International Law As An Election Prop

Pretty funny. Obama says that the USA should be careful not to make Osama a martyr, assuming they can catch or kill him. Maybe he was confusing the names "Osama" and "Obama"? It's been known to happen, I hear.

Get this: Obama invoked the Nuremberg trials as a way to deal with Bin Laden. No, seriously:

Obama, who has sharply criticised the use of the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba to hold suspected terrorists, talked of the Nuremberg trials set up after World War II to prosecute Nazi war criminals as an example of how justice could be administered in keeping with a "universal set of principles".

One assumes that Obama made it clear to reporters that any discussion of Kucinich's impeachment moves was off the table. Let alone War Crimes trials for Bush and Cheney - ha!

I remember Kevin Rudd talked about using the International Criminal Court as a way to bring Mugabe and the Burmese generals to justice too. How's that going, Kev?

At first light we started to walk along the desolate beach facing the open sea toward the village of Aung Hlaing.

I walked away from our small group, to where the tide had deposited bodies at the top of the beach.

They lay on their backs, mouths open, their skin bleached by the sun and seawater. Most of them were recognisably women and children; they had been less able than the men to swim or cling to something solid when the water surged over their heads.

Never mind, it helped you get elected, right? Now let's build US spy bases in WA instead.

Meanwhile, ordinary citizens can push on with their simple dreams of international law:

In international law, it is a war crime intentionally launching an attack ‘in the knowledge’ that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment –‘which would be clearly excessive’ in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated. War crimes are defined under the International Criminal Court Rome Statute Part II Jurisdiction, Admissibility and Applicable Law Article 8, 2, (b), (iv).

Accordingly, the Brief Of Evidence alleges John Winston Howard violated this statute by intentionally launching an attack ‘in the knowledge’ that such attack would cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment –‘which would be clearly excessive’ in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated’. The violation at law occurs if the person ‘with the authority’, takes the decision, ‘knowing the impacts’ and ‘knowing the impacts will be excessive’.

The Brief Of Evidence alleges, the violation at law did actually occur because the person ‘with the authority’, John Winston Howard, took the decision, ‘knowing the impacts’ and ‘knowing the impacts will be excessive’. It alleges, not only did John Winston Howard have this knowledge, he was formally warned by the world’s most eminent legal experts, of the excessiveness of the attack and the severe impacts in human carnage.

We can still dream, can't we? Or is that a crime now too?