perfidy

Well, they did it. A theoretically well-meaning lawsuit has been filed in Belgian court against Tommy Franks, accusing him of war crimes in prosecuting the war in Iraq. The main body of the charges relate to the use of cluster bombs and their landmine-like ability to sit around until a kid blows his arm off. The story is here, and a longer debate is in Counterpunch. The hope is that, since the US is a NATO power, and NATO is based in Brussels, the charges against Franks will have some weight and heft. Fat chance.

And people think an international criminal court is a GOOD idea?

I realize that the world can no longer be easily divided up into discrete nations, if it ever could, and therefore, some see a compelling rationale for a world court. If anything, the multinational nature of terrorism may underscore that need. However, any international court would have to be very narrowly empowered, so as to minimize instances like the Franks Affair. The very last thing the world needs is American-style torts brought by nations against nations, or enclave against enclave, for the sake of publicity.

Moreover, accusing Tommy Franks of war crimes totally undermines the very concept. I will grant that there are many people in the world who object to the US's libervasion of Iraq, and I will even grant that, in the course of the war, people died. That's no shock. But so far, we have totally failed to find the bodies stacked like cordwood, the US-run death camps, the firing squads, the rape brigades, the engineered famines that would amount to actual war crimes. There's enough of that in the world. If Hussein had been doing these things to anybody but his own people, he would have been a war criminal himself. Perhaps then France and Germany would have chosen to act with us. As it stands, he was merely a distasteful dictator of a third-rate country that the international community needn't have bothered with (but I digress.. I'm being unnecessarily bitchy).

Which brings me to an interesting point. If war crimes, and "crimes against humanity" are such a big deal for the United Nations and related bodies, why aren't sickos like Mugabe, Hussein, and for that matter the entire government of North Korea busted every time they travel? I'm not sure I understand how such things are decided-- is it merely convenience?

Bottom line: Cluster bombs suck. Here's hoping they never use them again. But to argue that the same law can be used against Tommy Franks that could be used against perpetrators of wholesale genocide is missing the point of such laws.

nota bene: I repeat: I don't like cluster bombs, any more than I like landmines. I don't understand why the US chose not to sign the Landmine Ban, and I hope that the use of cluster bombs will be eschewed in future campaigns. They're horribly inefficient and in practice work against the US military goal of not killing bystanders. That being said, this suit is still horseshit.

also nota bene: tomorrow I'm going to disagree with myself, arguing that it is important that the campaign against cluster bombs gets all the exposure it can, by any means. Tune in to watch the fun!!