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Thursday, August 05, 2010

John Pilger: Tony Blair must be arrested



Tony Blair must be prosecuted, not indulged like Peter Mandelson. Both have produced self-serving memoirs for which they have been paid fortunes; Blair's, which have earned him a £4.6m advance, will appear next month.

Now consider the Proceeds of Crime Act. Blair conspired in and executed an unprovoked war of aggression against a defenceless country, of a kind the Nuremberg judges in 1946 described as the "paramount war crime". This has caused, according to scholarly studies, the deaths of more than a million people, a figure that exceeds the Fordham University estimate of deaths in the Rwandan genocide.


You can read the whole of John Pilger’s brilliant New Statesman piece on why Blair must stand trial, here. It also appears here on the excellent US site antiwar.com
(At antiwar.com, don't miss also this excellent, but very disturbing piece by Philip Giraldi on the next war the neocons have got lined up for us- I particularly recommend all US readers to take a look).

Going back to Blair, the 'Arrest Blair' website offers a reward to people attempting a peaceful citizen’s arrest of the former British PM, for crimes against peace. Full details here.

ps:
Let’s just hope that when Blair is finally in the dock, he doesn’t come up against a judge like Judge Griffith-Jones.'Started an illegal war which led to the deaths of 1m people'? 'Took part in the illegal bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as well?'
Well, you have a rather respectable background and you're not a lower-class yobbo so I'll only give you three months in jail.'

UPDATE: More on Tony’s money-making activities in today’s Daily Mail.

Tony Blair will cash in on his experience as Prime Minister by flogging a special edition of his memoirs at a wallet-busting £150.

The red cloth-bound, slip-cased publication of A Journey resembles a Bible or hymn book and bears the signature of the former PM, who was often compared to a vicar for his preachy tone.

The globe-trotting politician has now decided to charge an inflated price for the tome, despite reaping a £4.6 million advance from his publishers Random House.

5 comments:

Robin Carmody said...

I assume the judge in the First Post link is related to the one in the Chatterley trial ...?

jack said...

It was a joke when Britain tried to prosecute Israel or any other country for war crimes given our addiction for war and the ongoing calamity in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan not to mention covert support for terrorist insurgents all over the world in Algeria, Russia, China, Central Asia, India (or at least we did), Sri Lanka, Africa as well as creating the Opium trade in Afghanistan and bringing in and training terrorists from Central Asia, Russia and China to destabilise Eurasia.

I think Britain should be put on the internationalist of states that sponsor terrorism as it the premier country that hosts all these terrorists groups even ones banned in the Middle East like Hiz-But-Tahrir who are heavily involved on trying to create an Islamic caliphate in Central Asia and Siberia.

DBC Reed said...

It seems to me Blair is genuinely worried of being subject to a citizen's arrest.He went in through a side door at the Chilcot enquiry and was still shaking well into his alleged "testimony".
(As I have said before :Blair should be recalled to this enquiry to explain why he ignored Eliza Manningham Buller's view which we were a damn sight more informed than his.
The usual caveat : should n't we be calling these destructive people "capitalists" rather than "neo-cons" as you do above?

Neil Clark said...

Robin-I'm not sure. will check.

Robin Carmody said...

Thanks Neil. It struck me as likely because the Griffith-Jones of 50 years ago (from memory the prosecuting counsel, not the judge per se) was the one who went on about 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' not being a book you'd want your wife or servants to read, a heavily class-conscious and snobbish remark which can easily be equated with the current G-J's justification for lesser sentences.