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Business
as usual drives international relations So apparently a coup came to naught and George W. wants to “unsign” a document, which even my spell checker can’t fathom. These two events are connected and you shall soon see how. The International Criminal Court has been a plan for a few years now since Bill Clinton signed the United States into it during the days before he left office. George W. now wants to unsign the document fearing that American military personnel could face political charges ranging from our numerous military activities abroad. My initial response was, “Good, at least we’ll know who the criminals are now.” You know, if we had this thing a year ago we could have prevented the slaughter of thousands of innocent Afghans as collateral damage to our bombing campaign to catch Osama bin Laden. The point of having a court is to file charges against other people. Inevitably, some of them are politicized, but that is why we value a thing called justice. Do any of you really believe the accusations made by our government aren’t politicized? In a justice system, all defendants can defend themselves and charges must be proven in the light of day. So here is the $64,000 question: Can American soldiers and their officers commit war crimes? Our government doesn’t even want the question to be asked, but when military operations have names like “Infinite Justice” and “Enduring Freedom,” one can assume the power has gone to their heads. “Infinite Justice” happens to be the sole province of Allah to all Muslims and invoking our retribution as divinely ordained denotes lunacy. Surely we can stop killing for or as God in the 21st century. Our government fears politicized charges against their soldiers, but is willing to put Taliban fighters through a military tribunal. These military tribunals will accept secret evidence, not even allowing defendants to see the evidence against them, and allow convictions without unanimity of agreement and not allow any other routes of appeal. If this is what our government holds to be a fair standard of trial, why do we expect any more fairness at the International Criminal Court? To further weave the web, what does this court have to do with Venezuela? This part does require a memory from a few decades ago, and the particular policies of the former Bush and Reagan administrations. It just so happened that Reagan and Bush were convinced of the need to prevent nationalistic regimes in Central and South America to insure the allocation of these countries’ resources would continue to supply the American economy. Thus, we have backed regimes in the rest of the Americas who supported our view of capitalism, rather then supporting democratic institutions and groups, which would provide a better standard of living for those people living in the country. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, however, charted his own course politically and has in the last few years required oil companies to pay greater royalties to provide for the poor of Venezuela, whom compose 70 percent of the country’s population. He also happens to sit at the head of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) this year and has refused to increase production to offset Iraq’s embargo, while still providing oil to Cuba at discount prices. While Bush denies supporting the coup, leaders visited the American Embassy before the overthrow, and the Bush administration was quick to accept the end of Venezuelan democracy, instead supporting a military coup which promised better business relations. Of course, if we had an International Criminal Court operating during the 1980s, serving as a meaningful venue for the prosecution of those committing and sponsoring international crimes, then we wouldn’t have the likes of Richard Armitage, John Negroponte and Eliot Abrams in our government today. They’d be behind bars. In fact, they might have prosecuted George H.W. Bush and Pat Robertson as well, for their roles in sponsoring one of the most recently atrocious legion of killers, the Contra Rebels. So as it seems, the main reason the Bush administration fights the creation of the International Criminal Court is to ensure that business runs as usual. Chris
Dobson is a senior history major from Arlington. |
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