INTERPOL: Justice, Global-Style!!!
SouthEast Asia, World October 24th, 2007
Huzzah for the good guys! Huzzah huzzah huzzah!…and help me find my way back to the hotel bar…I’ve been celebrating the recent snatch of a scumbag here in southeast Asia, Thailand to be exact, and I’m afraid I’ve gotten too caught up in the party to be able to navigate the back streets of Bangkok. I’ve got the Murray Head song “One Night in
Interpol launches public manhunt for pedophile
Interpol issues notice seeking arrest of Canadian suspected pedophile
Interpol detains 166 cross-border crime suspects in Tanzania
International Co-operation Leads to Arrest of Rwandan Genocide Suspect
Talk about global justice served! Man, I always get fired up when I see the good guys fighting for 
the global good getting their man…or in this case a total scumbag of a man. Interpol’s most recent incursion into current events came last week when they helped bag some Canadian child molesting shit-eater. Interpol specialists unscrambled an internet-posted image of this dude in the act. They then identified him, and sent out a worldwide information alert which helped track his sick ass down in less than a week, and he was subsequently arrested in
Oh, and I suppose I should respect the rights of judicial due process, and declare that this guy is innocent until proven guilty. NOT! I’m a vigilante at heart, but all that aside, the freak posted pictures of himself in the act! Hell no to due process! This twisted shit is guilty! The mere fact that a Canadian was caught outside of his country should be setting off alarm bells. But a single white male Canadian caught in Thailand with photos of himself on the web molesting boys?….um….yeah….that’s what we call an open and shut case…And I hope they open and shut the iron door right on his skull a few hundred times after the trial, if you get my drift.
A little Plaid Avenger tip to you world travelers: don’t get arrested in
In a nutshell: INTERPOL is an organization facilitating international police cooperation. And I do mean international! It is the world’s largest international police organization, with 186 member countries…making it the fifth biggest organization on the planet by membership. INTERPOL helps facilitate co-operation on affairs of justice even when diplomatic relations do not exist between particular countries. So even though countries like the US and Iran hate each other and have absolutely no diplomatic ties, both of those states participate in INTERPOL and therefore exchange information at least in the capacity of serving global justice. Everybody does INTERPOL man!
And what exactly does INTERPOL do? They support and assist all organizations, authorities and 
services whose mission is to prevent or combat international crime. The BIG thing they do is all about the information. Pooling intelligence, as it were. INTERPOL has the single biggest crime database on the planet…created by verifying, posting, sharing, and cross-referencing all the crime data from all its participating countries…which as I have pointed out, is pretty much the whole damn world! From their website: “One of INTERPOL’s most important functions is to help police in member countries share critical crime-related information using the organization’s system of international notices.”
But not all crime! Just the crimes and criminals that have an international dimension. In order to 
maintain as politically neutral a role as possible, Interpol’s constitution forbids its involvement in crimes that do not overlap several member countries. In other words, INTERPOL would never interfere in any judicial proceedings on a crime which occurred just in a single state—that is left to the locals to deal with. However, when any individual or criminal organization deals across two or more countries, then INTERPOL tracks and posts the data…and sometimes even gets more pro-active by physically going after the bad guys!
So data sharing is their main deal. They track and post lists of wanted fugitives who have fled across international borders. They post lists of stolen passport identities that all countries can access. They advertise photos and known aliases of criminals. All this data—and much more—is available across the entire planet to all police and government agencies who fight crime. Pretty fucking cool man. Unless you are a criminal of course.
And the criminals they focus on? Its work focuses primarily on public safety, terrorism, organized 
crime, war crimes, illicit drug production, drug trafficking, weapons smuggling, trafficking in human beings, money laundering, child pornography, white-collar crime, computer crime, Intellectual Property crime and corruption. All bad shit to be sure. And all shit that has global dimensions on our world….which is why its so freakin’ awesome to see a truly positive form of globalization for a change!
Which is the real reason for today’s rant. When are all these politicians and ardent nationalists going to wake the hell up to how the world is working right now? We have a global economy, we have global trade, we have global movement of capital, global movement of people, global corporations, and even global warming. As such, we also now have global crime syndicates, global drug trafficking, global human trafficking, global arms trade…HOWEVER we don’t have any real global law, no global judicial system, and no real way to effectively stop global crime. Why not?
Because most of the countries on the planet refuse to cooperate in a single global law system due to conflicting cultural beliefs, personal vendettas against other countries, and mostly due to fear of loss of a smidgen of sovereignty. Oh shit! There is that sovereignty word again! It is always causing trouble! In particular, the most powerful states in the world—like the
We live in a globalized world people! Crime does not stop at state borders anymore! When nothing else on this planet is confined to state boundaries, why do we still insist that justice be so confined? And frankly, a lot of states are just being dumb not to support more global justice mechanisms.
Want an example? Drugs! No, I don’t mean take them, I mean think about them. Drugs are a global commodity, produced and traded and moved all around the planet by criminal organizations from at least a few dozen different countries. Why would a single state want to take on the burden of fighting a ‘war on drugs’ all by themselves? Its not even possible man! A truly global problem like drug trafficking simply demands a global solution…and a global justice system to try the folks you bust, and a global police to go and bust them.
Well, for now we at least have INTERPOL, which is a start. But I must be honest with you here…it’s not really that much. I think INTERPOL kicks total ass, but the reason that they mostly just deal with information availability is that they don’t have much of a budget or much of a staff to do much else. (Last year they received $59 million in contributions from member states; in contrast EUROPOL received $90, and Bill Gates used $120 million in 100-dollar bills just to wipe his ass.) So they don’t have a lot of coin, or a lot of international authority, to do too much.
What does INTERPOL not do? INTERPOL action is taken within the limits of existing laws in different countries and in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. INTERPOL’s constitution prohibits ‘any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.’ And while it makes for great fiction, INTERPOL generally does not have a bunch of detectives out searching for clues at the crime scene, and rarely sends agents to go apprehend a criminal. It works with the national and local police to get those things done.
It is still a cool concept to think about though, and you have probably seen reference to INTERPOL 
in a film or two as well. Ethan Hawke played an INTERPOL agent tracking down the Nicolas Cage character in Lords of War ;a movie about the illegal global arms trade. Inspector Gadget is supposed to be an INTERPOL agent. In the movie Mission: Impossible III, Ethan Hunt is told he is on INTERPOL’s Most Wanted list. My personal favorite—mostly because she is a hottie—is Agent Isabel Lahiri played by Catherine Zeta-Jones in Oceans Twelve.
Actually, Agent Lahiri was a EUROPOL agent—EUROPOL is exactly like INTERPOL except it is a 
collaboration just of EU countries under a common crime-fighting umbrella. However, Agent Lahiri is forced near the end of the film to turn over the Oceans Twelve suspects to a group of folks posing as…can you guess?…INTERPOL agents of course! Dude! That movie totally kicks ass! That was easily the best acting job I’ve ever seen Bruce Willis do…oh, wait a minute, he was playing himself. Hmmm, I guess that explains it. But I digress as usual…
So now you know INTERPOL and what it does. You also know its limitations, and limited use in today’s world…a situation which all fighters for global justice must help remedy! As Batman and Robin would say: “Support your local police”….as The Plaid Avenger insists: “Support your global justice system”, and for now, that justice is INTERPOL.
Crime is no longer just local, and so justice should not be either. Rock on, fighters for truth and freedom on the planetary platform!
October 25th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Don’t you realize that INTERPOL was founded by the biggest police state in the world at the time,Austria-Hungary. Also,J Edgar Hoover put the U.S. in against most peoples wishes. It was created with no oversight and long before the international drug cartels, unless you mean the opium trade that took down China.
October 25th, 2007 at 8:24 am
Yeah Phil, I know when it was created. It was also taken over by the Nazis under Hitler…but of course it didn’t amount to much under that freak. After the war, INTERPOL relocated to France, and started to build the modern version of what it is today…so don’t read too much into history as a guide to what the group is all about.
I stand by my support of INTERPOL and their work: who doesn’t want the absolute best data-sharing about the absolute worst criminals on the planet? Don’t get your panties in a bunch Phil, they are no threat to US soveriegnty. However, I do truly believe and support a singular global justice system…even though INTERPOL and the world in general is a million miles away from that concept right now…
October 26th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Am I the only one who is going to argue with you. The only entity that advances under globalism is the international corporation. This golem is an abomination. It will bring desolation. All collective scemes (socialism, communism, corporatism, et al)empower the group at the expense of the individual, destroying accountability, morals, and ethics.(Remember Enron) Learn to stand on your own and be a Man. One thing to remember, INTERPOL has no oversight. Don’t be fooled by one good deed. Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. No oversight means power. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutly.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:33 am
Perhaps it is more accurate to state that corrupt people seek power. Not everyone in a position of power acts in a purely malicious and/or selfish manner. What are you, some kind of recovering Catholic??
October 26th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
While I’m not opposed to a global justice system, I just don’t foresee its creation…um, ever! Complete international cooperation on anything seems unlikely. And hypothetically, if we were to reach this point of mutual understanding; I wouldn’t want INTERPOL running the show.
I am very uncomfortable with the most primitive foundations of INTERPOL. Let’s take a look back at this idea of coordinated efforts fighting crime beyond borders, even before the creation of the International Criminal Police Commission in Vienna (1923). That’s right, I’m talkin’ about the predecessor of the pre-cursor (yeah, THAT far back).
Picture it, Rome (1898) and subsequently St. Petersburg (1904), “secret” conferences where European countries and the U.S. met to discuss the surveillance of violent anarchists (or terrorists; however you wish to view them). It was during these meetings that members agreed upon the portrait parlé. For those of you who slept through Anthropometry 101, this is a disgustingly, discriminatory physical classification system based on “racial” prejudice and superiority that often targets (how should I say this?), anyone who looks different from the population’s majority.
I suspect the current, descendant organization is using more scientific methods of criminal identification but I don’t like any group with those origins in charge of implementing or enforcing a legal system.
(Side note) Jerez is not the complete cynic she appears to be, honestly…she’s well aware that INTERPOL was instrumental in the capture of Carmen Sandiego during the ‘90s. Good work gumshoe. (/end note)
October 26th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Hahahaha, well, I see that Jerez and Phil are still adamant that any international organization that fights crime must be inherently evil. Seriously, I do respect your opinion…especially when it comes to an innate distrust of large bureaucracies. But I think you are still missing the point when it comes to INTERPOL…they don’t pick the criminals!
They are not making laws, they are not trying individuals, they are not labeling people as terrorists, they don’t define who is guilty! INTERPOL leaves that to the sovereign states that are their members. And INTERPOL intentionally—defined by their charter—does not touch any subject/crime that could be interpreted as politically motivated or culturally sensitive.
I guess it boils down to my belief that justice is an inherent human right for all the peoples of the planet. Not just the rich peoples. I believe that we as humans can agree on some very focused issues which we all consider bad…that is, consider a crime when they are perpetrated upon otherwise helpless individuals. And if we all agree something is a crime, we should have a system in place which ensures that those who commit that crime will be punished, no matter who they are, no matter how rich they are, no matter how powerful they are…and yes, no matter where they are!
Again, we can pick very specific topics to be focused on. Stick with the child pornography example: who is going to defend the right for anyone to do that? Every single society on the planet has a disposition to protect children from that sort of harm…mostly because children cannot protect themselves. Every society passes laws to make child porn/child molestation illegal. HOWEVER, not every society has the resources to enforce their laws, and that is where a global system must come into play. Why do you think these pedophile scumbags always end up in impoverished countries? Because the Thai police or the Zimbabwean police or the Mongolian police either don’t have the resources to adequately enforce those laws, or can be easily corrupted to ignore those laws. In our example, who suffers for this? Children, who we all agree should be protected. That is not right. That is not fair. That is not justice.
So you guys can take the ‘worst case scenario’ approach for a global justice system, and argue against any consolidated efforts of humankind to move forward together, ever, because of your mortal fear of corruption….but don’t all systems, at all levels, have elements of corruption within them? Sure they do, but we just have to deal with them one issue at a time, and try to keep fixing the machine when it breaks down. It happens with the LAPD, it happens with the FBI, and it will happen with INTERPOL too. No reason to be scared about it. And before you go off on a tangent about how INTERPOL would be different because it is global, and therefore would be ‘all-powerful’, please remember this: it is a coalition of willing member states. A state can always choose to drop out of it, and not participate, if INTERPOL were to morph into something ‘evil’. No need to be reactionary about it.
As for me, I believe justice is truly for all…and every child in the world that is saved from harm is a small victory for justice. INTERPOL still gets my vote. The idea of not saving a child from being raped because you are scared of the repercussions on state sovereignty actually makes me a little queasy. But to each his/her own…
October 28th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
How about you quit cloaking your arguement in child protection. You say justice for the rich and the poor? ever here of DimeCorp. (spelling??) What about Blackwater? I see a lot of “justice” coming there.Just more of the same, ignor the connected “institutional crime and go after the individual. Please……
October 28th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Oh BTW nice to here from other people. I think I left out some quotation marks between crime and and.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Good to hear back from you Phil, even though I remain confused about your comments. DimeCorp and Blackwater are private multinational corporations whose abuses would exactly be the type of crime that an international organization would have to counter.
And I am a fighter for truth and justice the world over. If it makes you squeamish talking about protecting children, then I would be more than glad to defend global justice systems that try and stop human trafficking, drug trafficking, or international terrorists too.
I’m not trying to piss you off, but apparently you know little about how the world of crime is working right now. Please refrain from the joke argument of ‘going after the individual’ in individual countries as opposed to attacking the systematic elements of crime. Does the FBI just try and nab the crack dealers on the streets…or would they perhaps rather go after the major suppliers of illegal drugs in the country? Crime, and justice, are no longer local affairs my friend. And treating them as simplistic entities which can be dealt with by a few beat cops in the outskirts Des Moines is not only ineffective, but ignorant.
Fight the good fight! You folks out there that want a better future, you must fight for it! Isolationism and ignoring global problems may make you feel better when you snuggle under the blankets and go to sleep at night…but they solve nothing.
Justice is for us all!
November 11th, 2007 at 8:49 am
A mon avis, international organizations like Interpol, the UN, etc… are salutary because they rarely overstep their bounds. Sovereign nations only band together and form these types of groups when it is in their best interests, and they quickly withdraw their support (see the UN and the US) when it doesn’t. In fact, if you look at the EU, many people were afraid that Europe would become some juggernaut under it. However, the real problem was that it was hard to get to get the nations to work together, as opposed to vice versa.
May 18th, 2008 at 1:10 am
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