Mike Pompeo—a popular Republican and a war criminal

By SJ Otto

Mike Pompeo has been are real rising star from my home state of Kansas. He is overwhelmingly popular with Kansas Republicans. He is also a war criminal.

According to McClatchy:

 “He’s ruled out a U.S. Senate run in 2020. But on the eve of Pompeo’s first official visit to Kansas since his meteoric rise from congressman to secretary of state, the Wichita Republican propped open the door to a political future in his home state.”

He has real support from a real conservative state. President Donald Trump has taken more than one of his conservative stooges from the state of Kansas. All of that promotion has made Pompeo one of Kansas Republican’s most popular politicians.

Again, according to McClatchy:

“Republicans in the state think that means one of two things — a bid for Senate or the governor’s mansion in 2022. That is, if Pompeo doesn’t decide to run for president in 2024 instead.

He’d be well placed for a run in Kansas. One internal Republican poll from January showed Pompeo beating any potential GOP rival statewide by double digits. And he’s sitting on nearly $1 million in his dormant federal campaign committee.”

While Pompeo may be one of the state’s most popular Republicans, he is also a war criminal.

According to Stars And Stripes:[1]

“The United States will revoke or deny visas to International Criminal Court personnel seeking to investigate alleged war crimes and other abuses committed by U.S. forces in Afghanistan or elsewhere, and may do the same with those who seek action against Israel, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday.

Pompeo, acting on a threat delivered in September by U.S. national security adviser John Bolton, framed the action as necessary to prevent the international body from infringing on U.S. sovereignty by prosecuting American forces or allies for torture or other war crimes.”

WOW! Does that say a lot about US conduct in a foreign country?[2] Pompeo will not allow anyone to go into a foreign country that the US occupies and check on allegations of torture or other forms of war crimes. He also included Israel. This statement contains an amazing confession that the US sees Afghanistan as a part of the US and not a sovereign nation of its own. The US invaded Afghanistan shortly after September 11, 2001 and has stayed there ever since. The US has installed a puppet government and has used US military troops to prop it up over all these years.

Stars And Stripes goes one to say:

"We are determined to protect the American and allied military and civilian personnel from living in fear of unjust prosecution for actions taken to defend our great nation," Pompeo said.’

Of course that means that the people who live in Afghanistan do not have the same rights and if they have been tortured or harmed in some way there isn’t anything they can do about it. We can also see some of that “America first” type policy” of Trump’s in this part of the article:

“U.S. officials have long regarded the Netherlands-based ICC (International Criminal Court) with hostility, arguing that American courts are capable of handling any allegations against U.S. forces and questioning the motives of an international court.”

The US has championed putting people from third-world countries, such as Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony, Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on trial for their alleged war crimes. All of these people are from small, poor and backward countries. No leader from any first-world industrialized country has ever been investigated or accused of any war crime. It is ironic that Trump and his people don’t trust the ICC. To claim the US can handle “any allegations against US forces” is laughable. Imagine if Gaddafi had made that argument?!  It would make as much sense.

There are a lot of Republicans and conservative Kansans who really aren’t bothered by human rights abuses in foreign affairs. They couldn’t care less about the people who are harmed in such countries as Afghanistan. But some of us find it disturbing that such a man, with such an abysmal record on US human rights wants to come back to Kansas to resume some kind of a career representing the worst that Kansas has to offer. Pompeo’s statements show an outright disrespect for any kind of sovereignty for the people of Afghanistan.

Pompeo was elected to the Fourth District House of Representatives in 2011. That is a staunchly Republican district that hasn’t had a Democrat in it since before Republican Todd Tiahrt beat long-time Democrat incumbent Dan Glickman, in 1995. Pompeo ran against Tiahrt in 2014, for that same district and I didn’t realize how much worse he could be. But Pompeo has been a blatant, all out imperialist.

For many of us, Pompeo would do best to stay out of Kansas. We don’t need nor want him here.

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[1]This page has since been moved or deleted. This is the post that I copied some time in March.
[2] Any leader who defends war criminals is a war criminal.