Aping the Grown-Ups

A parliamentary motion to withdraw from the Rome Statute has been passed in the former British colony of Kenya. The statute regulates prosecutions at the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, provided such crimes are committed by Africans and not by the Reverend Blair. Kenya's president and vice-president are scheduled for trial next week for some alleged post-electoral violence in 2007-08 which killed slightly more civilians than the average monthly toll in Iraq about that time. The World Cop by the grace of God has never signed up to the Rome Statute at all, in case its military personnel should fall victim to a cultural misunderstanding over depleted uranium, white phosphorous, régime change, drone justice or shock and awe; and Kenya's poor benighted parliamentarians evidently see no reason why their own hired hands should be similarly compromised.