Posted on 05/11/2002 12:59:20 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
George Bush fired a shot across the bow of the United Nations Monday, when he ordered Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton to withdraw the signature of the U.S. from the treaty which created the International Criminal Court.The curt, one-paragraph letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says the "United States has no legal obligations arising from its signature," which was attached by the Clinton administration just hours before the Dec. 31, 2000, deadline.
The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties requires that signature nations do nothing to interfere with the treaty, even if it is not ratified. This too, is a treaty signed, but not ratified by the U.S. Several other treaties also fall into this category; the Convention on Rights of the Child and the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women are but two. U.S. signature on these unratified treaties should be unambiguously withdrawn as well.
Bush's unprecedented action has been roundly criticized by the European Community, and by "progressives" in the United States. Critics contend that the withdrawal signals to the world that the U.S. is not interested in multilateral participation in international justice.
The message that should be taken from Bush's courageous action is this: The U.S. is not interested in surrendering its sovereignty to any global authority.
This action is an exclamation point behind Bush's earlier withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, the walk-out from the U.N. Conference on Human Rights at Durban, and the administration's insistence that all references to a Global Taxing Authority be removed from the final report of the U.N. High Level Panel on Financing Development.
This is the right message to send to the U.N., and it is long overdue.
We have already surrendered sovereignty to the World Trade Organization, which has consistently ruled against U.S. interests. We have already surrendered sovereignty to UNESCO by agreeing (through memoranda, not treaties) to manage land and resources according to principles set forth in the "Seville Strategy" and other U.N. documents. The U.S. should withdraw from these sovereignty-sapping U.N. institutions as well.
While Bush is saying "no-deal" to the U.N., he is saying to the world that the U.S. is not only willing, but eager to work with other nations to rid the world of terrorism, to help war-torn nations rebuild their infrastructures, to help people – who now live under the oppressive reign of dictators – discover the principles of freedom that make the U.S. the envy of the world.
It's time to put the U.N.-genie back into its original bottle – a forum in which sovereign nations can discuss their differences and agree on cooperative activities. The U.N. should have no "enforcement" authority for anything. The U.N. should have no "regulatory" authority for anything. The U.N. should have no "taxing" authority under any disguise. The U.N. should have no military capability. The U.N. should have no legislative authority.
In fact, the U.N. should become the I.F., the International Forum. Period.
Fantasies of equitable per-capita redistribution of the earth's resources, under the benevolent care of the United Nations, are pipe dreams. Such fantasies camouflage inevitable global oppression that despises individual freedom and human achievement and, instead, champions individual compliance and group harmony. Neither nations, nor individual people, should be managed. Freedom results in voluntary cooperation.
Of course, there are bad actors – Osama bin Laden, for example. The United Nations' only concern should be to provide a facility for U.S. officials to consult with officials from other sovereign nations to develop strategies and plans for sovereign nations to act. Such plans and action do not require the approval of the U.N.
The creation of the International Criminal Court is only the most recent blatant example of U.N. aspirations to become the government for the world. The president and Congress should make it abundantly clear to the world that the United States will not allow the U.N. to consolidate its power into a world government, which it chooses to call "global governance."
Every candidate for every office in the mid-term election should be asked to declare whether they support or oppose Bush's decisions to withdraw from the ICC and from the Kyoto Protocol. Any response other than an unequivocal "support," should be interpreted as a willingness to surrender U.S. sovereignty to a foreign entity.
President Bush has fired his warning shot. If the United Nations continues on its present course, it will be up to ordinary citizens, through the candidates they elect, to aim more accurately at the U.N. when the next shot is fired.
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President Says No to Global Kangaroo Court
by JohnHuang2
May 7, 2002
Well, so much for George W. Bush, The-Globalist, New-World-Order-Socialist-Traitor flap-doodle gobbledygook.
No difference between Gore and Bush, eh? The President's spunky decision to yank the U.S. out of the International Criminal Court -- already the move has sparked a cacophony of 'outrage' from all the usual, sniveling suspects -- illustrates with glaring clarity the rank fallacy in that argument. The pullout comes as a 'shocking surprise', alright -- to quibbling nay-sayers who don't know diddley-squat about George W. Bush, the man. For those who know him, Bush is unflappable, unflinching and unblinking, and there was never any question mark. For skeptics, his gutsy decision to junk Kyoto early on should have been the tip-off. Dittos his scrapping the ABM "accords."
The "treaty" at issue, lest we forget, was signed with wild enthusiasm by (none-other-than) Bill Clinton, Bush's predecessor -- a Democrat, last I checked. A 'president' Gore, corrupt and globalist in his outlook as X42, wouldn't dare overrule him, as this President has decided to do.
To Bush, the I.C.C. is an abomination, a mockery of justice, an affront to U.S. sovereignty, to our constitution. It would open the floodgates for politically-driven prosecutions and harassment of Americans.
To every two-bit I.C.C. windbag "prosecutor" with a grudge, this 'court' is, in every respect, a wet dream come true. No American would be safe from these parasites, nor from the clutches of this Kangaroo "court".
At a more fundamental level, Bush sees the I.C.C. as a brazen assault on our core values -- our bedrock conception of basic jurisprudence, specifically. The I.C.C. charter imbues this world tribunal with unfettered supremacy, functioning as Criminal, Appellate and Supreme Court, all rolled up into one. Checks and balances? Due-process? Fuggedaboutit. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see how this Draconian 'court', unchecked and uncorked, becomes the spawning ground for arbitrary, crotchety decisions and egregious abuse. Justice and the U.N.: To Bush, that's an oxymoron.
But Washington's decision to reject I.C.C. is more than just fancy footwork, or demarche: The United States will actively seek to undercut I.C.C. by simultaneously repudiating the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. The Bush administration asserts the U.S. will not be restricted by the 1969 pact, which obligates all nations to comply with international treaties, despite being a signatory. Article 18 forbids signatories from 'undercutting' treaties they sign, whether or not they are ratified.
This President is a trailblazer: Palitha Kohona, U.N. treaty section chief, denounced the move to dump I.C.C. as unprecedented. Never before has a signatory nation unilaterally removed its signature, he griped.
These actions, I submit, are not the deeds of a coward: It takes spine, it takes grit, it takes fearless courage to go in-your-face against this mother-of-all-sacred cows, unilaterally, with no friends, nor allies. Bush knows the media will savage him for this: The attacks will be vicious, cruel, unrelenting. But in George W. Bush, you don't have your typical, 'stick-a-moist-finger-in-the-wind' politician. He doesn't need polls, he doesn't need focus groups to tell him what to do, what to say, what to think. He's a patriot who puts America First -- to heck with the media, the U.N., the E.U., the Democrats.
Nor is this the portrait of a timid, spineless, pusillanimous milksop, as some of Bush's conservative critics depict him. ('Bush will cave', they wrongly predicted.) Even President Reagan never went this far: Rather than zapping Carter's signature to Protocol 1, an amendment to the Geneva Conventions broadening 'protections' to members of guerilla movements, instead the Reagan administration opted in 1987 to not seek formal ratification.
Make no mistake: With this action, the I.C.C. treaty becomes a corpse, a veritable dead-letter. But....but...but, haven't all European Union countries signed and -- with only one temporary exception -- ratified I.C.C.? Haven't many nations throughout Asia, Africa and the Mideast also signed and ratified? (For the record, a total of sixty-six countries have signed and/or ratified I.C.C., six more than needed to activate the treaty, set to go into effect on July 1, 2002.)
Yes, and so what?
Memo to Globalists: Put this in your pipe and smoke it: America is, and shall remain, the world's sole superpower. No other nation even comes close. America is, and shall remain, a sovereign, self-governing free republic. No despotic global tribunal shall have jurisdiction over citizens of this free republic.
Moreover, terrorists who commit crimes against the United States, will be tried by the United States, not by the U.N., the I.C.C. nor Kofi Annan. A 'global treaty' without us isn't worth the paper it's written on.
Any questions?
In this clash between globalism and sovereignty, between the U.S. and the U.N., the U.S. will win out, mark my words.
Two more points:
1) Bush's 'unsigning' of the I.C.C. treaty constitutes the sharpest reprimand of Mr. Clinton to date. This action is a humiliating defeat for X42, who signed the treaty as one of his last acts of defiance (December, 2000).
2) In adamantly endorsing this treaty, the American left stands revealed for the liars and hypocrites they are. Liberals, who feign 'concern' over 'due-process' and courtroom fairness, who wail and moan over military tribunals for al-Qaeda terrorists, are all a ga-ga for the I.C.C., where checks-and-balances are non-existent and prosecutors are answerable to no one. In effect, lefties care more for the 'rights' of Osama Bin Laden than they do for fellow citizens.
Surprise, surprise.
Thank God Al Gore is not President.
Anyway, that's....
My two cents
"JohnHuang2"
Well done, President Bush ; keep right on fighting against this garbage !
Moreover, terrorists who commit crimes against the United States, will be tried by the United States, not by the U.N., the I.C.C. nor Kofi Annan. A 'global treaty' without us isn't worth the paper it's written on.
Any questions?
Right on, my friend!
hehehe....I'm trying to fight inflation, to keep the Fed at bay =^)
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