It was supposed to be a comment repy but it was too long. Here it is ...
Cap,
Many people see the ICC as an imperialist institution. (I agree with it in principle but some of its critics do have a point.)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/07/13/from-icc-to-sportswashing-wests-self-serving-narratives-must-be-combated/
"'In March, the South Africa Communist Party (SACP) denounced what it described as the ‘imperialist bias’ of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The denunciation of the ICC as a “supranational institution at the service of imperialist states' came two days after the Hague-based court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and another Russian official for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
The speed with which the case against Putin was lodged, discussed and followed by concrete action raised many questions about the integrity, balance and political agenda of the Western-inclined court.
While Palestinians immediately, and rightly, protested the hypocrisy of the ICC as it continues to treat alleged Israeli war criminals with kid gloves, Iraqis, Afghans, but mostly African activists and intellectuals found the ICC’s moral inconsistency reprehensible.
In the 21 years of its existence, “the ICC has not issued a single warrant of arrest for or prosecuted any United States or European president, prime minister or monarch as head of state,” protested Africa’s oldest communist party, echoing the cries of numerous organizations, politicians and activists who, for years, pointed out that Africa has received the lion’s share of ICC investigations and arrest warrants.
Indeed, since its existence in 2002, the ICC has been 'fixated' on Africa. As of June 2021, “all 44 people indicted by the Court have been Africans,” wrote Qumar Ba in Foreign Affairs, and 'ten out of its 14 active investigations involve Africa.'
This argument is not intended as a blanket defense of Africa. Many alleged war crimes have been committed on the African continent – in fact, in other regions in the Global South – many of which are associated with old and new civil wars, mass scale governments’ repression and violent crackdowns.
But why should Africa be the exception, when numerous and, at times, even more, alleged grisly war crimes and crimes against humanity were affiliated with Western governments? "
The USA has been happy to use the ICC as a weapon to bludgeon its opponents with, while remaining outside its jurisdiction by not being a signatory.
Which also means that Trump had no legal obligation to arrest Putin while he was on US soil.
The ICC's case against Putin has been critiqued by others very harshly. To whit; the claim that Putin has kidnapped Ukrainian children and subjected them to Russification/indoctrination is false. What actually happened is that ethnic Russians in the separatist provinces voluntarily sent their children to free camps in Russia, away from the war zone, with their stays apparently being around two weeks. Some of these camps were apparently music camps for musically inclined children.
The following link takes you to an article that quotes from the author of the report on which the ICC case is based upon.
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/03/31/iccs-putin-arrest-state-dept-report/
When South Africa brought its case against Israel to the ICC, the USA was outraged. But it's Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan understood that if he gave Israel a pass, then the credibility of the Court would be mortally wounded.
I think that your quote from TASS is supposed to explain to me that Putin has benefited from the warm welcome he received from Trump.
The point of my original post was probably weakened by my failing to mention that Putin isn't an international pariah. BRICS is growing. Putin remains friendly with China, India, Iran, South Africa, Brazil, Nicaragua, Cuba, and others.
The following link has a pretty good map:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/16/mapping-where-every-country-stands-on-the-russia-ukraine-war
I wonder what that map would look like if you removed some of the puppet-dictatorships that have followed the US lead in South America and Africa?
Besides not being an international pariah, I took issue with the arrogance and narcissism and stupidity of imagining that the be-all and end-all of international politics is whether "The West" likes you or not.
"The West" is perpetrating a deliberate genocide in Palestine and the countries with "The West" are intensely hated by many of the peoples of the world.
It is the CBC's stupid narcissism that I was objecting to.
"Even if Trump stops arms deliveries to Ukraine, denying US arms makers billions in profits, I'd love to hear your reason for believing that EU countries are less capable than Russia."
I don't quite understand this question.
This link shows the proportions of global arms exports by country.
https://www.statista.com/chart/18417/global-weapons-exports/
The USA, France, and Russia account for 61.5% of total arms exports.
Are we to imagine that the remaining countries that together comprise 16% of world arms exports can step in and replace the USA's aid to Ukraine?
It's long been understood that Ukraine faces a shortage of artillery and, increasingly, anti-air defence.
France exports fighter jets. That's probably a big part of their overall exports. I imagine that the UK and Germany also sell some big-ticket items that comprise the bulk of their export dollars.
This link discusses the issue:
https://www.voanews.com/a/can-europe-arm-ukraine-now-that-us-has-halted-military-aid-/7998393.html
"Can Europe make up for the shortfall of military aid from the U.S.?
'There is a sharp limit to what Europe can do,' said Mark Galeotti, executive director of the consultancy Mayak Intelligence and the author of 'Forged in War,' a military history of Russia.
'There are certain systems, ranging from Patriot missiles all the way through to spare parts for the Abrams tanks and Bradley personnel carriers, that the Ukrainians are using, that the only way the Europeans can get [them] is by buying them on the open market. And that is going to take time,' Galeotti told VOA, adding that some weapons systems ordered on the open market in 2022 were arriving only now in Ukraine."
You mention that Russia has been fighting for 3 years and still hasn't defeated Ukraine.
First of all: That's true. What does that fact say about hysterical claims of Russia conquering all of Eastern Europe???
Secondly: Ukraine had the biggest army in Europe and was trained and armed to the teeth by NATO. That army was virtually wiped-out and a second army was raised. That army has also been almost completely wiped-out.
This is a 21st Century battlefield against peer technologies. Drones are everywhere, on both sides. Armies cannot easily gather in large numbers for a big PUSH as was the case in WW2. Because now they can be seen by satellites and attacked by long-range missiles and drones.
Of course this has been difficult for Russia.
It is a grinding war of attrition. But Russia is bigger than Ukraine and it is evident from Ukraine Armed Forces complaints that they are running out of men and material.
"Being able to grind another country's military into the dust is in any case no guarantee of victory, as the Soviets, as well as the US and its allies, found out in Afghanistan."
That's true. But I don't think it's the point you wanted to make. In Afghanistan, the USA armed and funded a reactionary, fundamentalist, misogynist jihad against a Russian allied government, in order to provide Russia with its own "Vietnam." To weaken Russia.
Who cares that Afghanistan was plunged into decades of chaos and trauma?
It's the same thing in Ukraine. Let us not forget the rise of Banderites in the Ukrainian military and society. Unrepentant, WW2-style, NAZIS. Being used as the USA's cat's paw to, again, weaken Russia.
If the Russian army defeats the Ukrainian army, the USA could sponsor terrorist elements indefinitely to continue to harass Russia regardless of the continued devastation of Ukraine.
You can read my blog to hear my thoughts about Putin, the origins of this war, the progress of the fighting.
If you disagree with me I'd be more than happy to have a respectful debate on it.
6 comments:
On the latter part of the post: It is true that even if Russia annihilates the Ukrainian army entirely, it would be foolish of Putin to react by annexing or occupying on a long term basis the entirety of Ukraine. A resistance would arise; it would be smaller than one might expect because so many of the young men who typically join such things are dead, but still, Ukraine is not a small country and a lot of Ukrainians REALLY don't like Russia, especially now.
But I really don't think that's what victory looks like to Putin. I very much doubt he has any intention to occupy the whole of Ukraine. He wants the Donbass, if the Ukrainian army really collapses he might be happy to snag Odessa, a nice port where ethnic Russians make up quite a lot of the population. And he wants more political things: The remainder of Ukraine doesn't join NATO, has a small army, plus Putin will want the scalps of some top Banderists as a nod to his "deNazification". That would be the maximal Russian objectives.
The longer Ukraine stalls, the worse their chance of at least keeping Odessa, and the more people die.
Purple library guy,
I don't think that Putin wants all of Ukraine and the headaches that would come with it. In all honesty, I think he sincerely wanted to leave the pre-SMO Ukraine intact with his Minsk Accords.
Everyone calling for continued Ukrainian "resistance" needs to understand that it just means more Ukrainians (and far fewer Russians) continuing to die for nothing.
For the sake of clarity, I'll divide up my response.
1. The ICC
The ICC is not above criticism, far from it. Humans have never come up with a justice system that will satisfy everyone's idea of justice, and I suspect we never will. We have yet to devise a system, on a national or international level, that reliably holds the rich and powerful to the same standards they impose on others.
The ICC is no exception. Powerful countries like the US, Russia and China, as well as countries with ambition to be among them like India, haven't ratified the Rome Statute and attorned to the court's jurisdiction. It's no surprise that notorious human rights violators like N Korea and Israel haven't either. But that's no reason to abandon a project to hold the most serious mass murderers to account and bring a measure of justice to their victims.
The African criticism of the ICC that you've referred to has merit and is entirely in line with what I've said about the difficulty of holding the powerful to account. The solution is not to let butchers like Katanga and Lubanga get away with their crimes, but to go after bigger fish as well. This is also true domestically, where the solution to the unequal prosecution of crime isn't to defund the police, but to require and equip them to go after criminals in the c-suites with the same zeal as they go after criminals in the streets.
So I see the indictments of Putin and Netanyahu and their generals as steps in the right direction. If it were up to me, every living US president would also be indicted. All have at least engaged in crimes of aggression, and with the SCOTUS's presidential immunity decision those crimes will never be prosecuted domestically. But my opinion and a toonie get you a small double-double at Tim's.
2. The child abduction allegation
The ICC was asked by a number of member states, including Canada, to look into allegations that children were unlawfully transfered from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. ICC prosecutors investigated and found reasonable grounds to believe the allegations were true, resulting in Putin being indicted and an arrest warrant being issued. This is no different from what police and prosecutors around the world do daily.
There may indeed be an innocent explanation for the transfer of what Russia admits to being hundreds of thousands of children. But prosecutors and pre-trial judges didn't believe it, and neither do I. The Soviets did the same thing in areas they occupied after WW2. I give as much credence to Russia's story as I do to Israel's claim that the UN is responsible for children starving to death in Gaza. If Putin finds himself in the dock in the Hague, he'll have ample opportunity to explain. The ICC is not a kangaroo court and accuseds have been cleared of charges, including on appeal.
3. The legality of Russia's war
Russia's war against Ukraine is a war of aggression and there simply is no other way of spinning it. Both Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and its current attempt to annex eastern Ukraine were wars waged for territorial gain and subjugation. Russia admits it has no intention of relinquishing captured territory. In neither case was Ukraine - or NATO - massing armies at Russia's border such that Russia could reasonably claim self-defence.
Talk of Nazis and Banderites is a red herring. Every country has its share of fascists, including Russia. Russia's Wagner Group was co-founded by Lt. Col. Dmitry Utkin, a former GRU special forces operator covered in Nazi tattoos. Utkin recruited soldiers of like mind and the unit was easily as neo-Nazi as Ukraine's Azov Battalion.
In any case, Ukrainians could have been flying swastikas and greeting each other with stiff-arm salutes and Russia would still not have been justified in invading. A fascist country on your border is not a legal casus belli.
Wars of annexation are prima facie war of aggression. Here's what the trbunal at Nuremberg had to say about it: "War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." Men were hanged for their participation.
Cap,
I agree with your sentiments. But the courts (any courts), the police, ... bourgeois justice in general, is inevitably going to serve the ruling class.
What we need is a revolution, political and social, for genuine a genuine justice system to be realized.
That having been said, ... and I have not read your next reply. I wanted to respond to each one of them in order.
If Putin really has been kidnapping children and putting them in "re-education" camps, I'd say he deserve an indictment. And if it came from the ICC, it would be entirely legitimate.
But as you've read, I don't think that's the case.
With regards to this war, and with the civilian casualties and all the other attendant horrors; ... I blame the USA and NATO, and I condemn their hypocrisy and their RECKLESSNESS.
According to their stupid narrative, Putin is a "MAD MAN" trying to recreate the Czarist/Soviet Empire (perhaps to compensate for being short or something).
But at the same time, this "mad man" (perhaps coming to them, trembling, with some wild, panicky look in his eyes) was pleading with them not to put Ukraine in NATO and offering guarantees for Ukraine's territorial integrity in return for its neutrality and respect for the rights of its ethnic Russian population.
And the USA and NATO abruptly rejected the offers of this nuclear-armed "mad man" and plowed ahead.
Perhaps they'd decided that the nuclear-armed "mad man" wouldn't do anything rash???
These arrogant lunatics were prepared to risk WWIII to indulge their hubris.
Disgusting.
Cap,
"2. The child abduction allegation
The ICC was asked by a number of member states, including Canada, to look into allegations that children were unlawfully transfered from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. ICC prosecutors investigated and found reasonable grounds to believe the allegations were true, resulting in Putin being indicted and an arrest warrant being issued. This is no different from what police and prosecutors around the world do daily."
I don't know what you hoped to accomplish adding "along with Canada." Canada is a racist, hypocritical shit-hole pissant country, so whether or not we joined up with some other countries to do something isn't an endorsement of that action.
Did you read the Grayzone piece? Did you see what the guy whose study the indictments were based on is quoted as saying about them?
Ukraine says that 30,000 children were taken. Russia says about 700,000. It stands to reason that hundreds of thousands of Russian children were evacuated from a war zone along with 30,000 the Ukrainians claim were somehow on their side.
What do you think happens when any state evacuates civilians from a war zone? Or should they have left them there?
Articles write about children wounded by shrapnel taken by Russian soldiers to hospitals and then, afterwards, taken somewhere else. And we know about this because the kid is now back in the Ukraine and talking with US journalists.
Remembering that, and remembering that m
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