A-Grade
arseholes

Rogue states in circle jerk
Harold Hark
30 August 2002

"The US is pressuring Australia to sign an agreement promising it would never hand over Americans to the new International Criminal Court." (Cameron Stewart, The Australian, 28/8/02.)

That, baldly put, is the state of affairs these anti-terrorist-cum-police state days. Two rogue states, one a superpower, the other a pipsqueak, both ratcheting up the rhetoric on the horrors of terrorism, are in collusion to prevent the same accountability for themselves that they are insisting be applied to rogue states not of their liking.

One big smack in the gobber, this is.

It's a good thing we all know that Saddam Hussein is an A-Grade agent of evil, otherwise we'd start to feel a bit of sympathy.

But while he earns the A-Grade, George W Bush and John Howard are not far behind him. If we're talking about ethics and integrity, that is.

At some point in the last several decades, such a proposal, blithely put for all to see, would have been inconceivable in the so-called free world. But now it is business as usual.

The US and Australia are claiming their sovereignties will be undermined by the ICC, but this is merely toddler-level code for turning their governments "into a protected species, beyond criticism and beyond condemnation," as Mark Latham says. What they are really seeking is immunity from the crimes against humanity both have already committed and have yet to commit against their own citizens and the citizens of other nations.

Madness reigns as kakistocracies, governments made up of the worst people, rule the world.

The failure of civilisations is cyclical and we appear to be at the fag end of this one. Social cohesion cannot hold when citizens are polarised over basic human values. When a majority supports a leader who at any given moment is either lying or emphasising racial superiority while emulating tyrannical regimes in the repression of those deemed inferior, there can be no future but descent into chaos.

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