WASHINGTON: In the week that the United States insisted that its military be exempt from possible war crimes prosecution in the new international court, the Afghan government angrily accused the Americans of the wanton killing by an air raid of dozens of Afghans attending a wedding party.

The US government has expressed its regrets over the loss of life and injury in the Afghan raid but insists that it had firm information that anti-aircraft fire had come from the targeted compound.

The coincidence of the two events threw a spotlight on the issue that is troubling many of America’s allies. The argument over the events is shaping up along the lines of “exceptionalism” and “unilateralism.”

On the exceptionalist side are the Bush administration and the US Congress. They argue that the United States is unique, the largest military power, by far, and the country that makes the largest contributions to peace-keeping.

As such, they argue, the American soldiers would unnecessarily and unfairly be exposed to frivolous or politically motivated nuisance “war crimes” charges. The inevitable result would be the US withdrawal from such peacekeeping operations, to the cost of peace and respect for human rights.

Then there are the anti-unilateralists — mainly European countries which also contribute to peace-keeping operations — who say that the American argument smacks of super-power arrogance, exciting fears around the world that the Bush administration is fulfilling the worst nightmares of the rest of the world.

For starters, it is undermining the idea of an international tribunal that could have an immense power of good around the world.

Those who make this argument say that the Bush administration’s actions fit what may be an ominous pattern of arrogant behaviour, including scrapping the Kyoto Protocol on climate change which was meant to slow the rise of global warming.

The critics of the American demand for exemption from war crimes prosecution say that the treaty establishing the high court has plenty of safeguards barring frivolous or politically-inspired prosecutions, including the power of the UN Security Council to quash such cases.

The American government has backed down to the extent of postponing a threat to withdraw its troops from the Bosnian peacekeeping operation over the war crimes issue. But the issue remains contentious.

The debate is further fuelled by the fact that the Bush stand is popular in Congress, in a year when the party majority of either the Senate or the House of Representatives could change with the switch of a handful of key congressional election districts or states.

In the back of the minds of those who oppose the US stand is the worry that the American threat to invade Iraq in order to topple President Saddam Hussein is gaining strength within the United States.

That idea is openly opposed by some of America’s strongest allies in Europe who see it as a dangerous and possibly catastrophic mistake that could plunge the Middle East into chaos. At a minimum, it would lead to a worldwide energy crisis. At worst, it could lead to a local war that could involve the use of other weapons of mass destruction, such as germ warfare or the use of deadly nerve gas warheads on Scud missiles.

Also, it could undermine efforts at reaching a peace agreement in the Middle East.

The immediate result of the American moves is to fray the western alliance and lower the ability of that partnership to operate in places such as Afghanistan or Central Asia. Clearly that was not the Bush administration’s intent so it is just possible that the current debates will turn out to be a beneficial learning experience for the American administration.—dpa