Desmond Tutu: ‘Put Tony Blair in the dock for war crimes’

DECEMBER 29, 2014

21st Century Wire says…

Another blow to the legacy of Britain’s international man of mystery…

Groomed by the intelligence services from his early college days, he didn’t bat an eyelid while lying to his electorate – and to the world about fictional WMD’s in Iraq, and he dazzled George W. Bush with his alluring pillow talk, used his cozy globalist-appointed positions and high-flying (albeit meaningless) titles to broker deals for JP Morgan investment elite, while he creates wonderous business opportunities on the backs of the world’s poor – he is the world’s most hated man, and he doesn’t drink Dos Equis (but he does drinks Cristal).

Certainly, it’s a charmed life for the man with the fake smile. Recently, 21WIRE reported how he caused a PR meltdown at the international children’s charity, Save the Children, after someone tried to him a “Global Legacy Award” (spooky). The charity are now deeply regretting that move, calling the whole affair ‘a painful experience’.

To add insult to injury, a former Nobel Peace Prize winner and international icon is now gunning for Britain’s most famous war criminal.

Welcome to Tony’s World…


STILL COINING IT IN:  The Establishment are still protecting Blair with titles and jobs, while the people grow tired of his international charade.

Guardian

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for Tony Blair and George Bush to be hauled before the international criminal court in The Hague and delivered a damning critique of the physical and moral devastation caused by the Iraq war.

Tutu, a Nobel peace prize winner and hero of the anti-apartheid movement, accuses the former British and US leaders of lying about weapons of mass destruction and says the invasion left the world more destabilised and divided “than any other conflict in history”.

Writing in the Observer, Tutu also suggests the controversial US and UK-led action to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003 created the backdrop for the civil war in Syria and a possible wider Middle East conflict involving Iran.

“The then leaders of the United States and Great Britain,” Tutu argues, “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.”

But it is Tutu’s call for Blair and Bush to face justice in The Hague that is most startling. Claiming that different standards appear to be set for prosecuting African leaders and western ones, he says the death toll during and after the Iraq conflict is sufficient on its own for Blair and Bush to be tried at the ICC.

“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,” he says.

The court hears cases on genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. To date, 16 cases have been brought before the court but only one, that of Thomas Lubanga, a rebel leader from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has been completed. He was sentenced earlier this year to 14 years’ imprisonment for his part in war crimes in his home country.

Tutu’s broadside is evidence of the shadow still cast by Iraq over Blair’s post-prime ministerial career, as he attempts to rehabilitate himself in British public life. A longtime critic of the Iraq war, the archbishop pulled out of a South African conference on leadership last week because Blair, who was paid 2m rand (£150,000) for his time, was attending. It is understood that Tutu had agreed to speak without a fee.

In his article, the archbishop argues that as well as the death toll, there has been a heavy moral cost to civilisation, with no gain. “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?” Blair and Bush, he says, set an appalling example. “If leaders may lie, then who should tell the truth?” he asks.

“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?”

In a statement, Blair strongly contested Tutu’s views and said Iraq was now a more prosperous country than it had been under Saddam Hussein. “I have a great respect for Archbishop Tutu’s fight against apartheid – where we were on the same side of the argument – but to repeat the old canard that we lied about the intelligence is completely wrong as every single independent analysis of the evidence has shown…

(Advice to the former PM: that’s precisely the reason everyone hates you Tony, because you know you are wrong, but are not big enough to actually admit it)

Continue this Story at The Guardian

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