A group of influential Republican senators has sent a letter to International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan, warning him not to issue international arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, and threatening him with “severe sanctions” if he does so.
In a terse, one-page letter obtained exclusively by Zeteo, and signed by 12 GOP senators, including Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Florida’s Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz of Texas, Khan is informed that any attempt by the ICC to hold Netanyahu and his colleagues to account for their actions in Gaza will be interpreted “not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States.”
“Target Israel and we will target you,” the senators tell Khan, adding that they will “sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States.”
In their letter, the dozen Republican senators remind Khan that the U.S. “demonstrated in the American Service-Members’ Protection Act the lengths to which we will go to protect [its] sovereignty.”
The ASPA, signed into law by George W. Bush in 2002, has since become widely known as “The Hague Invasion Act” because it authorizes the U.S. president “to use all means necessary and appropriate” to bring about the release not just of U.S. persons but also allies who are imprisoned or detained by the ICC.
So america has a “right” to invade my country if the ICC prosecutes a non american war criminal? Huh.
The euphemistically named ‘Hague invasion law’ actually only promises to take any action necessary to avoid being held responsible. In real terms though, any military action against Hague will deeply polarize the world and destroy the current world order where the US enjoys some dominance and influence. The resulting scenario will see the US attracting the hostility of a lot of formerly allied nations. It will be worse than being held responsible at the ICC. So you’re kind of safe.
You say that like a significant number of these Republican’s donors would not salivate over being able to fracture the US from world politics like that.
…Russia. I’m talking about Russia, if you’re unaware.
The American Republican party has been trying to break the UN for decades under the theory that our sovereignty allows us to take unilateral action globally and the UN is a threat to that. They sell it domestically as any law we pass because of the UN is an impingement on our freedoms and sovereignty. But it’s pretty blatantly about their foreign policy goals. And when I mean sell it, I mean literally. There are books you can buy where the UN has “invaded” the US after the Democrats let immigration get so bad we lost all civil order and of course it’s 300 pages of militiamen using painstakingly described weapons to fight the UN forces.
We really do have some crazy people and they got organized after we elected our first black president.
Kinda wild, especially since they leave other Americans to rot in foreign prisons. I highly doubt they’d actually do it though, and if they do I hope the EU shoots those troops out of the sky if they really dare to take hostile action. I think it’s just stupid strongmen policy to appear tough.
I think shooting foreign troops would be seen as an escalation. And I don’t think Europe wants to see where that will go.
Invading foreign countries already is an escalation. You cannot the defensive actions against that an “escalation”. That’s Russian type of logic.
I’d say the US will definitely cease its aggression when the first French nuke hits an aircraft carrier, or similar target. The French do commit to warning shots in their first-strike doctrine.
…unlikely to come to that point, though, Europe can stalemate the US by conventional means with the current arms levels, they’d never get boots on the ground. It’s also not like we’d need nukes to sink those carriers. Washington is then welcome to seethe at an ocean’s distance.
France nuking American Aircraft Carriers?!?! At that point there wouldn’t be any need for “boots on the ground” because France would be nothing but glass and smoking craters.
That scenario is literally the end of the world.
Then don’t threaten France, or its vital interests (which definitely include the Netherlands) with invasion. Simple as that. As de Gaulle himself said, you can switch around nationalities yourself:
France won’t be glass and craters for the precise reason that the US would be glass and craters if they don’t cease their aggression. Ceasing aggression, France will see no need to first strike, crisis averted. Simple as that.
It might come as a surprise for Americans that there’s smaller countries that can’t be bullied around by military force but trust me the French are dead serious about their nuclear first strike doctrine. Which the US is well-advised to also take seriously so that the French won’t need to fire even a warning shot. They’d also prefer not to.
The warning shot, btw, won’t come via ICBM so that it’s clear that it’s not an actual extinction-level attack. The French have cruise missiles specifically for that purpose, until they explode they look like any other cruise missile you’d
lobthrow at a carrier.Oh we’re dumb enough. Trump redrew a hurricane prediction with sharpie on live national television. These are not rational people and that’s always been the downfall of MAD as a theory. It requires rational actors.
This is the military-happy wing, so they really don’t need much excuse. The “tougher” something sounds, the better. In their view anyway.
An they unironically use “sovereignty” as the justification.
Well no. Nobody has a right to invade your country. But we’ll do it anyways. We really are that stupid.