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#42... Oct 17,
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P. 6, AMERICAN
FREE PRESS * October 17, 2005...
Behind the Scenes
with Michael Collins Piper
Black Mark on Roberts Record?
By Michael Collins Piper
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Although
John Roberts, the Bush administration’s nominee for chief
justice of the United States, apparently believed that the Genocide
Convention was dangerous to American interests, he privately counseled
then-President Ronald Reagan to sign the controversial sovereignty-robbing
legislation.
The Washington Post let slip this stunning revelation on September
2, 2005 in an article detailing Roberts’s service as a young
lawyer on the White House legal staff during the Reagan administration.
Putting politics before the nation’s interests, Roberts told
Reagan, in a memo, that although the convention was bad for America
it would be good public relations for the president to add his endorsement
to the measure.
In fact, not long after Roberts counseled the president to take
a stand in favor of the convention, Reagan publicly endorsed it
while speaking before an enthusiastic pro-Israel audience at the
1984 national convention of B’nai B’rith in Washington.
Reagan’s support of the global initiative shocked American
patriots but delighted B’nai B’rith, which had been
demanding that the United States ratify the international
agreement since it was first adopted by the United Nations in 1948.
Liberty Lobby, the Washington-based populist institution, had always
been in the forefront of opposition to the convention and delayed
its ratification for 17 years. The
leading Senate proponent of the convention was liberal Sen. William
Proxmire (D-Wis.), who literally delivered a speech promoting the
treaty virtually every day he was on the Senate floor for that time.
However, because of strong opposition generated by Liberty Lobby
and patriotic groups, Proxmire was never able to get the convention
approved by the Senate. In the end, it was a “conservative
Republican” president (widely perceived by many as a virtual
savior of the republic) who gave the necessary push that made ratification
of the measure possible.
The Genocide Convention still is a treaty that critics contend would
effectively repeal many of the protections given to American citizens
by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth,
Seventh and Eighth amendments. Critics feared a number of dangers
including that:
• Americans could be extradited and tried
before a world court with no protection of their constitutional
rights for conspiring or attempting to commit “genocide,”
which could merely be causing “mental harm” to a national,
ethnic, racial or religious group.
• U.S. soldiers could be tried before a world court as war
criminals, with no constitutional guarantees, for committing war
crimes.
So-called “hate crime” legislation
in the United States — along with similar “thought crime”
legislation in western democracies such as Britain, Canada, Germany,
Switzerland, France, New Zealand and Australia — promotes
the basic themes underlying the Genocide Convention and is part
of efforts to rob America’s republic of its national sovereignty
and American citizens of their liberties.
Despite these dangers, Reagan abandoned traditional Republican opposition
to the convention. With Reagan’s full support, his fellow
Republican, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, railroaded the measure
through the Senate, which ratified the convention on Feb. 19, 1986.
Hesitant to oppose their popular party leaders, traditional GOP
opponents rolled over and played dead, allowing the measure to pass.
They were told their support for the
convention would “help the GOP win Jewish votes.” Then
Reagan signed the treaty.
What is ironic about the instrumental role Reagan played in getting
the convention ratified is that Reagan was a devoted supporter of
the one nation — Israel — that has traditionally violated
the convention and that could end up being the first nation brought
up for prosecution under the terms of the convention.
In fact, on June 18, 2001, 23 survivors of the 1982 massacre in
the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps filed a complaint in Belgium
charging that Ariel Sharon, Israel’s defense minister at the
time, and other Israeli military officials are responsible for war
crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide related to the ghastly
killings that occurred there.
The group cited the Geneva Convention and Nuremberg as setting a
precedent for bringing their international lawsuit against Sharon.
After multiple rulings saying the international court had jurisdiction,
the Israeli prime minister narrowly escaped prosecution only after
pressure was put on the Belgian government by the United States
to drop the case.
Photograph of Chief Justice Roberts walking down
Supreme Court steps with Justice John Paul Stevens.
Caption: "POSSIBLE PITFALL:
Chief Justice John Roberts (left) walks down the steps of
the Supreme Court with Justice John Paul Stevens after he
took the Supreme Court bench for the first time, October
3, 2005, in Washington, D.C. Roberts replaced William H.
Rehnquist as the new chief justice. Questions have recently
been raised about Justice Roberts’s stance on the
Genocide Convention which he initially opposed but counseled
President Ronald Reagan to sign. Will Roberts hold America
to the strictures of the sovereignty-robbing treaty?"
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(. #42....
October 17, 2005 .
American Free Press)
