I am so sick of U.S. national behavior

[jslove]

Speaking as a U.S. citizen and voter, I believe the next administration and senate should sign and ratify the treaties to join the International Criminal Court. No one should be above the law, and especially not us.

Comments

[jslove]

Damn comment limit.

I recall that similar arguments to the ones above about Iraq were made in my youth about Viet Nam. I still reject those. It is true that the U.S. perpetrated great evil, along with other actors, but in that case, we got into it via a treaty, and the whole government went along with it, so it was just one of those policy things.

In this case, it seems more like our legislators are too embarrassed about having been taken in by administration lies to react with proper outrage. As politicians, they are probably doing the right thing. In other ways, not so much. Of course, we don't know what really happened, who knew what, when, or whether coercion was involved; I'm sure there is more than enough embarrassment to go around.

So suppose that we make an additional limited commitment to the idea of world government, and join the ICC. And suppose they indict a previous president (or some analogous procedure; I am not a lawyer and haven't read up on those details). That doesn't mean the U.S. has to render that citizen up for trial. The U.S. retains sovereignty, but exercising it comes at a (public relations) cost.

If we believe that what we did was fully justified, then we must resist. I believe that if what we did was the right thing, that eventually much of the rest of the world community will agree. That they don't, if they don't, ought to be at least a wake-up call to us. But that's for a hypothetical future.

There is a rationale for immunity to the consequences of actions taken by heads of state. However, there has to be a limit. The case of Slobodan Milosevic is perhaps too much like your straw third-world dictatorship, at least in how it was that he was sent to The Hague. It took a world war to limit Hitler. I don't know how we will sort this out, but I'd prefer that we not pretend that no limits can apply to us.

The thing that pushed me into posting was reading about the latest Guantanamo revelations in The New York Times, but there are so many other ingredients. I can't afford the time to even enumerate them. Outrage, anger, embarrassment, disgust: those I can enumerate.

I am watching the presidential race with dismay. Along with my somewhat aging demographic, I have more faith in Hilary Clinton for actually getting things done than in Obama for his idealism, but we really need the idealism. We've lost our way, or so it seems.

Here's some half-baked incendiary thinking:

I worry that racism is so entrenched that Obama hasn't a prayer of being elected, but suppose I am wrong, and he gets in. The hatred is so great that I am unsure the Secret Service will be effective. I am certain assassination will be attempted (I'm sure there are attempts that we never learn about because they are foiled, and both GWB and his predecessor have been well-hated during parts of their terms).

Maybe Obama is like Kennedy. My impression of JFK, actually, is that he was not that great a president, while he lived. (Granted, I was four years old when he was elected.) That is, he was a leader, and he fired people up, which is good, but he made mistakes, too. He had flaws that could have sunk him without a trace (but didn't, though who knows whether he might have been impeached during a second term?). Then he became a martyr.

I think a woman has a better chance of being elected than a black, at least in this country at this time, but the Clintons have a legacy that may overshadow the issues of racism and genderism (considering Bill, possibly sexism becomes a double entendre).

Then there was Lyndon Johnson. He got a lot of things done. Maybe the martyrdom that brought him into office provided an additional mandate. Certainly the 2008 running mate could matter a lot. Likewise for McCain, because of his age.

Frankly, I see the election shaping up as a choice (to different constituencies) between cyanide, hemlock, and arsenic laced with botulism toxin. I couldn't be looking forward to it less, but I could hardly be looking forward more to the end of the Bush administration.

Time to sleep and let the hamster wheel in my head slow down some.

[merlinpole]

Lyndon Baines Johnson was a champion blackmailer, that was his big weapon pushing legislation through.

The complaints in "When in the course of human events...." apply incredible closely to the situation in -this- country today, more than 225 years after the document's signing....