One of the most shameful moments of Bill Clinton's presidency was during the Rwandan genocide, when the US, recently cowed by the experience of Somalia, insisted that while "acts of genocide" were going on in Rwanda, "genocide" that would compel the US to act (because of treaty obligations) was not occurring. The US was of course not alone in this affair (France too has it's own shame - explicitly backing the genocidaires) but the lack of US leadership - or even assistance to the African countries who did want to intervene - was extremely damaging to any hope of stopping the calamity that followed.
Fast forward to 2001, where George W. Bush, newly-selected President of the United States, reads the UN's mea culpa report on the Rwandan genocide. Bush, disgusted by what he saw as the lack of moral clarity of the Clinton years, writes on the report, in big red marker, "not on my watch".
Fast forward to today, where Republican antipathy to the ICC is aiding and abetting the genocide in Sudan.
Wow. I didn't think I could have even less respect for Bush and his party, but here we are.
By the way, what exactly is the US's argument against the ICC? At US insistence, the treaty was nearly lobotomized to make it palatable to the Pentagon, and it still wasn't enough. If the US wants to avoid its troops being punished for war crimes, there's really a simple solution:
STOP COMMITTING WAR CRIMES, YOU ASSHOLES.
Of course, fog of war, yadda yadda. Some pretty awful things happen in war. So lets assume that, even if you had competent military and political leadership (something that went out of style with the Eisenhower administration, I think) that some "war-crime related military activities" were bound to occur. Even so, all the US would have to do to avoid international prosecution is punish the criminals themselves. This is written in to the ICC. Clean up your own mess = we don't bother you. So what is the US argument, except a kind of "Fuck you, you're not my real mom!" immaturity about international law?
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