European Jurisprudence is INSANE

Afghan warlord awaits sentencing

An Afghan warlord convicted over a “heinous” campaign of torture and hostage taking in his homeland is due to be sentenced at the Old Bailey. Faryadi Zardad, 42, of Streatham, south London, was found guilty at a retrial on Monday of pursuing a reign of fear at checkpoints between 1991 and 1996.

It is thought to be the first time a foreign national has been convicted in a UK court for crimes committed abroad.

…but not the first time for the EU, as we have recently seen in Spain, where courts have tried to exert jurisdiction over Pinochet (and have successfuly imprisoned others involved in his regime). And in 2003, left-wing groups unsuccessfully tried to bring war crimes charges against Donald Rumsfeld and Tommy Franks in Belgium and Germany.

This is totally insane. First: modern liberal internationalists are too hip to respect the only worthwhile aspects of [old school] international law: sovereignty.

“Mr Zardad was found in England. An international convention and English law allow the trial in England of anyone who has committed torture or hostage-taking, irrespective of where those crimes were committed.”

Sorry, you guys just don’t have legal jurisdiction over what happens outside your borders, no matter how morally righteous you want to be.

Second: the waste of resources boggles the mind.

Police then mounted an investigation, which involved officers making several trips to Afghanistan under armed escort to track down the warlord’s victims.

Great. London has one of the highest crime rates of any Western European capital—but who needs cops on the beat when they could be out combing the Afghanistan wilderness for evidence for what a current resident of Britain may or may not have done in a foreign country!

Third: the morality imbalance here is galling beyond belief. Europe has been infected by the Left-wing virus. They feel that getting the real bad guys like Kim Jong Il and Saddam Hussein, i.e. stopping crimes against humanity while they’re actually happening is a distant concern to exerting jurisdiction over what has already happened. While Europeans preach “never again,” in truth they only want to get preachy and feel good about the past: Afghan warlords, Chilean thugs, and Bosnian war criminals are no longer issues, so they feel they can now do something. The same goes for their view of North Korea and Sudan, which they will only care about when they’re over.

Personally, I think these twerps need to get their moral compass fixed. If Afghanistan wants to try Zardad, extradite him. If Kissinger is guilty of war crimes, bring it to court in the United States, not Spain or Germany. Same for Pinochet and his ilk. If you want to do some proactive good, give more than two figs about the other human rights abominations taking place now.