Tangle - Vladimir Putin's arrest warrant.

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

On Saturday, the International Criminal Court accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of war crimes, and issued a warrant for his arrest. Putin became just the third head of state to be indicted by the ICC while still in power. Specifically, the ICC accuses Putin of deporting hundreds of Ukrainian children — and potentially many more — to Russia. On Monday, China's leader Xi Jinping visited Putin in Moscow for three days of talks.You can read today's podcast here, today’s “Under the Radar” story here and today’s “Have a nice day” story here.Today’s clickables: Quick Hits (1:20), Today’s Story (3:25), Right’s Take (6:50) Left’s Take (9:02) , Takes from Abroad (11:42), Isaac’s Take (13:51), Your Questions Answered (16:47), Under the Radar (18:59), Numbers (19:49), Have A Nice Day (20:21)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited by Zosha Warpeha. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Twas the season of chaos, and all through the house, not one person was stressing. Holla differently this year with DoorDash.

Don't want to holla do the most? Holla don't. More festive, less frantic. Get deals for every occasion with DoorDash. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu.

It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about the arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Before we jump in, though, I want to give you a quick heads up. We're going to try something a little new today. It's

not a big change, but we're playing with our format. I'm going to do a tiny bit more summarizing of some of the arguments from the right and the left, trying to stay true to the words from the authors that we cite, but also making the podcast a teeny bit shorter and maybe easier to understand. If you have some feedback about this change, feel free to reach out and let me know. You can reach me anytime, Isaac, I-S-A-A-C at readtangle.com. Before we jump in, as always, we'll start off with some quick hits. First up, President Biden issued his first veto, rejecting a Republican-sponsored bill that would have undone a federal rule allowing for the consideration of environmental, social, and corporate governments, or ESG,

in retirement investment considerations. Number two, in France, a pension reform bill raising the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64 became law despite widespread protests. Number three, four members of the Oath Keepers militia group were found guilty of obstructing an official proceeding for their role on January 6th. Number four, the United Nations released a report warning that the Earth is on track to exceed a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase in warming from pre-industrial levels by the early 2030s. In 2015, the Paris Climate Agreement was signed in an effort to stay under that level of warming. Number five, Amazon said it will cut 9,000 more jobs after previously saying it was going to cut 18,000.

The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The court accuses Putin and other Russian officials of war crimes during the invasion of Ukraine, saying Putin was involved in abducting children from Ukraine and deporting them to Russia. Russia's president is accused of war crimes focusing on the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. It's the first time the court has ordered the arrest of a prominent serving political leader. Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has hailed the decision as historic.

Moscow, though, dismissed the announcement as outrageous, saying it doesn't recognise the jurisdiction of the court. The president of the International Criminal Court had this to say about the warrants. It is forbidden by international law for occupying powers to transfer civilians from the territory they live in to other territories. Children enjoy special protection under the Geneva Convention. On Saturday, the International Criminal Court accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of

war crimes and issued a warrant for his arrest. Putin became just the third head of state to be indicted by the ICC while still in power. Specifically, the ICC accuses Putin of deporting hundreds of Ukrainian children, and potentially many more, to Russia. On Monday, China's leader Xi Jinping visited Putin in Moscow for three days of talks. The ICC is the International Criminal Court and was established in 1998 when 120 nations adopted a statute to create an international forum to prosecute heinous crimes committed on the world stage. It is now made up of 123 states. The seat of the ICC is in The Hague in the Netherlands. The court is not associated with the United Nations and prosecutes individuals as an independent judiciary body. Practically

speaking, the warrant will severely limit Putin's travel. The ICC's 123 member states are obligated to detain him if he sets foot in their countries. Russia, China, the United States, and India are not members of the ICC, nor is Ukraine, though it granted the ICC prosecutorial authority over its territory in 2014. Former President Bill Clinton joined the treaty in 2000, but former President George W. Bush quickly withdrew after taking office. Russia joined in 2000, but withdrew in 2016 after the court classified its annexation of Crimea as an armed conflict. Since India is not a member state, Putin could theoretically attend the G20 summit in India

later this year without fear of arrest. The Kremlin dismissed the allegation, saying the ICC decisions, quote, have no meaning for our country, including from a legal point of view. The prospect of Putin being arrested in a foreign country seems low. Sudan's former president, Omar al-Bashir, was also indicted by the ICC while serving as head of state, and he remained in office for another decade before being overthrown in a coup. He traveled to a number of African and Arab countries while under indictment, and none of them opted to detain him. There is precedent for world leaders facing criminal charges in international court, but experts believe Putin will simply avoid traveling

to any countries where he may fear being arrested. Today, we're going to take a look at some reactions to the warrant from the right and the left, and some start with what the right is saying. Many on the right opposed the warrant, arguing it might make the situation worse for Ukraine and calling the ICC an unaccountable international court. In the Washington Examiner, Tom Rogan argued that the warrant will do more harm than good. Yes, Russia has committed the crime Putin is accused of, but as evinced by its disinterest in confronting China's Uyghur genocide, the ICC is ultimately a politically motivated entity more than an independent arbiter of justice. Moscow will now exploit that reality in furtherance of its own propaganda, Rogin wrote. Putin isn't going to The Hague anytime soon, and his security service isn't going to let him be

detained. More importantly, though, the warrant does not ultimately serve Ukraine's interests. Instead, Rogin argues, the warrant reinforces the idea that, quote, the war is an existential struggle between Russia's sovereign security and a Western liberal orthodoxy, end quote. This fits perfectly into Putin's narrative. Even for Russians skeptical of Putin, this arrest warrant will make him appear as a courageous Russian patriot struggling against an encroaching Western behemoth, and that will move more Russians to support his invasion of Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal editorial board echoed Rogin's sentiment, saying it is the wrong

way to beat Putin. The Kiev government says some 16,000 children have been taken to Russia from Ukrainian territory and only 307 have been returned, the board noted. And the warrants are no doubt a satisfying moral statement, but the U.S. hasn't ratified the Rome Statute, nor has Russia or China. The U.S. has never endorsed the idea that a treaty applies to a country that is imparted to it. The U.S. has long feared anti-American ICC prosecutors and judges might target U.S. soldiers or government officials, and that fear has been wisely held. Issuing these warrants is feckless and maybe worse than doing nothing, the board said.

They maintain the best way to beat Putin is to give Ukraine the arms it needs and allow Ukraine to prosecute those responsible rather than an unaccountable international court. That is it for what the right is saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. The left supports the issuing of the warrant, with some arguing it is a stunning statement that will tarnish Putin, and others saying it exposes U.S. hypocrisy on international law. In CNN, Frida Gaitis called it a stunning statement that put Putin on a short list alongside some of the most brutal leaders the world has seen. Gaitis says the warrant brands Putin as an international pariah before the entire world. Only three sitting heads of states have ever faced ICC charges,

and the other two were the late Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and Sudan's former president, Omar al-Bashir, both accused of horrifying crimes against their own people, Gaitis wrote. She says Putin inherited a once-proud nation with vast natural resources and a highly educated people, then dismantled democracy and launched an unprovoked invasion on Ukraine. Now he is an accused war criminal, and perhaps this will give Russians who support him reason to reconsider. While there is almost no chance Putin faces an ICC tribunal, Gaidus said, he will forever bear

the branding of an accused war criminal unless he does. Given that Ukrainian officials are painstakingly documenting war crimes and crimes against humanity, there's good reason to expect more warrants just like this one. Whether or not Putin is ever put in handcuffs, his place in history is now secure in the darkest pages of massacres and misrule, she said. In Al Jazeera, Andrew Mitrovica said the warrant against Putin is good, but it's also hypocritical. Putin is little more than a thug, he wrote, saying he was glad the ICC charged Putin with a war crime and that he earned it. But other

leaders of other nations, including the United States and Israel, regard themselves as exempt from the ICC's authority and have also earned being charged. According to the ICC, a string of American presidents and soldiers who launched a string of disfiguring wars on several still-scarred continents and set up a covert international abduction and torture racket have never, ever committed a war crime of any sort, he wrote. The same goes for a cocksure British prime minister who joined their American cousins to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, killing or making refugees of millions of innocents. And what about the Australian soldiers who murdered scores of Afghan civilians, including slicing children's throats as part of a sick initiation ritual?

Or the slew of Israeli prime ministers and soldiers who have targeted Palestinian kids, women and men, and civilian infrastructure in the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem, Gaza for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to some takes from abroad. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web,

his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average Only on Disney+. cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. Australian journalist Jeffrey Robertson said the warrant may signal the beginning of the end. The ICC contends that Putin is a man who kills

children and kidnaps them from home and family. Its judges have examined the evidence and found every reason to believe it. Similar indictments have been preludes to the fall from power of world leaders like Putin, and international criminal law has advanced since the ICC was established. Putin's travel options are now constricted, and it will be open to states to take action against those who represent this international criminal. Robertson argued that Australia should throw out the Russian spies in the country as well as the Russian diplomats. They're all guilty of complicity in causing suffering to innocent children and will be candidates for war crimes

prosecutions in the future. In the Statesman, an Indian newspaper, Harsha Kakar said this is all much ado about nothing. The ICC has no powers to enforce arrests on warrants, and the U.S. is refusing to hand over evidence it claims to have collected on Russian crimes as it fears it could open the doors for the ICC to prosecute U.S. citizens in the future. This is the same U.S. leadership that threatened the ICC not to accuse any American soldier of war crimes in Afghanistan, even though abundant evidence existed. European nations also welcomed the ICC's actions against Putin, but none raised a finger when the U.S. threatened the ICC. No wonder Russia adopted a similar approach, Kagar said. No state, whether

a member of the Rome Statute or not, is likely to arrest or deport Putin, and the warrant is unlikely to have any impact on the Ukraine-Russia conflict aside from a few minutes of publicity. In reality, it could prolong the conflict and add to the suffering of Ukrainians who continue to fight a proxy war for the West. All right, that is it for our commentary from the right, left, and from abroad, which brings us to my take. I've written a lot in this newsletter about foreign propaganda, but rarely ever touch on the American variety. The ICC might be the body that best illuminates it. In March of 2021, when the ICC announced an investigation into bad acts by Israel, this same administration cried foul. The United States

firmly opposes and is deeply disappointed by this decision, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. The ICC has no jurisdiction over this matter. Israel is not a party to the ICC and has not consented to the court's jurisdiction, and we have serious concerns about the ICC's attempts to exercise its jurisdiction over Israeli personnel. Under Trump, the U.S. called the ICC broken and corrupted and essentially executed a quid pro quo to keep it from investigating war crimes in Afghanistan. It imposed sanctions on the court's top prosecutor, then only dropped them once the ICC dropped its probe. There's something rather absurd about the U.S., Russia, India, China, and to a lesser extent even Ukraine, all using the ICC as a publicity tool when it suits them, while none of them have actually signed on to the charter.

123 other nations have, and they appear somewhat committed to actually acting on it. In reality, the ICC is a necessary body. The world is so interconnected and so full of international crimes that if hundreds of nations actually committed to the ICC charter and actually acted on its behalf

by actually executing warrants on accused war criminals, we'd all be a lot safer, and every leader, soldier, and international actor would be much more incentivized to act ethically. I'd be fine with that arrangement. But that is not the arrangement we have. Yes, Putin is a war criminal, and he almost assuredly is guilty as charged. There's some complexity to the experience Ukrainian children are having, as many of them are coming from orphanages or group homes. But forcibly relocating children to a new country is a crime, nonetheless. And there's no doubt Russia is moving thousands of children to camps in Russian territory.

Worse, there are guardians and relatives of these children demanding them back. The issue of the forced transfer of children is just one of many war crimes, from the indiscriminate bombing of civilian centers to the torture and rape of civilians and soldiers. War is a horrible, tragic, incomprehensibly terrible thing, and this war has been no exception. If the U.S. and our Western allies want to trumpet the ICC's work, I'm all for it. Putin should be marred as an international criminal, and it's a good thing that he is now limited in his travel. But we should start viewing our own actions on the world stage through the same lens, and should fully commit to the charter if we think it is

that important. Otherwise, we're not just feeding Putin his anti-West propaganda on a silver platter, we're giving the rest of the world more reason to scoff at our own lack of self-awareness and hypocrisy. Alright, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one is from Nick in Edmond, Oklahoma. Nick said, The trouble I find myself in is determining just how much the previous administration's decisions are affecting the country today compared to those of the current administration. Do you have an idea of how far into the future a president's decisions impact it? Basically, at what point can we reliably stop placing blame or commendation on the previous administration and start placing it on the current one?

I get the feeling the answer is probably it depends, but I wanted to ask anyway and get your thoughts. So, Nick, yes, it does depend, but I'd argue that an administration's decisions can have an indefinite, everlasting impact on the U.S. George Washington decided to stay neutral during the French Revolution, and that decision set off a century of U.S. isolationism as its main foreign policy strategy. Some history buffs still reference it to make the case for staying out of war today. In 1791, Alexander Hamilton proposed a tax on whiskey to pay off U.S. debt, and introducing new taxes to get the deficit down is something that presidents are still doing today. When the U.S. government overcame the whiskey rebellion, it learned it could tax and collect and then, crucially, overcome resistance. I think, broadly speaking, most decisions made by U.S. presidents,

especially legislation they sign, won't have an impact until they leave office. Or, more precisely, the impact of the legislation will grow with time. Take a look at the Affordable Care Act enrollment, which is nearly doubled. Biden just signed an infrastructure bill that will launch projects while he's in office, but the biggest impact is unlikely to be felt until those projects are totally funded, complete, and up and running. Sometimes it isn't even policy. Trump pushed legislation and executive orders that were designed to directly challenge China, but the lasting impact has been broad bipartisan support for countering China that didn't exist when he came into office. In a big way, Trump ushered in that attitude change.

These impacts are tough to measure, but yes, it definitely depends, and I think some decisions are felt for centuries. are felt for centuries. All right, that is it for your questions answered, which brings us to our under-the-radar section. A federal investigation into gender discrimination at the FBI has revealed one of the most important legal offices in U.S. government as a hotbed of dysfunction, turf wars, mismanagement, and paranoia, Politico reports. The lawsuit centered on the general counsel's office, where some of America's most powerful attorneys focus on terrorism, organized crime, and cyber threats. A federal jury sided with the FBI, but the lawsuit brought witness testimony that exposed startling revelations about the Bureau's dysfunction and

mismanagement woes, while the trial drew little notice and offered a peek inside the secretive world of the FBI. Politico has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The number of staff members at the International Criminal Court is 900. The number of states those staff members represent is approximately 100. The 2023 budget of the ICC was $182.8 million. The number of cases that have come before the court is 31. The number of arrest warrants the ICC has issued is 38. The number of convictions issued by the ICC is 10. and the number of acquittals issued by the ICC is four. All right, and last but not least, our have a nice day story.

Jean Bailey is 102 years old, and she isn't slowing down. Despite being one of the older residents at Elk Ridge Village, a senior living community in Nebraska, Bailey is acting as the community's fitness instructor. She's been an instructor for 15 years, and during the pandemic, roughly 10 to 12 residents started regularly attending her four times a week class, which includes foot and arm stretches and seated movements. You don't have to start out doing this is very strict, Bailey said, but we have a couple. One girl had a stroke and there's one who has arthritis and I

just tell them to. I don't care what they do, but move, Bailey said. When she's not exercising, Bailey spends her time doing blackjack and keeping up with the community. Good Morning America has the story and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, everybody. That is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to support our work, please go to reetangle.com slash membership and consider becoming a member. We'll be right back here same time tomorrow.

Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by Zosia Warpea. Our script is edited by Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and Bailey Saul. Shout out to our interns, Audrey Moorhead and Watkins Kelly, and our social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who created our podcast logo. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75.

For more from Tangle, check out our website at www.newtangle.com. T'was the season of chaos, and all through the house, We'll be right back. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th,

only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.