U.S. was willing to do, notwithstanding the fact that such a commitment "can involve hardship and danger to those involved in the peacekeeping.” 'Additional Risk' "Having accepted these risks by exposing people to the dangerous and difficult situations in the service of promoting peace and stability,” the permanent U.S. representative to the United Nations continued, "we will not ask them to accept the additional risk of politicized prosecutions before a court whose jurisdiction over our people the government of the United States does not accept.” It is not as if the U.N. was facing this issue at the very last minute. Fred Gedrich, senior policy analyst at Oliver North’s Freedom Alliance, told NewsMax.com over the weekend that "the United States tried for several years to resolve through negotiations with recalcitrant treaty officials, significant flaws in the treaty ... that contradict certain constitutional provisions guaranteeing legal due process rights such as trial by jury and protection against double jeopardy.” Gedrich has been tracking this controversy every step of the way through the legislative and diplomatic mill and has shared his findings with NewsMax during the past two months as push has come to shove on the ICC. The U.S. veto accomplished two things:
Treaty officials have scoffed at U.S. concerns which they believe are ill-founded. But examples of potential nightmare scenarios abound. Reasonably fresh in many international memories is the 1997 case involving former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet. He was widely credited with having saved much of South America from a communist takeover-in-progress by his predecessor, and the worldwide left never forgave him. To that end, a publicity-seeking Spanish judge arranged to have Pinochet seized while in Britain for medical treatment. There have also been rumblings over the years about possibly seizing and putting on trial Henry Kissinger, U.S. secretary of state during the last years of the Vietnam War. Israel is also refusing to cave to the ICC. "We have fears ... that this court could act out of political motivations, even anti-Semitic ones," Attorney General Eliakim Rubinstein said in Jerusalem, Agence France-Presse reported.
The danger goes beyond high-ranking officials. Monday’s Washington Times quotes a U.S. official as citing the hypothetical case of a fictional Lt. John Ballyntyne leading a U.S. patrol through a tense Bosnian village when stones are thrown. The soldier panics and sprays the hillside with automatic fire, killing 12 people. An investigation determines that although Lt. Ballytyne overreacted, there is no evidence of a massacre. Years later on vacation in a country that has relations with the ICC, he is arrested and extradited to the international court at the Hague. Even though this is not technically a war crime and the lieutenant was not under orders to depopulate a village or aiming only at Muslims or men of fighting age, the fear is an overzealous prosecutor could make the case and charge that his superiors, from the secretary of defense to commanders in the field, are also culpable because they did not stop him. Helping Terrorists It is especially disconcerting to the Bush administration that this potential threat comes into existence during wartime. Already, there have been many criticisms around the world of U.S. actions to strike back at those who have killed or attempted to kill Americans. The ICC is seen as a threat to an already complicated task of pursuing a war on terror. But Americans can rally to the president’s support right now in their home states and communities. Congress, by overwhelming bipartisan margins, has passed the American Service Members Protection Act, which would write the Bush policy on the ICC into law. Among other things, its aim is to forbid any U.S. agency from cooperating with the court. The House vote was a whopping 280-138. The Senate, voting 75-19, followed suit, with even the support of Sen. Hillary Clinton, according to Gedrich. What You Can Do Now here is where you come in. As members of Congress visit their home states and districts during the Independence Day recess, Americans can urge them to support the efforts of a Joint House-Senate conference committee to expedite its work of reconciling the House and Senate versions, which are not identical. Freedom Alliance indicates the House version is stronger and thus preferable. It is fitting, during this celebration of our independence and with congressional elections coming up, that the American people let their elected lawmakers understand they care about this threat to America. Here are the members of the Senate and House Conference Committee considering the "Supplemental Appropriaitions Act for Further Recovery From the Respopnse to Terrorist Attacks on the United States, 2002,” of which the anti-ICC measure is a part.
The issue is complicated by the fact that the Supplemental itself has been weighted down with special-interest pork and thus is veto bait. The task before the lawmakers is to avoid letting that issue prevent the American Service Members Priotection Act from becoming law.
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