June 9, 2003
On June 16, Argentine lawyer, Luis Moreno Ocampo, will be sworn in as the first prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. There should be plenty of grist for his mill.
Assuming the Hussein family is still alive, surely Ocampo will want to target Saddam, who is responsible for lining up thousands of Kuwaiti citizens and executing them in mass graves. Eyewitnesses, and truckloads of recently unearthed forensic evidence, stand ready to testify. The Hussein sons, whose "crimes against humanity" are legendary among the survivors, are also eager to tell their stories. Surely, these people will top Ocampo's list of targets.
But no. The first target is most likely to be Tony Blair.
The Athens Bar Association has announced that it will file a complaint against Tony Blair for his part in the war in Iraq, which, according to the Greek lawyers, violated the United Nations Charter, the Geneva Conventions, The Hague Convention, and the International Criminal Court's statute. George Bush is not named in the complaint because, say the attorneys, the U.S. is not a signatory to the ICC statute.
The ICC statute specifically claims jurisdiction over states that are not parties to the statute, so the real reason that Bush has been omitted from the complaint is likely motivated by other factors. (Why am I seeing images of Clint Eastwood saying, "Go ahead, make my day?")
The ICC, and the United Nations for that matter, are little more than institutions through which those who hate us can amplify anti-American sentiment. It is unconscionable to ignore the heinous crimes of the Hussein family and target Bush stand-in, Tony Blair, for prosecution.
Since Bush and Blair made their fateful decision to forget the U.N., and do what had to be done in Iraq, other world leaders have been scurrying around to find their proper place in the hierarchy of international influence. France, Russia, and Germany have made the appropriate noises to appease their constituents, while at the same time, making gestures toward Washington to avoid total isolation.
President Bush has been dancing with the devil as he tries to pursue his vision of a free world, while avoiding further rejection of long-time allies. It is a precarious dance. Other nations should be involved in rebuilding Iraq. Other nations must be involved in, and committed to, ending terrorism. The question to which President Bush has not yet found an answer is whether or not the United Nations, and its affiliated agencies and organizations--such as the International Criminal Court--are a help or a hindrance.
It should be pretty clear by now that nothing about the U.N. supports George Bush's vision of a free world. Just the opposite is true; the U.N. is working diligently to wrest away from the U.S. its power and ability to influence the world, so the U.N. can implement its vision of global governance.
Political reality, however, keeps the president at the dance. Bush-bashing Democrats, who still refer to the decision of the 66-nation Iraq coalition as a "unilateral" action by the U.S., are eager to brand Bush as an isolationist cowboy. International socialists, who despise the export of capitalism, are eager to find any excuse to demean, and destroy the president.
The devil's dance may be a political necessity, but it only delays the inevitable. At some point in time, the United States must accept its role in the world as the beacon of freedom and realize that, if it is to continue to shine, it must also illuminate the path to freedom for other nations as well. The U.N.'s goal is to limit freedom through the constraints it imposes upon the people of the world, in what it calls global governance.
We need not invade every nation that disagrees with us, but we can no longer sit idly by and watch the Islamic fanatics continue to teach generation after generation that their highest calling in life is to blow themselves up while murdering an American.
To win the war on terror, and the respect of the world, we need to find ways to share the freedom we have enjoyed. People who are free to learn, and free to earn their own way, in this world make sorry recruits for militant dictators.
Freedom and tyranny cannot long coexist; one will consume the other. Freedom will ultimately consume tyranny, not with bombs and bullets, but with better ideas and better opportunities for all people to realize their individual potential. This is America's challenge for the 21st century, and dancing with the devil cannot advance it.