ManfromMiddletown posted a diary today titled Spain Claims Universal Jurisdiction: Will Bush and Blair be tried in Madrid? It is about the Spanish government’s recent acceptance of the idea that:
According to the proponents of universal jurisdiction, certain crimes pose so serious a threat to the international community as a whole, that any state ought to be able to prosecute an individual responsible for it; no place should be a safe haven for war criminals (including criminals involved in genocides) and human rights violators. Amnesty International also includes torture, “disappearances” and extrajudicial executions in this list.
Read on for my own take on this.
But…
As Mao Tse Tung so aptly observed 60 or more years ago in another context, REAL “universal jurisdiction” only comes from the barrel of a gun.
Read this Guardian article about how several senior British generals see the policies and actions of US troops in Iraq. In short, they are saying that “the US army has developed over time a singular focus on conventional warfare, of a particularly swift and violent kind”. And they are disagreeing with this as a tactical approach.
But that is the only approach…the overall shock and awe idea…that is stopping any NUMBER of countries from bringing various types of pressure to bear on this country to back off.
I mean, if you have a military and a government that has proven to be absolutely dedicated to the idea of “a particularly swift and violent” kind of warfare, and that government possesses enough nuclear weapons and delivery systems to literally end life on earth as we know it a hundred times over…a swifter and more violent means of warfare having yet to be invented by human beings as far as we know…then it is time to be afraid.
VERY afraid.
So here we are.
The United States government is essentially holding the entire world hostage with the old “I’ve got the building wired and I’ll blow the whole place up if you try to stop me” idea.
Meanwhile, the cops are outside, afraid to come in.
“Universal jurisdiction” my ASS!!!
The US is working on the concept of eminent domain.
Over the whole world.
And when you live in an area where the government has proven that it will do whatever is necessary to take over property that it believes to be in its best interests to acquire…well, all you can really do is sit tight, hope that they do not not cast an eye on YOUR property, and play whatever politics is available to you to moderate their ambitions in your neighborhood.
Which is exactly what Spain and every other damned country in the world is doing right now. Sitting in a big restaurant trying to eat their dinner while there’s a table of truly dangerous mobsters off in the corner. Mobsters who appear to be in a particularly…expansive mood these days.
“Don’t look over there, Myrtle. NO EYE CONTACT!!! Maybe they’ll pick on somebody else.”
I got yer ‘universal jurisdiction’ right HERE!!!
Universal jurisdiction comes from the barrel of a gun.
And from NOWHERE else.
Yup.
And unless we can convince the real power in this country…the movers and the shakers, the possessors of trillions and trillions of dollars of property…that this is a counterproductive stance, that it is literally bad for business and will one way or another ultimately result in a collapse of the whole system, then this is the game that we will continue to play.
Start convincing…
Or sit at YOUR table and wait for the inevitable firefight to erupt.
Because the bad guys always use their weapons, eventually.
That’s why they’re the BAD guys.
Afraid yet?
I am.
I mean…I literally start every day with the thought (make it the meditation) that “This day is a good day to die.” And THEN I go on about my business. So I am NOT “afraid”, in one sense.
But I fear for my family.
For the work that I have done in my lifetime.
For the work my family has done.
Over hundreds of generations.
My extended family.
The HUMAN family.
I do.
We are at that point now.
We literally have a madman sitting in the White House. Someone who is surrounded and controlled by OTHER madmen.
And we sit here talking about “universal jurisdiction”?
Nice theory.
Please…talk to John Gotti or Ghengis Khan about “universal jurisdiction”.
Please.
The rest of the world IMPOSED “universal jurisdiction” on Adolf Hitler.
At the point of a gun.
Before HE imposed eminent domain on THEM.
We are one crisis away from the same situation.
One crisis.
Only…little Mr. Schicklgruber had no nukes.
OOOOOooooo….scaaaary!!!
AG