Eric Holder works to subordinate American interests to a transnational world view

As is always the case with an Andrew McCarthy article, he efficiently marshals vast numbers of relevants to make a compelling argument, with today’s argument being that Holder’s decision to “investigate” CIA interrogators is not merely a sop to the radical Left in the U.S., but is actually part of a larger effort to subordinate American interests to a transnational world view.

Twenty or thirty years ago, when I, an unthinking Democrat, heard all those “loonies on the Right” talking about American sovereignty and fearing that the Left would push America into a world political order, I sneered.  I realize now that they were canaries in the coal mine because, for the first time, we have an administration where the transnationalists aren’t just shadowing figures talking in Ivy League lunch rooms and at Communist party gatherings (attendance:  10 people):

I believe the explanation lies in the Obama administration’s fondness for transnationalism, a doctrine of post-sovereign globalism in which America is seen as owing its principal allegiance to the international legal order rather than to our own Constitution and national interests.

Recall that the president chose to install former Yale Law School dean Harold Koh as his State Department’s legal adviser. Koh is the country’s leading proponent of transnationalism. He is now a major player in the administration’s deliberations over international law and cooperation. Naturally, membership in the International Criminal Court, which the United States has resisted joining, is high on Koh’s agenda. The ICC claims worldwide jurisdiction, even over nations that do not ratify its enabling treaty, notwithstanding that sovereign consent to jurisdiction is a bedrock principle of international law.

As a result, there have always been serious concerns that the ICC could investigate and try to indict American political, military, and intelligence officials for actions taken in defense of our country. Here it’s crucial to bear in mind that the United States (or at least the pre-Obama United States) has not seen eye-to-eye with Europe on significant national-security matters. European nations, for example, have accepted the 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, while the United States has rejected it. Protocol I extends protections to terrorists and imposes an exacting legal regime on combat operations, relying on such concepts as “proportional” use of force and rigorous distinction between military and civilian targets. That is, Protocol I potentially converts traditional combat operations into war crimes. Similarly, though the U.S. accepted the torture provisions of the U.N. Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), our nation rejected the UNCAT’s placing of “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment” on a par with torture. By contrast, Europe generally accepts the UNCAT in toto.

You have to read the whole article to appreciate fully what is going on here. On you have to take the conspiracy blinders off, because this is no longer a whispered rumor in the dark. Instead, it is a very specific policy that is entirely consistent with administration officials who have long, and explicitly, made known their contempt for American sovereignty.