World Policy Journal: Criminal Thinking in Washington

World Policy Journal
Volume XIX, No 2, Summer 2002

Criminal Thinking in Washington
Karl E. Meyer

The tried and true barometers of American opinion recall Dr. Freud's famous analytic triad. Our Id is the stock market, which measures such raw and primal emotions as greed, panic, dark suspicion, and irrational exuberance. Opinion polls are like Ego: the conventional and unsurprising assertions of individual judgments. Serving as Superego are newspaper editorials, the righteous tocsin of principle at their best, bromidic scolds at their worst. To vary the simile, at the tavern on Saturday night, Id says, "Let's have one for the road"; Ego chimes in, "Only a small beer"; and Superego worries, "Is there a designated driver?"

With this in mind, how instructive to study what American editorialists have said about President Bush's unusual decision to "unsign" the treaty creating the International Criminal Court. That was followed by an unsettling and peculiar American threat to scuttle United Nations peacekeepers in Bosnia unless U.S. soldiers were granted immunity from prosecution by the new court. Strikingly, American editorialists from first to last, from coast to coast, and with few exceptions, have disagreed with the administration. Here are salient excerpts:

Denver Post, January 7, 2001: "Treaty Approval Prudent" - We find without merit accusations that President Clinton's approval of a treaty for a proposed international criminal tribunal was a "poison pill" for George W. Bush. By meeting a Dec. 31 deadline for signing the treaty, Clinton (who finds much fault with the proposed tribunal for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity) actually preserved some options for his successor. Had the U.S. failed to sign, it would have forfeited any significant role in shaping the court and providing guiding principles. So far, about 139 nations have signed the treaty. Even Israel, which had balked at the treaty, now says that it will sign. The next step will be ratification, with the agreement taking effect when 60 nations have ratified. A permanent court is preferable to the makeshift system used since the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes trials after World War II.... A permanent institution with well-defined parameters forewarns political and military leaders who may be tempted to use wholesale slaughter as an instrument of public policy that such criminal conduct is illegal.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 17, 2002: "Rejection of World Court Shows Contempt for Justice" - The United States was a leader in establishing the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, the court at The Hague that deals with conflicts between nations. But now, the Bush administration wants to abandon our historic commitment to the international rule of law.... This is a time when the United States should lead the effort to build on the successes of recent temporary tribunals, which have prosecuted Rwandan and Bosnian genocide.... If Bush withdraws the U.S. signature, America will stand with countries - such as Iraq, China and Libya - that reject most forms of international justice.

San Francisco Chronicle, April 23, 2002: "No Way to Lead the World" - Sometime in the next few weeks, the Bush administration is expected to take another brazen step in its gradual replacement of multilateral, alliance-building foreign policy with a unilateralist, go-it-alone stance. Administration officials have widely signaled that the U.S. will formally withdraw its signature on the treaty creating the International Criminal Court, which was established earlier this month under United Nations - auspices.... The Bush administration, backed by conservative Republicans, fears that U.S. enemies could use the court to prosecute American soldiers for civilian deaths during U.S. military operations abroad. These worries are misguided. The ICC's charter obliges it to defer to any nation with a credible legal system - a clause that was inserted several years ago at the insistence of U.S. diplomats. So American troops would have the right to be investigated by the U.S. government and tried by U.S. courts, not by the ICC.... No matter what Bush decides, the ICC will begin functioning in the Netherlands sometime next year. But the symbolism of the U.S. decision will be clear - the Administration can either support the movement for global justice and human rights, or it can further its reputation as an arrogant Lone Ranger.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 9, 2002: "The Unsigned Treaty" - President George W. Bush's unprecedented decision to abandon the treaty for the International Criminal Court deepens the impression that the United States will only abide by its own rules on the international stage. Ultimately, this is a self-defeating act that undermines U.S. influence in the world and stands in stark contrast to the history of U.S. leadership in prosecuting war crimes.... Mr. Bush's aides sounded like Pat Buchanan on Monday as they made the absurd claim that signing the treaty surrendered U.S. sovereignty. When the treaty was first negotiated, the U.S. made sure that the international court could not take jurisdiction of any war crime that had already been investigated by the country of the alleged perpetrator. Sovereignty was left intact.... The mere projection of military force is not a broad enough goal for U.S. foreign policy. Rather, the goal is the projection of national influence and ideals.... Mr. Bush's unsigning follows on the heels of his refusal to abide by the letter of the Geneva Accords for the treatment of prisoners of war captured in Afghanistan. The two actions together jeopardize the U.S. commitment, begun at Nuremberg, to the use of international law as an instrument of world peace. In the end, Mr. Bush has inadvertently made the United States look arrogant, unilateralist and selfish.

Boston Globe, May 10, 2002: "Justice Denied" - The Bush Administration's notification that it is nullifying - or unsigning - the Treaty of Rome establishing the International Criminal Court to prosecute cases of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes was a foolish and unnecessary act.... The harm is already evident in the shock and dismay of US allies, who are needed more than ever in the administration's campaign to dismantle terrorist networks with global reach. Nullification of the Rome Treaty is not merely an act that other nations perceive as a cavalier gesture of American unilateralism. It also casts doubt on the fundamental principle that each US president signs international treaties in the name of a stable, continuous American nation-state.

Washington Post, July 2, 2002: "On the Backs of Bosnians" - The ostensible objective of the administration's threats is to get the U.N. Security Council to exempt all peace-keepers from the international court's jurisdiction. But all U.N. missions are already covered by agreements with host countries that rule out the host's bringing a complaint to the international tribunal.... Faced with the administration's aggressive stance, it's not hard to suspect that it is engaging in a back-door effort to get U.S. troops out of peacekeeping in general and the Balkans in particular.

Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2002: "Keep the Peacekeepers" - Valid concerns about the newly formed International Criminal Court are being blown out of proportion, and the result is a threat to peacekeeping as an institution. Several dozen U.S. police officers helped the fledgling nation of East Timor build a law enforcement infrastructure; 46 U.S. police officers are training recruits in Bosnia. Far more soldiers are part of NATO commands: 2,500 in Bosnia, 5,800 in Kosovo. But rather than declining to take part in U.N. missions for fear that U.S. soldiers would get hauled before the new international court, Washington appears willing to block the operations completely by using its Security Council veto.... The United States, as the sole superpower, does have enemies that object to its political, military and cultural influence. There is a danger of politically motivated attempts to prosecute U.S. forces trying to keep the peace in such countries as Ethiopia and Bosnia. But the court is supposed to take action only if a country refuses to inaugurate proceedings against its own nationals, and then only after delaying proceedings for a year. That's enough time to bring home, and thus shield, anyone facing what the U.S. sees as a false charge.

These samples are representative, though be it also noted that Mr. Bush's stance is editorially endorsed by the Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune, as one might expect from those pillars of the true GOP church. As a past practitioner of this thankless calling, I have been impressed by the thoughtfulness of these mainstream comments, and by their verbal sharpness. If the same sentiments were expressed by a French newspaper, conservative talk-show hosts would doubtless cite them as evidence of reflexive anti-Americanism and European wimpishness. One wonders, does anybody in the West Wing read these editorials? Does anyone care?

Of course there are problems with the new court, as with any such venture through uncharted waters. Some of the reefs were carefully examined in our summer 2001 issue by Robert W. Tucker, who is scarcely a Jacobin and yet approved going forward. Let the last word belong to a London weekly that struggles to understand and support George W. Bush. In its July 12 editorial titled "Not (Quite) Strangled at Birth," the Economist asserts: "America should now drop its hostility to the court. There are already more than enough protections for Americans against politicized prosecutions. The court is supported not just by Europeans but also many poorer nations where atrocities are a real danger.... If it succeeds, it could yet become an important tool in bringing mass murderers to justice and extending the rule of law - goals which, as George Bush has often said, are not only in the world's interest, but America's as well."