For an "international" judicial body to which the countries and individuals upon which they're rendering judgment aren't even signatories authorizing the power they believe they have the almighty authority to wield, the clowns on the International Criminal Court (ICC) sure have an outsized opinion of themselves.
In the first place, who and what is the ICC?
...The ICC was established in 2002 as the permanent court of last resort to prosecute individuals responsible for the world’s most heinous atrocities — war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression.
The Rome Statute creating the ICC was adopted in 1998 and took effect when it got 60 ratifications on July 1, 2002. The U.N. General Assembly endorsed the ICC, but the court is independent.
Really? The "permanent court of LAST RESORT" to punish anyone in the whole, wide world?
Well...who made them the boss of us?
Turns out...nobody. They took it upon themselves as a holy mandate because the United States - along with Israel and a good number of countries - doesn't play with handing over national sovereignty to unelected socialist bozos, so we never signed jack.
...The ICC’s 124 member states have signed on to the Rome Statute. Dozens of countries didn’t sign and don’t accept the court’s jurisdiction over war crimes, genocide and other crimes. They include Israel, the United States, Russia and China.
You know who does "accept" the clown court's "jurisdiction"? The non-existent "state of Palestine."
Cool how that works, huh?
...The ICC accepted “The State of Palestine” as a member in 2015, a year after the Palestinians accepted the court’s jurisdiction.
And the "Court" has been investigating Israel for "crimes on Palestinian territory" since 2021.
They must have been ecstatic when Hamas butcherers slunk across a real border to slaughter innocent Israelis and started the current retaliatory unpleasantness. This was going to be their chance to nail those pesky Jews, and they jumped on it.
On the 20th of this month, the head court jester, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan (oh, no bias there) - accompanied by two of his peeps - announced applications for international arrest warrants against Bibi Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. They threw a trio of Hamas leaders in the list for appearance's sake (FTR, there have never been warrants issued for any Iranian leader, Hezbollah, NorK, etc.).
Awwww, the ICC has a background and a podium and serious faces, almost like they’re a real boy https://t.co/HbuUzpBiqY
— Aelfred The Great (@aelfred_D) May 20, 2024
The civilized world blew a gasket at the nerve of these Hague-ish pretenders, equating a democratic government in the act of defending itself post-attack with a terrorist organization, in addition to the kind of salient point that the ICC has zero authority over non-signatories.
Israeli Government spokesman slams the ICC for announcing they intend to seek arrest warrant for Israeli PM:
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) May 21, 2024
“All of the allegations against us are fully baseless and political, because the ICC has very little legitimacy in the world.” - @AviHyman
pic.twitter.com/6beMPqs28H
Contrary to their egos whispering in their ears from their mirrors, they are not the boss of the world.
It didn't help their supposedly unbiased rationale for the warrants when folks noticed they elevated Palestine to a state and demoted Israel to a territory in their offical communication.
The ICC denied the existence of Israel as a country in its statement pretending to be fairly prosecuting its leader https://t.co/bUFsHVfBoQ
— Sunny (@sunnyright) May 20, 2024
Surely against their natural inclination, the Biden administration denounced the ICC warrant exercise...
Reminder that Jack Smith, who's currently prosecuting Trump, is the former director of investigations for the International Criminal Court. Hard to take anyone seriously who would take the ICC seriously, much less work for them. https://t.co/nrOk7ErMYZ
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) May 20, 2024
...but they sure put the brakes on endorsing a GOP-backed ICC sanctions effort quickly enough. Team Globalism/WEF was unwilling to rattle their Davos masters' cages that far, even in an election year. Understandably, Netanyahu was peeved yet again by the lack of firm support out of a waffling White House.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he’s “surprised and disappointed” that the Biden administration won’t support sanctions on a war crimes court seeking his arrest.
The White House on Tuesday said it would reject the Republican-led congressional effort to reprimand the International Criminal Court after its chief prosecutor filed arrest warrants for Netanyahu, War Cabinet member Yoav Gallant and Hamas leaders. That reversed a previous signal from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who last week told lawmakers the court’s move was a “profoundly wrong-headed decision” and the administration would work with Congress on potentially imposing sanctions.
...“The United States said that they would, in fact, back the sanctions bill,” Netanyahu says in the interview. “I thought that was still the American position because there was bipartisan consensus just a few days ago.”
Bibi was entirely correct - there is bi-partisan support. Republicans do have a sanctions bill ready to go in the Senate. Democrats are debating whether they'll sign on, not dismissing it out of hand. On the 21st, Ben Cardin (D-MD), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued a bi-partisan statement of condemnation of the ICC warrants which included names like Graham, Fetterman, Shaheen, Risch, and Britt. Reps Stefanik and Roy have something percolating in Congress, which is also proving to have across-the-aisle support.
Per usual, there is no support visible at the moment for any of these measures coming from the White House.
... White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre provided the administration’s latest position on Tuesday: “Sanctions on the ICC are not an effective or appropriate tool to address U.S. concerns.” She stressed, however, that the administration would “work with Congress on other options to address the ICC overreach.”
The ICC should clearly be sanctioned for its outrageous and unfounded claims of authority.
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) May 28, 2024
The White House's refusal to protect Israelis and Americans is a terrible decision that will set a dangerous precedent. https://t.co/GCdCmC2K0D
Taking matters into their own hands, a group of twelve Republican senators sent a sternly worded letter to the overreaching bureaucrats at the ICC to let them know precisely where they stepped over the line.
...They said they saw the warrant for the arrest of the Israeli leadership as “not only a threat to Israel´s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States.”
The senators’ letter went on, “The United States will not tolerate politicized attacks by the ICC on our allies. Target Israel and we will target you.”
The letter spelled out that “targeting” would include ending all American support for the ICC plus the sanctioning and barring of ICC officials, employees, associates and their families from the United States.
Prosecutor Khan at the Hague was pretty riled up at the thought of the duly elected representatives of a sovereign nation telling his little dictatorial asterisk to pound sand. In a fit of authoritarian pique, he fired off a return salvo that might well be one of the emptiest, most arrogant blisters ever bloviated in bureaucratic history.
He told all twelve United States senators they were technically now international criminals for criticizing him.
PER THE ROME STATUTE
LAWFARE: The ICC has made it clear that criticizing the court and threatening sanctions when it violates its own rules is illegal. The ICC is threatening to issue arrest warrants against 12 members of Congress. https://t.co/KOeHl3CjSP pic.twitter.com/HAH4i1d4H2
— @amuse (@amuse) May 29, 2024
Yeah. He really did that.
Many critics thought the International Criminal Court had gone too far when its prosecutor asked for arrest warrants against Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
But as the saying goes, "you ain't seen nothin' yet."
Now, the prosecutor's office has threatened to prosecute criticism of... himself. Those who seek to defend Israel and stop the malicious, deeply antisemitic action against its leaders and against the Jewish state are now being told that their words and actions may also be a crime.
This may sound like something out of Alice in Wonderland, but it is an effort not only to limit freedom of speech, but to limit the constitutional powers of the United States Congress.
And while it sounds like bluster, it has ramifications if allowed to go unchallenged. While we didn't sign the ICC/ICJ agreement, countries like Germany did, and are supposedly bound by it. The Germans have already said they would arrest Netanyahu or Gallant on the ICC warrants if they came to Germany. Now, switch that up to warrants on a US Senator...or an American serviceman.
...The 12 United States Senators are already criminals, according to the ICC Prosecutor, for writing their letter— even if absolutely nothing else happens. Note that the Prosecutor writes of "individuals" who may threaten the ICC, whereas the Senators write as U.S. government officials about possible official U.S. government actions. In plain language, the Prosecutor is arguing that he and the ICC are above criticism. Forget freedom of speech or national sovereignty. To say that the United States, which is not a party to the Rome Statute, might react to punish the ICC for illegal and immoral actions it and its employees may take is not permitted.
Suppose for a moment that the U.S. Congress passes the new legislation the 12 Senators threatened, along the lines of the ASPA—the American Servicemembers Protection Act. That was 2002 legislation to protect U.S. military and other personnel from prosecution by the ICC. ASPA gave the president power to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court." ASPA has been colloquially known as "The Hague Invasion Act."
Voting for such legislation even if it does not pass would clearly, in the view of the ICC prosecutor, be a crime — a form of retaliation and threat prohibited to every inhabitant of Earth by the Rome Statute. So much for the Constitution, for national sovereignty, for self-government, for freedom of speech. The ICC apparently stands above all of that— even for citizens and governmental bodies in countries, such as the United States, that have not signed the Rome Statute and thereby agreed to be subject to the ICC.
This attempted power grab is breathtaking, and should be summarily rejected by citizens and governments around the world. For the United States, this effort to criminalize Senate action and even a call for Senate action should have been met with immediate rejection by Attorney General Garland and President Joe Biden. Silence in this case can be interpreted as consent, and much more is required.
The only way the continued globalist power grab is crushed is the removal of sympathetic parties in the White House and the halls of Congress.
Biden and his toadies have to go. A radical deep house cleaning is imperative in November.
If it gives me any great comfort as far as where Trump stood on this question, again, the proof is in the pudding of his previous four years.
...The Trump administration imposed sanctions on the ICC’s former prosecutor, including revoking visas and blocking property access, for investigating alleged war crimes by American troops in Afghanistan and Israelis in Palestinian territories. The U.S. lifted those penalties in 2021, with Blinken calling them “inappropriate and ineffective” at the time.
“The administration seems to have decided that, for all its discomfort with the prosecutor’s choice, it does not want to replicate the Trump approach,” said David Bosco, a professor at Indiana University and author of a book on the ICC. “This is both about optics but probably in part about deep uncertainty that sanctions would do any good.”
The globalist authoritarians at the Hague hate Trump, which is frickin' AWESOME.
One more "HELL, YES!" tickee in the Orange Man's column.
There's nothing I love more than sour European faces when Trump is in the White House.
Gotta git 'er done. Got to.
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