Time to Dump That Bush-Era Law Permitting an Invasion of Holland to "Rescue" U.S. Soldiers

[G_j]

http://www.alternet.org/rights/127080/time_to_dump_that_bush-era_law_permitting_an_invasion_of_holland_to_%22rescue%22_u.s._soldiers/

Time to Dump That Bush-Era Law Permitting an Invasion of Holland to "Rescue" U.S. Soldiers
By Robert Marquand, Christian Science Monitor. Posted February 16, 2009.

Congress passed a law in 2002 enabling the military to storm into Holland to rescue U.S. soldiers held for war crimes. The Dutch want it revoked.


The Hague - In 2002, Congress passed a law enabling United States forces to unilaterally storm into peaceful Holland to liberate American soldiers held for war crimes.

Coming in the early days of the war on terrorists, and as the International Criminal Court was being formed here, the measure provoked controversy and seemed to the Dutch – stout US allies – an absurd example of America's "with us or against us" foreign policy.

The law is still on the books.

Formally titled the American Service Members Protection Act, the measure is widely and derisively known here as the Invasion of The Hague Act.


Odd as it may seem, the law allows the US to constitutionally send jack-booted commandos to fly over fields of innocent tulips, swoop into the land of wooden shoes, tread past threatening windmills and sleepy milk cows into the Dutch capital – into a city synonymous with international law – and pry loose any US troops.

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[marylanddem]

1. I immediately pictured U.S. army mp's "rescuing" soldiers on leave

from the coffee shops of Amsterdam.