{"id":1196,"date":"2011-05-17T07:37:40","date_gmt":"2011-05-17T14:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/?p=1196"},"modified":"2011-05-17T08:10:51","modified_gmt":"2011-05-17T15:10:51","slug":"international-criminal-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/?p=1196","title":{"rendered":"International criminal court and assassinations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nThere are great dangers on both sides of the equation when it comes to deciding to assassinate leaders who break international law.
\nIt would be nice to believe that “if we could just get rid of the bad guy…then everything would be just fine”. The military works on this principle. Things are very Black and white for them. (Blow the heads of the “bad” guys. Problem solved.)
\nThis is why the military solution always fails.
\nIn reality, nothing is like that. Problems in the world are obviously much more complicated than that.
\nHorrible leaders are often propped up by the west and given free licence to rule with an iron fist in return for cheap oil, military bases, trade, buffer zones, attack routes, etc etc)
\nAnd so it is never about one person who needs to be taken out and the problem will be solved. It is always about the system. This is what should be addressed.
\nThere is good reason for international law and I believe that we already have a good set of rules.
\nThe problem is that it means nothing if leaders don’t understand how important it is to follow international law.
\nThe rubicon has already been crossed and anarchy is here now. Obama has proved by his actions that he does not believe in international law. The invasion of Afghanistan and the assassination of Bin Laden is a catastrophic failure of the legal system and we are now sliding down the slope with no hope of return.
\nAmerica has always said that it will not ratify an agreement to sign onto the International criminal court. It knows full well that it would be tried for war crimes. Think about it. One of the most powerful countries in the world will not sign onto the ICC.
\nAmerica has said very clearly that it will never place itself in a position where it would be tried for crimes because it knows how it behaves around the world.
\nWhat is the point of the International Criminal Court if it can’t or refuses to try leaders like Mr.Blair or Mr.Bush or even Obama for breaking international law? It clearly has no legitimacy or clout and so is actually meaningless.
\nAt the very least, it should be completely independant of the UN which it was supposed to be in the first place.
\nOur system is broken. We can’t pick and chose who will be allowed to rule with an iron fist and who won’t. It has to be a level field for everyone. The rule of law has to be applied fairly to everyone and by an independent world body that represents everyone.
\nNo country should be allowed to remain outside of the law or the rules.
\nThere is a lot of work to be done to make this happen.
\nAre we capable and civilized enough as human beings to do this without resorting to war? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are great dangers on both sides of the equation when it comes to deciding to assassinate leaders who break international law. It would be nice to believe that “if we could just get rid of the bad guy…then everything would be just fine”. The military works on this principle. Things are very Black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[155,35],"class_list":["post-1196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-international-criminal-court","tag-un","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1196"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1205,"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions\/1205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}