"...By placing sanctions on two top officials at the International Criminal Court, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo bluntly rejected the notion that multilateral institutions deserved the respect and the deference of the American government...
But the U.S. attack on the ICC is a long overdue dose of reality. The court and the entire network of global entities that Trump scorns operate as parodies of the postwar idealism that created them...
The particular targets of the U.S. sanctions may claim to be defenders of international law but are, in fact, exactly the kind of individuals that specialize in engendering disrespect for the concept. Gambian attorney Fatou Bensouda is the ICC's chief prosecutor, and Phakiso Mochochoko heads the prosecutor's office in The Hague. Since assuming office in 2012, Bensouda-a former operative in her own country's tyrannical government, which is widely considered among the world's worst human-rights offenders-has presided over an organization that has mostly specialized in trying to pick fights with democratic countries and done little to advance the cause of justice in places where there is none. In particular, Bensouda has sought to target Israel and to prosecute the Jewish state for alleged 'war crimes' during the various campaigns conducted to stop Hamas terrorists from attacking Israel from their Gaza stronghold. As outrageous and false as that charge might be, it was telling that she also claimed to be investigating Israeli crimes committed in Jerusalem and the West Bank, making it clear that hers was a political agenda intended to delegitimize Israeli self-defense, rather than just the bogus claims against its military actions in the Gaza Strip. The fact that she later expressed a vague willingness to investigate Hamas war crimes, of which there were many easily documented instances, in order to maintain a pretense of objectivity convinced no one that she was interested in justice.
But Bensouda hasn't just used her post just to snipe at Israel, and to threaten its officials and soldiers with prosecutions on false charges. She has also sought to use the considerable resources placed at her disposal to attack the United States by threatening to prosecute Americans for crimes allegedly committed in the war still being fought against Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan...
But when it selectively prosecutes what it alleges are war crimes committed by democracies defending the rule of law and against terrorism, it turns the entire concept of international law into a joke..."