Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

The legality of the Iraq war: time to move on

Diarist | 25.04.2005 23:27 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | London | World

Last weekend, two British newspapers and the Mail on Sunday led with the leaked details of a memo from the Attorney General to the Prime Minister, sent before the war on Iraq, which apparently argued that any invasion might be illegal.

The is the latest episode in a long and torturous saga, set out in mindnumbing detail over acres of newsprint, covering the questions of whether Britain knew Iraq did not possess Weapons of Mass Destruction, whether the Prime Minister knew that a war might be illegal, etcetera, etcetera. One might be forgiven for thinking that these questions are particularly complicated. Happily they are not, and we can satisfy ourselves of the answers in pretty short order.

Fortunately for the unenlightened layperson, international law is crystal clear on where the use of armed force is legitimate. The UN Charter permits it in two instances: either in self-defence, or when authorised by the security council. The latter requires no discussion – at least not unless the other members of the council somehow authorised the war without realising it - so lets proceed straight to the former: self defence.

Did the US and the UK invade Iraq in self defence? The fact that the question is even asked, much less that it has apparently been agonised over for over two years by the great and the good, gives the measure of our political culture in stark and depressing terms. Consider the very idea that America, the greatest military power in all history, needed to defend itself from the tin-pot dictator of a crippled third world country. A country that did not control its own airspace, that had been bombarded at will by America for over a decade, whose infrastructure had been smashed, whose people were starving, was about to rise up and….and do what exactly? Send its armies to march on Washington? The notion was palpably absurd from the start. And whether or not the claims on Iraq’s WMD were true was an utter irrelevance. If Iraq had possessed WMD it would have joined a group of nations, like North Korea and Iran, which have a degree of military power and poor relations with the west, but know full well that to instigate a war with such an enemy is to commit instant suicide.

The Iraq war was illegal. Moreover, since it was patently not fought in self defence, it follows that the war was a crime of aggression. “Aggression”, according the UN General Assembly Resolution 3314, passed in the wake of Vietnam, “is the use of armed force…in any matter inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations”. After World War Two the court at Nuremberg described the war of aggression as “essentially an evil thing…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”. Associate US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, chief prosecutor at the trial said that “no political or economic situation can justify” the crime of aggression, which was “the greatest menace of our times”.

Elizabeth Wilmshurst, deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office, viewed the coming invasion in precisely these terms when she resigned her post in March 2003. In her resignation memo, Wilmshurst was unequivocal: “an unlawful use of force on such a scale amounts to the crime of aggression”. Mindful of the wide and serious consequences that would follow, she went on to say that she could not, in good conscience, “agree with such action in circumstances which are so detrimental to the international order and the rule of law”. Wilmshurst’s stand was praiseworthy and her opinion an educated one; but her’s, as we have seen, was nevertheless a statement of the obvious.

Yesterday, Tony Blair sounded like a man tired of the seemingly endless speculation regarding the war’s legality. I sympathise. There is no requirement for further disclosures, nor further judicial enquiries on the subject. Both our government and the American government are guilty of committing “the supreme international crime”; initiating a war of aggression. The electorate, on May 5, can now move to sentencing.

Diarist
- e-mail: diarist@democratsdiary.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.democratsdiary.co.uk

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

ITS TOO LATE NOW!

26.04.2005 01:42

Its all very well voting in the election after the tragic events in Iraq have taken place. What is needed is a way to stop people like Bliar taking the people of this country to war in the first place. We need a real democracy instead of a sham.

OK, so Bliar gets voted out because he took us to war. So is what is to stop any other PM doing exactly the same thing in the future? Nothing. We, the people are powerless to stop it under the present system.

Doug.


Except punish them at the polls ...

26.04.2005 14:31

We don't have democracy, so there is relatively little we can do in present circumstances.

We can, however, give them a bloody nose in the election. Or rather, those voters who actually have some power - those in a marginal where an anti-war candidate has a chance of beating the Labour or pro-war encumbent - can do so. The rest of us should stay at home in disgust, given that they no longer count spolit ballots.

Every politician who failed to represent the wishes of their constituency in parliament deserves to lose their job as a result. It's the least we can do, and in doing so, we serve notice on every elected politician that their careers are NOT best served by uncritically following the orders of the leadership.

In the short-term, tactical voting on a national scale is the only thing I can see that will help.

Hang Parliament!!


Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech