#4
Moscow News
July 10-16, 2002
Superpower and Superpeople
By Stanislav Kondrashov

Last week an international-law controversy highlighted a global issue: On what terms would the United States, as the sole superpower, like to exercise its versatile, including military-police, hegemony in the world? By recognizing the authority and rights of international organizations and thus, in certain situations, limiting itself and its "autonomy," or by acting only on the basis of U.S. interests, putting the protection of "American lives" and the immunity of U.S. peacekeepers from prosecution above all else? On July 1, the statute of the International Criminal Court entered into force. On the same day the U.S. representative at the UN Security Council vetoed the extension (for another six months) of a peacekeeping mandate in Bosnia. The reason? The United States intends to pull its 1,500 peacekeepers out of Bosnia unless it receives guarantees that U.S. military servicemen will under no circumstances face prosecution from the ICC.

Lying behind the Bosnian dilemma is a demand backed up by the United States' new role in the world. It was reiterated by President Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. Being a global power with worldwide military/police functions, the United States is categorically against any prosecution of its military servicemen for any possible deed- or misdeed - within the UN-sanctioned international justice system. A sort of presumption of innocence by virtue of U.S. citizenship alone.

The ICC has yet to go into action, but Washington's veto is already confronting it with a preemptive ultimatum. The American peacekeepers are ready to leave Bosnia immediately to avoid any contact with international justice in the Hague. After the U.S. veto, the Security Council extended the mandate of international peacekeepers in Bosnia by three days - to search for compromise. Wednesday night, the Security Council, failing to reach a compromise, took a break until July 16. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell that Washington's position put the entire UN peacekeeping system at risk. The U.S. compromise plan is a mockery of justice, demanding as it does an indefinite blanket immunity for U.S. peacekeepers.

Thus the U.S. administration pushes the UN to the sidelines and, under the September 11 mandate, makes claim after claim for exclusive rights to dictate. In his new Middle East program, Bush is still vague, proclaiming the need for creating a Palestinian state, but is intransigent on his demand that Yasser Arafat be replaced as the Palestinian leader. This concept of the freedom of choice is rejected by Palestinians and criticized by U.S. allies, but Washington insists on it, getting concessions from other co-sponsors of the Middle East process, Russia included. Bush's dictate coincides with Sharon's, if it has not been initiated by the latter, and far from defusing, will further exacerbate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There is a measure of wariness about the ICC not only in the United States. Russia, China, India, and a number of other states have yet to ratify its statute. Their wariness, however, arises from national concerns - the fear of encroachment on sovereign rights on their own territories. By contrast, Washington rejects any international jurisdiction with respect to its military servicemen acting outside the United States.

A short while ago a wedding party in an Afghan village to the north of Kabul ended in a funeral. Approximately 40 people were killed and about 100 injured by U.S. aircraft hitting it by mistake. Not surprisingly, no one has been punished.

"American life" has become established as a fundamental, jingoistic, semi-mythical notion. It is "American life" that the United States president is first and foremost responsible for to his fellow citizens. What about Afghan life? There is no such notion, and U.S. public consciousness does not seem to resister the fact that in retaliating for the monstrous act of terrorism on September 11, Americans have killed more Afghans than the number of people found buried under the rubble of the New York twin towers. One more thing that makes an American killer no killer at all is the fact that he has no contact with his victims except through guns, bombs, and missiles.

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