Christopher King calls on the anti-war movement to change its current broad and unfocused strategy and to concentrate its efforts on charging George W. Bush and Tony Blair for their crimes.
The anti-war movement needs to re-evaluate its strategy. Both in the USA and Europe it has failed to halt the illegal and devastating wars led by the USA and the UK in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has failed also to have these governments remove their troops and to deal honestly and reasonably with Iran.
The experience of the last six years indicates therefore that there is no prospect of their efforts influencing these governments in the future by continuing to act in the same manner.
The anti-war movement should focus its efforts on charging George W. Bush and Tony Blair with war crimes and crimes against humanity
Similarly, there has been no influence on the general populations of the USA and Europe who are indifferent to Middle Eastern events until they impact their own lives directly through perceptions of “winning or losing” as if warfare were a football or baseball game, personal economic hardship, figures of compatriots’ deaths or those of family members. In particular they are indifferent to legal and humanitarian considerations.
There is an important area in which I believe the anti-war lobby’s efforts have been successful, however. It is in disseminating information to the large number of persons who actively seek to understand world events, are concerned about them and are in disagreement with USA/UK Middle Eastern policy. These persons are potentially an extremely powerful and influential group. Until the present, no clear role for them has been identified.
I wish to suggest means of enlisting the active support of this group. To do so, a change of focus needs to be made. The current anti-war effort is broad and unfocused. Following Clausewitz’s advice in matters of conflict: “Concentrate your forces!”
On what should we concentrate our forces? Our governments have been successful in their illegal wars because, as is well known, they produce a constant stream of propaganda that is entirely lies and invention. This is transmitted uncritically by subservient media and accepted by the general population. One area is not susceptible to political propaganda, however. The area is that of international law in the setting of an international court.
The fulcrum point for tipping the course of future Middle Eastern events is the fact that George Bush and Anthony Blair undertook an illegal war of aggression against Iraq and conducted it in an inhumane manner with disastrous humanitarian consequences. They are criminals as much as Osama bin Laden. This is easily proven to the above legal criteria. Effort should therefore be concentrated on charging these two individuals for their crimes. Although they were supported by others, these are unimportant and a distraction if the objective is to influence future events rather than exact retribution. George Bush and Anthony Blair were the ringleaders of the conspiracy. The others should not necessarily be forgotten but they can wait. As in the cases of Augusto Pinochet and currently Radovan Karadzic, prosecution of the ringleaders makes the point.
The supporters of George Bush and Anthony Blair will oppose this action. It is good that they should do so and show themselves clearly.
Until now, George Bush and Anthony Blair have escaped justice because they and their supporters have blustered and lied to an uncritical media and an unthinking public. This nonsense would be ineffective in dealing with persons of moral integrity who are systematically examining the legal evidence in a courtroom setting. Indeed, there is good reason to create new international law if existing law is inadequate, as new law was created at Nuremburg to meet the exigencies of an unprecedented situation. The facts of over one million persons killed and three to four million displaced is a humanitarian disaster for which there must be an accounting whether under existing law or otherwise.
The Nazi leaders were hanged according to principles defined at that time primarily by the United States of America and the United Kingdom. It is therefore just that those principles should be applied to the leaders of the countries that created them.
Alternatively, it is arguable that since war crimes were committed on Iraqi territory against the Iraqi people, those who instigated them should be accountable according to Iraqi law as approved, applied and supervised by the USA in the case of Saddam Hussein. This is also legitimate in terms of reciprocity for the USA’s requirement that persons who plot violence against it should be extradited to the USA for trial under its laws as well as the USA’s forcible transport of persons from other countries to Guantanamo Bay prison for trial and their interrogation in third party countries.
The endeavour to bring Anthony Blair and George Bush to account will require coordination and there is a number of organizations that have the staff and resources to initiate this. The initial task would be to focus the attention of anti-war sympathizers on the objective of charging these men for their crimes. Sympathizers would be asked to contribute skills, information and donations, as might be possible. A million activists marched in London to oppose the war. They are still out there. We have not heard from them because they have had no opportunity for action that might hold prospects for success subsequent to the failure of their march to impress Anthony Blair and the British Parliament.
It is intolerable that we should have leaders who have carried out aggressive warfare on the basis of proven lies. Europe and the USA have lost their credibility to the world together with any moral authority that they might have had. The precedents for “preemptive war” and seizure of other countries’ resources are potentially disastrous for future international policy. Any country can now invade another on this basis.
In legitimizing force of arms as the highest law they have abandoned their heritage of law, justice and humanitarianism – principles developed painfully over a thousand years in an effort to make the world a safer and better place. These are the foundations of our societies. Their abandonment not only risks the internal collapse of our societies, but has also created external terrorist and economic threats that did not previously exist.
The positions of both candidates in the forthcoming USA presidential election indicate that future USA policy for the Middle East will be a continuation of present policy. Action needs to be taken to restore the foundations of justice. It is urgent, moreover, because an attack on Iran, whether by the USA or its client Israel is, sooner or later, inevitable as matters stand. The Afghanistan war is becoming more violent and illegal attacks are now being made inside Pakistani territory. The trend to ever-increasing violence promises even greater economic and humanitarian disasters, not only for the Middle East but for the world generally.
Christopher King is a retired consultant and lecturer in management and marketing. He lives in London, UK.
