Tag: Tony Blair

Ray McGovern, in a 2-Part video series, speaks with Jay Paul, Senior Editor of the Real News Network — Revisiting the Downing Street Memo.

While we have mainly focussed our efforts on the torture, McGovern gives us some play by play events and some in-depth observations as to our war of aggression against Iraq.  It is pretty jaw-dropping stuff!

Note this, as well:

With respect to waging a war of aggression-and that is a technical term defined by Nuremberg, the Nuremberg tribunal, which came after World War II. And what they said was that to institute a war of aggression is to commit the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes only inasmuch as it contains the accumulated evil of the whole.  (emphasis mine)

A war of aggression is the worst crime of all, because “it contains the accumulated evil of the whole.”  Of course, that would include torture, and all the heinous crimes that we know were committed.

and, from the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal, 1950, No. 82

Principle Vl

The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under; international law:

Crimes against peace:

1–Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in

    violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

2–Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the

    acts mentioned under (i).

Here is Part I:

In Part II, McGovern speaks about “The person that leaked the memo did an ‘incredible’ public service.”

Part II over the jump!

Originally posted at Daily Kos

June 25 is Torture Accountability Day. At the close of this diary, you will learn how you can submit evidence of torture to the Department of Justice. You will also learn how you can help initiate a California State Bar investigation of Donald Rumsfeld's torture lawyer, William Haynes.

In today's TNR, we will cover breaking news on a Guantanamo detainee release, and ongoing revelations about the mysterious death of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi in a Libyan jail, a story first announced in the U.S. by Daily Kos Torture News Roundup on May 10, following a report by UK journalist Andy Worthington. Meanwhile, the long-awaited release of the CIA's Inspector General report on torture was delayed another week. Other revelations this past week include new information about a leading psychologist working for both the CIA and the Mitchell-Jessen torture firm; a British policy of covering up U.S. torture; ongoing political shenanigans over releasing hundreds of torture photos; human rights reports on torture centers in Zimbabwe; and more.

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Over the past 2 days, we’ve been pretty busy over at the European Tribune, launching a petition against the possible nomination of Tony Blair as Chairman of the European Council (or, as the job is likely to be known by the lazy media, “President of Europe”).

His name has been floated by French president Nicolas Sarkozy and the campaign to support him seems to have picked up strength lately. As this is a prospect that fills us with dread, some eurotribbers have decided to take action and to launch a petition to make clear that citizens across Europe are opposed to such an idea.

This is where the amazing power of blog communities comes into play: thanks to uncoordinated volunteer effort, transparently happening over various threads on ET, a text was drafted, edited, translated into 11 other languages and a website (Stop Blair!) was set up literally overnight (thanks to linca). The effort was somehow picked up by a first paper (as it were, the Financial Times, my favourite source of material to comment upon on ET) and is now getting 50-100 signatures per hour.

The full text of the petition is below. And you can help!  

An interesting dimension of the Bush Administration’s attempts to catapult the propaganda about Iran has been reported in a series of separate articles, in the Guardian, the past couple weeks. They’re trying to sell a war to Britain. Thus far, Britain’s not buying.

On September 30, the Guardian reported that John Bolton was in England, doing what John Bolton does: warmonger.

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country….

He added that any strike should be followed by an attempt to remove the “source of the problem”, Mr Ahmadinejad.

Because that worked so well in Iraq, let’s try it again: bomb them, then remove their leadership. Because we’re allowed to do such things. Because we’re exceptional.

On Monday, the Guardian reported that some-time general, and increasingly full-time political hack, David Petraeus, was also in England, also to sell a war:

The commander of US forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, yesterday sharpened America’s confrontation with Iran, claiming that a leader of its Revolutionary Guard corps was in direct charge of policy in Baghdad.

The charge that Tehran’s ambassador to Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, was a member of the Quds force, a unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, takes US accusations of Iranian meddling in Iraq’s violence to a new level. It strengthens suggestions that Washington is ratcheting up the rhetoric against Tehran in preparation for military strikes against Revolutionary Guard facilities in Iran.

Ratcheting up the rhetoric is right. Whether or not the rhetoric has any relation to the truth is, as always with the Bush Administration and its minions, irrelevant. And the Guardian had already reported that during last Spring’s standoff over the Iranian capture of fifteen British sailors, even Tony Blair’s government turned down Bush Administration offers of aggressive and provocative military patrols in Iranian airspace.

The latest encouraging news came from the Guardian’s sister paper, the Observer, last Sunday: