OPINION:
John Bolton has reprised his role as attack dog against out of control anti-American international organizations. This time, his target is the International Criminal Court (ICC), a U.N. organization created by the Rome Treaty, which the United States has refused to ratify and that four American presidents have wisely declined to support or acknowledge as legitimate.
The latest Bolton eruption occurred in a speech before the Federalist Society after the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda of Gambia announced that she would investigate alleged American military and CIA personnel for war crimes committed in Afghanistan. Mrs. Bensouda’s action is so wrong on so many levels that it would take more space than a 750- word op-ed to discuss them all, so we’ll examine the most egregious.
First, Mrs. Bensouda is a Gambian. When she was appointed to her current position on the court in 2012, Gambia had one of the worst human rights records in Africa and she was a high-ranking jurist in that system when appointed to the ICC. The former Gambian president threatened in 2017 to slit the throats of LGBT Gambians. Mrs. Bensouda’s appointment was slightly akin to giving the French Army a participation trophy in 1940 for its efforts in World War II or the 2009 award of the Nobel Prize to Barack Obama for “potential.” The current Gambian president is reportedly trying to clean things up. Perhaps one of his actions should be to review Mrs. Bensouda’s participation in the last regime.
Second is the amazing list of actual war criminals not on Mrs. Bensouda’s hit list. These include Ayman al-Zawahiri of al Qaeda, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of ISIS and the senior members of the Taliban’s Haqqani network which, has proudly celebrated its responsibility for some of the most horrendous war crimes committed during the Afghan war.
Not only has the ICC failed in its primary mission of prosecuting real war criminals from areas where rule of law no longer exists; it has actually allowed a non-state actor — the Palestinian Authority — to bring charges against Israel, which has one of the most transparent and effective legal systems in the world.
On paper, the ICC was a good idea. By the time it began operating in 2002, there were war crimes being committed in a number of failing or failed states without working judiciaries with no mechanism to try the perpetrators when they were apprehended. It was not originally designed to be used against functioning democracies with working and transparent judiciaries. But almost immediately, the founding fathers — and mothers — of the court began to claim powers beyond the original intent to a point where the U.S. Senate not only refused to ratify the Rome Treaty creating the ICC, it authorized the president to take all means necessary to protect American citizens from ICC apprehension or prosecution — this includes the use of military force.
Consequently, Mr. Bolton was not bluffing when he bluntly threatened to take harsh action against the ICC. This includes the possibility of denying ICC members entry into the country and possible prosecution under U.S. laws if they attempt to apprehend U.S. citizens. This could also potentially mean the use of Special Forces to rescue any Americans illegally apprehended by agents working for the ICC.
For decades Mr. Bolton has railed against the excesses of the Third World deadbeats who have infested the U.N. feeding from a trough regularly refilled by cash donations from the United States and other First World nations. Many of these parasites make a career of bashing America and Israel while applauding the antics of reprobates such as Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega.
The United States has held military members accountable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice when they have been found by impartial investigations to have violated the Law of Land Warfare. Similarly, armed contractors have been successfully prosecuted for criminal activities in overseas combat zones.
John Bolton is to be congratulated for upholding American sovereignty and putting out-of-control international organizations that overreach when they go beyond their intended charters or attempt to impose their will on nations that don’t recognize their authority. President Trump has made it clear that the U.N., NATO, the EU and other globalist entities are not going to dictate to the United States. I am reminded of the pledge master in the movie “Animal House” when he declares; “they can’t do that to our pledges, only we can do that to our pledges.”
• Gary Anderson lectures in Alternative Analysis at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.
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