[quote=Howlin Mad Missy;816740]
Quote Originally Posted by CFH View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Howlin Mad Missy View Post

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.

Well done George and Tony for making the West out to be the bullies - which in fact we are.
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.

By that logic Nixon and LBJ and Kennedy should all be posthumously tried for Vietnam.[/quote]

maybe they should.

What was the pretext for war? Defence? Bollocks was it.

The basis for invasion was a pack of lies. They've caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Sounds like a criminal act to me.
Aside from the Second World War, which is debatable, name some wars with justifiable or truthful pretexts. There are almost none and it means nothing in terms of defining someone as a war criminal, unless you want to define almost everyone who makes war in that fashion.

Like I said, I'm fundamentally opposed to the likes of Bush and Blair and everything they represent, but they've done nothing that hundreds of others before them have done. The only reason people are whining about it is because it has turned into a protracted struggle. My sympathies lie with those Iraqi's who want nothing but peace and who are dying at alarming rates, if I was one of them I would gladly take up arms against imperialistic aggression, but saying the leaders who started the war should be tried as war criminals, thereby implying they have done something more egregious than those who came before them is ridiculous. They are no more or less guilty that any who came before them.