‘I am Sorry’ எனும் ஒரு சொல்லில் எல்லாம் தீர்ந்துவிடுமா டோனி பிளேர்?
Why Tony Blair Is A War Criminal Who Should Be On Trial In The Hague
TONY BLAIR has finally said sorry for the Iraq War – and admitted he could be partly to blame for the rise of Islamic State.
Blair’s half-apology for Iraq follows a week after the leaking of the White House memo that proved his war crimes’ guilt.
அமெரிக்காவின் CNN ஒளிபரப்பாளர்களுக்கு வழங்கிய நேற்காணலில் முன்னால் பிரிட்டிஷ் பிரதமர் டோனி பிளேர், சத்தாம் ஹுஸைனின் இராக் மீது தாங்கள் படையெடுத்து அழித்தது தவறுதான் எனவும், அதன் விளைவாகவே இன்று ISIS தோன்றியுள்ளது எனவும் ஒத்துக்கொண்டுள்ளார்.
காலம் கடந்த இந்த மனச்சாட்சி உறுத்தலால் யாருக்குப் பயன்? எத்தனை லட்சம் மக்களை அழித்தீர்கள்? எத்தனை லட்சம் மக்களை இன்று அகதிகளாக்கியுள்ளீர்கள்? I am Sorry எனும் ஒரு சொல்லில் எல்லாம் தீர்ந்துவிடுமா டோனி பிளேய்ர்?
வரலாறு உங்களை எப்படி மன்னிக்கும்?
உலகில் அமெரிக்காவிற்கு சிம்ம சொப்பனமாக திகழ்ந்த இருமுகங்கள் கதாஃபியும், சத்தாமும் ஆவர். இவ்விருவரையும் அமெரிக்கா திட்டமிட்டு பழிதீர்த்தது. அவ்விருவரின் மறைவிற்குப் பின் அந்த நாடுகளின் அரசியலே மாறிப்போனது.
சத்தாமின் மறைவுக்குப் பிறகு தான் இராக்கில் பயங்கரவாதம் பரவியது. அது இராக்கோடு நின்றுவிடாமல் சிரியாவையும், ஏமனையும் அழித்திருக்கிறது.
கதாஃபியின் ஆட்சிக் காலத்தில் வலுவான நாடாகத் திகழ்ந்த லிபியா அவரின் மறைவுக்கிப்பிறகு நிலைகுலைந்திருக்கிறது. இந்த இரு தலைவர்களும் அதிகாரத்தில் நிலைத்திருந்தால் உலகம் அமைதியாக இருந்திருக்கும்.
இப்படி கூறியிருப்பவர் யார் என்று நினைக்கிறீர்கள்? சுப்பனோ குப்பனோ அல்ல, அமெரிக்க ஜனாதிபதி தேர்தலில் தற்போதைய ஜனாதிபதியான ஒபாமாவின் கட்சியின் சார்பில் போட்டியிடும் ஹில்லாரியை எதிர்த்து போட்டியிடும் ஜனாதிபதி வேட்பாளர் ட்ரம்ப்.
இவர்களை செத்துப்போனவ்ரகள் மன்னிப்பார்களா?
உலகம் இவரைப்போன்ற பசுத்தோல் போர்த்திய புலியை மன்னிக்குமா?
இன்னும் எவ்வளவு காலத்திற்கு இவர்களைப்போன்ற நயவஞ்சகத்தனத்தை மூச்சுக்காற்றாக கொண்டு வாழும் உண்மையான பயங்கரவாதிகளை உலகம் கண்டும் காணாமல் தூங்கிக்கொண்டிருக்கும்?
– சமூக நீதி
Why Tony Blair Is A War Criminal Who Should Be On Trial In The Hague
Blair’s half-apology for Iraq follows a week after the leaking of the White House memo that proved his war crimes’ guilt.
TONY BLAIR has finally said sorry for the Iraq War – and admitted he could be partly to blame for the rise of Islamic State.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s recent condemnation of Tony Blair’s role in the invasion of Iraq, and his refusal to attend a summit with the former British prime minister, increases the pressure on war criminal Blair.
In a searing written indictment published on Sunday, Tutu slammed Blair for the devastating war. He criticised Blair’s fabrications which led to the invasion of Iraq, including his lies about the country’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, and his refusal to allow UN inspectors more time to establish whether or not Saddam Hussein posed a genuine threat to world peace.
He described Blair and Bush as immoral playground bullies, whose reckless warmongering has caused extensive suffering and loss of life, further polarised the world, and helped normalise a climate of Western aggression that currently threatens formerly stable, sovereign, and peaceful Iran and Syria.
Here are five reasons why Tony Blair is a war criminal, who should be on trial in The Hague.
1) Blair launched a war of aggression that broke international law
In attacking Iraq, Blair committed a crime against peace, defined by the Nuremberg Principles as the “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression”. The Iraq war was waged for a reason other than self-defence, which made it a crime of aggression and violated Articles 33 and 51 of the UN Charter.
2) Blair knew he was breaking international law
Eight months before the invasion, the British government’s most senior legal adviser wrote to Blair and advised him that an attack on Iraq would be a serious breach of international law, and the UN charter. Lord Goldsmith’s July 2002 letter stated that an invasion launched on the premise of self defence would be illegal because Britain was not under threat by Iraq, and that whilst in certain circumstances the UN allowed ‘humanitarian intervention’, it was not relevant in the case of Iraq.
Blair not only ignored Goldsmith’s letter, but banned him from attending cabinet meetings and gagged him so that he could not speak out publically.
Blair was explicitly warned by his Cabinet Office that a “legal justification for invasion would be needed. Subject to law officers’ advice, none currently exists.” Then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw similarly advised Blair that none of the legal conditions for war had been met.
3) UN Security Council Resolution 1441 did not authorise war
Blair and his supporters argue that UN Security Resolution 1441, passed on November 8th 2002, authorised war on Iraq. This resolution did strengthen the mandate of the UN Monitoring and Verification Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and gave Iraq “a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations” – but it did not authorise war.
American ambassador John Negroponte assured the Security Council the resolution meant a “further breach” by Iraq would require “the matter…return to the Council for discussions as required in paragraph 12.”
UK Permanent Representative Sir Jeremy Greenstock KCMG similarly confirmed that “there is no ‘automaticity’ in this resolution. If there is a further Iraqi breach of its disarmament obligations, the matter will return to the Council for discussion as required in Operational Paragraph 12.”
4) Blair lied to help fix the intelligence and facts around the policy
There are numerous examples of Blair lying, deceiving, and misleading, in order to hype the supposed threat from Iraq, and try and justify war. Here are just a few examples.
In April 2002 he claimed that Saddam Hussein had major stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons – even though the Joint Intelligence Committee had described the intelligence as “sporadic and patchy” just the previous month. They also said that Saddam only had “some production equipment, and some small stocks of CW agent precursors”.
Blair claimed that Iraq posed a regional threat, when the previous month a secret Cabinet Office paper noted that “Saddam has not succeeded in seriously threatening his neighbours.”
During a press conference Blair and Bush jointly referred to a purported IAEA report, apparently confirming that Iraq was six months away from developing a nuclear weapon. IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky later denied that the agency had issued any such report, said that there was no substantiated evidence for an Iraqi nuclear weapons program, and that anyone who claimed to know the nuclear situation in Iraq was “misleading you”.
In late September 2002, citing a British government dossier, Blair claimed that Iraq had “existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes”. When this was later revealed to be untrue, Blair claimed that he had never understood that intelligence agencies did not believe Saddam had long-range weapons of mass destruction.
However, former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook confirmed that on March 5th 2003 – two weeks before the attack on Iraq – Blair told him that Saddam’s “battlefield weapons had been disassembled and stored separately”.
Blair later claimed that he did not recall Cook telling him that Saddam had no long-range weapons.
5) The illegal war on Iraq has caused an enormous amount of suffering and death
Estimates vary, but according to the Iraq Body Count Project at least 108,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of violence since the country’s invasion in March 2003, with tens of thousands wounded and traumatised and millions displaced. Nearly 5000 military personnel have been killed.
Others have been tried for war crimes which resulted in the deaths of far fewer people than the Iraq war and, as Archbishop Tutu states:
in a consistent world, those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in the Hague.
Let’s keep up the pressure on the war criminal Tony Blair – and everyone else who was complicit in the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Written by Staff
http://www.resistradio.com/news/why-tony-blair-is-a-war-criminal-who-should-be-on-trial-in-the-hague
Greenspan admits Iraq was about oil, as deaths put at 1.2m
Peter Beaumont and Joanna Walters in New York
The man once regarded as the world’s most powerful banker has bluntly declared that the Iraq war was ‘largely’ about oil.
Appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1987 and retired last year after serving four presidents, Alan Greenspan has been the leading Republican economist for a generation and his utterings instantly moved world markets.
In his long-awaited memoir – out tomorrow in the US – Greenspan, 81, who served as chairman of the US Federal Reserve for almost two decades, writes: ‘I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.’
In The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, he is also crystal clear on his opinion of his last two bosses, harshly criticising George W Bush for ‘abandoning fiscal constraint’ and praising Bill Clinton’s anti-deficit policies during the Nineties as ‘an act of political courage’. He also speaks of Clinton’s sharp and ‘curious’ mind, and ‘old-fashioned’ caution about the dangers of debt.
Greenspan’s damning comments about the war come as a survey of Iraqis, which was released last week, claims that up to 1.2 million people may have died because of the conflict in Iraq – lending weight to a 2006 survey in the Lancet that reported similarly high levels.
More than one million deaths were already being suggested by anti-war campaigners, but such high counts have consistently been rejected by US and UK officials. The estimates, extrapolated from a sample of 1,461 adults around the country, were collected by a British polling agency, ORB, which asked a random selection of Iraqis how many people living in their household had died as a result of the violence rather than from natural causes.
Previous estimates gave a range between 390,000 and 940,000, the most prominent of which – collected by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and reported in the Lancet in October 2006 – suggested 654,965 deaths.
Although the household survey was carried out by a polling organisation, rather than researchers, it has again raised the spectre that the 2003 invasion has caused a far more substantial death toll than officially acknowledged.
The ORB survey follows an earlier report by the organisation which suggested that one in four Iraqi adults had lost a family member to violence. The latest survey suggests that in Baghdad that number is as high as one in two. If true, these latest figures would suggest the death toll in Iraq now exceeds that of the Rwandan genocide in which about 800,000 died.
The Lancet survey was criticised by some experts and by George Bush and British officials. In private, however, the Ministry of Defence’s chief scientific adviser Sir Roy Anderson described it as ‘close to best practice’.
source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/16/iraq.iraqtimeline?CMP=share_btn_fb