When is a war criminal not a war criminal?
by Stan Rosenthal
John Rentoul is the chief political commentator at the Independent on Sunday. He is one of the few leading journalists in this country who is prepared to swim against the current on the Iraq issue. In Sunday’s post on his blog he makes the case for rejecting the term “war criminal” when it is used to describe the part played by Tony Blair & co in the Iraq war. (as was done in the Iraq inquiry submission of the Blair War Crimes Foundation posted earlier on this site). His post is reproduced here with his permission…
The key question – is Blair a war criminal? by John Rentoul
Disappointing to see that my own newspaper, The Independent on Sunday, asks number 180 in my series of Questions to Which the Answer is No, in the form of the headline on Oliver Miles’s shabby article previewing the Chilcot inquiry into Iraq, which starts on Tuesday.
For all the time that I have disagreed with the editorial policy of the Independent titles – that is, since late 2002, when it became clear that Simon Kelner, then the editor of The Independent, was opposed to military action in Iraq under any circumstances – I have continued to argue with my colleagues that they should avoid the language of “lies” and “war crimes” in characterising those with whom they disagree.
For a long time, even after Michael Howard debased the language of political debate by using the l-word during the 2005 election campaign, the dignified part of the anti-war movement, including the Independent titles, seemed to recognise the wisdom of linguistic restraint. Sadly, those restraints seem to be weakening, even as it should be becoming more rather than less obvious that such language is unjustified. In seven years now no one has substantiated the assertion that Tony Blair or any of his officials or ministerial colleagues lied; and I noted some time ago that even Philippe Sands had admitted that there was no realistic prospect of bringing any action against any of them under international law. Indeed, no such action has even been successfully begun.
Is it really necessary to explain the difference between a war crime and something that is, in someone’s opinion, contrary to international law? War crimes include genocide, and no sensible person accuses Blair of that, and waging a war of aggression, which is what is usually meant by the extreme anti-war faction in this case (although the aftertaste of genocide often seems to be deliberate). How anyone can compare the German invasion of Poland to the invasion of Iraq in order to enforce United Nations resolutions is beyond me.
So, instead of the fifth inquiry into Iraq promoting the kind of respectful debate that might allow dispassionate judgements about the serious mistakes that were certainly made, Sir John Chilcot’s deliberations are heralded by the anti-war zealots drowning out reasonable voices with their language of vengeance – urged on by a culturati that has turned simply vicious.
Comment from BlairSupporter
Time November 27, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Well, of course they are vicious, Stan, as I have said to Rentoul. That’s ‘justice’, British style these days.
What a shameful AND shamelss approach some of us seem determined to take to a political decision.
Well, not in MY name.