Global Research

On March 17, the so-called “International Criminal Court”, at this point no more than a glorified NGO financed by Brussels, issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, with the controversial institution citing alleged “war crimes” in Ukraine as the reason for the indictment.

The announcement, first thought of as satire by many, unleashed a torrent of ridicule from the world, ranging from regular people (probably billions at this point) making memes and practical jokes at the ICC’s expense, to Russian and other officials mocking the decision in various, should we say creative, but hardly unexpected ways, including Dmitry Medvedev‘s “environmentally friendly” advice to use the indictment for “hygienic purposes”.

President Putin still hasn’t commented on the decision and who could possibly blame him, given the increasing irrelevance of organizations such as the ICC, as well as the fact that he has much more pressing concerns, such as visiting the newly-rebuilt Mariupol (barely ten months after it was destroyed by occupying Neo-Nazi forces) and meeting his Chinese colleague Xi Jinping.

Strictly legally speaking, Russia is in no way affected by the decision, as it simply doesn’t recognize any de jure or de facto jurisdiction of the ICC, making its decisions in regard to Moscow completely legally void. Thus, the Eurasian giant is quite unconcerned and mostly uninterested (albeit amused) by the actions and opinions of the Hague-based “court”, the pertinence of which is bound to become increasingly questionable, especially after this decision.

Perhaps the most adequate way to describe the ICC is to paraphrase Voltaire’s definition of the so-called Holy Roman Empire and say it’s neither international nor a court.

However, it certainly can be considered criminal given its history of blatant violations of actual international law, which also includes the horribly one-sided treatment of countries and groups targeted by the political West. This also refers to the brazen convictions of Yugoslav and Serbian generals and officers for mostly false flag “war crimes” or outright fabrications, while setting free all those working for the political West, including openly Neo-Nazi regimes and terrorist groups who participated in the destruction of former Yugoslavia.

And speaking of the Holy Roman Empire, we should note that its de facto successor state declared it would arrest President Putin if he were to ever set foot on German soil. At least that’s what the country’s top tabloid Bild is claiming, citing the Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann. Such rhetoric doesn’t only indicate the lack of diplomatic etiquette (to say the least), but is also completely unnecessary considering that Putin certainly isn’t planning to visit Berlin anytime soon. Especially not after the shameless comments of Germany’s (former) leadership which essentially admitted they’ve been lying to Russia for years just to “buy time” for the Neo-Nazi junta. This admission alone should be enough for an actual international tribunal.

However, this would require a truly impartial international justice institution, meaning that the ICC is out of the question.

In more recent times, the Hague-based “court” completely ignored the horrendous Kiev regime war crimes and mass murder of civilians and POWs (prisoners of war) in Donbass in the last nearly ten years.

Virtually incessant shelling by the Neo-Nazi junta forces left approximately 15,000 dead and tens of thousands wounded and maimed for life (not including those killed in 2022 and more recently this year). And unlike the bogus charges against president Putin, there is very convincing and conclusive evidence to indict virtually all former and current members of the Kiev regime. If one is to ask what evidence is there for this, what more do we need than the former Neo-Nazi junta frontman Petro Poroshenko openly stating that “their [Donbass] kids will be hiding in basements, while ours will go to school”?

Unfortunately, that threat was one of the few promises Poroshenko actually kept, as generations of Donbass children spent their entire lives knowing nothing but constant shelling, death and destruction. Many of them are teenagers and young adults now, but countless others were less “lucky”, never even getting the chance to grow up. Where was the ICC for nearly a decade while all this was happening? Where was the ICC when millions of people were being killed and tens of millions of lives destroyed by the US-led political West’s brutal and truly unprovoked aggression against Yugoslavia/Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Venezuela and dozens of other countries across Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, etc?

Considering their treatment of Arabs, Afghanis/Pashtuns, Africans, Latin Americans, virtually the entire world, the ICC and NATO as a whole (including the numerous vassals and satellite states) have been morally bankrupt since their very inception. And all these peoples and countries are perfectly aware of this, as they’ve directly experienced it. Thus, they will all immediately see through the blatant hypocrisy and the double standards of the so-called “international institutions”. The decision to issue an arrest warrant for Putin and Lvova-Belova for their key role in evacuating thousands of children from an active warzone will certainly backfire and cause the ICC and similar Western-dominated organizations to lose the little credibility they have left (provided they ever had any in the first place).

Perhaps the most hypocritical reaction to the announcement came from the US. Washington DC doesn’t only reject the ICC’s jurisdiction, but has even threatened to sanction, invade it and arrest its judges. Still, this didn’t stop the Biden administration from supporting the decision on Putin. In addition, considering this specific indictment, the US hypocrisy becomes even more glaringly obvious, as its own terrorist proxies in Syria are currently holding thousands of children in camps, against their and the will of their parents and legal guardians. Worse yet, consecutive US administrations have been starting wars for decades, but not a single one has ever been prosecuted, while one has even gotten a Nobel Peace Prize despite authorizing illegal invasions and thousands of drone strikes across the globe. No wonder the Russian embassy in the US dubbed the Biden administration’s comments “sluggish schizophrenia”.

However, on the whole, this decision isn’t necessarily bad for the world, as it will ultimately prove completely self-defeating for the political West, signaling the inevitable (and long overdue) dismantling of the so-called “rules-based world order“. It might very well prompt the rapidly expanding BRICS nations (soon to include virtually the entire actual world) to finally start creating truly independent institutions based on international law. This will leave the political West isolated and increasingly irrelevant, while also serving as a deterrent against further NATO aggression against the world. As we see this imperialist, neocolonialist system is finally unraveling, it gives hope to all truly independent nations that it’s still possible to create a world where cultures and civilizations can freely develop and cooperate without any foreign power being able to impose its own (often extremely damaging) societal models.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

Featured image is from Rick Bajornas/United Nations/Flickr