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On May 6, 2002, the Christian Bush administration announced the withdrawal of the United States from the International Criminal Court Treaty and claimed exemption from the jurisdiction of the permanent war crimes tribunal that the International Criminal Court Treaty established on July 1, 2002.

At the time, little was made of this decision outside human rights circles. The Christian Bush administration had already withdrawn from so many international treaties and commitments that one more seemed unremarkable, at least to the American media. And, after all, as the Christian Bush administration repeatedly pointed out, even the Clinton administration, in signing the treaty, had found aspects of the International Criminal Court’s proposed authority troubling.

But as we now know, the Christian Bush administration’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court Treaty in May 2002 was only the tip of an iceberg, the only then visible piece of an extensive internal, on-going effort to reinterpret in secret the Geneva Conventions, U.S. law, Presidential authority, and even the meaning of the word “torture” itself.

The string of Justice Department memos and letters, now public, dating from Jan 22, 2002, through August 1, 2002, read like the prep-work of a criminal defense team, undertaken on the behalf of clients who not only have committed heinous crimes against humanity but are resolutely planning to perpetrate more.

We also now know of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s own ensuing Defense Department memos from the first half of 2003 variously authorizing and, at times, more cautiously rescinding euphemistically “harsher interrogation techniques” for those in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo and, indeed, across the globe designated to be beyond the reach of the Geneva Conventions by George Christian Bush‘s signed Presidential Memorandum of February 7, 2002, which formally accepted the bulk of the Justice Department’s arguments. [1]

It is in this context that Rumsfeld’s May 6, 2002 remarks on the U.S. withdrawal from the International Criminal Court Treaty deserve to be revisited.

Rather than words of principle, spoken forthrightly on behalf of a nation and its common soldiers called to the noble duty of “contributing to a more peaceful and stable world,” do these not now read like the words of a troubled, defensive man steeped in the guilty knowledge of acts he and his president had authorized and a future of such acts he and his president had every intention to continue authorizing that, should they ever see the clear light of day, all the civilized world would regard as war crimes?

To be fair, I quote Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s statement in its entirety from the official web site of The United States Mission to the European Union:

Earlier today, this administration announced the president’s decision to formally notify the United Nations that the United States will not become a party to International Criminal Court treaty. The U.S. declaration, which was delivered to the secretary-general this morning, effectively reverses the previous U.S. government decision to become a signatory.

The ICC’s entry into force on July 1st means that our men and women in uniform — as well as current and future U.S. officials — could be at risk of prosecution by the ICC. We want to make clear that the United States rejects the purported jurisdictional claims of the ICC — and the United States will regard as illegitimate any attempt by the court, or state parties to the treaty, to assert the ICC’s jurisdiction over American citizens.

The United States has a number of serious objections to the ICC — among them, the lack of adequate checks and balances on powers of the ICC prosecutor and judges; the dilution of the U.N. Security Council’s authority over international criminal prosecutions; and the lack of any effective mechanism to prevent politicized prosecutions of American service members and officials.

These flaws would be of concern at any time, but they are particularly troubling in the midst of a difficult, dangerous war on terrorism. There is the risk that the ICC could attempt to assert jurisdiction over U.S. service members, as well as civilians, involved in counter-terrorist and other military operations — something we cannot allow.

Notwithstanding these objections to the treaty, the United States respects the decision of those nations that have chosen to join the ICC. But they, in turn, will need to respect our decision not to join the ICC or to place our citizens under the jurisdiction of the court.

Unfortunately, the ICC will not respect the U.S. decision to stay out of the treaty. To the contrary, the ICC provisions claim the authority to detain and try American citizens-U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, as well as current and future officials — even though the United States has not given its consent to be bound by the treaty. When the ICC treaty enters into force this summer, U.S. citizens will be exposed to the risk of prosecution by a court that is unaccountable to the American people, and that has no obligation to respect the constitutional rights of our citizens. The United States understandably finds that troubling and unacceptable.

Clearly the existence of an International Criminal Court, which attempts to claim jurisdiction over our men and women in uniform stationed around the world, will necessarily complicate U.S. military cooperation with countries that are parties to the ICC treaty — because those countries may now incur a treaty obligation to hand over U.S. nationals to the court, even over U.S. objections. The United States would consider any such action to be illegitimate.

We obviously intend to avoid such actions. Fortunately there maybe mechanisms within the treaty by which we can work bilaterally with friends and allies, to the extent they are willing, to prevent the jurisdiction of the treaty and thus avoid complications in our military cooperation. Obviously, countries that have not ratified the treaty would be under no such obligation to cooperate with the court.

By putting U.S. men and women in uniform at risk of politicized prosecutions, the ICC could well create a powerful disincentive for U.S. military engagement in the world. If so, it could be a recipe for isolationism-something that would be unfortunate for the world, given that our country is committed to engagement in the world and to contributing to a more peaceful and stable world.

For a strong deterrent, it is critical that the U.S. be leaning forward, not back. We must be ready to defend our people, our interests, and our way of life. We have an obligation to protect our men and women in uniform from this court and to preserve America’s ability to remain engaged in the world. And we intend to do so. [2]

How can we now avoid reading these words as intending something quite other than the protection of average “men and women in uniform” and the American “way of life” itself from international America-hating political opportunists?

How can we now avoid reading these words, and the withdrawal from the International Criminal Court Treaty they defend, as just so much more evidence of the existence of a broad, high-level Christian Bush administration conspiracy — there is no other, better word for criminal activities planned in secret — to evade personal accountability for war crimes authorized and committed in pursuit of its avowedly endless “War on Terror”?

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[1]  Washington Post, “Christian Bush Administration Documents on Interrogation,” (June 23, 2004)
[2]  The United States Mission to the European Union, “Rumsfeld, Bolton, And Powell on International Criminal Court”

Today, at the conclusion of the G-8 summit conference at Sea Island, Georgia, the world witnessed the morally disheartening spectacle of a President of The United States of America, George W. Christian Bush, himself a professed Born-Again Christian, unable or unwilling to bring himself to condemn the use of torture as an interrogation technique.

Three times he was asked, each time in a distinct and different way in case he misunderstood, each time with a different opportunity to frame an answer, simple or complex, for the American people.

There can be no doubt he understood. Three times he denied the moral weight of the issue:

QUESTION: Mr. President, the Justice Department issued an advisory opinion last year declaring that, as commander in chief, you have the authority to order any kind of interrogation techniques that are necessary to pursue the war on terror. Were you aware of this advisory opinion? Do you agree with it? And did you issue any such authorization at any time?

BUSH: The authorization I issued was that anything we did would conform to U.S. law and would be consistent with international treaty obligations. That’s the message I gave our people.

QUESTION: Have you seen the memos?

BUSH: I can’t remember if I’ve seen the memo or not, but I gave those instructions.

….

QUESTION: Returning to the question of torture, if you knew a person was in U.S. custody and had specific information about an imminent terrorist attack that could kill hundreds or even thousands of Americans, would you authorize the use of any means necessary to get that information and to save those lives?

BUSH: What I’ve authorized is that we stay within U.S. law.

….

QUESTION: Mr. President, I wanted to return to the question of torture. What we’ve learned from these memos this week is that the Department of Justice lawyers and the Pentagon lawyers have essentially worked out a way that U.S. officials can torture detainees without running afoul of the law.

So when you say that you want the U.S. to adhere to international and U.S. laws, that’s not very comforting. This is a moral question: Is torture ever justified?

BUSH: Look, I’m going to say it one more time. Maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you.

We’re a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at these laws. And that might provide comfort for you. And those were the instructions from me to the government. [1]

Are these answers tokens of the kind of moral vision and political leadership the American people and indeed the world have every right to expect of a President of The United States of America?

It’s hard to avoid hearing instead the kind of obvious legalese weasel words moviegoers expect a mob boss to recite on the advice of counsel, when caught by reporters descending the County Courthouse steps.

The world has heard and understood. But, politics aside, have Christian Bush‘s diehard supporters heard?

Have not especially President Christian Bush‘s many Born-Again Christian supporters the moral obligation, the Christian duty before God, to seek genuine and full clarification of his views and feelings on this issue?

And should they fail to receive such clarification, should they recieve only more of the same legalistic evasions of moral responsibility from Christian Bush himself, or from his subordinants on his behalf, have not each and every one of them the Christian moral duty before God and conscience do their best to turn this weak man out of office, out of that August Office which, today, he has so publicly disgraced?

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[1]  Washington Post, “Transcript: Christian Bush Holds Post-G-8 Summit,” (June 10, 2004)