--- Jorpho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Not really.
> >
> > To answer your question, they did. Early studies showed some iritation,
> but
> > did not suggest long term affects. If they had then thousands of US
> > servicemen could have and would have suied the US governemnt and won. All
> of
> > the suits that have gone through have been on lack of treatment BTW.
> >
> > We have done the same thing many times. Asbestose was widely used up
> unitl
> > 1980.
> >
> > Led until the mid 70s.
> >
> > Gasolen aditives that were in high use in California and were actualy
> > required by law to reduce polution have been found to be high cancer
> causing.
> >
> > Should the senators who voted for the use of these be tried for War
> Crimes?
> >
> > There was a time that the tobaco industry did not know what harm cigarets
> > cause. We now know that someone sitting next to you smoking a cigaret is
> > poinsining you.
> >
> > Should we arest every smoker for a War Crime?
> >
> > This is exactly why the US is staying out of the ICC. The regulations are
> not
> > sufficient to guarentee that they will not be abused.
>
> Actually, there still aren't very many tobacco executives who would
> willingly state that their product harms people, are there?
No, but that has nothing to do with the fact that at one point no one knew,
and there is no basis for punishing them for something that no one even knew
to test for.
Moder execs are another matter.
Still this is not a "war crime"
> One might argue that the Vietnamese were not using herbicides so
> extensively
> at the time, and certainly never asked to have it forced upon them in such
> quantities.
Which Vietnamese would that be?
> And aren't such chemicals now subjected to long-term studies
> before being approved?
Yea, guess why.
> (It is tempting to ask who the US government was purchasing herbicides from
> and what they got in exchange.)
That's crazy talk and you know it. If you are going to see a conspiricy
behind everything then we can really get into the European Union's plan to
take over the whole world.
ICC
Personaly I see the ICC as a step twards European federalization. I think
that is a good thing for Europe, but not for the States. It's too much too
fast. Let Europe federalize first and learn what the difficulties of such a
system are. We have had over 200 years of federalization. We know very well
what it takes to keep it together, what workes and what does not work. It is
very frightening to be asked to join a new type of federalization which
suffers from some of the issues we have already fixed. Especialy when some of
these took over 100 years. The Idea of one world governemnt is a good one,
but Europe is behind the game in federalization. They have lessons to learn
and solutions to find. The US, with some positive, some negative experience
is here as a refernce. You guys may make simmilar choices, or different ones.
Some day it may make sense to combine Europe and the US legal or otherwise,
and this will probably just happen gradualy over time anyway. But in the mean
time we are not yet prepared to join a fledgling federalization, chriminal
system or otherwise.
What you will learn is that federal chriminal law is a very fragile creature.
The only reason that our system works is becouse we have seperate bodies of
governemnt. Legislative making the laws, Executive inforcing the laws, and
Judicial judging the law in practice. Each of these branches is equaly as
powerful. Without such a system federalization of criminal (or other) law
would have too many issues to be maintainable. There is a three sided system
of checks and balances. Sure this makes things move slowly. We may know that
one thing or another is broken, but we also know that slaping on a solution
is going to break something else. It is a natural system (if your a
proggrammer, spegetti code) and it has to be that way. Why? becouse if it
were any other way it would resemble the facism or communism or
totalitarianism that failed in the last century.
It means that as a body we make some decisions that seem silly, or
ill-informed, but it also means that we maintain personal freedom and
national freedom.
Very few are subjected to tyrany. We work out our issues in a peacefull and
controled manner, we come to natural solutions, they may not allways be the
best possible at the time, but over time they do work themseleves out. We
make few quick decicsion, but when we do decide it generaly produces and
improvement. If not, then it quickly perculates through one branch of the
other (whichever is the most natural) and is corrected.
Curently we are dealing with one issue which exemplifies this. Medicianl
mariwana is legal in California, but it is illegal Federaly. We are dealing
with issues of States rights and just how local we want laws to be
determined. The State refuses to inforce the federal law. The inforcements
that have happened are likely to go to the suppream court. As did row-wade
(abortion) and several issues on raceism.
Another thing is that our government today is not the same government we had
20 years ago. It changes. This is sometimes hard for others to understand.
You may blame the US governement for some small decision made 30 or 40 years
ago, and we will recognize it. It is nothing new. We are constantly metating
our governemnt to make it better, it does not supprise us that the
governement of the past did something we find distastefull today. But it
doesn't bother us either if we have already fixed it. At the same time we
know that the gerneral structure is sound becouse things do continue to get
better.
We get iritated whith the same critisims from the outside that we ourselves
make from the inside. We hold this same iritation to chritsizm from the
inside from individuals who don't vote.
For the general average American to be satisfied with the ICC we would have
to have a simmilar system with 3 equaly powerful branches. Further we would
have to have equal (by population not by state) democratic control over who
manned the positions of such a governement.
We would also have to know that Europe (and others) had partaken in a federal
system which had matured to a resonalble point. The ICC is not as mature as
we beleive it needs to be, and many of us think that it is this distinct lack
of experience in federalization which causes it.
At this time none of this is being done. Therefore THE PEOPLE of american are
not going to approve of our governement agreeing to something such as the
ICC. Our government knowns this and they know that if they were to agree to
it that the people would simply elect someone else.
Don't think that we are insulting Europe or others by saying that they do not
have the experience we do, it is not an insult. The countries of Europe and
elsewhere have existed for longer, and we in fact come from all of these
countries. Most of us still have pride in our origins and talk about the
better parts of differnt cultures. We have a lot of respect and pride in
other countires and peoples, but we have a lot of self respect and pride
becouse we came from and ~are~ all of these peoples.
And yes we think our way is better. And we also think that it is obvious. We
are arogant becouse of what we have done. We are the outsiders, the lost, the
shuned, the exiled, the escaped, the opressed, the tierd and hungry and we
have risen to the top. Our ancestors were correct when they told your
ancestors that their way was better, and now we have prooven that it is in
fact better. Your ancestors shuned ours and now look what we have
acomplished. I'm sure that does piss you off, but you know if you were smart
it wouldn't. If you were smart you would recognize it for what it is. France
did for a while. We don't expect every other country to be a carbon copy of
the US, that would be a shame and it would be boring. But we do expect others
to recognize when we have made some better decisions, some need to grow up
and stop acting like children.
In my tribe there is a folkeway that allows for a child to take a new name
when they become an adult. After that, expression they are treated as an
adult. Before that expression they are treated as children. I think the US is
waiting for some countries to step up and be adults.
This is probably cuase for much anti-americanism. But you know what, we as a
people are use to it. That's why our ancestors left your countries in the
first place.
The ICC is a good idea. Just not for the US, not yet.
=====
_________________________________________________
Jan William Coffey
_________________________________________________
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