Mr Blair…You’re Under Arrest!

David Cronin has tried to arrest former Prime Minister Tony Blair for war crimes:

As the former prime minister made his way into a packed committee room in the European Parliament, I stepped up to him and laid my hand on his arm. “Mr Blair, this is a citizen’s arrest,” I said.

For a split second, he looked directly at me, treating me to an expression that seemed both blank and quizzical. Then I was pushed away firmly, though not too aggressively, by one of the phalanx of body guards surrounding him. “You are guilty of war crimes,” I shouted after him, adrenaline giving me the kind of high I haven’t experienced in years.

I had prepared a more lengthy speech about how I believed Blair should be prosecuted for authorising the war against Iraq as this involved crimes against peace and the crime of aggression. I had also intended to invite him to accompany me to the nearest police station so that I could file a criminal charge against him.

Yet to no surprise, I did not get a chance to recite these arguments and to test out my hastily acquired knowledge of the Nuremberg principles that were set down following the Second World War and the more recent Rome statute (the agreement under which the International Criminal Court was founded).

The real crime of course is that an arrest for war crimes will never happen, even though it should. Having taken Britain to war based on lies, in order to appease an American president hell-bent on an illegal war based entirely on mad ideological principles, will never likely have anyone held accountable. Where would the process end? Putin? Bush? Thatcher? Blair would likely argue his behaviour was nothing abnormal for someone in his position, indeed that it was to Britain’s advantage. Yet look at the hatred the war has engendered, look at the hundreds of thousands dead, look at the country we supposedly went to ‘liberate’ totter under a regime as disinterested in human rights as Saddam Hussein was. And don’t forget Saddam was once our friend too.

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