While we were ticking off the

final minutes of the millennium, President Clinton was ticking off yet

another order for his already dubious legacy. In the late hours of Dec.

31, 2000, President Clinton made a call from Camp David to David J. Scheffer,

the U.S. Ambassador-at-large for war crime issues.

During that call Scheffer was

instructed to go to United Nations headquarters in New York City and sign

the 1998 Treaty of Rome establishing an International Criminal Court (ICC).

Midnight on Dec. 31 was the deadline for signing countries to get on board

with the treaty. Beginning Jan. 1 the only way a country could become

affiliated with the treaty is through ratification. What exactly does

this mean for Americans?

The International Criminal

Court, as outlined in the 1998 Treaty of Rome, is to be the world's first

permanent international war crimes tribunal for people accused of "crimes

against humanity." The ICC will fall under the jurisdictional umbrella

of the United Nations and will wield its global authority through a panel

of 18 judges.

Under the treaty, U.S. service

men and women serving anywhere outside of the United States could be charged

with a crime, apprehended, and brought to justice without benefit of American

due process laws or other rights under the U.S. Constitution.

In addition, the treaty grants

the ICC jurisdiction over legislators, parliamentarians, and even heads

of state. Article 28 of the treaty allows for senior officers and commanders

to be held accountable for crimes committed by their subordinates, even

without their having had prior knowledge that such activity was about

to take place.

In classic double-speak designed

to lull us into a false sense of security, the treaty only aims to prosecute

and try criminal cases if the country of origin cannot or will not do

so themselves. What does this mean exactly? If a U.S. Court fails to produce

the evidence necessary to bring a conviction and dismisses a case, then

the ICC can take the case to The Hague. That's double jeopardy. Scary?

You bet.

The caveat for freedom lovers

and those otherwise still committed to the notion of American sovereignty

is that such a treaty, having received presidential authorization for

acceptance, must now be ratified by the U.S. Senate. Now President-elect

George Bush and his entourage of political appointees can add this stinky

ICC business to the already long list of reign of error gaffes to be reexamined,

and hopefully overturned. Buckle your seatbelts, folks, it ain't over

yet.

What is most compelling to

me is that Clinton authorized U.S. acceptance of the treaty despite his

own reservations about some of the language within the document. In a

statement issued at the White House, Clinton stated that, "we are

concerned that when the court comes into existence, it will not only exercise

authority over personnel of states that have ratified the treaty, but

also claim jurisdiction over personnel of states that have not."

He went on to say that the treaty should not be submitted to the Senate

this some sort of procedural vote so that the U.S. can stay in the UN/ICC

game and help make the rules? It would seem so.

There was immediate response

from conservatives and anti-UN activists to block the punt, or recover

the fumble, if you will. Some are calling for Bush to bring the treaty

to the floor of the Senate right away where it will surely be defeated,

thereby killing it once and for all in the U.S.

Others have suggested that

Bush should "unsign" the treaty, but no apparent precedent exists

for such an act, which would (politically speaking) represent the erasure

of a mistake.

Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC)

called the ICC a "kangaroo court," and vowed to block the treaty

at the Senate floor. Sen. Helms has been perhaps the harshest critic of

the United Nations and its far reach in to the coffers of the American

treasury and storehouses of freedom.

That Clinton's action was taken

despite official opposition at the Pentagon could perhaps be the final

insult to American service men and women, who no doubt thought that the

dispensation in many cases of their right to vote in the November election

was insult enough.

Call your senators and let

them know that you support our military personnel and will not tolerate

this treaty and the "kangaroo court" it purports to establish.

America is a sovereign nation. We will remain a free nation as long as

we are willing to guard with our lives the cause of liberty and the laws

of the Constitution.

We have an extraordinary obligation

to uphold the laws preserving the rights of our service men and women

who lay their lives on the line every day upholding our freedom.

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