Ranting about US military is a bit childish:
No they are not. While your examples of these other western powers militaries did is unjustified; the French did vow to prosecute any soldiers involved. In the Colombian example, these US troops that did these horrendous crimes probably will get off because of the diplomatic immunity agreement between the two governments.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/International_War_Crimes/US_Against_ICC.html
Hey Whir try reading this:
Why does the US fear the ICC might be used by other nations for “political” purposes? Why would the US not want its personnel investigated and, if warranted, tried for crimes against humanity? The answer is complex but lies along the lines of its very involved foreign policies.
For decades, the US has been involved in various regions around the world, sometimes propping up dictators and other unpopular regimes. The US has been known to sell many arms and provide training to many human rights abusers. Much of this was done during the Cold War, and the US often said it did this because it was better than these nations “going Communist.” Invoking the “Domino Theory”, if just one nation was to fall outside its sphere of influence, then others could follow. Hence, the US became very involved in most areas of the world.
Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute and professor emeritus at the University of California, has written many books on Japan and Asia, and about US hegemonic power. In 2000, his book, Blowback; The Costs and Consequences of American Empire was published (Henry Holt/Owl Books). In it, he details some context for the US opposition to the ICC and is quoted at some length here:
Largely by design, much of America’s imperial politics takes place well below the sight lines of the American public. Throughout the world in the wake of the Cold War, official and unofficial U.S. representatives have been acting, often in covert ways, to prop up repressive regimes or their militaries and police forces, sometimes against significant segements of their own populaces. Such policies are likely to produce future instances of blowback who origins, on arrival, will seem anything but self-evident to the American public.
Every now and then, however, America’s responsibility for its imperial policies briefly comes into public view. One such moment occurred ... [when much of the] world voted to establish an international criminal court.
... With his opening speech to the conference [In Rome when the ICC was being established] American ambassador Bill Richardson managed to infuriate virtually every human rights group on earth and led many delegates to accuse the United States of “neo-colonial aspirations.” The United States, he said, would support only a court that received its cases solely from the U.N. Security Council, where a single American vote can veto any action.
American officials claim that they must protect their two hundred thousand troops permanently deployed in forty countries from “politically motivated charges.” They maintain that, due to America’s “special global responsibilities,” no proceedings can be permitted to take place against its soldiers or clandestine agents unless the United States itself agrees to them. In essence, America’s leaders believe that their “lone superpower” must be above the very concept of international law — unless defined and controlled by them.
The terms of the treaty setting up the court specifically include as war crimes rape, forced pregnancy, torture, and the forcible recruitment of children into the military. The United States objected to including these acts within the court’s jurisdiction, claiming that the court should concern itself only with genocide. The French at first joined the United States in opposing the treaty because ... France feared that its officers and men could be charged with complicity in [the Rwandan] genocide [where France had trained the Hutu-controlled Rwandan military]. Afer a clause was added to the treaty allowing signatories to exempt themselves from the court’s jurisdiction for its first seven years, France ... agreed to sign.
This escape clause was still not enough for the United States. Its representatives held that because the “world’s greatest military and economic power ... is expected” to intervene in humanitarian catastrophes wherever they occur, this “unique position” makes its personnel especially vulnerable to the mandate of an international criminal court capable of arresting and trying individuals. He did not deal with the question of whether war crimes charges against Americans might on some occasions be warranted, nor did he, of course, raise the possibility that if his country intervened less often in the affairs of other states where none of its vital interests were involved, it might avoid the possibility of even a capricious indictment.
— Chalmers Johnson, Blowback; The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, (Henry Holt/Owl Books, 2000/2001), pp.64-67
Chalmers continues, noting historian Rudolph Rummel’s estimate that in the 20th century, 170 million civilians have been victims of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. He notes the observation of Michael Scharf of the American Society of International Law that although there was a pledge of “never again” during the Nuremburg Trials after World War II, that pledge seems to have become “again and again”. This therefore raises the importance of international treaties, laws, and institutions such as the ICC. Chalmers continues:
At Nuremburg, the United States pioneered the idea of holding government leaders responsible for war crimes, and it is one of the few countries that has an assistant secretary of state for human rights. Its pundits and lawmakers endlessly criticize other nations for failing to meet American standards in the treatment of human beings under their jurisdiction. No country has been more active than the United States in publicizing the idea of “human rights,” even if it has been notably silent in some cases, ignoring, implicitly condoning, or even endorsing acts of state terrorism by regimes with which it has been closely associated.... The American government displays one face to its own people (and its English-speaking allies) but another in areas where the support of repressive regimes seems necesasry to maintain American imperial dominance. Whenever this contradiction is revealed as in Rome, Americans try to cover it up with rhetoric about the national burden of being the “indispensible nation,” or what the ... world’s “reluctant sheriff.”
— Chalmers Johnson, Blowback; The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, (Henry Holt/Owl Books, 2000/2001), p.68
It would appear then, that a key fear the US has in the ICC is that its own crimes (or support for such crimes) against humanity will be highlighted by an international institution if it is not under the control of the US (or, by proxy, the United Nations Security Council). This would then undermine the ability of the US to project its power around the world, something its neo-conservative Bush Administration want to exploit as the sole remaining super power, as explained on this site’s section on Military Expansion.