These are extraordinary times. With the United States and Britain on the verge of bankruptcy and committing to an endless colonial war, pressure is building for their crimes to be prosecuted at a tribunal similar to that which tried the Nazis at Nuremberg. This defined rapacious invasion as ‘the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole’. International law would be mere farce, said the chief US chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson, ‘if, in future, we do not apply its principles to ourselves’.
That is now happening. Spain, Germany, Belgium, France and Britain have long had ‘universal jurisdiction’ statutes, which allow their national courts to pursue and prosecute prima facie war criminals. What has changed is an unspoken rule never to use international law against ‘ourselves’, or ‘our’ allies or clients. In 1998, Spain, supported by France, Switzerland and Belgium, indicted the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, client and executioner of the West, and sought his extradition from Britain, where he happened to be at the time. Had he been sent for trial he almost certainly would have implicated at least one British prime minister and two US presidents in crimes against humanity ...
Like them, Tony Blair may soon be a fugitive. The International Criminal Court, to which Britain is a signatory, has received a record number of petitions related to Blair’s wars. Spain’s celebrated Judge Baltasar Garzon, who indicted Pinochet and the leaders of the Argentinean military junta, has called for George W Bush, Blair and former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar to be prosecuted for the invasion of Iraq – ‘one of the most sordid and unjustifiable episodes in recent human history: a devastating attack on the rule of law’ that had left the UN ‘in tatters’. He said, ‘There is enough of an argument in 650,000 deaths for this investigation to start without delay’ ...
Today, the unreported ‘good news’ is that a worldwide movement is challenging the once sacrosanct notion that imperial politicians can destroy countless lives in the cause of an ancient piracy, often at remove in distance and culture, and retain their respectability and immunity from justice. In his masterly Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, R L Stevenson writes in the character of Jekyll: ‘Men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their own person and reputation sat under shelter ... I could thus plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and, in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty. But for me, in my impenetrable mantle, the safety was complete’.
Blair, too, is safe – but for how long? He and his collaborators face a new determination on the part of tenacious non-government bodies that are amassing ‘an impressive documentary record as to criminal charges’, according to international law authority Richard Falk, who cites the World Tribunal on Iraq, held in Istanbul in 2005, which heard evidence from 54 witnesses and published rigorous indictments against Blair, Bush and others. Currently, the Brussels War Crimes Tribunal and the newly established Blair War Crimes Foundation are building a case for Blair’s prosecution under the Nuremberg Principle and the 1949 Geneva Convention. In a separate indictment, former Judge of the New Zealand Supreme Court E W Thomas wrote: ‘My pre-disposition was to believe that Mr Blair was deluded, but sincere in his belief. After considerable reading and much reflection, however, my final conclusion is that Mr Blair deliberately and repeatedly misled Cabinet, the British Labour Party and the people in a number of respects. It is not possible to hold that he was simply deluded but sincere: a victim of his own self-deception. His deception was deliberate’ ...
These are extraordinary times. Blair, a perpetrator of the epic crime of the 21st century, shares a ‘prayer breakfast’ with President Obama, the yes-we-can-man now launching more war. ‘We pray,’ said Blair, ‘that in acting we do God’s work and follow God’s will.’ To decent people such pronouncements about Blair’s ‘faith’ represent a contortion of morality and intellect that is a profanation on the basic teachings of Christianity. Those who aided and abetted his great crime and now wish the rest of us to forget their part – or, like Alistair Campbell, his ‘communications director’, offer their bloody notoriety for the vicarious pleasure of some – might read the first indictment proposed by the Blair War Crimes Foundation: ‘Deceit and conspiracy for war, and providing false news to incite passions for war, causing in the order of one million deaths, four million refugees, countless maiming and traumas’.
These are indeed extraordinary times. John Pilger, article New Statesman, ‘Fake Faith and Epic Crimes’; viz also website
Iron ushers in a new age of warfare: Sparta v Greece. Mankind: The Story of All of Us II, History Channel 2012
Britain v China: A war fought over the most lucrative commodity on the planet. Mankind: The Story of All of Us X: Revolutions
But Thy most dreaded instrument,
In working out a pure intent,
Is man – arrayed for mutual slaughter, –
Yea, Carnage is thy daughter. William Wordsworth, ‘Ode. The Morning of the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving’
War – organised war – is not a human instinct. It is a highly planed and cooperative form of theft. Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man 2/13: The Harvest of the Seasons, BBC 1973
War, theft, is not a permanent state that can be maintained. ibid.
Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring. Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal
To initiate a war of aggression ... is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. ibid.
You now face a new world, a world of change. We speak in strange terms, of harnessing the cosmic energy, of ultimate conflict between a united human race and the sinister forces of some other planetary galaxy. The nations of the world will have to unite, for the next war will be an interplanetary war. The nations of the earth must someday make a common front against attack by people from other planets. General Douglas MacArthur 8th October 1955
In war, indeed, there can be no substitute for victory. Douglas MacArthur
Accurst be he that first invented war. Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great, 1590
And shall I die, and this unconquered? ibid. dying Tamburlaine
O friends, be men, and let your hearts be strong,
And let no warrior in the heat of fight
Do what may bring him shame in others’ eyes;
For more of those who shrink from shame are safe
Than fall in battle, while with those who flee
Is neither glory nor reprieve from death. Homer, The Iliad
It is not unseemly for a man to die fighting in defense of his country. ibid.
The single augury is to fight for one’s country. ibid.
The outcome of war is in our hands; the outcome of words is in the Council. ibid.
It is entirely seemly for a young man killed in battle to lie mangled by the bronze spear. ibid.
I would rather be tied to the soil as another man’s serf, even a poor man’s, who hadn’t much to live on himself, than be king of all these the dead and destroyed. Homer, The Odyssey
He [Da Vinci] designed machines for transportation and warfare. Alan Yentob, Leonardo: The Man Who Wanted to Know Everything, BBC 2011
‘War is beastly madness.’ Inside the Mind of Leonardo starring Peter Capaldi, Sky Arts 2013
Stanley Spencer had given four years of his life to the war ... He set about creating a masterpiece ... This is the Sandham Memorial Chapel. Few come here today ... This is Spencer’s war ... He is painting the banality of war. Dr James Fox, British Masters, BBC 2011
Every single wound of war is being healed in this picture, this chapel. ibid.
Soldiers don’t go to Hell. It’s War ... It’s business. The Sopranos s2e9: From Where to Eternity starring James Gandolfini & Lorriane Bracco & Edie Falco & Michael Imperioli & Dominic Chianese & Steven van Zandt & Tony Sirico & Robert Iler et al, Tony to Dr Melfi, HBO 2000
Isn’t there enough war? The Sopranos s3e13: Army of One, Carmela
You want to go to war? You want to go to war? We take you to war, OK? Scarface 1983 ***** starring Al Pacino & Michelle Pfeiffer & Steven Bauer & Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio & Robert Loggia & Miria Colon & F Murray Abraham et al, director Brian de Palma, Tony to Alex
[leans over balcony] Bitch. [punches glass screen] One day I’ll catch up with you. You want a war? I’ll give you a fucking war, one arm tied behind me back. I’ll shoot you. Blow you to kingdom come. They’ll need a dustpan and brush to scrape you off the walls. Make mincemeat out of you. Pie and mash. Puddles of blood. I’ll leave you lying there. Garrotte the lot of you. Calling me a cunt ...