Trump Administration now tearing up treaties right and left

On Wednesday the International Court of Justice ordered the Trump administration to lift some sanctions on humanitarian aid to Iran.

The court ruling was a moral victory for Tehran, even though it was hoping for a more sweeping decision on the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal. It had argued that U.S. sanctions, which were lifted when the agreement was implemented in 2016, violated the 1955 Treaty of Amity.

In response, the U.S. simply tore up the 1955 Treaty of Amity.
That's what you do, after all. When a treaty becomes an obstacle to getting your way, you tear it up.
This was the second time in a week that the ICJ got in our way.

Then, at a White House briefing, national security adviser John Bolton announced that the administration was reviewing all agreements that could subject the United States to future rulings by the court. He said Washington would withdraw from an amendment to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, an “optional protocol” that allowed Palestinian officials to file a suit against the United States at the ICJ last week for moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

“The United States will not sit idly by as baseless politicized claims are brought against us," Bolton said. When asked about Tehran’s response, he replied that “Iran is a rogue regime . . . so I don’t take what they say seriously at all.”

Diplomacy! Who needs diplomacy when you have aircraft carriers and nuclear bombs, amirite?
Speaking of nuclear bombs, the Trump Administration is now considering tearing up one of the last significant nuclear treaties signed with Russia.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Thursday said Russia’s deployment of nuclear-capable missiles in violation of an arms treaty is “untenable” and unless Moscow changes, the U.S. will have to match that military capability.

Speaking to reporters at the close of a NATO defense ministers meeting, Mattis said the U.S. is reviewing its diplomatic and military options because of Russia’s continued violation of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

"Russia must return to compliance with the INF Treaty or the U.S. will need to respond to its cavalier disregard of the treaty's specific limits," Mattis said in prepared remarks. "Make no mistake: The current situation, with Russia in blatant violation of this treaty, is untenable."

Mattis is right. Russia is in violation of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
However, Mattis didn't mention one little thing:

the U.S. violated the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty first, 16 years ago.

On 13 December 2001, President of the US, George W. Bush gave Russia a 6-month notice of US intent to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty so that the US could pursue development of the program at that time known as National Missile Defense (NMD), which was already under way in potential violation of US treaty obligations.

On 10 February 2007, Russian president Vladimir Putin declared that the INF Treaty no longer served Russia's interests. On 14 February, the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia and Interfax quoted General Yuri Baluyevsky, the Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, as saying that Russia could pull out of the INF, and that the decision would depend on the United States' actions with its proposed Ground-Based Midcourse Defense missile defense system, parts of which the U.S. at the time planned to deploy in Poland and the Czech Republic. (Subsequently, the plan was altered and American MK-41 missile launchers were placed at new bases in Romania and Poland.]

Saying Russia violated this treaty with "cavalier disregard" is the height of hypocrisy. It requires the reader to be ignorant about how we got here.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

hypocritical IMO, it simply comes down to the fact that they just don’t care if we know they’re lying or not.

Why should they? We’ve been consistently lied to since Reagan and they’ve (TPTB behind the scenes) gotten away with it. Their front men/women have ALL been saber-rattling assholes, And they’re still looking for a war that they can win.

And that wouldn’t be one against RUSSIA! contrary to anything Bolton or Mattis may ‘think’.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

dervish's picture

@Amanda Matthews Grenada, maybe, was the last one.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

after all, who cares as long as America is Great Again, right? Just Trump Derangement Syndrome to question our dear leader. USA, USA, USA!!!

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

lotlizard's picture

@lizzyh7  
when he protected “patriotic” torturers from “sanctimonious” prosecution.

The treaty obligates signatories to investigate torture and punish torturers. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Obama, in effect, tore up the UN charter when he led the U.S. to war on Libya, Syria, and Yemen.

Obama and drones? Obama and Tuesday kill lists?

How about the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? All the major Western powers ignored that one, covertly helping Israel to get its nukes, and even now not requiring Israel to come clean about them.

The list could go on and on.

If the U.S. is going to make a mockery of treaties and international institutions anyway, withdrawing from them is actually the honest thing to do.

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dervish's picture

@lotlizard The only lesson remaining from Nuernberg is to not lose a war, because the victors will subject you to show trials.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

lotlizard's picture

@dervish  
that Congress has these days, the Nuremberg trials would not have been about starting a series of wars with horrible consequences for millions, but about someone having tried to rape someone at Oktoberfest before World War I.

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snoopydawg's picture

on its arrogance and hypocrisy, but I'm constantly surprised that they can always go higher. Telling Russia that they are out of compliance with a treaty that we had pulled out of almost two decades ago takes some balls and they don't care how stupid it makes them look.

Hey Mattis. Why would any country even make sign treaties with us since we have a habit of not upholding them going back to the first presidency? And didn't Trump and his pals just recently tear up the latest one? Even though they said that Iran was upholding their end?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

divineorder's picture

@snoopydawg

..

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@snoopydawg

... is a declaration that the US is not a nation among nations, it is not a nation of law, not a participant in international cooperation and diplomacy. It is a declaration that the US will make every effort possible to put the well-being of the world as far below its own self-interest as it can.

We can see now that have been tied to an economic path modeled on neoliberal principles for as long as we have been alive. It is a fundamental economy based on "necessary" war, government war funding, private war profiteering, resource de-nationalization, corporate capture of vital resources, continuous destruction and instability, social dislocation, weaponized migration, and global military expansion. It has been explicitly rigged in favor of certain interests. Its bottomless greed has degraded the well-being of Americans, year over year, and it has also undermined and threatened the well-being of all nations. In recent years, this ravenous force has veered beyond the control of democratic governments.

Thanks to the election of an uncontrollable sociopath, Donald Trump, to the US Presidency, the world was shocked into clarity much earlier than anticipated. President Trump is regarded by critical thinkers as the physical manifestation of the true nature of the United States, and rightly so. The US has contrived to blame the chaos and destruction that accompanies it everywhere — on its imagined enemies. The US pretends that it is under attack by an ever-changing array of nations that have decided to follow alternative economic policies. It demonizes Russia and China with what are now clearly preposterous exaggerations of unevidenced behaviors and then threatens the weakest of their allies with imminent invasion and occupation, due to "human right violations."

When despots know they are about to be caught and exposed, what do they do? They resigns in indignation. They tear up the contracts they signed. They declare long-standing agreements void. They claim they are the victim of a conspiracy. They accuse others of the very crimes they have committed. They take back every constructive improvement that earlier leaders have contributed. They march out the door and slam it behind them. They refuse to take calls from respected organizations they helped to create. They claim they are not coming back to suffer the abuse. They run like dogs.

This is the most hopeful thing I've seen in years.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
thanatokephaloides's picture

@snoopydawg

Hey Mattis. Why would any country even make sign treaties with us since we have a habit of not upholding them going back to the first presidency?

No joke here.

Ask any American Indian.

Sad

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

TheOtherMaven's picture

@thanatokephaloides

who have been consistently betrayed, war after war, starting right after the Revolutionary War. (That was what "Shays' Rebellion" was mainly about - not that you'll hear squeak abut that from an official school textbook.)

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

divineorder's picture

React even if they wanted to and could be heard in the corporate media.

OT, but how ‘bout those gas prices Mr. President?

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Pricknick's picture

about government treaties.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

lotlizard's picture

@Pricknick  
to respect Hawaii’s independence in perpetuity.

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dervish's picture

regarding breaking treaties. The great majority of treaties it has ever signed have been broken. Their word is worthless.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

@dervish
response to the libertarian fetishising of "enforcement of contracts" as one of the few valid functions of government.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.