War Crime

January 21, 2014

7_Years_of_war_087.sJPG_950_2000_0_75_0_50_50.sJPGHeavy ground fog this early Tuesday on California’s north coast, which in turn makes the moist air a little-bit warmer — meanwhile, on the eastern US seaboard today winter keeps on keeping on with storms to drop near a foot of snow.

In all the shit going-down nowadays, this a really-good, feel-good story:
“I went over to him, put my hand on his shoulder and said: ‘Mr Blair, this is a citizen’s arrest for a crime against peace, namely your decision to launch an unprovoked war against Iraq. I am inviting you to accompany me to a police station to answer the charge.’

(Illustration found here).

The arresting citizen, Twiggy Garcia, a London bartender, recaps the rest of the story:

“He said: ‘No, shouldn’t you be worried about Syria?’
“Then he asked me: ‘But don’t you agree that Saddam was a brutal dictator and he needed to be removed?’ and I replied ‘not by an illegal war’.”

Mr Garcia told how Mr Blair was sitting at the head of a table upstairs in the restaurant – famous for its Damien Hirst artworks – along with around eight other people, including family and friends.
Having approached Mr Blair and told him why he was making a citizen’s arrest, he went on to paraphrase Robin Cook’s resignation speech in which he claimed that the Iraq war had done terminal damage to the UN, the European Union and Nato.
One of Mr Blair’s sons then got up and went to get the family’s security team from downstairs – prompting Mr Garcia to make a hurried exit.
He has since resigned from his job at Tramshed.
Asked how he felt following his confrontation with the former prime minister, Mr Garcia said: “I feel great. Lots of people have been contacting me to say well done. I’m still in disbelief that I got the opportunity to citizen’s arrest the former prime minister.
“It all panned out pretty much how I thought it would, except that I didn’t expect him to start debating with me.”
The Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 gives citizens the right to detain a person whom they believe has broken the law.
Mr Garcia is the fifth person who has attempted to make a citizen’s arrest on Mr Blair.
A spokesman for Mr Blair said: “There is nothing to report here apart from fact that Mr Blair did offer to discuss the issue – that offer was declined and the individual walked off. Nothing else happened.
Everyone is fine and they had a great time at the restaurant.”

Not everyone is fine, and not everyone had a great time at any restaurant.
Blair and our own knuckle-headed war criminal, George Jr., have slipped scot-free away from the bounds of the human experience in killing thousands and thousands of people for real-no reason, and all against all kinds of laws.
Despite the obvious — the US Senate Intelligence Committee in June 2008, in part:

“It is my belief that the Bush Administration was fixated on Iraq, and used the 9/11 attacks by al Qa’ida as justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein.
To accomplish this, top Administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and al Qa’ida as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11.
Sadly, the Bush Administration led the nation into war under false pretenses.
“There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence.
But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate.

Or to be even more accurate — George Jr and his boys lied out their ass.
They were saved from prosecution by hope and change.
See President Obama mutter his way through an explanation why George Jr. won’t be put in the dock for war crimes: “We need to look forward, as opposed to looking backward.”
Though we will pursue anyone who “blatantly” breaks the law.
Obama is so disappointing it’s almost hard to imagine.

Currently, Iraq is descending into nightmare chaos and the US turns a blind eye to Syria, or Afghanistan, or anywhere but Baghdad. A commentary piece at Global Research allows, “For America, Denial is a River in Iraq:”

But now Iraq is back in the headlines and, as with every day since the 2003 invasion, there is a great deal of mourning in Mesopotamia.
And, as with every day since the snipe hunt for WMDs could no longer be justified, the story of Iraq remains cloaked in denial about America’s responsibilities to sovereign nation that was invaded under false pretenses, its government toppled, its infrastructure obliterated and its people killed in numbers that still haven’t been accurately tabulated.
The names are familiar — Fallujah, Ramadi and Anbar Province.
And so is the unwillingness of the political, military and foreign policy establishments to deal directly with the fact that serious crimes have been committed and nothing has been done to reconcile the U.S. with Iraq—no formal apology has been made, no decision-makers held to account nor any reparations paid to the Iraqi people.
This fundamental denial flows right through the middle of U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Although the War on Iraq is widely and quite cavalierly regarded as a “strategic blunder” in the United States, the view around the world and in the region is quite different.
After the Shock and Awe, world opinion shifted almost immediately against the United States.
More importantly, the Pew Global Attitudes Research Project found in 2012 — the same year as “Morning in Mesopotamia” — that the median favorability percent.
The survey didn’t include the nations most affected by the war — Iraq, Iran and Syria.
And that median number reflects to some extent Israel’s 83 percent favorable view of the U.S.
The next highest was Lebanon at 47 percent.
Back in the U.S., a reliably myopic and co-dependent media encourages denial among Americans.
Since CNN “quietly” shuttered its Baghdad bureau last year, news from the steadily decaying country has been hard to come by, even as Iraq suffered a daily onslaught of bombings and attacks that made 2013 its deadliest year since 2007.
Perhaps to its credit, CNN was the last TV news operation standing, but its departure completed a full retreat by the American news media that began, perhaps coincidentally, shortly after Obama won the White House.
After taking office, Obama dismissed the idea of accountability for the second Bush Administration or, by extension, for those within his own party who — like pre-emptive 2016 front-runner Hillary Clinton — aided and abetted its grand schemes in Congress. To wit, he quickly declared that he wanted his administration to “look forward, as opposed to looking backwards.”
“Don’t look back” is big hit with incoming administrations.
It’s the careful karaoke and sanguine sidestep we get instead of truth and consequences.
Bill Clinton sang the song as he entered the White House.
His administration let a long-forgotten scandal called “Iraq-gate” just fade away and operatives in the first Bush Administration skated by without so much as a slapped wrist for the illegal arming of … wait for it … Saddam Hussein.
Funny how all roads lead to Iraq.
Less funny is how often the scene of the crime involves the usual suspects.

Nobody’s laughing.

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