High Minded Morality Hurts People--Again

Omar al-Bashir is a very unpleasant person. He is almost into the Idi Amin category and could, now that the High Minded are helping him, aspire to the status of Pol Pot.

The International Criminal Court is another UN invention intended to please the High Minded and Lofty Thinking types who really, really believe that there is such a critter as enforceable international law. So far the ICC has enjoyed a somewhat paltry catch, thuggish characters from the former Serbian government and a pair of sociopaths from failed African states.

These international felons were at the time of their arrest former heads of state or members of deposed governments. But, now the ICC seeks the heights of issuing an arrest warrant for a sitting head of state. Presumably, after sitting around one of the marijuana selling cafes in Amsterdam, the worthies of the ICC thought that had they only been around in the 1930s the world could have been spared the worst excesses of Adolph Hitler or Joe Stalin both of whom were well known for wholesale internal massacres undertaken for ideological reasons.

The comparison of Omar al-Bashir with two of the three greatest mass slaughterers in history is unfair to the Sudanese. (For ten points name the third.) Still, his notion of effective counterinsurgency seems akin to the notion of creating a desert and calling it peace. And, there seems little doubt that Omar is motivated by ideological considerations.

Al-Bashir is an Islamist. His supporters and corps of executioners are Islamists. His victims in the main are infidels who according to Islamist interpretations of Islam deserve to be sent to hell with all possible dispatch. A small minority of Omar's targets are merely observant Muslims who fail to support his Allah driven agenda of religious and ethnic purification with sufficient ardor.

There is good and sufficient reason to cap Omar with or without due process of law.

But, the reach of the ICC far exceeds its grasp.

As a drearily predictable consequence of this exercise in judicial hubris a lot of people are going to suffer. Suffer greatly. Suffer, in many cases, unto death.

Just how the hell gripless are the members of the ICC? Did these inflated egos really expect that al-Bashir would fly up to Amsterdam and submit to arrest? Go to the nearest Dutch embassy and ask to be handcuffed forthwith?

Omar, the African Union and the Arab League, to say nothing of Sudan's number one trading partner and foreign investment, China, all warned that any issuance of an arrest warrant would be counterproductive. Even relatively moderate Muslim states such as Jordan evidenced support for their embattled coreligionist.

Making support more than mere rhetoric, a Chinese company signed a contract to build roads two days after the ICC demanded al-Bashir's incarceration pending trial. Hello! Is there anybody home at the ICC.

Omar did the expected. Hot on the heels of the warrant, the Sudanese government cancelled the operating licenses of thirteen international aid organisations and booted their collective posteriors out of the country. As an instant riposte the ICC made threats that the humanitarian crisis expected as a consequence might result in yet more charges against the president of Sudan.

Wow! That ought to give old Omar pause for thought. Right. Fer sure, Dudes of the ICC.

Has no one noticed within the Legions of the High Minded that pressure consolidates political will of the target long before it might crush that will? History is replete with examples of that principle. If history is too tough a subject, consider how a snowball is made.

Right. You squeeze loose flakes and they become a ball. Squeeze long and hard enough the once flaky stuff becomes a headbopping iceball.

Get the picture, you of the High Minded?

Now the ICC, Darling of the High Minded, has placed a couple of million Sudanese in harm's way. In case anyone has missed it the refugee camps in the desert lack a few amenities such as water, food, adequate protection from the elements and basic medical care. All of these were provided by the High Minded outfits expelled by al-Bashir.

So, now what?

One possibility is that the UN Security Council will suspend or otherwise overrule the ICC's action. This is the preferred option as it will allow a face saving way for the situation to be defused and the international aid organisations to return to their essential work.

China's position on the Security Council and its critical role not only in Sudan but in relation to other vexing US concerns makes this action viable. That is if the US goes along with it. We have the veto. And, given the predilections of our ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, coupled with President Obama's inability to "even fake an interest in foreign policy" our use of the veto to block any suspension of the warrant is not an impossible outcome.

There is an alternative. Regime change. But, Sudan today is not Panama twenty years ago. It is not even Afghanistan in 2002.

No national leader of any country well oriented as to time and place is going to support in any way, shape or manner an invasion of Sudan. To the probable dismay of Ms Rice and others of a High Minded nature, ousting Omar at the point of a bayonet and frog marching the perp in handcuffs, shackles and disgrace to the Netherlands is a non-starter.

Reality dictates that unless and until a well-placed bullet preferably fired by a gun in Sudanese hands solves the problem the world is stuck with Omar al-Bashir. The best thing to do is cooperate in a Security Council action to suspend or even quash the warrant and get the aid workers back to the job.

The Geek is not to be numbered among the twenty-six percent of Americans who have a favorable view of the UN and its major subsidiaries. He lost all faith in that Utopian outfit when it shifted its mission from maintaining international peace (its original function) to mucking about in the internal matters of member states.

The al-Bashir episode shows one more time that the UN and all its manifold coercive creations such as the ICC should stick to the task of keeping international peace. Anything else invites entrance into morasses in which there is no easy or clean exit. Walking into the internal dynamics of a state--even a thugocracy such as Sudan--hurts the innocent and assures the guilty have a stronger grip on power.