The Court was established in 2002 as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. The United States is not a member of - nor does the U.S. recognize the jurisdiction of - the ICC. Dick Cheney wouldn't have it any other way. (When the court was established, Cheney and his crew of killers were working out the details of the invasion of Iraq.) As of this month, 106 different states are members of the Court. Forty additional countries have signed but not ratified the ICC Agreement, referred to as the "Rome Statute."

The four major countries that have said no to the court are Russia, China, India and the United States. The reasons are obvious: All four are major violators of the most basic of human rights. Where it concerns the U.S. and the Bush Crime Family, the list of indictable crimes ordered during the invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq would mean the immediate arrest, detention and subsequent trial of nearly every single Crime Family member, including two Secretaries of State, two Secretaries of Defense, several National Security Advisors, various legal advisors to both Bush and Cheney, two Attorneys General, a clutch of top-ranking members of the military, the Vice President, and, finally, George W. Bush himself.

At today's edition of the Bush Crime Family's toy press conference on the economy, President Chucklenuts was asked by a reporter - very obliquely and very indirectly - about his reaction to the request for the war crimes indictment of a national leader still in power.

Our very own War Criminal is correct. For the U.S. to join the Court in the age of the Bush Crime Family is completely, incontrovertibly "off the table" as Nancy Pelosi would say in a different context. The crimes against humanity committed by the Bush Regime are well-documented. The record is there, over which future historians will puzzle and scratch their heads in amazement. How did this happen? will be the primary question. And how did it all go unpunished? How did the people of the U.S. acquiesce as their leaders decided torture, rendition, imprisonment without charge, the denial of counsel, open-ended prison sentences, the jailing of children, massive bombing attacks against a population unable to defend itself - attacks specifically proscribed by the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, International Law and our own Constitution.

How did it happen, indeed? Perhaps the answer to the questions of how and why we have become a terrorist state could be extracted from Bush and Cheney and Rice and Powell and Ashcroft and Gonzales and Addington and the rest of the Family if methods used on captured Iraqi cab drivers and Afghan goat-herders were applied to our own suspects. How long could Family members hang by their wrists - arms twisted up behind them - while subjected to pounding Heavy Metal? How much water gushing down their throats and into their lungs would it take before they screamed out any "truth" demanded? (It took only 17 seconds to nearly drown writer Christopher Hitchens.)

But, as Bush said today - a smirk on his face that could be seen around the world - "We're not a member of the ICC . . ."