05:18 pm
The Bush Administration’s Harry Mudd Moment
The Star Trek character, not the California college.
George Bush has long been on the record as hating opposing the International Criminal Court and its evil plan to feed American babies to wolves. Shortly after taking office, Bush announced that he was “unsigning” the treaty, an event that troglyoconservative John Bolton called “the happiest moment of my government service.”
But the unsigning was just the beginning. One of the cornerstones of Bush’s ultra-unilateralism was something called a “Bilateral Immunity Agreement.” Also known by its critics as a “Bilateral Impunity Agreement,” it was designed to force an ally that had ratified the ICC treaty to grant wholesale immunity to all Americans residing in, passing through, or even flying over the country in question. Recognizing that few sovereign states in their right mind would willingly cede such authority, the Administration threatened to withhold foreign assistance if a country refused to comply. Only when some key Latin American allies refused to go along with this nonsense — and thus put the entire “war on drugs” in jeopardy — did the Administration back down.
Not only do the Bushies hate the ICC, they also think opposition to it has legs politically. Back in 2004, President Bush went out of his way to state how much he hated opposed the ICC in all three debates — even during the one supposedly devoted exclusively to domestic policy. John Kerry was so scared of looking like a UN-hugger that he went out of his way to avoid challenging Bush whenever the ICC came up. As the guy who was responsible for drafting the ICC talking point for the Kerry debate prep book (and I gotta tell you, it was good), I can’t even begin to tell you how happy that made me.
Of course, the ICC has proven to be the exact opposite of Bush, Cheney and Bolton’s fever dreams. Instead of merrily prosecuting American and Israeli soldiers for alleged war crimes, it has set about doing the serious work of investigating and indicting those responsible for for a range of terrible crimes in Uganda, Congo, and the Sudan (and is investigating similar allegations in the Central African Republic).
Now before you start writing me to say that the ICC should go after Bush and company for torture, waging aggressive war, and stir-frying puppies, let me note that I already have said for the record that I favor the prosecution of key figures in this Administration for a range of crimes.
But let me also remind you that one of the things that makes the ICC work is a little principle called “complimentarity.” That’s a fancy word for “if you have a court system where these crimes can be prosecuted, and the courts appear to be serious about it (even if they never act on it), we’re not going to touch it with a ten-meter pole.” You might be convinced that no American court system will ever hold these puppy-fryers to account, but that’s not the ICC’s problem.
Then last week, the ICC went and indicted Hassan al-Bashir, the President of Sudan, for his role in Darfur. Of course, the Bush Administration is on the record as regarding Darfur as genocide. So what is an ICC-hating, genocide-deploring President to do? Especially when he is repeatedly on the record as deploring the failure of the “international community” to get serious about Darfur?
Now we have our answer: Punt (and hope that John Bolton doesn’t notice and accuse you of a “total intellectual collapse” for the third time in less than a month).
Earlier today, The Condi did a press availability on her way to the UAE for a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting. Most of the questions were about Iran-Iraq-North Korea-former-axis-of-evil-blah-blah-blah-blah, but then, at the very end, after Spokesman Sean McCormick already had tried to break up the scrum, there’s this little gem:
QUESTION: Just one more little thing, actually. The Arab League has come out and has been being very – given a very angry response to the International Criminal Court plan to indict Bashir, and they’re planning to send an envoy down there to discuss it. I wondered whether you had any reaction on the ICC’s moves? And also, the Arab League seems to be lending a lot of support to Bashir.
THE CONDI: I’ve not seen the Arab League’s statement. I’ve just seen reports of the Arab League’s statement, so I don’t want to comment on a statement that I’ve actually not seen. Look, we’ve been clear that what needs to happen here is that, first of all, Sudan needs to live up to the obligations and responsibilities that have been put upon it by the UN Security Council. And we need to get these forces in and the like. But, of course, the President has already called what was going on in Sudan a genocide, so our views on this are clear and haven’t changed.
DIPLOSPEAK TRANSLATOR: How the hell am I supposed to defend our policy on the ICC and Sudan when they contradict one another? Brain lock! Brain lock!
It’s like “I, Mudd,” the Star Trek episode where Kirk and Spock get all of Harry Mudd’s androids to go brain dead by usuing the Liar’s Paradox (”I never lie.” “I just lied.”) on them. Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep-slump. Now that’s what I call an intellectual collapse.
P.S. You know, if the Star Trek franchise ever wants to bring back the Harry Mudd character, they could do a lot worse than asking John Bolton to cut his hair, trim his moustache, and shave his hairline…. He could even threaten to knock the top ten stories off the Enterprise.
Photo credit: Memory Alpha
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