So the last US troops are leaving Iraq. Supporters of the war would like us to ‘move on’ and forget the illegal invasion- the porkies told about Iraqi WMDs to justify it- and the death and destruction it caused.
But until those responsible for this great crime are brought to justice we must never do so.
It’s timely to remember the words of Robert H. Jackson, Chief U.S. Prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials.
To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
4 comments:
Many US military advisers will stay in Iraq after 2012. As will legions of mercenaries hired to provide security for infrastructure projects.
In Afghanistan, the deadline for withdrawal in 2014 will follow the same pattern. Security along the TAPI Pipeline route will be the concern.
Whilst Iraq remains a clear catastrophe, an illegal war fought as an oil grab, the truth behind the Afghanistan War remains obscure.
Few journalists seem to now bother with trying to understand WHY the West is so desperate to "stay the course".
The truth is that it really is now mostly about providing security for the TAPI pipeline project. Part of what H Clinton termed The New Silk Route.
That term can be found in most leading think tank publications. Curiously it never seems to make it into the mainstream public media.
I'm now writing a book on the central importance of the pipeline in the NATO strategy of gaining power and influence in Central Asia.
One aim is to blocks off Iranian gas exports to the east, crippling the economy and excluding it from the benefits of the north south silk route.
Iraq also retains US bases that can be used against Iran: effectively the plan is to encircle it. Which makes it's dependence on nuclear power more protracted.
We live in dangerous times. And the truth of the objectives behind the Afghan War have never been explicitly outlined to the general public.
PS the Central Europe blog will be running again from 2012 as I move to Hungary ( permanently ).
Hi Karl,
Great to hear from you.
Very interesting post.
Iran is undoubtedly the main target-and if the neocons can't get away with a war against the Islamic Republic, then they're determined to cripple the Iranian economy.
All the very best for the book and the move to Hungary.
I'd have yo disagree that Iraq represents a "supreme2 war crime. It was certaionly criminal but ot does haqve the aspect of being fought to get rid of a particulalry criminal dictator who would certainly have engaged in aggression if he thought it feasible. By comparisonnthe attacks onn Yugoslavia were unquestionably against a peaceloving democracy enggaed in aggression against nobody and not even unrelentingb inn defending its own sovereignty.
Where the people we were helping in Iraq are niot easilymorally distinguishable from our foes there is no questionm that the openly genocidal (ex-)Nazis, pimops, gangsters and organlegers we appointed as our police and presidents are, under no circumstances able to approach the plain of human decency occupied by Milosevic, Karadzic and co.
Yhe Iraq war was fought largely, at least by inrent, against the Iraqui army. The Yugoslav wars were fought by the deliberate bombing of civilian cities and hiring, training & arming of Nazis for genocide.
The Iraq war was the equivalent of a 19thC colonial imperial campaign. The attacks on Yugoslavia fall, well short of Auschwitz in total murders and slightly short in overall human evil.
Iraq should be punished by the imprisonment of the obscene MPd who supported it. They should be hung for their Yugoslav atrocities.
Sorry but Iraq is still a very evil war and it was done by a small group of crazy neoconservatives whose mission we believe was to help Israel and the plan to control oil. But the good news is that America has lost and not a single U.S. soldier is left there. But the crime is so bad that surely both George W. Bush and Tony Blair should be hung for their crimes.
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