Congresswoman: US war crime claim against Russia ‘staggeringly hypocritical’

The United States needs to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it wants to probe alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine, Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar said on Sunday.

Rep. Omar questioned how US President Joe Biden could have Russia prosecuted for alleged war crimes in Ukraine if Washington is not even a member of the court that would handle the probe.

The ICC was created by a 1998 treaty known as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome, Italy in July 1998, and entered into force in July 2002. Although US President Bill Clinton signed it in 2000, he said that he would not submit it to the Senate for ratification until the US government had a chance to assess the functioning of the Court.

That signature was subsequently withdrawn by George W. Bush. Accordingly, the US is not subject to the jurisdiction of the court, meaning that it is not bound by its decisions. And the US has taken additional actions, both in the form of legislation and by executive order, to insulate its elected and military personnel from the reach of the court.

Nevertheless, the US has not been shy about targeting its enemies with the court as a weapon.

Omar was speaking about this contradiction when she made her comments.

“It would be staggeringly hypocritical to support an investigation into Russia while opposing the court’s very existence as a non-member,” she told Business Insider.

On Thursday, Omar introduced a bill in the House for the US to join the court, saying the best way to support an investigation of Russia would be to join the international body that would carry out the probe.

Biden has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of committing war crimes in Ukraine. The court began investigating the Ukraine conflict a few days after Moscow launched its military offensive in February.

Omar pointed out that Washington still hasn’t joined the ranks of nations that are subject to the ICC’s jurisdiction.

The Hague-based ICC has 123 member nations. Russia, which never ratified the treaty, withdrew its signature from the Rome Statute in 2016, after the court classified its annexation of Crimea as an occupation. China and Israel also have declined to join the ICC.

On February 24, Russia began a “special military operation” in Ukraine’s Donbas region to defend people subjected to "genocide" there against government forces, stressing that Moscow has “no plans to occupy Ukrainian territory.”

US President Joe Biden called the Russian action an "unprovoked and unjustified attack," and the American media described it as the biggest assault on a European state since World War Two.

Biden has called Putin a "murderous dictator" and a "pure thug,” after calling him a "war criminal."

Biden criticized Putin and the Russian military action in Ukraine, saying, "My generic point is that, you know, now you have Ireland and Great Britain... standing together against a murderous dictator, a pure thug who is waging an immoral war against the people of Ukraine."

Biden earlier called Putin a "war criminal" over the military operation in Ukraine.

Russia denounced the comments as “unacceptable and unforgivable."

Russia says US, UK helping Ukraine prepare ‘false evidence’ of war crimes to smear Moscow

The Russian Defense Ministry says the fake claims are about rights violations against civilians in the former Soviet state.

Ratcheting up its propaganda offensive against Moscow over the Ukraine crisis, the Biden administration last month officially accused Russian military forces of committing war crimes in Ukraine

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on March 23 that Putin has “unleashed unrelenting violence that has caused death and destruction across Ukraine.”

“Today, I can announce that, based on information currently available, the US government assesses that members of Russia’s forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine,” he added.

He said the assessment was based on “a careful review of available information from public and intelligence sources.”

“As with any alleged crime, a court of law with jurisdiction over the crime is ultimately responsible for determining criminal guilt in specific cases,” he added.

In response, American writer and political analyst Daniel Patrick Welch said in an interview with Press TV that American and Western war criminals have never been prosecuted for the myriad war crimes committed over decades.

He said that “no one has ever been prosecuted for the myriad war crimes committed by the US and NATO over many decades.”

He noted that the “most shocking part is that the whole reason this situation degenerated into open warfare is the obvious, ongoing and well-documented war crimes being committed by the US/NATO-enabled neo-Nazi groups for the past eight years. And the fact that they have been completely ignored by the Kiev junta and by their US and NATO string-pullers.”

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www.presstv.co.uk