R I P UN!
Posted on 07/18/2002 10:07:27 PM PDT by kattracks
WASHINGTON – A House-Senate conference committee Thursday rejected the intrusive International Criminal Court.Though the Associated Press described the court provision in the major anti-terrorism package as "watered down” from what conservatives wanted, the fact is that the left-wing globalists see the final ICC action by the lawmakers as a defeat. Those who want to maintain U.S. sovereignty and protect Americans from being hauled before far-off court on trumped-up charges are happy.
"We didn’t get all we wanted, but we won and they lost,” Freedom Alliance analyst Fred Gedrich told NewsMax.com.
House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, cited the strong protections for Americans in uniform contained within the legislation.
'Authority Without Accountability'
"One of the fundamental motivations driving America’s Founding Fathers,” said the House leader, "was the recognition that authority without accountability was dangerous.”
The ICC is accountable to no one. One of the reasons the U.S. declined to ratify the treaty creating the tribunal was that this country’s efforts to make it accountable were repeatedly rebuffed.
Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, a conservative stalwart, emerged from the committee deliberations convinced that even though he preferred the "stronger language” in the original proposal, "he was satisfied with what we did get,” the senator’s spokesman Will Hart told NewsMax.
The "loss” that concerned conservatives when it was inserted was the paragraph saying, "Nothing in this title shall prohibit the United States from rendering assistance to international efforts to bring justice to Saddam Hussein, Slobadan Milosovic, Osama bin Laden, or other members of the Al Qaeda, leaders of Islamic Jihad, and other foreign nationals accused of genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity.”
As NewsMax has reported, some supporters of the American Servicemembers Protection Act (ASPA) saw this amendment as a means of nudging the United States into accepting the ICC’s authority through the back door. The fear was that this suggtested U.S. cooperation with the court against terrorists and that would set a precedent for accepting the ICC’s moves against the U.S. or its allies, as well.
"We were afraid of exactly that,” a high-ranking House staffer told NewsMax. "But when you look at that, it does not specifically say ‘cooperate with the court.’ There are all kinds of ways the U.S. can cooperate to go after the rogues of the world without doing it through the international court.”
Look What Dodd, Leahy and Daschle Did
The paragraph was inserted at the insistence of Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., most likely as a means of making the Senate ASPA different from the House version. When there is a difference between the two congressional bodies, the measure is subject to negotiation in secret by the conference committee. And that is where Dodd, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Senate plurality leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., worked behind the scenes to eliminate the anti-ICC provision from the overall anti-terror bill, according to NewsMax sources.
A press release by DeLay flatly stated that "Democrats fought hard to remove the protections from the bill.”
Mark Epstein, CEO of the globalist-minded World Federalists Association (WFA) does in fact see the Dodd amendment as a "silver lining” for the one-world view his organization promotes.
"Of course, we’re dissatisfied with it,” he told NewsMax, "because [it means the U.S. will not be] looking at the opportunity to look at the International Criminal Court, which [U.N. Secretary-General] Kofi Annan has called the greatest advancement on the international scene since the creation of the United Nations ….”
U.N. Comes First
Confirmation that the U.N. sees the ICC as an invasion into the sovereignty of its members came in a statement Annan made just this week urging all nations to ratify the Rome (ICC) Statute and "modify their constitutions and procedural laws to ensure compatibility with the Rome Statute.”
"In other words,” said Gedrich, "give up their sovereignty and constitutional rights so the globalists have their international star chamber.”
An unhappy Epstein of the World Federalists lamented that "we see what the conference committee did today, and what the Bush administration supported, is just again turning its back on our best allies in Europe who support the criminal court.”
He acknowledged that Congress cannot kill ASPA on the floor of the House or Senate without killing the whole anti-terror bill. Noting the Dodd amendment means "the glass is not completely empty,” he nonetheless added, "Hopefully we have reached the bottom there ....
"The extreme isolationists have won,” for now, Epstein said. But he vowed his supporters would "assess our opportunities” and "continue to educate the Congress.”
"This elitist, unaccountable world court [would have been] a blatant attack on American sovereignty,” said a jubilant Congressman DeLay. "Passage of the American Servicemembers Protection Act proves the U.S. utterly rejects any claim that the ICC has jurisdiction over Americans."
So backers of U.S. sovereignty and American troops in time of war were popping the celebratory corks around Washington Thursday night. But as the globalist-backed "silver lining” in the Dodd amendment shows, the advocates of world government are not giving up. They will be back. This battle will be fought again.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
Clinton Scandals
DNC
United Nations
What a moronic statement! No, we lost. If we'd won there would have been NO discussion and NO bargaining! Bush lent credibility just by responding other than in the negative.
R I P UN!
Considering the fact that not even the UN Security Council appears to account over the ICC (When the SC passed the resolution exempting US personnel for one year, many countries (Europe) said the UNSC couldn't interpret the treaty), how can we expect it to be accountable to anyone? This court is not answerable to anyone, not even the organization that created it! This "institution" is a veritable Frankenstein's Monster. It makes it's decisions completely on its own, requiring no consultation. ANY institution with such characteristics, no matter how good-intentioned, is dangerous.
2. the court was designed to go after real criminals, not be used as a political tool. does that mean that it won't be used as a political tool? no, it probably will. However, the original & intended purpose of the ICC is and was to prosecute real criminals like Mugabe or Suharto.
Here you admit yourself that it would probably be used for political purposes. In fact, the PA is now demanding that Sharon and other Israeli officials be brought before the court for the recent Gaza airstrike. Can you imagine a scenario a few years from now when leftist NGOs (which have a huge influence in the UN) will demand that the court prosecute Bush and US military personnel for the forced removal of the Taliban or Saddam Hussein? Based on what I've seen from the UN and these NGOs, the answer is obvious. And we all know how the UN feels toward Israel...
3. As far as they myth that americans are only tried in american courts, people should look up words like 'extradition treaties' or 'national jurisdiction'. Ask the americans in prison in Japan, Mexico or Afghanistan about 'americans can only be tried in american courts'.
How does this relate to the ICC? Extradition treaties are perfectly legal. If an American citizen commits a crime in a foreign country, that country's legitimate government has full right to prosecute him/her. For example, we extradited a US serviceman on Okinawa for rape charges to Japanese authorities, who swiftly prosecuted him. Today, he shares a jail cell with an Iranian drug dealer and a Taiwanese Mafia boss. The reason extradition treaties are perfectly legal is they are made only between two different countries and respect the rights of both. Countries have a right to refuse extradition requests and to try its citizens for crimes in foreign countries in their own courts. The ICC would be a single worldwide entity that could step in whenever it wanted, "extradite" whoever it wanted, and "try" them however it wanted.
4. The ASPA (also known as the "hague invasion act") officially gives america the right to declare war on its political allies such as the E.U. and netherlands.
First of all, this amendment was removed from the original version. Seconldly, it doesn't explicitly say "declare war". It says it would permit the US to use "force" to free a citizen held by the ICC if it refused to return the citizen to the US. Secondly, I agree it was a bit extreme, but there are extreme circumstances where it could be used (come on, should we passively resist when an institution not under our control claims jurisdiction over all of us? If we had this mentality under British rule, the American Revolution would've never happened). And if we did remove them by "force", I doubt it would consist of full-scale war. Why do we think we have Navy SEALS, or Green Berets, or Special Forces? They'd get the job done, possibly without shedding any blood. Thirdly, I heard that citizens in the Netherlands were genuinely afriad the US would invade if the ICC captured one of our citizens! Goes to show how powerful we are...
Anyway, as you have seen, every one of your arguments completely collapses. We will not allow the ICC, or any other surpranational organization, to claim jurisdiction over any one of our 280 million citizens.
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