| Western leaders unaccountable & immune from prosecution | |
| Media Protect the
International War Criminals [June 2006] The 'news' is often what powerful leaders want it to be. Consider an online BBC news article which reported President Bush and Prime Minister Blair's "mistakes in Iraq": "The two leaders have never admitted their mistakes in such frank terms, the BBC's Jonathan Beale says... BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says Iraq has cast a shadow over the leaders' careers and both were seeking to play up the potential for change afforded by the new democratically-elected government in Baghdad." (BBC news online, May 26, 2006} The vital context was left out. The UK (but not the US) is a signatory to the treaty that set up the International Criminal Court (ICC). Underpinning the ICC are the Geneva conventions and the 1945 Nuremberg charter. The latter states clearly: "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." (http://www.counterpunch.org/herman05112006.html) The BBC will not say that Bush and Blair have committed crimes, in fact, "the supreme international crime" as defined at the Nuremberg trials. MediaLens conducted a newspaper database search covering the period since the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003 until May 2006. They searched for articles suggesting that Tony Blair might have committed the "supreme international crime". They found just six such articles; two of those were by John Pilger. Certainly, there have a campaign to impeach Tony Blair, led by Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price. In January 2006 General Sir Michael Rose, the British UN commander in Bosnia, had called for Blair to be impeached on the grounds that the PM had "misled the country in the run-up to war." But the more damning indictment of having committed the supreme international crime of launching a war of aggression, and the context of the Nuremberg judgement, is entirely missing. Of the 190 press reports in over three years that mention the impeachment campaign, not a single report included this basic context. Malcolm Kendall-Smith, the airforce officer, was jailed in April for eight months for refusing to serve in Iraq. The press reports explained that Kendall-Smith had challenged the legality of the invasion and occupation. "Nuremberg" was mentioned in a total of 34 of these news stories as the basis for Flight Lieutenant Kendall-Smith's defence. But details and context were once again lacking. Not one press report explicitly stated that Bush and Blair could be charged with the "supreme international crime" of conspiring to launch a war of aggression under the Nuremberg charter. In his book, Lawless World, Philippe Sands QC comments on the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith's, legal advice, dated March 17, 2003, giving Blair the green light to go to war without a second UN resolution. On March 7th, the Attorney General had issued a carefully worded document which had been full of caveats about the possibility of any legal case supporting an invasion of Iraq. Sands noted in his book: "A little-noticed passage of the Attorney General's 7 March advice pointed out that 'aggression is a crime under customary international law which automatically forms part of domestic law'. Those most closely associated with the initiation of recent events in Iraq may also want to avoid holidays in those countries that have criminalized the planning, preparation or conduct of aggressive war." Not a single newspaper editorial has stated that Bush and Blair ought to stand trial before the International Criminal Court and would be found guilty by the standards applied at Nuremberg. It is entirely unsurprising that Bush and Blair are not under sustained pressure to face impeachment - the establishment media and political system, virtually en masse, has rejected even the possibility. Not one newspaper in its leader column has called for Blair to be impeached for war crimes. The editorial silence from the Guardian, Independent, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, The Times and the rest is shameful. A British Prime Minister may launch a war of aggression, cause death and suffering on an unimaginable scale, and +still+ not be held to account by the supposed 'watchdogs' of democracy. He is well shielded by the British media which serve as a guardian of brutal and destructive power. Reference MediaLens: Silence in the service of Power, www.medialens.com, May 30, 2006 |