Calling All American War Criminals

[thedrifter]

06-17-2003

Calling All American War Criminals



By Michael Canzoneri



If you are a 1991 Gulf War Veteran or a returning soldier from Operation Iraqi Freedom, call your lawyer.



That?s right: the International Criminal Court (ICC) wants to have a word with you about human rights violations you may have committed while serving your country n uniform. However, as an alleged war criminal, you are in a prestigious company. The list of probable ?war criminals? includes Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfled, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Desert Storm commander retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, current CENTCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks, and ? of course ? Presidents George Herbert Walker Bush and George W. Bush.



President Clinton signed the treaty that created the ICC on his last day in office. The ICC treaty is currently signed by 137 countries and ratified by 90 signatory nations The George W. Bush Administration promised not to ratify the treaty. The president and other treaty opponents see it as yet another U.N. attempt to strip the United States of its sovereignty and establish a global government. Admittedly this sounds very conspiracy theorist in nature but the writing is on the wall.



Currently, there is a resolution before the United Nations Security Council that would extend U.S. citizens? immunity from the ICC for another year. Supporters of the resolution argue that U.S. peacekeeping missions are so widespread that any nation could use the ICC as a partisan tool of retribution.



There are several ways to bring a country to its knees. One way is through taxation, as in the Global Tax on poverty (the Tobin Tax), proposed by France?s President Jacques Chirac at last year?s Earth Summit. The U.N.?s attempt at sustainable growth, Agenda 21, furthers this idea with its vague language. The article contains language calling for countries to share finances (read tax money) with developing countries. Foreign aid to developing counties and allies is a good thing but this measure constitutes wealth redistribution and is socialistic in nature.



Another way to emasculate a country is to render its military impotent for fear of legal repercussions. The Belgium universal jurisdiction law would give the ICC the right to try U.S. soldiers and military personal for human rights violations. If you think this can?t be used to propel personal political agendas just ask Gen. Franks what he thinks.



Franks is the target of human rights violations by attorney Stanley Cohen on behalf of a group of Iraqis who claim to be victims of the war. Cohen is also the attorney for the Hamas terrorist group?s political leader. Cohen alleges that Central Command and coalition forces specifically targeted civilians during both Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Cohen has also likened President Bush to Hitler and called President Truman a War Criminal for using the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.



This is the first in a long line of radicals who wish to knock the United States down a few pegs. They resent the fact that America is the lone superpower, and feel guilty that America?s success is based on hard work and not handouts. Just ask leftist organizer and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark about what he thinks of America. He might answer you if he wasn?t to busy defending Slobodan Milosevic against human atrocity charges. These people claim they love America but clearly hate Americans.



The only thing these people love about America is our collective checkbook. They scream at the top of their lungs that we are murders bent on global domination and in the next breath ask us for a check. Yet if you ask them to show you a country under U.S. control they clam up. If you ask them who gives as much foreign aid as the United States, they are dumbfounded. They call us ignorant, yet they continue to send their children to our universities and colleges.



The ICC is another way for the U.N. to reprimand the United States for being the lone superpower. Granted, the world needs to be a place where people such as Milosevic can be tried for crimes against humanity. Unfortunately, leftist radicals want to use the ICC as a weapon against freedom. Instead of going after the Sudanese government for genocide, they want to charge British Prime Minister Tony Blair with war crimes.



Watch what happens the next time a madman threatens them. Who will they run to in their time of need? As usual, they will hide in the shadow of a ?murderous, imperialist, despot?, the United States of America. Then they will condemn as a despicable regime the same government that continually sends its young men and women into harm?s way to protect people they will never know, in countries they have never heard of.



There is a bright spot in this situation. The Bush Administration, backed by Congress, is threatening to shift NATO?s headquarters from Brussels because of this law. In this year?s defense authorization act, Congress is asking the Defense Department to investigate moving NATO, which receives 25 percent of its annual budget from the US ($169 million last year), to another NATO member country.



Why should we send our armed forces into dangerous situations only to get slapped with a lawsuit when their mission is accomplished? They will have to risk their lives in combat to then come home to risk financial well-being in battling lawsuits?



The PC crusaders charge us with human rights violations but they turn around and elect Libya to the U.N. Human Rights commission. They turn a blind eye to genocide in Africa but yell at us for freeing millions of people from a cruel dictator.



The Bush Administration is absolutely correct for refusing to submit to this nation-neutering law and putting our officers and troops in the crosshairs of moral busybodies who want nothing more than to make America their footstool.



Michael P. Canzoneri is a Contributing Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at dfwatch@hotmail.com.



Sempers,

Roger