A measure of how far we've fallen

It's a measure of how we've fallen that it is now considered "good news" that the United States is planning on abstaining from a vote in the Security Council to refer war crimes in Darfur to the International Criminal Court.

These are crimes that have been declared by the American government to be genocide, a loaded term deliberately used to put pressure on the Sudanese government. (Compare that in 1994, Clinton administration officials were explicitly told not to use the term because of the consequences it would entail.) And the American government holds up one way of working toward their resolution for purely political reasons based in its fear and distaste of - gasp! - people working together in international institutions.

So, yes, it is "good news" that the war crimes will be referred to the ICC. But this shouldn't be a remarkable step at all; it should be a logical first step in resolving cases like these. The fact that we see it as so remarkable is confirmation of the degradation of the American administration's foreign policy.