Yesterday Steven Den Beste posted comments on the charges of war crimes that are now “flying thick and fast” in the wake of the war in Iraq:

The United States never came even close to actually ratifying the ICC [International Criminal Court], and the reason why was that it was viewed here (by leaders of both parties) as being a venue where disgruntled losers would harass and persecute Americans. Such concerns have been ridiculed, but are now shown to be entirely justified. The ICC has only been online for 2 months and already the fruitcakes are trying to use it to persecute their political enemies. The only reason that these lawyers are trying to indict Blair and not trying to indict Bush is that the UK ratified the treaty and we didn’t. If we actually had ratified that monstrosity, there can be no doubt at all that every American official down to the official dog-catcher in Washington DC would have been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by now, just because they were American and were drawing breath.

For the record, I used to advocate the idea of American participation in the ICC, but I’ve since rescinded that view. Den Beste’s above comments explain why perfectly. Also, there’s just something about national sovereignty that I like.

On a similar note: why in the world did Bush go back to the United Nations to get the sanctions on Iraq lifted when we skirted around ‘em to kick Saddam out? Isn’t that rather, oh, I dunno, paradoxical?