U.S. Bans Military Aid to Almost 50 Countries

[HershOstropoler]

"Its a pity I cant have you here in front of me."

That's so rugged.

"The ICC is an international org. It has no territory. Therefore, 'extraterritorial' is a meaningless term."

Not at all, as the powers of the ICC are delegated by the ratifying states. Read a little on international organisations.

"We have declared our signing of the Statute of Rome nullified. I cant speak for the US government, but I think it's likely that they wont accept prosecution of American citizens by the court."

If an American citizens murders someone in Vienna, you won't accept austrian jurisdiction either? Interesting.

[yavoon]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

but we need to act asin our interests.

asin? what do arcsines have to do with anything?

we'd like to bring ppl along cuz I personally feel that our interests are shared with lotsa other ppl.

while that may be the case, you don't generally bring other people along by tactlessly telling them they're wrong, ignoring any warnings they may have, treating them like stupid little children and acting like one ourselves. that dig about "old europe", while probably quite true, didn't need to be said.
it also helps when you at least act like you're following forms and norms that you helped set up, even if you blatantly disregard them privately, which is what we did before bush came along--and anti-americanism, while still around, was never as vitriolic. this current anti-americanism is less a function of latent anti-americanism, and more a function of anti-bushism.
when you get down to it, people like america, at least what they get out of it. they just don't like it being rammed down their throats with condescension.

but I dare say the more ppl u bring on and give ear to the slower everything goes. especially if france was in. I think it might be presumptiuous to assume someone of amazing tact or asskissing would have won over the UNSC.

i didn't say we should have made them actually participate. political support is different from military assistance.
amazing tact probably would have won us over the un. france, germany, and russia all apparently didn't like iraq, and wanted it to disarm--they merely thought that giving iraq a little more time to come clean would help.
bush here didn't give a damn, since he wanted to go into iraq come hell or highwater, and was itching to go.
as for the asskissing bit... what do you think most of those "countries of the willing" were doing to the states? many of them were told to either support it or lose aid...

europe has been very apprehensive about doing things. its often the americans that go in unilaterally.

an understandable consequence of having america pay for its defence for forty-five years.

why do u write three paragraphs objecting to bush's tact. kinda had to made me read a lot of the same point=[. becomes inane.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler

Not at all, as the powers of the ICC are delegated by the ratifying states. Read a little on international organisations.

You could try reading what I wrote

"We have declared our signing of the Statute of Rome nullified. I cant speak for the US government, but I think it's likely that they wont accept prosecution of American citizens by the court."

If an American citizens murders someone in Vienna, you won't accept austrian jurisdiction either? Interesting.

I would think as someone who teaches law you would understand the difference. We dont accept the juridiction of the ICC as it now stands.

As for it's having 'extraterritorial effect' (by which I assume you mean having an effect outside of the Rome statute signatories territory), its not hard to forsee bogus cases that will be brought against US officials. Since we have nullified our signature, any action taken against a US citizen would be 'extraterritorial'.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Actually, I imagine that the defense contractors will be calling Bush right about now, since all that military aid is usually spent buying American weapons.

I have more faith in them than that. I imagine that they have been calling him for days before now.

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by SpencerH

I would think as someone who teaches law you would understand the difference. We dont accept the juridiction of the ICC as it now stands.

As for it's having 'extraterritorial effect' (by which I assume you mean having an effect outside of the Rome statute signatories territory), its not hard to forsee bogus cases that will be brought against US officials. Since we have nullified our signature, any action taken against a US citizen would be 'extraterritorial'.

Ad 1. Your acceptance is totally irrelevant for the jurisdiction of the Court, unless it would claim a jurisdiction that is not based on that of a signatory. There is no rule in international law that counry A has a veto on whether country B and C exercise sovereign powers through state authorities, or through international authorities they establish between them.

Ad 2. Cases can only be brought if the crime has been committed on the territory of a signatory (the two other options are no problem for the US). If say Georgia has ratified the ICC statute, and US troops commit a massacre in Georgia that falls under the crimes for which the ICC is competent, trying them is in no way extraterritorial - it is based on Georgian sovereign rights. Actually, the ICC jurisdiction does not even exhaust those aspects of universal jurisdiction that would be extraterritorial.

The whole Washington fuzz about this is not about facts or concerns, it's about idelogical hysteria. And your inept attempts to construe effects that aren't there doesn't change that.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by SpencerH
How strange! The US government is opposed to having a kangaroo eurocom court decide criminal matters pertaining to US citizens.

Get a grip.

(a) To their conduct outside the United States, where

(b) The US courts have already ruled repeatedly that US government personnel (civilian or military) are not restrained by obligations imposed by the US Constitution, but

(c) foreign nationals (or US citizens) captured doing whatever by the happily unrestrained personnel described in (b) above, are also entitled to none of the protections of the US Constitution, AND

(d) Such tribunals (if any) formed of US military personnel to try (if ever) such foreign nationals or US citizens need not bother with any such provisions of the UCMJ and MCM as they feel inconvenient, as the rules for such tribunals may be made up ad hoc by the executive branch of the US government.

The US is once again trying to swing it's **** and cut a bigger swath than the rest of the world, while simultaneously getting bent that the rest of the world might actually impose some sort of international system for trying these types of offenses.

Get a sense of perspective and consistency.

[Saras]

I still think it's the lobby of the embarrassed SOCOM that caused this after being kicked around bad by their New Europe **cough** lithuanian **cough** colleagues

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

The US is once again trying to swing it's **** and cut a bigger swath than the rest of the world, while simultaneously getting bent that the rest of the world might actually impose some sort of international system for trying these types of offenses.

Hmm... the ICC will barely cover that aspect. Maybe we should try something along the lines of clawback regulations...

[MichaeltheGreat]

SOCOM probably has more personnel than the entire Lithuanian armed forces.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler


Hmm... the ICC will barely cover that aspect. Maybe we should try something along the lines of clawback regulations...

[HershOstropoler]

On the ICC, an interesting letter to the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/03/opinion/L03COUR.html

Re "U.S. Suspends Aid to 35 Countries Over New International Court" (news article, July 2):

The administration has taken every conceivable step to undermine the International Criminal Court. Insisting upon immunity for all Americans repudiates the principle of equal respect for the rule of law that we espoused at Nuremberg.

The contention that "there could be politically motivated charges against American citizens" is specious. The tribunal would reject unfounded charges.

Every country has priority to try its own nationals.

Independent judges are supervised by 90 countries, including America's staunchest allies.

The court's jurisdiction is restricted to offenses of concern to the international community as a whole, like genocide and crimes against humanity. The rules guarantee fair trials.

No other country has expressed similar concerns. What is this administration afraid of?
BENJAMIN B. FERENCZ
New Rochelle, N.Y., July 2, 2003
The writer was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials.

That damn eurocom....

[Saras]

That's a lot of embarrassed [ted striker]bad azzes[/ted striker]

[MichaeltheGreat]

We didn't want to hurt your feelings, so we sent our clerks instead of our real operations.

[Saras]

You didn't send anyone. Our boys went to US (one of the training grounds, swampy broadleaf forest type) and mauled your boys in ambushes, and kicked azz and took names in deep infiltrations

[HershOstropoler]

"We didn't want to hurt your feelings, so we sent our clerks instead of our real operations."

So you didn't send your elite bureaucrats to Redtape 2002 in Austria?