Of course, it will not easily be executed but in law, the indictment stands
I absolutely condemned the murder of Iranian IRGC General Soleimani by a US drone strike on 3 January 2020. My reasons are in every book’s author’s note. Nothing has changed. It was a counterterrorism fiasco and cannot be legally defended in any way. Don’t even try, I probably know more about international law than you do since I qualified as an attorney 22 years ago. See this blog where the legalities are explained: https://www.georgemjames.com/blog/no-imminent-threat-then-also-no-justification-to-kill-general-soleimani. It was a major incident that clearly showed the befuddled thinking in Washington and why the War on Terror is lost. But at the same time, so are your freedoms and that might not be by chance (see Code Name Rebecca 65 and Code Name Masemole 26 where I explain the Hegelian Dialectic and much more). Oh, and I got kicked off Facebook (thank God and good riddance to them) as did millions of others for not parroting the official lie.
Now, months later, Iran issued arrest warrants for all those involved in the Soleimani drone strike. They even asked INTERPOL to assist them (which will never happen). Almost certainly they will approach the ICC (International Criminal Court) too. An organization that I wrote about in several blogs and books and one hated by Washington DC because it is investigating US war crimes (of which there are a great many, see VOICES – War Crimes USA). See also https://www.georgemjames.com/post/why-so-scared-pompeo.
The question is, where does the ICC come from, and do we have any similar events in the past. In other words, can a US President, or any head of state, be arrested when in another country? In Code Name Dawn I looked at the ICC and explained it is on the Rome Statute, a multilateral treaty, that the ICC is based. Something like 124 countries signed it which is not the same thing as officially ratifying it and thus binding itself to it. The ICC is based in Den Haag, Netherlands, to prosecute “individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.” Now you should remind yourself what Winston Churchill said about the above vengeful acts, let me repeat: “The moral principles of modern civilization seem to prescribe that the leaders of a nation defeated in war shall be put to death by the victors. This certainly stir them to fight to the bitter end in a future war, and no matter how many lives are needlessly sacrificed, it costs them no more. It is the masses of the people who have so little say about the starting or ending of wars who pay the additional cost. Julius Caesar followed the opposite principle, and his conquests were due almost as much to his clemency as to his prowess.”
I think that we may say that this was a lesson in history forgotten by the liberals when they created the ICC. On the other hand, dictators and warlords should feel the heat. The war crimes they commit are very real and very brutal but the ICC went overboard and ruined themselves before they even started. They proclaimed literally hundreds of different crimes classified under their jurisdiction, anything from rape to enforced prostitution. As an example of their silliness, under the general heading of “Crimes against humanity,” they have 16 individual crimes. Under “Genocide” – a total of 74 war crimes. Under other headings, 56 crimes including things like “treacherously killing or wounding, denying quarter, pillaging, employing poison, using expanding bullets, and conscripting or using child soldiers.”
The problem is that the crime definitions are so wide that they attempted to replace the Geneva Conventions on War and be a one-stop-shop. Clearly, the liberals drafting them went all the way, making a wonderfully complex document and charging vast fees for their work, no doubt, but something that cannot be implemented because it is vague and embarrassingly so. Support for the ICC’s functions never really took off and the major powers, as they did in history with the failed League of Nations after the First World War, never ratified the Rome Statute. This left smaller and less powerful countries to be abused (their view) and to be targeted.
Most certainly, any US President from Billy Goat Clinton onwards, including George W Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald J Trump can be arrested and prosecuted for what US Forces did in Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and especially Syria where they are illegal under international law. All of the above technically committed war crimes under the very wide definitions of the ICC, the problematic part of the ICC that we pointed out above. The myriad of charges will stick, have no doubt, those former White House occupants will be in jail until they die if this should occur. However, that will never happen, end of story. We know that some pigs are more equal than others and thus the ICC went after mainly African based criminals, those that are minor powers. That led to howls of indignation and not totally unjust allegations of “bias” as well as that “the ICC being a tool of Western imperialism.” This may sound stupid to you but there is some truth in the annoyance. The playfield is most certainly not level.
In 2015, all would come to a head in South Africa, the local Superpower, and the liberal wet dream in sub-Saharan Africa. The new lot had a massive party lined up (an official State Conference to you) and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir arrived for a State visit. He had an outstanding warrant of arrest against him, issued by the ICC, and theoretically should have been arrested despite international law generally forbidding the arrest of a sitting Head of State. A South African High Court, still independent-minded, ordered the police to arrest him for formal handing over to the ICC and thereby creating a diplomatic crisis of note. But he escaped. The ruling ANC party allowed him to get post-haste into his jet and piss off back to where he came from. I doubt if he will ever take the chance of arriving in South Africa again. Subsequently, he was overthrown and on 14 December 2019 convicted for money laundering and corruption. He was sentenced to two years of imprisonment which is the least of his worries. He will also be handed to the ICC for war crimes. Nevertheless, his 2015 lucky escape caused shockwaves in the legal community as well as the diplomatic one even though few enough international media outlets mentioned the incident. No one expected a court to be ignored. It simply never happened in South Africa before but the signs were there.
In 2014, three years before, a South African based Human Rights Organisation approached the Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, South Africa, to force the South African Police Services (the new police since 1994, Geelslang and I never served in it, thank God) to investigate and arrest Zimbabwean hit squads and CIO officers (the Zimbabwean spies) operating unlawfully in South Africa. It remains a disgrace. The only practical way they can operate like that is with the South African government holding “positive neutrality” against them, or in other words, protecting them. The shenanigans certainly did not escape Angelique’s former people, the South African Secret Service’s, attention. They watch them all the time, waiting for the orders to strike but the orders never came.
There were many such incidents including the handing over or attempted handing over of all former South African Air Force Alouette helicopters with tons of spare parts against a UN arms embargo to Zimbabwe. The courts had to stop that also.
After the al-Bashir incident, South Africa announced its intention to leave the ICC and thus be able to party with dictators and criminals in peace. This too would be overturned by the High Court on 2 February 2017, stating that the South African Government's notice to withdraw from the ICC was unconstitutional and therefore invalid. The matter will not end there as they are enthusiastic to leave even though not one South African leader is wanted for war crimes. This is a matter of principle to them, not guilt. The African Heads of State feel that double standards are applied because they are black, Africans, and therefore they are singled out to be abused. A mass exodus is expected which means that no ICC warrant of arrest will be honored. Gambia, Kenya, and Namibia are also making noises to withdraw and Burundi already did so in disgust.
You will note, I am sure, that none of the above concerns is about the merits of the warrants of arrest. This is all about attitude and covering up. The question of whether the accused is guilty or not, never entered the fray or thought - it is the impression and perception that the black man is mistreated whilst the powerful white leaders are not, that is causing the problems. The logical result of all this is assassination. If the criminal cannot then be brought to justice via the courts, lynch justice will take place automatically.
Technically, how do you arrest a president? Well, you will need to get past his bodyguards first by killing them. As you may imagine, it will start a war or might. Therefore Mr Trump and the rest can and will walk around without much fear of being treated as equals to the law since they are not. But, the problem here is this, what does the above do to America’s image (fake as it is) as the “indispensable country” that is so “exceptional” that the mantle/burden of “leader of the West” is claimed by every American? What does this do?
I have a feeling that Iranians outplayed the US once again on the diplomatic scene. It was a great move that cannot be laughed away. It places the US President in the same category as Pinochet and Noriega.
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