ICC was: Cuba...

Peter K. peterk at enteract.com
Tue Jul 16 17:04:14 PDT 2002


Thiago:
>I see. So in a year's time, the US will not have any toys? I doubt that the
>perpetual immunity business was meant to be a anything more than a bargaining
>position; nevertheless, the US achieved an outcome which is in practice
>indistinguishable from having all their dreams come true... so if Z Mag doesn't
>report this, I'd say that they aren't missing much.

I must be more down on the Bushies than you in thinking it wasn't a bargaining position at all; it was what they wanted. It was more of a symbolic milestone and sometimes symbolism translates into practicality. The fact that Z would miss such a symbolic milestone or misinterpret it as uninteresting is the reason I don't wate time reading them.


>Chomsky says quite specifically that the ICC would be an imperfect institution
>since there is practically no chance it would ever prosecute the war crimes of
>US nationals. This is incidentally the stated position of those countries, like
>Canada, Brazil and Mexico, which do support the court.

Why the weazel word "practically"? What if Lula is elected in October? What in the world of politics is not born "imperfect"?


>The calculation against the ICC has almost nothing to do with sovereignty at
>home, as is conceded by most sane people; it has everything to do with US
>sovereignty over other countries. And what's more, it is about future
>sovereignty abroad, given that the pre-immunity exposure of US troops in UN
>missions to the ICC was precisely zero. I don't think a hegemonical model of
>imperialism is so off the mark here.

What is this hegemonical model you keep speaking of?

Peter



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list