WASHINGTON. The Trump administration told the world Monday that America will settle its international disputes the old-fashioned way. Namely, with swift, brutal and overwhelming military force. President Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton, gave the busybodies at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague fair warning in a speech before the Federalist Society.
Bolton said the US does not recognize the authority of the ICC to trample upon the sovereignty of American jurisprudence.
National Security Advisor John Bolton. MSNBC screen capture.
John Bolton has choice words for the International Criminal Court
Fittingly, it was John Bolton who informed the international community during the administration of George W. Bush that the US would withdraw from the 1998 Rome Statute establishing the ICC. At the time Bolton described that action as the “happiest moment” in his service as UN Ambassador.
Since then, the US has rejected any move by the international legal body to investigate any US citizen or members of our military for so-called “war crimes” with regard to their actions in the many chaotic armpits of the globe.
One such festering cesspool, Afghanistan, served as an incubator for Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda mass killers. The result: They plotted terrorist attackes and then murdered some 3,000 innocent Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.
Al Qaeda attacks New York on 9/11. CNN screen capture.
American justice abroad
“If the court comes after us, Israel or other allies,” Bolton warned, “we will not sit quietly. We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and we will prosecute them in the US criminal system. We will do the same for any company or state that assists an ICC investigation of Americans.”
Bolton’s consistency vs. the ICC
In a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations, while serving as US ambassador to the United Nations, Bolton stated he was “strictly adhering to my oath of office to ‘preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States’ against ill-advised and dangerous multilateral agreements.”
He added,
“I take my oath seriously, and I can promise you that my administration will do nothing internationally to threaten either our Constitution or the sound principles on which it rests. Moreover, I will remain steadfast in preserving the independence and flexibility that America’s military forces need to defend our national interests around the world. There are those who wish to limit that flexibility, but they will find no friends in this administration.”
Subsequently, while serving as President Obama’s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said it was her “great regret” that the US was not a member of the ICC. Later, Bolton used that position as a club against her in the 2016 presidential election.
The Clinton ICC stench
ABC Screen Shot – HIllary Clinton Concession speech
While traveling in Israel, Bolton said “if Clinton is elected, she will re-join Americans to the ICC and re-sign the Rome Statute.” Subsequently, he described the international court as “an illusion. A bunch of people in black robes will never be able to stop the brutal dictators who carry out mass murders.”
Saddam meets American justice and Samir
Iraqi-American, Samir, 34, pinning deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to the ground during his capture in Tikrit. Photo: U.S. Army.
Today, no one knows the truth of that better than the Arabic interpreter for the US Army, Samir. He’s the fellow who in 2003 discovered Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein cowering in an underground bunker just outside Tikrit.
Previously, Saddam had murdered members of Samir’s family in the early 1990s. A fact the US Army interpreter was more than happy to inform his captive of. Subsequently, Saddam ordered Samir to shut up and called him a traitor.
“I punched Saddam in the mouth,” Samir later told the St. Louis Riverfront Times. That punch was made possible by the US Army’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, commanded by Col. James Hickey.
The International Criminal Court was not there for Samir’s family nor to meet out justice to the dictator who used chemical weapons against the Kurdish people of Halabja in 1988. 5,000 died and 10,000 were wounded.
Samir, Saddam, John Bolton and real justice
To reward his service to the US Army and American justice, Samir was granted asylum in the United States. He ekes out a living as an auto mechanic in St. Louis and is free. Free, paraphrasing George Washington, to sit under his own vine and fig tree. There, no one shall make him afraid.
Similarly, in the case of Samir, the US military gave a reconstituted Iraqi judicial system the means to try Saddam for his crimes against his people. Fortunately, their verdict was “guilty.” Saddam swung by his neck until dead.
Similar to John Bolton, every branch of our military swears an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me…”
“Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution,” said Abraham Lincoln. “That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard to our liberties.”
Meanwhile, thanks to the Trump administration, the ICC becomes one less obstacle and no threat to our liberties.
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Top Images: National Security Advisor John Bolton, Fox News screen capture.
Inset photo, International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, United Nations screen capture.
