US military on trial? It will be a war

Can we investigate the American military? And on the CIA? Accuse Washington of war crimes? Of violation of human rights? Can we question the behavior of the world gendarme? The International Criminal Court in The Hague yesterday decided to try. Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has had the authorization he has been asking for for three years. By reversing the previous orientation of the Court itself, I will now be able to investigate suspected cases of mass murder, rape and torture that lead me to point the finger at Taliban forces (and, so far, no one had objected), against the legitimate Afghan government (which among the signatories of the Convention that established the Court in 1998) and also against (here’s the news) the armed forces of the United States of America. If the Ghanaian Bensouda manages to bring some accused to stars and stripes to the bar, it would be an absolute first time.

In the case of the American fighter who cuts the cables of the Cermis cableway by killing its passengers, in cases of sexual violence on the Japanese island of Okinawa, in the wars, in the revolutions, in the coups that have seen the US protagonists, no American has ever been judged by foreign courts. Washington has always relied on exclusive jurisdiction over its citizens. And he will certainly do it in this case too, opposing the investigations in every way. The hot reaction of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was explicit: This is a reckless action by a political institution disguised as a judicial body. The dream of a world in peace governed by a world government seems to have disappeared, the stronger states no longer care about the UN and do not recognize the authority of the Court. The trial could turn into an anti-American show or maybe an international justice show that has been missing for too many years. A new beginning. Or the beginning of the end.