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Labour party shares blame for Iraq

Haifa Zangana, The Guardian | 28.05.2007 15:01 | Anti-militarism | Iraq | Repression

put the Labour Party on trial for War Crimes, similar to the Nuremburg Trials because they "were only following orders!" It was no excuse for the NAZI Party, it's no excuse for Labour!



Iraqis often debate whether it is the Labour party as an institution or Tony Blair as an individual that is the real British culprit in their tragedy.

This issue needs to be addressed, not least for the future of relations between Iraq and Britain; but the debate echoes the deeply felt anger among Arabs and Muslims worldwide.

Blair's callousness about Iraqi lives and the country's ongoing destruction should now be notorious. In December 2004, the BBC's Andrew Marr asked Blair during a visit to Baghdad's Green Zone: "Many thousands of people have died for this moment, including scores of British people: are you sure that this prize was worth that price?"

Blair's answers ranged from, "I know that we are doing the right thing" to, "Yes, I believe we did the right thing" and, finally, "I've got no doubt at all that that is the right thing for us to do".

But all that was in the second year of the occupation, and some Iraqis naively thought that the Labour party would deal with an individual who discredited its ethical foreign policy. It proved a delusion. Blair was re-elected as prime minister.

"Why?" we asked, while witnessing the descent of Iraq into hell. Has Blair apologised for the death of 650,000 Iraqis? Of course not. His emotional resignation speech to members of his party two weeks ago displayed the same rhetoric: "I did what I thought was right for our country."

This is not unusual. History, the gatekeeper of collective memory, teaches us that dictators and tyrants never admit to committing crimes, but adamantly justify them by saying that they acted in the national interest.

Parties and ideologies often act in the same way. Parties rise to power on the strength of declared commitments, and they must be judged on whether they fulfil them.

It was the late foreign secretary, Robin Cook, who launched the Labour government's ethical foreign policy in April 1998, following Labour's manifesto of 1997 which pledged: "We will make the protection and promotion of human rights a central part of our foreign policy." I was one of many who believed that.

Since then the Labour government has been engaged in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, based on a lie, and a hypocritical policy on Palestine involving doing nothing about Israel's aggression against Lebanon. Neither policy can be described as ethical.

Robin Cook kept a measure of sincerity in his resignation speech in the House of Commons on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, by pointing out the hypocrisy regarding Iraq and Palestine.

But the Labour party continued its march under Blair, guided by a shared sense of mission and vision with President Bush in his war on terror, laced with rhetoric about "legal and moral obligations towards Iraqi people". How to dispose now of this legal and moral responsibility?

In the fifth year of occupation, Iraq is a country of horrors, invoking comparison in the mind of Iraqis with the barbarity of the Mongols in 1258. An academic, who fears for his life, told me last week that every aspect of human rights has been violated.

This April Iraq lost between 3,000 and 10,000 of its citizens, depending on who estimates the figures, since no one officially counts. British forces lost 12 soldiers, the largest monthly total in the 50 months of occupation. The United States lost 104 soldiers, with 634 injured.

No one has yet declared the number of dead and injured foreign mercenaries, euphemistically labelled "contractors", whose numbers in Iraq are widely believed to equal the official occupation troops.

The latest military operations and the much-publicised "surge" have displaced a further 27,000 Iraqis in three months.

The pretext of fighting the militias and murder squads was shown to be phoney by the continuing daily spectacle of handcuffed, tortured and brutally murdered men found after night curfew; by gruesome executions in public places by thugs wearing police uniforms; by the sectarian walls built around many districts in Baghdad and other cities; and by the corruption and oil-smuggling, which is breeding new militias for the political parties in government.

The United Nations last month confirmed a massacre on January 28 in the village of al-Zarka, in the province of Najaf, in which more than 260 people were killed by the police and by aerial bombardment from multinational forces.

The Labour party should not be relieved of its responsibility just because Blair is leaving. It is the moral responsibility of its members to question the party's role in the destruction of Iraq, and whether its new leader will listen to them and to the people of Iraq.

The overwhelming majority of Iraqis want the occupation forces out now, and they believe that the enemy is the occupation itself and not "al-Qaida and Iranian-backed elements", as Blair tells the world.

In order to put an end to the daily bloodshed and to build a lasting peace, the Labour party and its new leader must accept that this will only be possible when they acknowledge that there are different voices that represent the Iraqi people.

These include the widely popular resistance, whose different strands include both political and armed movements. And the British government must agree to initiate a compensation programme for the destruction it has helped to cause.




Haifa Zangana, The Guardian
- Homepage: http://www.iraqsolidaritycampaign.blogspot.com

Comments

Hide the following 7 comments

Self Preservation

28.05.2007 15:45

If I had opposed the war I would have lost my job and my income and could not have therefore kept my all year round sun tan. Keeping my wallnut coloured tan is more expensive than you might think. It cost £14.99 a litre from B&Q and I'm using 3-4 litres a day.

Other collegues like Sian James spends £50 a day on pies alone. We all have look after ourselves you know.

Peter Hain


Group Culpability

28.05.2007 15:58

It is an interesting argument. The Labour Party wouldn't have been able to invade Iraq without the support of the liberal media dividing public opinion. In particular the Guardian backed Blair to the hilt. So should we try all Guardian journalists as Lord Haw Haw was hanged for treason ?

Tony Blair and every cabinet minister who refused to resign over the war should certainly be tried for war-crimes. Once we have achieved that then we can argue over who else was culpable.


"Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular."

Danny


MPs act as if they are above the law

28.05.2007 19:00

Labour Party MPs, like all MPs, are paid to represent their constituents. When they fail to do so because of ineptitude they should be thrown out of office.

When they patently refuse to represent their constituents they should be made to return every penny they have earned (sic) as an MP, even if that means losing their homes and/or other possessions. If they cannot repay the money obtained under false pretences they should serve time in prison. It’s called accountability, without it we live in an unelected authoritarian dictatorship.

If our law lords refuse to hold our MPs to account the public have a democratic duty to take matters into their own hands to prevent any further damage to our society and indeed that of others.

Rather than relying on organised mass demonstrations in London (that most people don’t see or know about) we should form smaller demonstrations outside every Labour Party constituency office (or MPs homes) until they pull their heads out of their arses and tell our government to withdraw troops from their illegal wars.

Brian Haw has done an amazing job outside parliament. We need to replicate Brian’s efforts in our own constituencies.

Spartacus Haw


Blair and the Labour "left"

28.05.2007 22:12

At a Downing Street reception not long ago, a guest had the temerity to ask Tony Blair: "How do you sleep at night, knowing that you've been responsible for the deaths of 100,000 Iraqis?"

THE PRIME MINISTER IS SAID TO HAVE RETORTED: "I THINK YOU'LL FIND IT'S CLOSER TO 50,000."

Blood on his hands
 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/08/346860.html

Of course we know that it's actually around ONE MILLION — this is nothing other than IMPERIAL GENOCIDE.

But what does the AWL (Worker Liberty) one of the biggest groups on the Labour "left" believe the Imperial occupation of Iraq will lead to? IMPERIAL DEMOCRACY!!!? Can you believe it? What planet are they on?

They OPPOSE calling for the immediate withdrawal of the Imperial mercanaries, death squads and the gunships raining cluster and uranium bombs on the children of Iraq:

Iraq — troops out now?
 http://www.workersliberty.org/node/8481

"The blood of eight million Iraqi civilians on the hands of the Anglo-American axis since the early twentieth century, and still counting…"

 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2007/05/370675.html

Fuck the Imperial Left.

precog


14 Labour MPs call for: IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ

28.05.2007 23:38

EDM 335

IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ
28.11.2006


McDonnell, John

That this House notes with alarm the conclusion of the October 2006 Lancet report that coalition forces in Iraq have been directly responsible for the deaths of at least 186,000 Iraqis since the start of the 2003 invasion; recognises that according to a September 2006 Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) poll, 78 per cent. of Iraqis believe that the US military presence in Iraq is provoking more conflict than it is preventing; recalls the conclusion of the April 2006 US National Intelligence Estimate on global terrorism that `The Iraq conflict has become the cause celébrè for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement'; further notes the recent statement by the Head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, that British forces should be withdrawn from Iraq soon because their presence exacerbates the security problems; further notes that there have been over 118 British military deaths in Iraq since the 2003 invasion; and calls on the Government to withdraw all British forces from Iraq immediately.

McDonnell, John
Corbyn, Jeremy
Wareing, Robert N
Cryer, Ann
Galloway, George
Davies, Dai
Cohen, Harry
Abbott, Diane
Simpson, Alan
Wood, Mike
Hopkins, Kelvin
Riordan, Linda
Singh, Marsha
Griffith, Nia

Labour Left
- Homepage: http://www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk/


actually it's only 12 Labour MPs

29.05.2007 01:04

George Galloway and Dai Davies are not Labour MPs

.


actually it's much more than 188 British military deaths

29.05.2007 11:22

"further notes that there have been over 118 British military deaths in Iraq since the 2003 invasion"

The real figure of British military deaths in Iraq is about 160, although I have lost count and the newspapers have stopped reminding me. Some of them are being discounted to massage the figures as they weren't combat deaths. Big deal, they wouldn't have died if they hadn't been sent there. Add to that the British military deaths in Afghanistan. Add to that the British civilian deaths in both countries and as a result of the 7/7 attack which was supposedly a reprisal attack. Add to that all those Brits who will die in future as a result of this. And then it becomes more appalling that only 12 Labour MPs can muster the faintest protest.

And then think of the million plus Iraqi's who have died through their lack of principle and it becomes a clear case of genocidal war-crimes that someday some of these fuckers should hang for - at the very least. Why stop at the cabinet - why not punish everyone who has voted Labour since 2001 ? Certainly anyone who has stayed in the party or donated funds. National-socialists to a man. Nuremberg was a sham trial but it established certain principles. Let's denazify the UK. Certainly close down the Guardian for starters.

Danny


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