I believe Blair should stand trial - and even face charges for war crimes. I did not write the above statement, which was the title of an article written by General Sir Michael Rose, Commander of the United Nations Protection Force in Bosnia. The article was published by the Daily Mail last week, which the newspaper deemed to be a stunning indictment made by one of the most prominent British generals. Nonetheless, the introduction I made above contains nothing new, and I had reiterated this time and again, especially when Blair was nominated for the presidency of the European Union (EU). My opinion was thus that he should appear before the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, and not go to Brussels. The above itself is not new, as many anti-war groups in Britain have been distributing pamphlets calling for Blair's trial as a war criminal, ever since it was discovered that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq following the invasion. These groups then declared that Blair must go to The Hague and to Brussels or that his name be proposed for the presidency of the EU. With the start of Sir John Chilcot's commission's inquiry into the Iraq war, I wrote in this column on the 26th of last month my accusations against Blair, along with George W. Bush, and demanded that they both be brought to justice. Then Sir Michael Rose reiterated this demand two days later, which is something that the peace groups have also been frequently demanding. However, Chilcot's inquiry was aborted before it even started, with the head of the commission stating that he was not there to determine the guilt or innocence of those responsible for the invasion of Iraq. Instead, the object of the inquiry is simply to identify the lessons that should be learned from Iraq in order to help future UK governments who may face similar situations. With all due respect, I say that this is utter nonsense, because lessons that can benefit in the future require a U.S administration with imperialist and militaristic tendencies, an ignorant president, a puppet government in Britain, and a reckless and stupid dictator such as Saddam Hussein. Also, confining the inquiry to identify the possible lessons is a waste of thousands of hours and the efforts of the commission's members and the officials who will appear before it, only in order to learn a lesson that will never be of use, instead of bringing the war criminals to justice as they duly deserve. We read that the commission's inquiry will take 18 months, and that it will end following the British legislative elections next year, and may not even affect its results. However, I personally believe that the inquiry has ended before it even started, if its objective were only to learn lessons. Moreover, the first three days of witness hearing have provided enough evidence to write the indictment against the former British Prime Minister. The real war criminal, however, is George W. Bush, the incompetent president who allowed the cabal of advocates of an American Empire (Cheney and Rumsfeld) and Israel's gang (the neo-conservatives) to rule with him as a front. These two gangs then waged failed wars on false premises, causing the United States to go bankrupt with its wars having cost three trillion dollars. In fact, the war in Afghanistan alone costs the United States today one billion dollar each day, added to the costs of the ongoing war in Iraq, and to approximately 600 billion dollars each year as interest on America's public debts. Meanwhile, the commencement of Chilcot's inquiry coincided with a report published by the Foreign Affairs Committee in the U.S Senate, which states that Osama bin Laden was within the grasp of the U.S soldiers in Tora Bora in 2001, but that he had managed to escape to Pakistan because the U.S leadership did not send troops to intercept his escape route. I have an opinion in this matter, which is that the Bush administration, or whoever was running the administration from amongst the two gangs mentioned above, has left Bin Laden to escape because killing him and destroying al-Qaeda would have denied the administration an excuse to invade Iraq, or to wage the war on terror, which are both wars against Muslims no more and no less. I will not reiterate here my opinion about the Arabs and Muslims who have wasted both their religious and worldly affairs, but rather, I want to say that the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in the death of around five thousand U.S soldiers and 400 British soldiers. Since the evidence justifying the war [in Iraq] was doctored, the U.S officials responsible for the death of American youths, and the British officials responsible for the death of British youths should be tried. This is because both the United States and the United Kingdom are democratic countries, unlike our countries where one million innocent citizens perish as a result of Western terrorism, and then no one cares about them. [email protected]
