Biden Admin Drops Trump’s Sanctions on ICC Prosecutor Who Went After U.S. and Israeli Troops
Secretary Blinken calls Trump-era sanctions on the tribunal “inappropriate” even though the U.S. does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
President Joe Biden’s administration has lifted sanctions and travel ban on the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) who launched investigation against U.S. and Israeli military personnel for alleged war crimes.
In March 2020, ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda opened a “war crimes” probe against the U.S. troops fighting jihadi terrorist groups Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The ICC investigation against U.S. armed forces was not only a witch-hunt, but also illegitimate since Washington has refused to ratify the Rome statue that created the tribunal in 2002.
President Donald Trump responded to the Hague-based turbinal’s probe by issuing an executive order, authorizing sanctions against Bensouda and other ICC officials. The Trump White House also opposed a similar ICC investigation against members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for their operations against Gaza-based Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups.
President Biden had ordered a “review” of the Trump-era sanctions shortly after entering the Oval Office. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday announced the lifting of sanctions and travel ban on ICC officials. He called President Trump’s countermeasures against the tribunal “inappropriate.”
The Reuters reported Friday’s decision by the Biden White House:
The United States on Friday lifted sanctions on International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda that drew international criticism after they were imposed by the administration of former President Donald Trump.
The move, announced by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, lifts the sanctions imposed on Bensouda over her investigation into whether American forces committed war crimes in Afghanistan.
It also removes Phakiso Mochochoko, head of the ICC’s Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division, from the Specially Designated Nationals list.
In a statement, Blinken said the State Department had also terminated a separate 2019 policy on visa restrictions on certain ICC personnel and added: “These decisions reflect our assessment that the measures adopted were inappropriate and ineffective.”
The ICC “welcomed” the decision and thanked the Biden administration for “strengthening” its work, which includes harassing the U.S. and allied troops for the services rendered during combat. “I welcome this decision which contributes to strengthening the work of the court,” a senior ICC official, Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi, said in a statement.
President Biden’s attitude towards the ICC is in sharp contrast with the stance taken by the Trump administration, which rejected the self-style global tribunal’s jurisdiction over men and women serving the U.S. armed forces. “We cannot, we will not stand by as our people are threatened by a kangaroo court,” former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said June last year.
The Biden White House’s decision will further embolden the ICC as it pushes ahead with an illegal probe against Israeli military personnel for their defensive actions against Palestinian and Islamist terrorist groups. Israel, just like the U.S., does not recognize the Hague-based tribunal.
Bensouda, who was instrumental in the witch-hunt against the U.S. troops, played a central role in the ongoing anti-Israel investigation. Gambian-born Bensouda has meanwhile been replaced by UK lawmaker Karim Khan to run the “war crimes” probe against Israel.
Secretary Pompeo slams ICC ‘kangaroo court’ (June 2020)
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Comments
My knee jerk reaction was that the only possible reason for lifting these sanctions was to give the “prosecutor” the go-ahead to continue.
After some thought, I think there’s another possibility. It is a given that Liberals don’t understand the consequences of their actions. They value in Mark Steyn’s words, attitudes rather than policies.
They also approve of world tyranny (it’s too kind to call it world government). This leads to the conclusion that they think it’s more important to show acceptance of the international “community” than to protect people from unjust and politically motivated prosecution.
That sounds about right.
Our tradition of protecting individual rights is labeled “American exceptionalism,” which rubs the world’s, and our, ruling elites the wrong way.
What a freaking nightmare we are living in
There is no good reason for the United States to continue the membership in such a corrupt useless cabal as the United Nations. It’s due to the equally corrupt and useless people like the Faux President and Bimbo in Waiting that we continue to waste millions of tax dollars propping up the joke that is the UN.
And yet, numerous Republican administrations have done squat to pull us out when they could have done so. There must still be some tasty cheese there somewhere.
“Republicans”, as we have learned, have been in on the scam, looting the nation and committing treason no less than any democrat hack. Just look at McConnell’s Chinese holdings. And Boehner’s finances.
If we don’t boot McConnell, McCarthy and Rona Romney the hell out of the GOP leadership positions they are in, we are going to get stabbed in the back AGAIN.
How collectively dumb are we?
Twisting the knife slowly in the back
You wait and see
Right, sic foreign kangaroo courts on our soldiers and allies.
At least we know to trust our allies more than our own government, whom we don’t trust at all anymore.
I hope that by 2024 enough people are so pissed at the UN that we can finally completely dump them. By and large, they are just another group of welfare recipients sucking up American money. Perhaps we should form a organizations which only includes like minded Western countries, and that completely excludes grifters from shit hole countries.
We all have our dreams, but we will be in the UN forever. Various GOP pols have blustered for years about getting us out of the UN. That will happen right around the time the same pols defund Amtrak, close down PBS and CPB, and that old chestnut of shutting down the Dept of Ed.