The International Criminal Court was founded on a great idea - that no one should be above the law and beyond justice. Unfortunately great ideas often founder in the rough seas of reality.
This was on full display yesterday when the mouthpiece for America's imperialism and oligarchy, Lindsey Graham, stepped before a news mic.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham is promoting a Senate resolution in support of Ukraine's complaint against Russia in the International Criminal Court even though the United States does not recognize the court's authority.
...
When asked by Insider whether the country's fraught history with the court might undermine the credibility of the resolution Graham said that the court was useful only in certain context.

"I think there was an effort by some to hold [former Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld accountable as a war criminal," said Graham. "We have a very robust rule of law system in America. Nobody's above the law. Everybody's being investigated. You know, President Trump is being investigated by multiple organizations."

There's a lot to unpack here. The fact that Graham is appealing to an agency that Washington, and the GOP in particular, have spent so much time and effort trying to destroy is comical. Just a few years ago, Graham was personally leading the effort to destroy the ICC on behalf of Israel. A Republican Congress actually passed the nicknamed "The Hague Invasion Act", in case any American was ever arrested under the jurisdiction of the ICC.

As one MP indignantly put it, "We're not Panama". I asked a Dutch colleague what he thought about the HIA. "Bush is a dickhead," he replied dourly.

Touché. I can't argue with that.

Before I go any further, I have to address the claim of "We have a very robust rule of law system in America. Nobody's above the law." Oh, really? Is Graham not aware that torture is illegal under U.S. law? Assassination is also illegal. As is mass domestic surveillance. Invading other nations without the approval of Congress. Etc. Etc.
And this is before we even start talking about war crimes.
No one has been thrown in jail for these terrible crimes. No one has even stood trial for them. Without a shadow of a doubt, some powerful people in this country are indeed above the law.

Despite these facts, the ICC immediately obeyed Washington's orders and opened an investigation of Russia for war crimes, which has to be a record for response time.

The referral for investigation by 39 countries – including the UK – will shave several months off the process because it allows Khan to bypass the need to seek the approval of the court in The Hague.
Khan said an “advanced team” of investigators was already travelling to Ukraine.

That is absolutely mind-blowing once you put it into context.
First of all, the US is not party to the ICC's Rome Statute, and therefore does not recognize its authority. So why is the ICC listening to the US? And how is it legal for Washington to call upon an entity that it doesn't recognize?
Even more importantly, Russia and Ukraine are not ICC members. Therefore Russia and Ukraine are outside of the ICC's jurisdiction.

However, do you know one place that the ICC has jurisdiction? Afghanistan.
Remember Afghanistan? It was the place where we bombed 6 weddings, at least two hospitals (probably a lot more), and countless civilian homes. It was also the place where we tortured to death at least a couple innocent Afghanis.
Just to emphasize this a bit more, President Trump pardoned U.S. soldiers who were guilty of war crimes that were not included in the list I made above.

To add insult to questionability, President Trump ordered that a convicted former Navy SEAL, Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Edward Gallagher, be given a promotion, according to The Guardian.

Given all of this clear, unmistakable evidence of war crimes committed by the U.S. in a nation that the ICC has jurisdiction, you would think that this would be a top priority for the court. But this is where reality intrudes.

That investigation included crimes committed by all parties to the conflict, marking the first time the ICC probed crimes committed by U.S. forces, which in Afghanistan include extrajudicial killings, drone strikes that killed an untold number of civilians, and torture.

Now, if a panel of ICC judges authorize the prosecutor’s request, the resumed investigation would “deprioritise other aspects of this investigation,” Khan said, an implicit reference to the U.S. and its allies.
...“This just proves one more time to Afghans that international mechanisms do not value their life when foreigners are involved and international forces are involved,” Shaharzad Akbar, who chaired Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission until the Taliban took control of the country in August, told The Intercept. “This decision reinforces the perception that these institutions set up in the West and by the West are just instruments for the West’s political agenda.”

It's not like the U.S. found themselves committing war crimes unexpectedly and now had to cover up for those crimes. We knew right from the start that we were going to commit war crimes, and laid the ground-work for those crimes to be committed.

In 2002, one month after the court began operating, the U.S. enacted the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, which sought to protect U.S. personnel from international prosecution. U.S. officials also pursued dozens of bilateral agreements to pressure other countries not to collaborate with the court.

“From the very beginning, they were trying to shield themselves from responsibility,” Raquel Vázquez Llorente, the International Federation for Human Rights’ permanent representative to the ICC, told The Intercept. “They were very scared that the court would bring their people to the Hague.”

While the ICC has set up an investigation team in just a week to look for Russian war crimes, the aborted investigation into American war crimes were delayed and dragged out over an entire decade, before finally being abandoned.

Circling back to Lindsey Graham one more time, he is on record for the U.S. to re-invade Afghanistan. I guess because it went so well last time.
Also, it appears that making false claims of genocide, by Russia, is against the law.
Maybe this law is new because the West's false claims of genocide in Kosovo and Libya never turned into anyone being punished.