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From: Tsegai Emmanuel (emmanuelt40@gmail.com)
Date: Fri Aug 06 2010 - 10:14:31 EDT
Tony Blair Must Be Prosecuted
Thursday 05 August 2010
by: John Pilger, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
[image: photo]
(Photo: lewishamdreamer /
Flickr<http://www.flickr.com/photos/lewishamdreamer/4334618694/>
)
Tony Blair must be prosecuted, not indulged like his mentor Peter Mandelson.
Both have produced self-serving memoirs for which they have been paid
fortunes. Blair's will appear next month and earn him £4.6 million. Now,
consider Britain's Proceeds of Crime Act. Blair conspired in and executed an
unprovoked war of aggression against a defenseless country, which the
Nuremberg judges in 1946 described as the "paramount war crime." This has
caused, according to scholarly studies, the deaths of more than a million
people, a figure that exceeds the Fordham University estimate of deaths in
the Rwandan genocide.
In addition, four million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes and a
majority of children have descended into malnutrition and trauma. Cancer
rates near the cities of Fallujah, Najaf and Basra (the latter "liberated"
by the British) are now revealed as higher than those at Hiroshima. "UK
forces used about 1.9 metric tons of depleted uranium ammunition in the Iraq
war in 2003," the Defence Secretary Liam Fox told Parliament on 22 July. A
range of toxic "anti-personnel" weapons, such as cluster bombs, were
employed by British and American forces.
Such carnage was justified with lies that have been repeatedly exposed. On
29 January 2003, Blair told Parliament, "We do know of links between
al-Qaida and Iraq...." Last month, the former head of the intelligence
service, MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, told the Chilcot inquiry, "There is
no credible intelligence to suggest that connection ... [it was the
invasion] that gave Osama bin Laden his Iraqi jihad." Asked to what extent
the invasion exacerbated the threat to Britain from terrorism, she replied,
"Substantially."
The bombings in London on 7 July 2005, were a direct consequence of Blair's
actions.
Documents released by the High Court show that Blair allowed British
citizens to be abducted and tortured. The then-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
decided in January 2002 that Guantanamo was the "best way" to ensure UK
nationals were "securely held."
Instead of remorse, Blair has demonstrated a voracious and secretive greed.
Since stepping down as prime minister in 2007, he has accumulated an
estimated £20 million, much of it as a result of his ties with the Bush
administration. The House of Commons Advisory Committee on Business
Appointments, which vets jobs taken by former ministers, was pressured not
to make public Blair's "consultancy" deals with the Kuwaiti royal family and
the South Korean oil giant UI Energy Corporation. He gets £2 million a year
"advising" the American investment bank J.P. Morgan and undisclosed sums
from financial services companies. He makes millions from speeches,
including reportedly £200,000 for one speech in China.
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In his unpaid but expenses-rich role as the West's "peace envoy" in the
Middle East, Blair is, in effect, a voice of Israel, which awarded him a $1
million "peace prize." In other words, his wealth has grown rapidly since he
launched, with George W. Bush, the bloodbath in Iraq.
His collaborators are numerous. The Cabinet in March 2003 knew a great deal
about the conspiracy to attack Iraq. Straw, later appointed "justice
secretary," suppressed the relevant Cabinet minutes in defiance of an order
by the Information Commissioner to release them. Most of those now running
for the Labour Party leadership supported Blair's epic crime, rising as one
to salute his final appearance in the Commons. As Foreign Secretary, David
Miliband, sought to cover Britain's complicity in torture, and promoted Iran
as the next "threat."
Journalists who once fawned on Blair as "mystical" and amplified his
vainglorious bids now pretend they were his critics all along. As for the
media's gulling of the public, only the Observer's David Rose, to his great
credit, has apologized. The WikiLeaks' exposes, released with a moral
objective of truth with justice, have been bracing for a public force-fed on
complicit, lobby journalism. Verbose celebrity historians like Niall
Ferguson, who rejoiced in Blair's rejuvenation of "enlightened" imperialism,
remain silent on the "moral truancy," as Pankaj Mishra wrote, "of [those]
paid to intelligently interpret the contemporary world."
Is it wishful thinking that Blair will be collared? Just as the Cameron
government understands the "threat" of a law that makes Britain a risky
stopover for Israeli war criminals, a similar risk awaits Blair in a number
of countries and jurisdictions, at least of being apprehended and
questioned. He is now Britain's Kissinger, who has long planned his travel
outside the United States with the care of a fugitive.
Two recent events add weight to this. On 15 June, the International Criminal
Court made the landmark decision of adding aggression to its list of war
crimes to be prosecuted. This is defined as a "crime committed by a
political or military leader which by its character, gravity and scale
constituted a manifest violation of the [United Nations] Charter."
International lawyers described this as a "giant leap." Britain is a
signatory to the Rome statute that created the court and is bound by its
decisions.
On 21 July, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, standing at the Commons
dispatch box, declared the invasion of Iraq illegal. For all the later
"clarification" that he was speaking personally, he had made "a statement
that the international court would be interested in," said Philippe Sands,
professor of international law at University College London.
Tony Blair came from Britain's upper-middle classes who, having rejoiced in
his unctuous ascendancy, might now reflect on the principles of right and
wrong they require of their own children. The suffering of the children of
Iraq will remain a specter haunting Britain while Blair remains free to
profit
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