There are fewer things that annoy me more in the world of international politics than politicized tools being created with the excuse of the ideas of justice, fairness, equality, or any of the usual token good things politicians like to babble on about. The International Criminal Court is one of them, and as the Americans themselves have said it is something that is being used the wrong way more often than not and with basically the wrong premise.
Why on earth should other people in another country deserve the right to decide my own fate when I'm not there, or probably have never been there nor met these said judges? To me the whole thing kind of smells bad. And should have been disbanded already.
But then, there's the other side of the coin. Do we all remember the nutjob who somehow gained enough power in Sudan to oust the Prime Minister and become President, one Omar Hassan al-Bashir? To remind everyone, he was the same guy who was recently responsible for millions of people being displaced from their homes and towns, and worse thousands upon even more deaths. The same guy who has more blood on his hands than most people alive today, if not a record setter for Sudan itself these days. Now we combine these two things and we have the International Criminal Court - the ICC's Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, not surprisingly alleged that al-Bashir bore individual criminal responsibility for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed since 2003 in Darfur. And seeing the deeds of his orders and his regime the arrest warrant subsequently issued indicting him on five counts of crimes against humanity - being the usual murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape - and two other counts of war crimes -pillaging and intentionally directing attacks against civilians - it is no surprise. The man is likely - okay, guilty of these things. He's a brutal ruler who deserves whatever kind of punishment is issued to him. He's a bad guy for sure. But the ICC? ... really?
Sure, I don't agree with this arm of international justice, but then I am conflicted about what to do if the man is free to live and reign in Sudan as if he has no troubles quite possibly for the rest of his life as so many bloody dictators and rules have in the recent past.
But then another problem is thrown into this equation - The Arab League(TM). Gathering for one of their usual summits in Doha yesterday while understandably attempting to patch out their own differences it seemed they had little trouble almost unanimously agreeing that not only would they not recognize the ICC's issued arrest warrant, which is somewhat understandable. But that they would embrace Al-Bashir and fully support him as their friend and equal. The President of Syria touted what seemed to be the old song that the bloodsoaked problems of Sudan would be discussed among them after the criminals who set Palestine and Lebanon ablaze were issued arrest warrants or brought to justice. And this idea played well with the vast majority of the leaders present at the conference, much to the embarassment of the Arab world I would hope.
Defying the ICC on the whole pretext of it's existence I can understand - although in truth I had originally hoped that the Arab League would evolve seeing the world's situation to be a tool to fix the problems nations across the Golden Crescent were facing, not a politicized group of world leaders whom would protect and even embrace a fellow local state's sheerly because that said leader opposed such an international institution such as the ICC for that reason alone or worse one that is such a wretched man as Al-Bashir. The Arab League should be condemning him utterly, not buying into the idea that opposition to the United Nation's Security Council and the ICC at the expense of their own dignity by offering support for this tyrant is the solution to unifying their ideals and political aims.
Sure the ICC is lame. I get that - sure it was a good idea but with a bad theoretical premise in it's creation and even worse in its hopes for its ruling's implementations - and ignoring it's warrants is not necessarily bad thing... not at all compared to offering support for one of this millenia's worst rulers alive so far. Get it together guys. Is he really worth using as a symbol against your perceived view of western lead aggression on Arab leaders? Really? Because there's other more reasonable and good ways to go about it.
.... This guy isn't going to end up with 72 virgins and you all know it.
I agree whole heartedly with your view of the situation and the Arab league. I thought it was 42 virgins..I guess in these severe economics times they had to up it to get these people to continue to engaged in the mind blowing crap. To paint all Arabs with the same brush isn't good. It's too bad only the idiots rise to power.
ReplyDeleteI would like to hear your comments about the 19 yr old Canadian boy that got into a school yard brawl and the Arab kid died. The Saudi Arabian court sentenced him to death by beheading...Then the Canadian gov't got involved and asked to have the kid come back to Canada and the Saudis said um...no we're going to beheaded him period. I guess he is going to die, because they just announced the beheading is on! I heard that yesterday :( Too bad. I don't think he was treated fairly.
On another note, I would like you to comment, if you can, how it is that all the SHIT that is exported from China to Canada and the USA is all deadly. It's not enough for the Chinese to kill their own with melamine laced milk, yogurt and chocolate,(beware of products from Mengniu, Yili and Bright dairies,) make dry wall from sulfur products that emminate a HORRIBLE smell, let alone its toxic. What about the pet food that was made with melamine that killed thousands of pets over there and here. I thought back in the day that melamine was used to make plastic that was then made into cheap unbreakable dishes. I know those in charge over there were sentenced to death or killed themselves. Is that kind of thing accepted there as long as the rest of the world doesn't find out? Hey even clothes are affected by their lax commitment to excellence, or is there any honour in what or how they produce their products. I had an outfit that I paid good money for, came from China and I had to return it. I couldn't stand it on my body it itched to the point my skin was raw and when I washed it I thought to my self.. Self, you know that smell, it was from grade 10 biology when we disected rats etc and used formaldahye to preserve it from decomp til the next day, they had put formaldahye on the outfit ..
Do you wonder when you go to eat something that it could be the last thing you eat? What about the water...I remember what you said about the river that flowed past you when you lived in Shanghai? What does the water from the tap look like there. I got really sick back in Nov and was convinced that I was a victim of some Chinese food product. I was SICK for 2 weeks and nearly ended up in the hospital. It made me crazy. After all of the stuff that has been bad that comes from China I just don't buy it period. At least in Canada I can read what something is and where it came from....Ok so there is my rant of the morning....I still want you to answer my questions and let me know what you think about all this.....Linda