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I've been reading with interest about the Chilcot Inquiry into the war in Iraq and it all sounds rather unpleasant. All the negative things that many of us felt about the war in Iraq appear to be turning out to be all too true. The entire thing was founded on lies and deception and it has resulted in the death of over half a million innocent people.
So my question is a simple one. Should Bush and Blair be tried for war crimes?
Miles you tease.:cool:
YES!!
NO
I see another lighthearted thread in our midst :-X
Init.
H I think we owe it to the forum to keep this threads feet on the ground before it gets over run with political ranting and quoting of 15 year old UN legislation.
Who do you think would win in a fight, Bush or Blair?
;D
where are bilbo and hatton? ;D
Bush would get Jeb to stand in his place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Memphis
I couldn't resist...Quote:
Originally Posted by Howlin Mad Missy
I know it isn't good form to post links to Daily Mail articles, but this one has a charming image of Blair covered in blood.
Iraq was only fourth on WMD risk list, inquiry hears | Mail Online
There seems to be a fair bit in the media about it all, so it's my new topic of interest. Rather than having an inquiry that has no teeth, I would much rather these two were investigated properly, and if found guilty, put under lock and key for the rest of their lives. They have wreaked unbelievable levels of havoc and destruction in the lands they decided to illegally occupy. Rather than halt terrorism these two clowns have raised anti U.S/British sentiment throughout the world and have probably increased the likelihood of future terrorist attacks. You don't wipe out over a million people around the world and expect nothing in return at some stage along the way.
By putting these two on trial we can show the world that the West isn't quite so bad, and that we can admit that we made a terrible mistake, and hopefully to make future leaders think twice about ever doing something like this again.
I think George Bush beats Tony Blair if they were to lace up gloves. He obviously has good upper body movement having avoided that shoe. Tony Blair would have been in serious trouble with that one.
Bush by mid rounds stoppage.
Hahaha ;DQuote:
Originally Posted by Memphis
Why was it illegal again?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Memphis
Damn you memphis!
Not exactly what you're asking but I'll get the ball rolling.
Blair, Hoon And Straw To Be Investigated For War Crimes!PRESS RELEASE 23 January 2003
If, as appears likely, the UK is involved in the use of force against Iraq the leaders of the UK Government will be investigated by the prosecutor of the international Criminal Court (ICC) if it breaches international humanitarian law (IHL). So promise a coalition of professors of law and leading NGOs from around the world.1 The UK,US and Canadian Governments have today been served with letters before action warning them of the consequences of an illegal use of force against Iraq. In the UK, Tony Blair was served at 10 Downing Street during filming for a Channel 4 TV programme on January 31.2
The ICC came into being in July 2002 and is shortly to commence work. It will investigate and prosecute those guilty of "genocide," "crimes against humanity" and "war crimes." The definition of "war crimes" is wide and would catch indiscriminate methods of attack or weapon systems used by the UK and US in the 1991 Gulf War, and in Kosovo and Afghanistan.3 Whereas those wars took place before July 2002 any war in Iraq could be subject to the ICC’s jurisdiction. Thus the following which have been used in the past and are in breach of IHL are now prohibited:
The coalition of lawyers and NGOs plan unprecedented action using the ICC legislation as a threat to force the UK to target its use of force and to avoid indiscriminate attacks. If there are violations of IHL (which prohibits indiscriminate attacks) these and other NGOs who will be in Iraq or otherwise in a position to monitor the war will report to a Tribunal of eminent international jurists and others. If the tribunal finds there have been violations it will report to the prosecutor of the ICC and he will be urged to start an investigation of his own initiative as he is empowered to do.4 Thereafter the coalition will work with the Prosecutor to ensure that the evidence of violations is credible the leaders of the UK Government who, under the principle of Command Responsibility, are liable for violations are prosecuted in the Hague.
- Indiscriminate methods of attack against civilian centres such as high level airs strikes and attacks on cities such as Baghdad and Basra.
- Indiscriminate weapons systems such as cluster bombs, fuel-air explosives, multiple rocket launcher systems or weapons using depleted uranium.
- Attacks on Iraqi infrastructure
- Attacks on electricity supplies (so as to cause the death of thousands of innocent civilians because of failed water sanitation plants).
- Attacks on projects likely to release dangerous forces such as civil nuclear energy plants or dams.
Carol Naughton, Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament said today: "The world has changed for the better since the 1991 Gulf War and we now have the International Criminal Court. We can guarantee Messrs. Blair, Hoon and Straw that they will be investigated and prosecuted if they repeat the attacks of that war, or in Kosovo and Afghanistan."
Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers, the coalition’s UK lawyer said today: " The definition of war crimes is very broad and will catch indiscriminate methods of attack or weapon systems. The UK Government must ensure that all force used is targeted, discriminate, proportionate and necessary, otherwise its leaders face a similar fate to that of Milosovic."
Michael Mandel of Lawyers Against the War (Canada) and Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto said today: " Our governments are planning to commit nothing short of mass murder. They are planning to kill Iraqi civilians without any lawful justification or excuse. That’s a crime in England and in Canada and under international law. No one is above the law, not even Prime Ministers. If they do this terrible thing, we are going to see to it they are personally brought to justice. We are going to prosecute each and every one of them for each and every crime they commit."
Good posts there Missy!
There is probably a wealth of material and sources to go on if it ever got to trial, they would be sent down for their duplicitous acts. It often seems to me that the big guys never get tried by the international courts though. It's always the leader of some obscure African country that nobody has ever heard of. A precedent really needs to be set showing that even the powerful and rich are not above the law and will eventually go down for their dastardly actions.
And who voted for the Queen? That's going to open a whole barrel of worms! ;D
Fuck me take all the fun out of war why dont you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Howlin Mad Missy
;DQuote:
Originally Posted by MemphisFuck me take all the fun out of war why dont you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Howlin Mad Missy
Yes they should but no they won't be.
Bush started plotting to get his hands on Iraq's goodies before he got elected. The first item on the agenda of the first cabinet meeting he held after taking office was Iraq. A lot of people who got him elected were aftr a share of the trillions of dollars of Iraqi oil. This is an actual document, made public by somebody called Paul O'Neill who was Bush's Treasury Secretary and at the first cabinet meeting :
http://thepriceofloyalty.ronsuskind....83_22small.gif
It was the end of January 2003. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was five days away from giving a critical speech at the U.N. Security Council, laying out the case that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction and posed a danger to world peace.
But huddled with aides at the White House, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were not sure there was enough evidence to convince the Security Council. Without the council's explicit authorization, their plans for an invasion to depose Saddam Hussein could be difficult to defend under international law.
Bush proposed an alternative: paint a U.S. spy plane in United Nations colors and see if that didn't tempt Hussein's forces to shoot at it. In any case, he said, the war was "penciled in" for March 10 and the United States would go ahead with or without a second U.N. resolution.
Blair replied that he was "solidly with" the president.
That is the gist of an account of the Jan. 31, 2003, meeting contained in the new edition of "Lawless World," a book by British author Philippe Sands. He has not identified the writer of the memorandum on which the account is based, but British media reports say it was one of the aides in attendance: Sir David Manning, then security advisor to Blair and now the British ambassador in Washington.
L.A. Times
October 7th 2005
Last year, U.S. intelligence agencies and military planners received instructions to prepare up-to-date target lists for Syria and to increase their preparations for potential military operations against Damascus.
According to internal intelligence documents and discussions with military officers involved in the planning, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in Tampa was directed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to prepare a "strategic concept" for Syria, the first step in creation of a full fledged war plan.
The planning process, according to the internal documents, includes courses of action for cross border operations to seal the Syrian-Iraqi border and destroy safe havens supporting the Iraqi insurgency, attacks on Syrian weapons of mass destruction infrastructure supporting the development of biological and chemical weapons, and attacks on the regime of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.
Washington Post
November 7, 2005
SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY
DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02
cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell
IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY
Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.
This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.
John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.
C [British intelligence chief] reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
Leaked British Cabinet Office memo
Published in the Sunday Times
May 1, 2005
LONDON — In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.
But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.
"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.
New York Times
March 27, 2006
And so by means of careful preparation in the diplomatic field, among others, the Nazi conspirators had woven a position for themselves, so that they could seriously consider plans for war and begin to outline time tables, not binding time tables and not specific ones in terms of months and days, but still general time tables, in terms of years, which were the necessary foundation for further aggressive planning, and a spur to more specific planning. And that time table was developed, as the Tribunal has already seen, in the conference of 5 November 1937, contained in our Document Number 386-PS, Exhibit USA-25, the Hossbach minutes of that conference, which I adverted to in detail on Monday last. In those minutes, we see the crystallization of the plan to wage aggressive war in Europe, and to seize both Austria and Czechoslovakia, and in that order.
U.S. Prosecutor Sidney Alderman
Nuremberg trials
November 29, 1945
The French and the Russians had at first objected to the whole concept of crimes against the peace . . . But those Allies gave ground when [U.S. Chief Prosecutor Robert] Jackson made it clear that the criminalizing of, and the imposition of individual punishment for, aggressive wars, now and in the future, were so important to the U.S. that if the Charter failed to do so, the U.S. was prepared to abandon a joint trial.
Bernard D. Meltzer
The Nuremberg trials : a prosecutor's perspective
December 2002
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
Crimes against peace: (i.) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; (ii.) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
International Law Commission of the U.N.
Principles of the Nuremberg tribunal
1950
Certain binding legal principles, affirmed unanimously by the UN, emerged from the Nuremberg trials . . . It was made absolutely clear that law must apply equally to everyone. Putting the captive enemies on trial was seen by America's Chief Prosecutor, Justice Robert Jackson, as "the greatest tribute that power has ever paid to reason." His successor General Telford Taylor, my chief and later law partner, was more succinct: "Law is not a one-way street."
Nuremberg Prosecutor Benjamin B. Ferencz
Remarks on the International Criminal Court
March 11, 2003
You had a go at me not 24 hours back for inciting trouble on here and yet it appears the logic of posting this thread is to put another capitalist-socialist divide on the lets get it on
Of course they shouldnt, both made a tough, life changing call but chose to back their instincts for the sake of eventual peace one day within the middle east.
100s of brave heroes have been lost. But in the long run iraq and afghanistan will be free of tyrany and men and women can finally live in a free democratic society
Another good posting Kirklaind Laing.
I too believe they both have the blood of innocents on their hands and should be tried.
Of course this enquiry will absolutely exonerate them of any blame and brush all the awkward questions far under the rug.
The real people in power are also in control of any enquiries so nothing will happen at all.
I obv don't condone Iraq and many things Bush did cuz I'm a lefty liberal tree hugging wimp(except when it comes to fish, I murder those). But war as we knew it ended when those towers got crashed into, imo.
In war all parties engage in actions which could be described as "war crimes" (depending on your personal definition I guess). However, only the losers get tried. To paraphrase Robert McNamera, if the U.S. had lost the Second War War those responsible for the firebombings of Japan would considered war criminals...
For my answer: No, they should not be tried. It would be absurd and who has the political authority to prosecute them? Surely not the U.N. Any kind of "trial" would just be a useless exercise of political showmanship.
You have no idea....Quote:
Originally Posted by hattonthehammer
If you keep on with this sillyness I'm going to smash you backdoor in. :(
They had no authority to invade a country that had not attacked them, made no attempt to attack them, didn't have the ability to attack them.Quote:
Originally Posted by CFH
Well done George and Tony for making the West out to be the bullies - which in fact we are.
Yes they killed that innocent head of state Saddam. :)
Not often we agree Missy ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Howlin Mad MissyThey had no authority to invade a country that had not attacked them, made no attempt to attack them, didn't have the ability to attack them.Quote:
Originally Posted by CFH
Well done George and Tony for making the West out to be the bullies - which in fact we are.
They should definitely!
1) Bush and his teams did falsify and wrote a false report about uranium transaction between Niger and Iraq, they got debunked:
CNN.com - Diplomat: U.S. knew uranium report was false - Jul. 7, 2003
2) Joseph Wilson went over there, he claimed it was false, he got pressured to change his speech, he didn't do, fucker lewis Libby/Rove did blast the cover up of Valerie Plarme, his wife to punish him, destroying so her CIA career and putting, for evident reasons, their life in danger.
Valerie Plame, the Spy Who Got Shoved Out Into the Cold - washingtonpost.com
3) Paul WOlfowitz ADMITTED by himself they all knew the nukes were not existent but used that excuse so everybody would use it as common excuse to attack Illegitimately Iraq: Wolfowitz Admits Iraq War Planned Two Days After 9-11
4) The embargo killed many millions of peoples in Iraq and they did jack and shit about it: Embargo brings death to 500,000 children in Iraq. - National Catholic Reporter | Encyclopedia.com
5) THey filled juicy contracts to Halliburton without calling for any offer and they did let them overcharge: Asia Times - Asia's most trusted news source for the Middle East (Cheeney used to be chairman over there and has still loads of shares into the company)
6) Black fuckin' Water went on a killing rampage, not respecting the rules and corrupted major officials and never got sentenced because they are budy budy with Bush and CIE http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/wo...lackwater.html
IT's nothing against Republicans, it's all about Bush being sentenced for what he did allow and ordered, same for most of his staff chief department persons.
Ive heard, tell me Im wrong. An American company is getting all the Oil Rights from Iraq, youll never believe who the Chairman of the compant is ;D.
The International Criminal Court in the Hague, Holland, has the authority to try them, like it tried Slobodan Milosevic for ethnic cleansing. Every country in the world is a signatory to the ICC treaty and accepts its authority in these matters apart from the failed state Somalia and the rogue states North Korea and, uh, America.Quote:
Originally Posted by CFH
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/165/4...a7b6d6fa_o.jpg
The original US plan was to appoint a US-friendly government by Iraqi exiles who were already on our payroll, who would write a constitution which privatised all of Iraq's natural resources (oil and dates :) ). Iraq's oil, the second-largest* reserve in the world would then be open for international firms to move in, and you can guess which country's firms would have got the lot -- the one whose military bases were keeping the appointed government in power. However this plan was blocked by an Iranian Ayatollah, who issued a fatwa ordering free elections and the winners to write the constitution. The Ayatollah's people, a bunch of Iranian exile terrorist groups, won the election and shockingly are now holding open bids on Iraqi TV to screw every available dollar from the bidding process. The winning firms so far (Chinese, French, British-American) are being forced to pay market andabove-market rates to get any contracts, but the vast majority of Iraq's oilfields either havn't or won't come up for bidding. It's believed that as soon as Iraq develops enough infrastructure to stand on its own two feet that they'll all get the boot and Iraq will produce all its own oil.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrap
*And it may be even bigger than Saudi, the current largest. Iraq has huge areas that haven't even been prospected yet and may hold huge quantities. In either case, at a time when world demand is rubbing up against supply, Iraq is the only country in the world where oil production can be significantly increased. This makes it the most valuable real estate in the world.
In what way am I trying to incite trouble? :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by hattonthehammer
At no point in this thread have I tried to push a socialist agenda, so I don't know where you are coming from when you say that. And stop trying to paint it into such a black and white capitalist/socialist divide. At the end of the day I like the freemarket, but I would like a freemarket that operates with responsibility and provides benefits to society. It's hardly the stuff of a raving communist. Surely, you don't think the system is working too well right now either?
In this case I simply started a thread looking for views on whether Bush and Blair lied to their respective countries, invaded a country illegally and have the blood of thousands of service men and hundreds of thousands of civilians on their hands or not. I have contributed a little myself and have my own views, but most of all I am interested to see what other people have to say about it. I included the poll too, because quite frankly I like to know where my views stand in terms of where others are at in their thinking too. If only I vote yes and a hundred others are voting no for something, then I can see that perhaps my thoughts have become somewhat skewed.
So, you think telling porkies to your own people in an effort to incite fear and to then go ahead and invade without U.N. support is the correct procedure for going to war? Now, if it was solely about regime change and wanting greater influence in the middle east and open access to oil supplies....do you think that would have worked so well? Would we have bought into that so easily. It wasn't just our respective populations that were lied to, it was our armed forces too. Hundreds have died, in this war alone and for what? WMD? There were none! Saddam was a toothless tiger, handicapped for years by sanctions! Yes, he was a bit of a bastard, but even he never wreaked the kind of havoc upon Iraq that we did. And on what pretext was that again? Lies, misinformation, and more lies.
It's all too easy to sit there and with the benefit of hindsight say "at least the evil dictator is gone, we have brought freedom to the people of Iraq". This is called backtracking. What about the democracy in Afghanistan? The government is inneffective, corrupt and women have no rights. Is that what we are fighting for out there?
All in all it makes our nations look like the imperialist aggressors that they are. North Korea has armed itself just in case, and all other nations would be sensible to do the same. Our nations can no longer claim the high ground in anything they do, we have been shown up as lacking in credibility and principles. It will have hurt us in the long run.
That means absolutely nothing in terms of their being classified as war criminals. That same logic could be applied to literally hundreds of wars in which no one is termed a war criminal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Howlin Mad MissyThey had no authority to invade a country that had not attacked them, made no attempt to attack them, didn't have the ability to attack them.Quote:
Originally Posted by CFH
Well done George and Tony for making the West out to be the bullies - which in fact we are.
By that logic Nixon and LBJ and Kennedy should all be posthumously tried for Vietnam.
There's a HUGE difference between trying Slobidan "Genocide" Milosevic and George "Cocaine" Bush and Tony "Pseudo-labor" Blair. I loathe Bush, and to a lesser extend Blair, and almost everything they stand for, but to think that they could be tried for war crimes, or that their respective nations would allow that to happen is absurd.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirkland LaingThe International Criminal Court in the Hague, Holland, has the authority to try them, like it tried Slobodan Milosevic for ethnic cleansing. Every country in the world is a signatory to the ICC treaty and accepts its authority in these matters apart from the failed state Somalia and the rogue states North Korea and, uh, America.Quote:
Originally Posted by CFH
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/165/4...a7b6d6fa_o.jpg
I think there is a very case that they should be tried, but I agree with you that the same could be said of those that have instigated countless wars since WW2. It does seem to be the case that only those that get beaten up badly or have no significant clout get put away for these kinds of crimes. In this respect I'm with Kirkland in thinking that they should be investigated and put away, but I have a hard time seeing it ever happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by CFHThat means absolutely nothing in terms of their being classified as war criminals. That same logic could be applied to literally hundreds of wars in which no one is termed a war criminal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Howlin Mad MissyThey had no authority to invade a country that had not attacked them, made no attempt to attack them, didn't have the ability to attack them.Quote:
Originally Posted by CFH
Well done George and Tony for making the West out to be the bullies - which in fact we are.
By that logic Nixon and LBJ and Kennedy should all be posthumously tried for Vietnam.
On your final point, there is no doubt that the political elite would fight tooth and nail not to allow it to happen as it would set a scary precedent for them. But I'm sure that if you were to conduct polls amongst the general population of both the U.S and U.K you would see a lot of people indicating that these men should be held accountable for the acts they have commited. As far as I recall most polls showed that support for the war was wavering prior to the invasion and world wide there was little support for the actions the U.S. and Britain were about to embark upon. In the eyes of the world, these people probably are war criminals.Quote:
Originally Posted by CFHThere's a HUGE difference between trying Slobidan "Genocide" Milosevic and George "Cocaine" Bush and Tony "Pseudo-labor" Blair. I loathe Bush, and to a lesser extend Blair, and almost everything they stand for, but to think that they could be tried for war crimes, or that their respective nations would allow that to happen is absurd.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirkland LaingThe International Criminal Court in the Hague, Holland, has the authority to try them, like it tried Slobodan Milosevic for ethnic cleansing. Every country in the world is a signatory to the ICC treaty and accepts its authority in these matters apart from the failed state Somalia and the rogue states North Korea and, uh, America.Quote:
Originally Posted by CFH
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/165/4...a7b6d6fa_o.jpg
This pre war article shows that only 25% of the British public thought that there was enough evidence for a pre-emptive strike. And we went along and invaded anyway. Now we know that there really wasn't any evidence and Blair openly lied in order to try and justify going ahead and invading. Totally uncool.:-\
BBC NEWS | Europe | Polls find Europeans oppose Iraq war
While I agree about the facts stated, the deception, true reasoning for Iraq and all of it, as CFH has stated, it simply will not happen. SO we can play should we all day, but really, it is just a case of venting your frustrations and anger on a personal level. Barring a world war in the very near future to which all the powers that currently be lose, and there is a complete new world order, it isn't going to happen. So not going to get in a lather about it.
And we in Canada were asked much like the UK was to join in, to just believe the US intelligence (to be provided later) on the WMD's, and we didn't Show us, don't tell us. Not sure how folks think we are often spineless as a nation. Was a pretty bold play imo, that turned out to be the correct play.
We were all for going after the true terrorists, and to Afghanistan we went. Sadly under-trouped and under-planned due all the focus on Iraq. Now that situation is a clusterfuk shitfest too. It could have been dealt with in a unified mass campaign at the time of many nations, but no. Just a mess now also.