I
believe that if Mr. Blair goes
ahead with his support of an
American attack without
unambiguous UN authorization
and without a vote in our
House of Commons, he should be
branded as a war criminal and
sent to The Hague.
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Toronto, March 12, 2003
J'accuse:
Why Tony Blair has to go
By TAM DALYELL
THE Linlithgow
constituency association of the British
Labour Party has put forward a motion
recommending that Prime Minister Tony
Blair reconsider his position as
leader of our party if Britain supports a
war against Iraq without clearly expressed
support from the United
Nations.
David
Irving comments:
TOM Dalyell is a British
Member of Parliament of outspoken
views and great independence of
mind. He is a brave spirit, and I
find myself agreeing with him
unconditionally almost every time
he speaks. Regardless of his
politics, he is the kind of
Parliamentarian who alone makes
the system acceptable.
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I agree with this motion. I also believe
that if Mr. Blair goes ahead with his
support of an American attack without
unambiguous UN authorization and without a
vote in our House of Commons, he should be
branded as a war criminal and sent to The
Hague.
I have served in the House of Commons
as a member of the Labour Party for 41
years and I would never have dreamed of
saying this about any one of my previous
leaders. But this is a man who has disdain
for the House of Commons and international
law.
This is a grave thing to say about my
party leader. But it is far less serious
than the results of a war that could set
Western Christendom against Islam.
Mr. Blair is a lawyer for heaven's
sake, but a growing number of dissenters
within our party have concluded that he
seems to have no understanding that his
decision to sanction military action in
Iraq without proper Security Council
authorization is illegal under
international law. The UN Charter outlaws
the use of force with only two
exceptions:
- individual or collective
self-defence in response to an armed
attack, and
- action authorized by the Security
Council as a collective response to a
threat to peace.
At the moment, there are no grounds for
claiming to use such force in
self-defence.
The doctrine of pre-emptive
self-defence against an attack that might
arise at some hypothetical future time has
no basis in international law. Neither
Security Council Resolution 1441, which
Mr. Blair bleats on about, nor any prior
resolution, authorizes the proposed use of
force in the present circumstances.
MR BLAIR does not seem to understand that
before military action can be lawfully
undertaken, the Security Council must have
indicated its clearly expressed assent. It
has not done so. And Mr. Blair's assertion
that, in certain circumstances, a vetoed
resolution becomes "unreasonable" and may
be disregarded, has no basis whatsoever in
international law.
I don't think Mr. Blair really
understands the horrors of 21st century
war. In 1994, I visited Baghdad (all
expenses paid by me) and saw the
carbonated limbs of women and children
impregnated against a wall by the heat of
just one cruise missile. In the coming
war, we are told that 800 cruise missiles
will be launched just to soften up the
enemy.
Canadians should not be astonished at
the growing opposition to Mr. Blair in
Britain and within his own party. Many of
us in the Labour Party believe he has
misunderstood the pressing danger. It
comes not from Iraq, but from
terrorism.
If there is a link between al-Qaeda and
Saddam Hussein, it is this:
Osama bin Laden hates Saddam
Hussein; on at least two occasions his
organization tried to assassinate him.
The wicked perpetrators of Sept. 11
were not Iraqis. They were Saudis and
Yemenis. Their bases were in Hamburg,
perhaps in London, and certainly in the
U.S. itself. Even bombing Afghanistan was
of dubious value. Intelligence and bribery
would have had a greater chance of
apprehending Osama bin Laden. Why then
unleash war against Iraq -- unless, of
course, it is to fulfill plans hatched as
long ago as 1991 for a pre-emptive strike
to gain control of Iraq's oil
reserves?
I am not anti-American. I was a member
of the executive of the British-American
parliamentary group. I share at one remove
four times over, a grandmother with one of
the American presidents, Harry S.
Truman, and hope to accept the
invitation to attend celebrations of Mr.
Truman's birthday on May 8 in
Independence, Missouri.
But many of us in this country think
the United States has been hijacked by
extremists within its government. They
have used the support of a British Labour
prime minister as a fig leaf against their
critics and against opposition to war in
the United States. It is useful for them
to say to opponents: "But a British Labour
prime minister supports us!"
If Britain had made it clear months ago
that we would not be party to a U.S.
attack on Iraq, that the United States was
acting entirely on it own, I think
American public opinion itself might well
have stopped this war from ever being
contemplated.
Tam Dalyell, Labour
MP for Linlithgow since 1962, is the
longest continuously serving member of
the British House of Commons.
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Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc. All
Rights Reserved.
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