Owning, Using, and Abusing the System

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS are created for the purpose of preserving civilization, and facilitating international economic, political, and social intercourse, in a world divided into nearly two hundred nation states with divergent interests and goals. Among the most important are the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, all of which were established amid the chaos and devastation following World War Two.The U.N., of course, handles the geo-political side of things. It is dominated by the Security council, made up of the victors in World War Two, still the most powerful and wealthiest countries on the planet. The IMF and World Bank are designed to stabilize the global economy, and to provided assistance to developing countries. The most noteworthy thing about all three is that they are all headquartered in the United States, which would have it no other way. The U.N. has its iconic building on Manhattan's east side; the other two sit on "K" street in Washington D.C., gleaming edifices, a tribute to American power, wealth, and supremacy. The International Criminal court (ICC) is the most recent addition to international civility, having been founded in 2002. It is the direct descendant of the NAZI war crimes trial at Nuremberg following WWII, in a world much in need of an institution to cope with the fact that the second world war did not put an end to war crimes. Much to its credit, the ICC is located in Europe, not on Pennsylvania Avenue or in Trump Tower. Whereas membership in the U.N., World Bank, and IMF is nearly universal, the ICC has a membership of fewer than 150 countries, with most of the others on the sidelines as signatories, but not participants. What all four of these venerable institutions have in common is that the United States never fails to use them to its own advantage, but generally refuses to abide by their decisions when those decisions do not advantage American interests, meaning American corporate imperialistic goals. The pattern is persistent and irrefutable, the examples too many to enumerate here, but easily researchable. The current example involves the ICC, which recently announced its intention to investigate events in Afghanistan, a country in which the number of investigatable events is limitless. The ICC deals only with war crimes committed by individuals, not nations. The United States, the most prolific war crime committing country in history, wouldn't have it any other way, even though it isn't a member. Individual war crimes can be any of the usual: murder, genocide, aggression, and more. The U.S. is indeed fortunate that the ICC did not exist during the Viet Nam War: Lt. Kali comes to mind, among many other examples. In Afghanistan and Iraq, American forces participated in many regrettable activities; stripping Iraqi soldiers naked and staking them on top of each other, urinating on them and photographing them comes to mind. The Trump administration, with Sec. of State Pompeo leading the charge, insists that it will have nothing to do with the investigation of the Afghani war, claiming the the whole affair is politically motivated, a hoax, to use the all too familiar Trumpian terminology, a scam intended only to gain retribution and revenge. Sound familiar? The claim is nonsense, of course. The United States, as always, wants its own brand of pro-American justice, refusing to cooperate with the international community in obtaining impartial justice. All criminals claim innocence. Rarely if ever does the American government admit fault or blame, and certainly not in the era of Trump, when the king can do no wrong. The ICC will nonetheless do its work, and, whether the United States accepts or condemns its findings depends, as always, upon one and only one factor: whether those findings reflect favorably upon the world's most powerful empire.