 |
Iraq - Open Letter to Tony Blair
To: Prime Minister Tony Blair
cc: Ministry of Defence (MOD) From: Dennis Revell
Selected British MPs with E-Mail addresses
The UN
Some of the rest of the World
April 2, 2003
Prime Minister,
I am amazed that you have engaged in the vicious criminal enterprise in Iraq.
You now speak of the necessity of UN agreement concerning Iraq's future administration. Well, if you've been watching meetings (eg: Apr. 1, 2003) of the US Congress on the future of Iraq, which apparently you haven't, then you would know that such agreement will only be possible if the might of the US, presumably with your help again, can prevail yet once more in cowing the UN: this time into agreement that the preponderance of the juicy contracts for rebuilding and exploiting the resources of that ravaged country will go to US companies, with presumably the odd few contracts to British companies thrown as table scraps, as some might say, to the obedient poodle. It's a neat trick, first you bomb the "competitors" and then you lucratively re-build them, to the exclusion of any "uncooperative" third-party.
I remind you that the Milosevic case in the Hague has firmed up the concept that Command Responsibility goes right to the very top. In the case of Iraq, that means YOU. Neither you, nor George W. Bush were born yesterday, so you must know that neither British nor American Marines are trained to be boy-scouts. Hence, if things do get very difficult for the "coalition" forces in Iraq, they will be as prone to commit war-crimes and crimes against humanity as the forces of pretty much ANY other country, if, indeed, they haven't already done so, which seems unlikely. Still, I guess you're hoping that the fog of war and victor's justice will cover that up for you nicely, as it has over KosovO - so far.
I said neither British nor American Marines are trained to be boy-scouts. Indeed, as recently as Gulf War I, the Americans proved themselves capable of war-crimes when under no pressure at all:-
General Barry McCaffrey, War Criminal? (Jude Wanniski, former Reagan advisor)
(Interestingly Jude Wanniski also has an article referencing US Govt. documentation that disputes that Saddam gassed his own people - true or not, or smoke and mirrors? Perhaps the US faked the report to let Saddam off when he was their pal - you really trust these people? Here's the web-page:- Did Saddam Hussein Gas His Own People?, and also relevant: Bush & Cheney Are Misinformed)
OVERWHELMING FORCE - What happened in the final days of the Gulf War? (Seymore Hersh, New Yorker, May 22, 2000, pp. 49-82)
That said, I believe the War on Iraq - not war, slaughter, really, anyway I believe that "war" is itself a War-Crime and a Crime against Humanity, irrespective of the behaviour of "coalition" troops there. I sometimes seriously wonder, in those rare moments when I'm inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt, if you have the slightest idea about the bunch of vicious rogues that you are dealing with in the current US foreign policy administration? I suppose it's possible that you really are so busy not to be aware of such things, or that the advice that you receive, from MI6, whoever, is coloured beyond belief to the American viewpoint. I believe Tony Benn, when in the "Old Labour" Government, complained bitterly about how he had been hood-winked and lied to by the predominantly ex-Public School populated civil "service" that he had the misfortune to have to interact with.
I therefore wonder if you have familiarised yourself with what has become known as the "Wolfowitz Doctrine", and the so-called "think-tank" that calls itself "Project for the New American Century" (PNAC)?
America the New Roman Empire?
The Project for the New American Fascism
It would seem virtually impossible that you have not; any kid with Internet access can find out about this stuff. On the other hand a US Congresswoman, a Democrat, on a recent US TV 'phone-in program clearly and astonishingly had never heard of PNAC, so who knows?
Not much reading between the lines of PNAC's documents, and current, recent and older experience of the results of US interventions shows quite clearly US foreign policy, as exemplified also by the Wolfowitz Doctrine, to be outrightly fascist.
Sure, there's relatively harmless sounding talk about the US's "need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad". "Promote" is hardly a strong enough word, however; as when the US's tried and tested techniques of bribing, blackmail and bullying don't work, the US does not hesitate to resort to such "promotion" from the barrel of a gun. Moreover, the US's main concern is what PNAC euphemistically calls "economic freedom abroad" and not "policital freedom", as its interferences in democratic Venezuela indicates. A better more developed example is the former Yugoslavia. In this case the Ramboullet Agreement contained economic provisions, which were just as much enforceable through the barrel of a gun as its non economic provisions. Such enforcement, of course, and again with your help, did, of course, come to pass.
US inspired economic provisions in the form of "encouraging foreign (ie: Western) investment" in the target victim countries are common, often via those other two tentacles of US foreign policy, the IMF and World Bank. Two tentacles of many.
In the best case, this means Western companies come in and "acquire" various enterprises at pennies in the pound, especially where they have been severely degraded by bombing them first, in which case a different Western company will often also be brought in for reconstruction. Then the local population is brought back in to work in the enterprise also at pennies in the the pounds that they used to earn before the IMF and/or the World Bank came in to teach those, as Geoff Hoon might say, ignorant foreigners, just what the best ways of attracting that foreign investment are.
In the worst case, this means local indigenous industry is destroyed, people layed off, huge unemployment (as currently in the fragments of the former Yugoslavia), and as another win-win for western companies, the creation of pure import "industries": importing products that used to be home grown, at a higher price.
Don't cry for me Argentina, I'll cry for you.
Prime Minister, still giving you the benefit of the doubt, and I exclude no possibilies, I suppose that it's not impossible that the Americans threatened you, probably not directly, but in that "delightfully" euphemistic way they have perfected over the decades. Possibly even more euphemistic, you being one of the "better friends" and all, than President Bush's: "you're either with us, or against us". "President Bush", as John Pilger has said: "unelected in 2000". Or they convinced you that they were actually serious about their fairly recent utterances concerning their willingness to use nuclear weapons?
Another possibility that's occurred to me is that MI6/MI5 has something on you from your earlier days. Some unusual peccadillo, perhaps. MI6, as the lamentably late Peter Wright has described, being like the layers of an onion, the more you peel them back, the more you cry.
But then what on earth could they possibly have on that Rasputin, whoever, I mean to make him come up with his proposals for a "new" imperialism? Has he ever read about the history of the Labour Party? For that matter, have you?
You "gentlemen" at the MOD might take note that whilst the Milosevic case is a reminder that Command Responsibility reaches the very top with regard to War-Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, no immunity for those lower down the heirarchy is implied. As contorted and labyrinthine the law might be, it is ultimately based on common sense and decency. The argument that a superior, right up to that person with ultimate Command Responsibility, ordered you to commit a crime is no defence in international or other law. On the other hand, why should that bother you, or the concept of ultimate Command Responsibility bother the Prime Minister? The victors get to write the laws and the history, right? This, of course, is just what that other vicious expansionist conqueror, who gained power in the 1930s, thought would be his and his Empire's easier fate. At least for a thousand years.
Well, you certainly have more chance than Herr Hitler of success and a "glorious" place in history. Is it guaranteed?
Perhaps not quite.
Modern news-reporting techniques from news organisations of many countries, and other aspects of modern communications technology, make it quite possible, in very many cases, for "ordinary" people to pull and tease at the tangled and mangled pieces of string and pull them together into a coherent ball. Moreover, there are zillions of these tangled pieces of string all over the World, and there will be more, on people's computers, wherever, so they are now probably indestructible. These will always be available to be pulled into that coherent ball.
Of course, even this should not concern you, unless the Empire (and its main minion) fall. Just as, no doubt, his conviction of the impossibility of his nascent Empire falling made such matters of no concern to Herr Hitler.
But what if it does? Mr. Blair, you will be, as they say, royally screwed. And so will you "gentlemen" at the MOD. The speed at which those tangled pieces of string will be pulled and teased together into that coherent ball will be breathtaking - if I, for one of very many around the World, have anything to do with it.
In this regard, perhaps the Internet has heralded the end of the total dominance of victor's propaganda existing to the total exclusion of other viewpoints, and "inconvenient" facts. Fahrenheit 451 isn't hot enough any more. More importantly, it is to be hoped that the Internet heralds the end of victor's "justice". God bless DARPA!
Prime Minister, "gentlemen" at the MOD, I exhort you to immediately withdraw your participation in this joint criminal enterprise: it is clearly illegal in international law. Moreover, Prime Minister, apart from the enterprise itself being criminal in nature, I believe that a good argument can be made in the more particular case of individual War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity that may be committed on the ground in Iraq by American forces, that much of that responsibility would lie at your feet. The argument goes like this: had you not so fervently supported the US's push to "war" at the UN, incidentally by an astonishing stream of fakery and lies, some of which to this day you persist in repeating, the chances of the US backing down and the rule of law through better heads at the UN prevailing would have been much, much higher. I am pointing out that even if no such outrages can be shown to have been committed by British forces, but they can by American forces, that that, in a fairer more equitable World, if such ever comes to pass, would not constitute an automatic "stay out of jail free card". I gave web-links near the beginning of this letter indicating the propensity of some Americans to commit such outrages virtually at the drop of a hat. Not an ancient example either; not Vietnam but Gulf War I. That propensity may be compared to their propensity for "friendly" fire.
The alternative, if that's what you want, is a World of perpetual and often brutal "Great" Power subjugation, unending seething hatreds of the dispossessed and disregarded and the concomitant "terrorism" that that inevitably breeds, a continuation if not expansion of that large proportion of the World's population consigned to live in the dust-bin of economic dependence, poverty and all too short longevity.
You see, that gives the best bang for the U$ buck U$. Temporarily. Is that what you really want? Is that what you have signed up for? Nice World you are helping to make for your children, Mr. Blair; I sincerely wish them happiness in their privileged fortresses.
President Bush is currently pushing very hard for his $700 billion tax cut, against the opposition of the Democrats who want to cut it to a "mere" half of that. He's evidently decided that the US is to go for the whole enchilada, and live perpetually in debt to, and on the back of, the rest of the World, backed up of course, by the US's awesome military might. I have to admit, if I were owed a lot of money by a guy with a score of aircraft carriers, a similar number of nuclear powered and armed submarines, countless other war-making ships, thousands of fighter jets, bombers, tanks and such WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, I might think twice before calling in the loan. I wonder if Iraq's enough to pay for all of that? Is that it? You saw the choices of being with the debtor or the debtee, and saw who had the aircraft carriers? Whatever, if you really believe, as you say, that Iraq is being "liberated" for the Iraqi people, and there will not ALWAYS be a significant perpetual US military and economic presence in Iraq, then you are living in cloud-cuckoo land.
CONTINUE TO p.2 of 2
Send E-Mail to: dennisfax@hotmail.com
Copyright © 2005 Dennis Revell, IN CONTEXT re-use OK. All Rights Reserved