May 6, 2002-US Department of State informs UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that the US “does not intend to become a party to” the “Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court adopted on July 17, 1998.” The letter is signed by John Bolton. (PP) [See also September 7, 2002]

“Ironically, the hostility has helped in my dealings with countries that might otherwise perceive me to be in the pocket of the Americans. It has been one positive factor in the Arab and African worlds. The U.S. distance from the court seems to have had the very opposite effect of that intended—of strengthening it.”- Luis Moreno-Ocampo, [prosecutor of the International Criminal Court] [7]

July 22, 2002-Letter OLC to WH; international law in general 'lacks domestic legal effect, and in any event can be overridden by the President’; remains secret [1/29/09]; [47]

August 1, 2002 - Letter OLC to WH; Yoo takes the view that to convict a person - such as a U.S. soldier - of torture, the prosecution would have to prove specific intent to do severe harm to the victim. Yoo dismisses the standing of the International Criminal Court to prosecute such crimes, but concludes with a warning about the possibility of a rogue prosecutor who may differ with the president's interpretation of international law; made public [47]

September 7, 2002-“The Bush administration is shifting its emphasis in seeking exemptions for Americans from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, telling European allies that a central reason is to protect the country's top leaders from being indicted, arrested or hauled before the court on war crimes charges, administration officials say.”(QQ)

Sources:

http://www.webdsi.com/jebbie/tlpage42.html

I understand what you're saying. We need our eyes wide open.

And could someone please tell me what SSDD means?

Ahh! Thanks. That's a useful one to have in my repertoire.

your name, ethics_professor.

...and now I see what you mean...oy!

Thanks for your sharing your views from far time zones. A chance for enlarged perspective is always a good thing.

Single Sided Double Density-Sounds like a scoop of Ben and Jerry’s double fudge peanut butter rocky road.

Glad to be of service. The imagery in your comment is quite martial…which is not surprising, seeing as you’re a vet. In my mind, the Timeline looks like the kind of morning star that shines a light in the darkness before dawn [hopefully]. But I think I read that you work with metal, so if you can forge WORDs into sWORDs, that would indeed be a useful weapon. Then we’ll beat them into plowshares, OK?

Jeffrey Kaye, whose Invictus blog Glenn linked to in this article, has an update [also linked here in the comments at Monday, 6:54pm]. The article is very enlightening. This pargraph from Part II struck me [emphasis added]:

At bottom, the legal questions are subsidiary to the political issues and intent. As Yoo's seeming apostasy regarding executive power makes clear, the argument about the various Federal powers comes down to supporting those policies that allow the U.S. to pursue untrammeled a free hand to intervene and act any way it wants anywhere in the world. Arguments about strict constructionism, or judicial activism, or the intent of the Framers is really an argument about how the U.S. should operate in the world today.

Link at sig.

http://valtinsblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/on-us-duty-to-prosecute-war-crimes.html

I see Jeffrey has a new article up called “Under Oath, MI5 Officer Reveals Official British Torture Program”

Thanks for all the info...oy! I always get so behind in all this stuff...it's frustrating.

I’m just getting around to actually reading your excellent and timely Post that Glenn linked to. The following made me do a little ferreting around:

I find these results fascinating. The drumbeat from the Obama Administration, the M$M and now even Senator Pat Leahy, is to "look forward" and, as Cass Sunstein would have us say, not "criminalize policy differences" while we settle for a Truth Commission over criminal investigations.

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/3634

I hadn’t been aware that Sunstein had used these words as well as Holder [and Obama?...I’m not really keeping track.] This has been a Republican talking point for a while, and it’s distressing how the Democrats seem to be just oozing into the whole right-wing cess pool. I’m sure I’m not telling anyone here something they don’t already know, but please humor me.

Here’s an example from Lou Dobbs CNN show This Week on March 10, 2007:

DOBBS: Well, among the other developments this week, Scooter Libby. Convicted. What do you think, Mona [Charen]?

CHAREN: The man who was on trial was not the leaker. The man who was the leaker was not on trial. It was a travesty. The president should pardon Libby right away. It was the Democrats and the press attempting to criminalize policy differences. And march somebody off to jail because, as they keep putting it, the president lied us into war. That was not supposed to be what the trial was about.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0703/10/ldtw.01.html

I had to look up who Mona Charen is. Well, this is what Wikipedia says:

Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated neoconservative columnist, political analyst, and the author of two best-selling books, Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First (2003) and Do-Gooders: How Liberals Harm Those They Claim to Help — and the Rest of Us (2005). She typically writes about foreign policy, terrorism, politics, and culture.

The Democrats do not have the steel to avoid becoming the monsters they were supposed to be fighting.