John Pilger: Applauding a military refusenik

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

A British officer is facing court martial because, after two tours of Iraq, he has concluded it would be illegal to return.

n RAF officer is about to be tried before a military court for refusing to return to Iraq because the war is illegal. Malcolm Kendall-Smith is the first British officer to face criminal charges for challenging the legality of the invasion and occupation. He is not a conscientious objector; he has completed two tours in Iraq. When he came home the last time, he studied the reasons given for attacking Iraq and concluded he was breaking the law. His position is supported by international lawyers all over the world, not least by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, who said in September last year: "The US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN Charter."

The question of legality deeply concerns the British military brass, who sought Tony Blair's assurance on the eve of the invasion, got it and, as they now know, were lied to. They are right to worry; Britain is a signatory to the treaty that set up the International Criminal Court, which draws its codes from the Geneva Conventions and the 1945 Nuremberg Charter. The latter is clear: "To initiate a war of aggression . . . is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

At the Nuremberg trial of the Nazi leadership, counts one and two, "Conspiracy to wage aggressive war and waging aggressive war", refer to "the common plan or conspiracy". These are defined in the indictment as "the planning, preparation, initiation and waging of wars of aggression, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements and assurances". A wealth of evidence is now available that George Bush, Blair and their advisers did just that. The leaked minutes from the infamous Downing Street meeting in July 2002 alone reveal that Blair and his war cabinet knew that it was illegal. The attack that followed, mounted against a defenceless country offering no threat to the US or Britain, has a precedent in Hitler's invasion of Sudetenland; the lies told to justify both are eerily similar.

http://www.globalecho.org/view_article.php?aid=5557

Also, Pilger has a new book out that he edited:

Tell Me No Lies : Investigative Journalism That Changed the World

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=209x2744

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. I think he will have problems

Because while the original invasion was illegal, the subsequent United Nations resolution 1546 means the United Nations has recognised Iraq as sovereign, and the British Army is now there nominally at the request of the the Iraqi government. This makes it difficult to say the order to go there now is illegal. The morality of it may be another matter.

[demobrit]

3. The United Nations is floored?

Just because the United Nations voted in a resolution dosn`t make it right .
It is the security council that pulls the strings at the UN nowadays
Remember that when Germany had subjugated each country it occupied it set up Puppet Governments for example , Vichy France and Netherlands as an example.
These Governments activly participated in deporting Jews to the concentration camps and asking the German government for protection when threatened by the Allies.
While there is an occupying power the Government will not be truely free to express it`s will.

[Stockholm]

2. Excellent article

Read it under a different headline "THE EPIC CRIME THAT DARES NOT SPEAK ITS NAME" on his website.