Should Tony Blair and George W Bush be put on trial for Iraq? Tutu says yes

[lovett]

War crimes trials started out as victor's justice and that's how they should remain. Attempting to come up with even semi-objective criteria for defining war crimes in the absence of a given trial's political context would be night impossible.

What a foolish thing to say!

It seems as if you are arguing that*, because the 'political context' of a given act would be absent from the trial relevant to that act, we couldn't possibly come up with criteria of sufficient objectivity to justify trying people for war crimes.

Clearly, we would not need to ignore the political context of the relevant act during trial. Similarly, we hardly need to ignore the social context of a murder when trying someone for murder. One can take account of context just as far as it is relevant, which it often will be.

This can't be the way the 'absence' of political context makes it impossible to define objective criteria for war crimes, then. Perhaps you mean the political context is absent in that the trial need not be run by either participants, and if it is run by either participants it is unlikely to be objective. But this absence hardly undermines attempts to develop sufficiently objective criteria. Our civilian judicial systems are sufficiently objective, but the victims do not sit in judgement of the accused.

So your argument gives one no reason to believe that it is impossible to develop criteria of sufficient objectivity to justify trying people for war crimes. That is because, as far as I can make sense of it, your argument is thoroughly unsound.

In fact, it seems quite possible to develop objective criteria for when war crimes have occurred. It seems possible not least because it has actually been done. These criteria are no less objective than those we use in the civilian judicial system. They turn on issues of fact and intention. When a persons act, intentionally or through gross negligence, result in the mistreatment of prisoners of war, the extermination of racial or religious groups or the use of tactics such as rape, deportation and civilian massacres it seems fairly clear cut that a war crime has occurred. These criteria are as objective as we need criteria to be. There is no reason to think we cannot have objective criteria for war crimes.

*I assume your description of the genesis of war crime trials is not intended as an argument. It is hardly as if victor's justice cannot be justice simpliciter(and, surely, it often has been in the case of war crime trials) and even if it weren't, the description of the genesis of a practice does not entail we should attempt to conform the current practice to its past.

 

[Formaldehyde]

The quote above is from the Guardian, so Tutu is blaming Bush and Blair for what is going on in Syria.

With statements like this Tutu's judgement is questionable.

He is making the obvious point that it has destabilized the region instead of bringing "the global family together". Here is the entire article:

Why I had no choice but to spurn Tony Blair

I couldn't sit with someone who justified the invasion of Iraq with a lie

The immorality of the United States and Great Britain's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, premised on the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, has destabilised and polarised the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history.

Instead of recognising that the world we lived in, with increasingly sophisticated communications, transportations and weapons systems necessitated sophisticated leadership that would bring the global family together, the then-leaders of the US and UK fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us.

If leaders may lie, then who should tell the truth? Days before George W Bush and Tony Blair ordered the invasion of Iraq, I called the White House and spoke to Condoleezza Rice, who was then national security adviser, to urge that United Nations weapons inspectors be given more time to confirm or deny the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Should they be able to confirm finding such weapons, I argued, dismantling the threat would have the support of virtually the entire world. Ms Rice demurred, saying there was too much risk and the president would not postpone any longer.

On what grounds do we decide that Robert Mugabe should go the International Criminal Court, Tony Blair should join the international speakers' circuit, bin Laden should be assassinated, but Iraq should be invaded, not because it possesses weapons of mass destruction, as Mr Bush's chief supporter, Mr Blair, confessed last week, but in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein?

The cost of the decision to rid Iraq of its by-all-accounts despotic and murderous leader has been staggering, beginning in Iraq itself. Last year, an average of 6.5 people died there each day in suicide attacks and vehicle bombs, according to the Iraqi Body Count project. More than 110,000 Iraqis have died in the conflict since 2003 and millions have been displaced. By the end of last year, nearly 4,500 American soldiers had been killed and more than 32,000 wounded.

On these grounds alone, 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.

But even greater costs have been exacted beyond the killing fields, in the hardened hearts and minds of members of the human family across the world.

Has the potential for terrorist attacks decreased? To what extent have we succeeded in bringing the so-called Muslim and Judeo-Christian worlds closer together, in sowing the seeds of understanding and hope?

Leadership and morality are indivisible. Good leaders are the custodians of morality. The question is not whether Saddam Hussein was good or bad or how many of his people he massacred. The point is that Mr Bush and Mr Blair should not have allowed themselves to stoop to his immoral level.

If it is acceptable for leaders to take drastic action on the basis of a lie, without an acknowledgement or an apology when they are found out, what should we teach our children?

My appeal to Mr Blair is not to talk about leadership, but to demonstrate it. You are a member of our family, God's family. You are made for goodness, for honesty, for morality, for love; so are our brothers and sisters in Iraq, in the US, in Syria, in Israel and Iran.

I did not deem it appropriate to have this discussion at the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit in Johannesburg last week. As the date drew nearer, I felt an increasingly profound sense of discomfort about attending a summit on "leadership" with Mr Blair. I extend my humblest and sincerest apologies to Discovery, the summit organisers, the speakers and delegates for the lateness of my decision not to attend.

So it turns out that Tutu didn't even directly call for Blair and Bush to be tried for "war crimes". He was merely explaining why he refused to make a public appearance with Tony Blair, while questioning the logic of trying some in the International Criminal Court and at the same time ignoring others whose acts have caused far greater suffering and disharmony.

I don't find this "questionable" in the least.

 

[del62]

The immorality of the United States and Great Britain's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, premised on the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, has destabilised and polarised the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history.

Really, the Invasion of Iraq polarised the world to a greater extent than any other in world history, that is definatley a judgment I find highly questionable.

They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us.

This shows a complete lack of judgement from Tutu, unless he thinks that the Arab Spring in itself is a problem, as the catalyst to the current problems in Syria was the Syrian Regime's reaction to the demonstations which were sparked by the Arab Spring.

Perhaps Tutu prefers rule by dictators in the Arab World.

Now had Tutu just said that he spurned Blair because of the Iraq War then he might have a case, but he then went in to the ridiculous hyperbole that shows a questionable judgement.

 

[Ramius75]

will be great if they will be ;0

 

[EnglishEdward]

he refused to make a public appearance with Tony Blair

Good for Tutu!

Unlike Tutu, I am very unlikely ever to be invited to appear
on a platform with Blair, but that is my opinion too.

I do not consider Blair respectable.

 

[Traitorfish]

Of course you don't, he's a Papist and you're called "English Edward"; we can do the maths ourselves.

 

[Mise]

I really can't see how Bush and Blair are war criminals...

 

[Borachio]

If the legality of the Iraq war is in question, then surely they must be considered as possibly war criminals. But, of course, war criminal is an emotive term usually associated with...who exactly?

 

[EnglishEdward]

Of course you don't, he's a Papist and you're called "English Edward"; we can do the maths ourselves.

Yet another unecessary offensive one liner.

And my wife is a Roman Catholic and I am happy to attend
with at her local cathedral, St Johns, from time to time.

 

[Traitorfish]

And they say that the English have a keen sense of irony.

 

[Der Golem]

2 things.

1. Should a say so of Saddam be a valid reason to go to war?
2. You state: "He didn't lie about the reasons to invade". Which is a positive statement. Can you provide us with the same criteria you demand? You know, proof. Or am I to conclude that anyone who thinks he didn't is clearly just politically aligned with him?

1. Yes. He took babies out of incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital and left them to die.

2. He said that they have weapon of mass destruction. Period. And therefore, the reason why we needed to take him out.

 

[EnglishEdward]

And they say that the English have a keen sense of irony.

We English can tell the difference between smears and irony.

 

[EnglishEdward]

He said that they have weapon of mass destruction. Period. And therefore, the reason why we needed to take him out.

Source?

 

[Der Golem]

Were you living in a Cave back then?

 

[Borachio]

Source?

Here's a source

Ah, but not the same as needed to justify Blair and Bush.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Were you living in a Cave back then?

No, is that where you found your source, written on the wall in red ochre?

 

[Der Golem]

No, is that where you found your source, written on the wall in red ochre?

My source is my memory. Do you want to look up into my memories?

 

[EnglishEdward]

Here's a source

Ah, but not the same as needed to justify Blair and Bush.

What he said when imprisoned after the invasion is not a justification for the invasion.

It was great that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969, but I would not
regard that as a justification for the War of Independence or US civil war.

 

[Traitorfish]

We English can tell the difference between smears and irony.

I don't even know who you are, why would I want to "smear" you?

 

[Borachio]

My source is my memory. Do you want to look up into my memories?

It's a funny and deceptive thing, memory. I have often found something I believed very firmly later turned out to be untrue.

I don't even know who you are, why would I want to "smear" you?

Tell me this isn't some Scottish kinky stuff. BTW, which Edward are you both referencing? There are a few to choose from.