"Why did the US Goverment has problems to accept the autoritie of the Brüsseler Court for Warcrimes?"
I'll field that question, even if it is abit off topic.
I don't think that it is a question of the US not believing ultimately in the development of International Law, since the US has been at the for front in the past 100 years in establishing international law and government. Ultimately, I think the US will sign an international military court treaty, but I don't think it will happen any time soon.
There are a number of reasons for this. Prior to WWII, the major European powers were defacto 'peace keepers' around the world, albeit quelling local disputes primarily to further their own economic purposes rather than some idealistic reason (not that this has completely change). WWII pretty much exhausted Europeans taste for war, and left Europe in no economic shape to continue thier Imperialistic practices. The Colonial Empires which had already begun disintigrating during WWI (particularly with the end of the Ottoman Empire) collapsed or were abandoned over the next 10 years or so. The result is that a very large number of accumulated local disputes were left to be resolved locally, with the result that the years since 1945 have been a continual series of local brush fire ethnic and border resolution disputes, but no major wars between the tradiational powers (though they have some times fought war in Proxy, as US and Russia did in Veitnam and Afganistan).
With the traditional powers abandoning the Imperial game, there has been strong pressure on the US (at the time having the only intact economy in the world) to take up the role of 'police man'. Generally, this role involves making peace either by force or by buying off some local petty thug who has the means to make peace by force. The Europeans by long practice used to be very good at this. The US having little experience outside its borders was initially very clumsy at this, but has lately shown signs of getting better at the game.
As a result though, the US finds itself in a very uncomfortable position. We have, for the past 50 years, been armed far more than ever in our history. Tradiationally, during peace time, the US disbands its national military. We did so after every major war we fought, but after the Korean War we found overselves in a conflict needing perpetual militerization. Now, with the Cold War tension over, I think the US public would by and large assume that we demilitarize. However, the demands of being the world's Police Man are preventing it, and there is sharp division both internally and externally over whether we should continue.
As any policeman can tell you, when you intervene in a 'domestic dispute', you don't win friends on either side. Some people find it quite surprising to learn that prior to WWI, the US was typically called in as a nuetral disinterested party to mediate in international quarrels. Other than some bad blood with Chile, Columbia, Mexico, and in parts of the Phillipians, the US had no real enemies. No one would accuse the US of neutrality or disinterest in international affairs now, and it would be hard to find a nation with more and more widespread enemies than the US. Foreign policy is something most Americans would just as soon get out of, and to hear half the world (including some Americans) tell it, American 'Imperialism' is the worlds greatest evil. It is interesting to note that the current President got elected partially on a platform that he would get us out of 'Entangling Alliances' and 'Overseas Affairs', and for what it is worth I think he really meant it at the time. No President had begun his term with such unilaterilist isolationist policies in some time. But events intervened, and a radical isolationist looks to have been transformed into something much closer to a true Imperialist than we've had since Teddy Roosevelt.
They should have known better than mess with a Texan. If you don't leave 'em alone, they aren't going to leave you alone.
The real problem is that we find ourselves in a (pardon the expression), 'damned if you do and damned if you don't' situation.
If we do not intervene (as we were not inclined to intervene in the Balkans), then we are accused of being blind to other countries sufferings, of allowing evil to perpetuate, and of failing to take a leadership role. If we do not generously give foreign aid, then we are accused of being selfish, greedy, and rapacious. We are often accussed both rightly and wrongly of dispoiling the wealth of the world (as if we are the only self-interested nation on the planet).
ON THE OTHER HAND, if we do intervene, we are accused of being militaristic, imperialistic, overly adventurous, unilaterialist, failing to listen to the considerations of other nations, and using our military power solely to further our rapacious plundering of the world. If we do give generous economic aid, we are accused of rigging local politics, of supporting petty tyrants, of giving too much, or to the wrong people or whatever.
I don't think the average non-American realizes just how willingly the US would let the rest of the planet go to hell, or just how angry it makes us when we have to spend the blood of our sons keeping people from spending the blood of each others sons. Especially considering that in the US, most of the reasons people are fighting (religious differences, ethnic differences, local pride, historical feuds, etc.) seem so entirely petty to the US.
The point of this being that at the present time, the US does not trust a foreign court to be Impartial, Fair, and Just, nor to take into account the fact that our soldiers were ASKED to be there. The general feeling is that if the US signed an international court treaty now, it would tip the scales in favor of bringing ALL the boys home and the US would stop interveening anywhere for any reason except the most extreme. And if we did that, people would howl and scream about that too.
Moreover, don't take this the wrong way Europeans, but it seems like a bad idea to have the arbitration court which one Superpower is subject to, being in the heartland of the Other Superpower on the ball at this time - the EU. It is pretty clear to the US, that the EU is emerging with a Nationalistic identity, and once its gets all its petty internal squabbling done that Europe as a nation state is going to start intervening in foreign affairs again. Not that we don't like you Europeans, but we suspect that we have enough differences that we will rub each other the wrong way quite often.
It would be sort of like proposing a international court in Moscow. I think the US and Russia will likely emmerge as strong allies at some point (perhaps stronger than the US and the EU), but at the present time no one in the US thinks of Russia as a disinterested, impartial, neutral state.
Nor can I think of a better place for it. New Zealand perhaps. They have something in common with both of us, and are far enough off stage to not have specific interests of thier own.
Finally, if you will read US history, you will see that one of the strong shaping factors has been the conflict between the need to balance the rights of the majority with the rights of the minority - particularly when the minority is a small regional group. I think the EU is experiencing in the same growing pains at the moment, so maybe you know what I mean. The idea is that the majority ought to rule, but that the majority doesn't reflect the opinions of minority regions of special or at least different cultural heritage. The comprimise that democracies are always forced to reach in order to prevent fragmentation is to abandon the 'one man equal one vote' ideology that they are based on in favor of weighting the votes of the minority regions more strongly than those of the citizens of majority regions. The most obvious example of this is in the upper US legislative house - the Senate. Although California has something like 70 million inhabitants, it has the same number of Senators (two) as Wyoming's 1 million inhabitants. This gives the people of Wyoming a disporptionate control over the government. The most recent example of this was the Bush/Gore presidential race. Bush lost the popular vote. But because he dominated the polls in low population (relatively speaking) rural regions (including Gore's home state of Tennessee), he won more of the Electoral College vote (as represented by those aforementioned Senators). The result was a narrow and devisive victory for the 'rural regions' and their philosophy.
Some people bitterly resent this, however, the alternative is worse. If you don't give the small regions disproportionate influence in the government, they come to feel (rightly) that thier interests are never served and they try to succeed. It has happened in the US before, and its happening all over the world right now.
What does this have to do with an international court you ask? Well, the feeling is that the numerous small countries of the world would US thier combined voices to influence the court unduly. The US works as a government because each of the separate governments (the states) and their inhabitants, by and large trusts the other governments and thier inhabitants. The same situation is beginning to develop in Europe (by and large because of the trains and internet I think). But it doesn't exist worldwide yet. The US feels as if thier are 200 or so hungery nations out there, and 100 or so nations out thier that hate us for grievances real and imagined, who will use thier suffering and numbers as a way to manipulate the European court into ruling against us - something that we feel European courts are at present inclined to do anyway given our growing trade disputes.
Basically, we don't want our military exposed to the same sort of merchantile lawyer adventurism that so plagues US civil courts. After all, its only the wealthy nations that have something to lose when complaints are raised. Few people think that the courts are actually going to send US soldiers to foriegn jails (Though that thought is horrid enough to most Americans. If crimes of suffient magnitude are committed we'll hang our own, thank you.), but alot of people think that complaints will be raised solely on the hopes that billions in 'compensation' will be forthcoming.
Finally, back to the damned if you do damned if you don't thought. I'm not so sure I'm that happy with the idea of an agressive foreign policy either. The US is much better at ignoring problems or talking them to death until they go away. However, Bush is himself in a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. If he doesn't take drastic action, and something untoward does happen, history will remember him as a man who ignored a serious problem. Nevill Chamberlain is not well thought of. On the other hand, if he does take drastic action and nothing happens, history will not remember him as a man who stopped a great tragedy, because the great tragedy did not happen. (Heroes or honored for how they handle tragedy, but are seldom honored for the greater good of preventing the tragedy in the first place). Finally, if he does act and something does happen, then he will be accused of percipitating the problem.
I find it interesting that the very people who accused Bush of not doing enough to prevent 9-11, or also the very same people who accuse him of taking too radical action since then. The too positions are mutually exclusive. Imagine that Bush had purposed upon coming into office the steps he has taken in security measures, intelligence gathering, military action, and so for since then. These measures might have prevented 9-11 (might!), but he would have gotten ZERO support for them until 9-11 happened.
I'm just glad I don't have to make the calls. I don't think there is any 'safe' solution, but I'm tired of listening to people who are motivated solely by fear and recoil from anything that sounds the least bit uncertain.
Anyway, that's enough topic hijacking for now.
PS: I felt compelled to add, as an American, that I felt great admiration and appreciation for the Australians when they made the decision to intervene in East Timor, because it was as they put it at the time 'in thier own back yard'. I felt sure that the Europeans or the UN would force us into that one too, and was greatly releaved when the Aussies shouldered the burden (we are getting spread thin). I wish more nations would follow thier responsible example.
nothing could have been different before that. I mean, I've had conversations with adults who have to struggle mightily with the notion that they didn't have cars, refrigerators, and central heating during the Civil War.
