American arrogance displayed once again

AMERICANS have again displayed their arrogance to cement their illusion of being special human beings.

They have vowed to be in the forefront of hunting down Russian war criminals in the raging Ukrainian-Russian conflict. But this is very rich coming from a country which has adamantly refused to subject its own citizens to international law.

Their transgressions are so many but let us take their so-called War on Terror. In the pursuit of what they perceived to be terrorists after 9/11, they destroyed countries from North Africa ( Libya) Middle East (Iraq) to Asia ( Afghanistan).

Nothing has been done to bring those Americans who committed atrocities in those states to justice as their government shields them by not signing international treaties.

In evading international law, they even crafted a novel and unique concept “enemy combatants” so that they can kidnap anybody they considered as terrorist thus denying their captives the status of prisoner of war.

They used Guantanamo Bay where thousands were held for decades without trial – some still there. Another glaring example of despicable American behaviour is the Rome Statutewhich it has refused to ratify together with its like-minded allies, and has instead insultingly been financially supporting the resultant structure of that treaty, the International Criminal Court, to pursue what they consider to be sub-standard human beings and citizens of other states for committing war crimes.

Thus why should other tyrants not behave like the Americans if the latter deem themselves too superior to respect international law? Russian troops, right up to Vladimir Putin –and Russia have also ironically not ratified the Rome Statute – should be brought to book where there is evidence they have committed war crimes.

But how does the so-called international community justify this call when it patently closes its eyes to American atrocities? International law shall only be legitimate when all states, regardless of status and power, start respecting it.

In the absence of changing its policy its supposed respect for human rights shall always ring hollow.