“The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter” Sam Spade, Maltese Falcon, 1941
More than one-hundred years ago, in 1919 and 1920 to be exact, a group of 12 Republican senators cooperated to ensure the Senate’s defeat of President Woodrow Wilson’s mad support for the World War Two-causing Versailles Treaty and its malignant spawn, the one-world government organization called the League of Nations. These senators, who are often derided as the “Irreconcilables” or the “Battalion of Death”, dared to prioritize the protection U.S. sovereignty and the independence of action in foreign policy by keeping the republic out of the Wilson’s sovereignty-killing world government project and, hopefully, Europe’s next war.
By 1937, however, Wilson-acolyte Franklin Roosevelt had come along and — then in his second term — was using every legal, illegal, and traitorous method he could devise to bait Imperial Japan into attacking America, Among the list of his tools were economic sanctions, military provocations, and other illegal moves, as well as by keeping secret his and his inner circle’s knowledge of the coming Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and even that they — politicians, cabinet secretaries, and senior military personnel — had done their best to provoke. [1]
FDR also worked, as much as a Hudson River Valley Anglophile aristocrat can, to convince Americans of two nonsensical claims: (a) that Hitler’s Germany posed a lethal threat to “American freedom” and (b) that Nazi Germany was on the verge of controlling the entire world. In that campaign, however, he failed utterly. More than 70-percent of Americans polled in the month before Pearl Harbor opposed participation in another useless European war. Americans of all classes, professions, and levels of education were not buying FDR’s fabricated assertions about Nazis posing a life-and-death threat to the Western Hemisphere, one that he used — like Wilson used the foolish motto “make the world safe for democracy” — to get the republic into a murderous war fought on behalf of foreigners and over issues unrelated to U.S. national security.
In 1919-1920, then, there had been 12 Republican senators who deeply cared about a sovereign and peaceful foreign policy for the United States. Today we virtually have none. We are committed, under NATO, to defend 31 foreign states if Russia happens to attack one. War for North Macedonia anyone? In addition, we have spent more than $200 billion supporting the economy and military of an arguably fascist, non-NATO state called Ukraine against the Russians. If this is not evidence of senatorial madness and their apparently complete lack of concern about remedying massive and republic-killing domestic problems, I cannot imagine what is.
At the same time, the Senate has made it clear that it will accept any amount of economic damage to the United States — human and material — and the recruitment of any number of Muslim enemies — at home and abroad — to make sure Israel wins yet another of its endless wars. Thanks to U.S. student demonstrations and continuing Israeli attacks on civilian Palestinian targets, all Americans now know that nearly all U.S. Senators and Congressmen are on the take from Israel-affiliated, U.S.-based organizations, and that those bribes buy Israel unlimited access to the White House, Congress, U.S. Treasury, much of the federal bureaucracy, and America’s military forces, especially flag officers.
As if that is not enough to demonstrate the Senate’s madness and unconcern for U.S. interests, we know have a letter written by 12 U.S. Senators — there can be little doubt that they speak for at least 87 more — that starkly threatens International Criminal Court (ICC) which is based in The Netherlands. The letter is, at base, a virtual declaration of war on that institution, to which we do not belong, and thank God for that. These 99 senators, with 12 in the lead, have taken it upon themselves to declare war on a foreign institution in order to defend Israel’s deeds, as well as their own government’s misbehavior.
Now how does this work, given that neither the U.S. nor Israel are members of the ICC? If the Court indicted Israel or U.S. officials on what would likely be international war-crimes charges, the indicted governments could simply tell the ICC to bugger off. But might the Court’s charges result in the arrest of U.S. and/or Israeli officials, and the delivery of them to the Hague, if they went traveling outside the confines of there respective states? That might well happen and, for the United States at least, it would be a most welcome event, especially if the arrested were charged not only for crimes pertinent to the current Palestine-Israel war but for the tremendous number of constitutional violations and other crimes that have been generated by the U.S. government in its dozens of post-1945 undeclared and so illegal and unnecessary wars, all were lost and served only to kill, wound, maim, or madden many young Americans.
Read the 12-Senator’s letter below and — when done asking if the any of them could possibly be sane — think of the disaster for all Americans of those men being anything more than small-town merchants who specialize in fleecing customers until cops show up to take them to jail. Also note the final sentence from the 12 would-be avengers 0f Israell, “You have been warned.” That charmer is a close runner up to Bogart calling Sydney Greenstreet’s young body guard –named Wilmer Cook — a “cheap gunmen”, “a pocket edition desperado”, and, finally, a “gunsel”. Bogart convinces Greenstreet to make Wilmer their fall guy, and he agrees. This scene is from the Maltese Falcon, and, if there is ever a remake, Senator Tom Cotton — a signer of the letter below — clearly would be a shoe-in for the part of the gunsel, no audition needed. (2)
–Letter to the ICC:
April 24, 2024
Mr. Karim A. A. Khan KC
Office of the Prosecutor
International Criminal Court
Oude Waalsdorperweg 10
The Hague, The Netherlands
Dear Mr. Khan,
We write regarding the reports that the International Criminal Court (ICC) may be considering issuing international arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials. Such actions are illegitimate and lack legal basis, and if carried out will result in severe sanctions against you and your institution.
The ICC is attempting to punish Israel for taking legitimate actions of self-defense against their Iranian-backed aggressors. In fact, in your own words, you witnessed “scenes of calculated cruelty”1 conducted by Hamas in Israel following the October 7 attacks. These arrest warrants would align the ICC with the largest state sponsor of terrorism and its proxy. To be clear, there is
no moral equivalence between Hamas’s terrorism and Israel’s justified response.
The ICC is also prohibited by its charter from proceeding in any case unless the relevant government is unwilling or unable to police themselves. You yourself have said that “Israel has trained lawyers who advise commanders and a robust system intended to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law.”2 By issuing warrants, you would be calling into question the legitimacy of Israel’s laws, legal system, and democratic form of government. Issuing arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel would not only be unjustified, it would expose your organization’s hypocrisy and double standards.
Your office has not issued arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or any other Iranian official, Syrian President Bashar al Assad or any other Syrian official, or Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh or any other Hamas official. Nor have you issued an arrest warrant for the genocidal General Secretary of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, or any other Chinese official.Finally, neither Israel nor the United States are members of the ICC and are therefore outside of your organization’s supposed jurisdiction.
If you issue a warrant for the arrest of the Israeli leadership, we will interpret this not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States. Our country demonstrated in the American Service-Members’ Protection Act the lengths to which we will go to protect that sovereignty.The United States will not tolerate politicized attacks by the ICC on our allies. Target Israel and we will target you.
If you move forward with the measures indicated in the report, we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States. You have been warned. [3]
–Endnotes:
–1.) In early 1941, FDR and his collaborators put into place an 8-point plan that successfully provoked Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. The plan worked so well that FDR and his crew knew a Japanese naval and air attack was nearing Pearl harbor by the end of the third week of November, 1941. As December 7th neared, they not only did nothing to preempt Japan’s attack, but they also failed to inform the the flag officers commanding navy and army forces at Pearl Harbor that they had intercepted Japanese communications that revealed a coming attack. This tragedy (and crime?) is detailed via documents, reminiscences, and signals intercepts used in Robert B. Stinnett’s, Day of Deceit. The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor. New York: The Free Press, 2000. (NB: On a personal note, for most of my professional life I resisted both the idea that such a conspiracy by FDR and his aides was unlikely, or that, if there was one, it could be covered up for more than 50 years. Mr. Stinnett’s careful, well-documented, well-written b and calm and clear book, as well as his use of a great number of previously unpublished documents he secured through the Freedom of Information Act, have pretty much settled the issue for me. Mr. Stinnett also noted in his book that there still are many other documents that would add more evidence to his story, but they remain restricted from the public because would be a threat to national security. After the book’s publication, the historical profession piled on Mr. Stinnet in a hot tizzy, saying he didn’t understand how to read signals-intelligence reports, that he drew too much from the documents, and that, generally, he just aided a “long debunked conspiracy” theory. Funny, in the reviews I read of the book the historians never called for the release of the documents that Mr, Stinnett found still hidden by the government. I suppose that’s par for the course as, after reading Mr. Stinnett’s book, I somehow doubt those still-restricted documents would prove exculpatory for FDR and his secretive cohorts.
–2.) The Maltese Falcon, Warner Brothers, 1941. For Bogart’s first encounter with the doomed Wilmer see the following clip: https://www.non-intervention2.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=3165&action=edit
–3.) https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000018f-4e0e-d759-a9ff-ff4ee9420000
