We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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Reflections of a former British civil servant on the likely war against Iraq to replace Saddam Hussein. A measured and calm overview of the reasons for and arguments why we should remove Saddam Hussain… and kill the murderous, ruthless son of a bitch!
The upcoming war to remove Saddam Hussein was planned in the aftermath of the 11th September attacks in Washington and has been supported more-or-less willingly by the British Government. It would appear that London and Washington decided that, for a combination of reasons, the containment of Saddam’s regime was no longer enough, and that he must be removed. As far as an outsider can gather, this conclusion was not reached for any individual reason, but because the cumulative force of a number of individual factors made the risks implied by Saddam’s continuance in office too great. The reasons encompassed Saddam’s past, present and possible future acts:
- Saddam might acquire nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, particularly since the weapons inspectors had been banned from Iraq since 1998. Many of the weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that he was supposed to destroy under UN Security Council Resolution 687, the ceasefire which ended the 1991 Gulf War, are unaccounted for.
- Saddam might pass such weaponry onto terrorists. He has a long pedigree of helping terrorists, such as Abu Nidal, who died in Baghdad, and the PLO, and of sanctioning his intelligence services to commit acts of terrorism when it suits his interests – the murder of Gerald Bull in Brussels, the attempted murder of George Bush senior in Kuwait in 1993 and the assassination of some Iraqi opposition leaders.
→ Continue reading: Let’s do be beastly to Saddam
A law firm with a fetching name, Public Interest Lawyers intends to prosecute Prime Minister Tony Blair for war crimes at the new International Criminal Court (ICC), if an Iraqi war goes ahead.
Phil Shiner of the law firm is leading a campaign to prosecute leaders in the seven-month-old ICC, if military action goes ahead without a second United Nations resolution expressly authorising force, or if any Iraqi civilians are killed in bombing campaigns.
“The ICC brings a new international context to war – Blair now has to consider his individual accountability.”
The ICC’s independent prosecutor can initiate proceedings at the request of a state or can receive evidence from anyone, and then decide whether to prosecute, subject to advice from three of the court’s 18 judges. The prosecution will be based on the fact that national leaders could be held individually responsible for war crimes and be tried as ex-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has at a separate court for former Yugoslavia.
The United States fiercely opposes the ICC, saying it would infringe U.S. sovereignty, but Britain has ratified its treaty and would have to give up any citizen the court wanted to try.
“The ICC will now place a serious constraint on Blair.”
Oh really?! That must make Blair quake in his boots. I fervently hope he ignores the self-righteous and attention-seeking bunch of idiotarians. The International Criminal Court, what a brilliant idea, I hear people cry, just like the UN. The picture comes into focus once the client of Public Interest Lawyers’ who initiated the proceedings is revealed! Enter CND, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament! And I thought they were all in Iraq making sure Saddam gets disarmed and prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons. You can’t rely on anybody these days.
But there is a serious lesson for Blair and the UK government in this farcical episode – next time read the small print on all those treaties and agreements and codes and declarations you are signing, in case the Tranzis decide you are not dancing to their tune. It seems that in this case, the US knew better…
The Australian Herald Sun reports there was more found in Finsbury Mosque than items you’d find in the average American woman’s purse:
“Scotland Yard and MI5 detectives had kept the discovery of the nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) suits secret.
They feared disclosing it would spark panic.”
No wonder Tony Blair has been snapping at reporters and back-benchers lately…
Forty-two US Nobel Prize winners have signed a declaration denouncing any unilateral, pre-emptive strike by the US against Iraq:
“The undersigned oppose a preventive war against Iraq without broad international support. Military operations against Iraq may indeed lead to a relatively swift victory in the short term. But war is characterized by surprise, human loss, and unintended consequences. Even with a victory, we believe that the medical, economic, environmental, moral, spiritual, political, and legal consequences of an American preventive attack on Iraq would undermine, not protect, U.S. security and standing in the world”.
The Nobel laureate who wrote and circulated the declaration is chemist Walter Kohn of the University of California at Santa Barbara, a former adviser to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Other signatories include physicists behind the nuclear research that ended the Second World War. Hans Bethe was an atom bomb designer and Norman Ramsey was part of the Manhattan project to build an atom bomb.
“We are a group of bright people who have had very relevant experiences. We hope to contribute to the sharpness of the discussion.”
Yeah, right, we wish. However, all is not lost. Apparently, six Nobel laureates refused to sign the declaration. According to Kohn their reasons were a lack of faith in the UN, a desire to avoid mixing science with politics and a fear of appeasing Iraq. Seems like a sound bunch of scientists to me (I am, of course, only assuming that they are scientists). Unfortunately, I could not find their names anywhere as the only source of the report seems to be New Scientist. If anyone knows who they are and what they said, I would be interested to read their comments in full.
In any case, it looks like the well-meaning Nobel-prize-winning professors have struck a bonanza in signatures. Last time I looked their support form had about 1360 signed and counting in just a couple of days! Well done. Only, it seems that most of the ‘signatories’ appear to be Raelians adding their own garbled and emotionally incontinent messages…
They are all stark raving mad. Bloody marvellous!
Many thanks to Instapundit for pointing me to this article by Trent Telenko. The whole article and all his links are interesting reading, but this one is evidence for the nightmare scenario. I very strongly suggest everyone read it. Tell everyone you know: some of the first round UN inspectors believe Saddam already had nukes in 1997 and prevented them from getting at the things. This is enough to give you chills.
I just pray (for what its’ worth from a nonbeliever) we don’t lose a city before we cure the problem at source.
There are two anti-war movements… and I think both of them are wrong, though for quite different reasons. But it is the Old Left’s anti-war sentiments regarding Iraq which Janet Daly takes to task in her article in the Telegraph Answer this: do the people of Iraq deserve freedom?. Although I am not a huge fan of “hang ’em an’ flog ’em” conservatives like Janet Daly, I find myself in broad agreement with her on this.
Whilst I realise isolationists (many of whom are on the conservative right or are paleo-libertarians) who oppose the destruction of the Ba’athist regime are often a different intellectual kettle of fish and do not see themselves as give aid to a tyrant, it is the questions like the ones Janet Daly poses which cause me to describe the left wing/paleo-socialist ‘anti-war movement’ as the ‘Pro-Saddam Hussain/Anti-liberation-of-the-Iraqi-people movement’.
I don’t expect isolationists who oppose George W. Bush’s policy of pre-emption to be converted by his State of the Union address last night, but this paragraph helped to tilt my mind in favour of the view that taking Saddam Hussein down is the right, if perilous, course:
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restratint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.
Exactly.
Most of the British armoured vehicles being sent to the Gulf in preparation for war with Iraq’a Ba’athist Socialist regime will arrive not painted in the correct desert warfare camouflage, but rather in the European colours. Not enough money for paint? Did the fact the Army was going to go to Iraq somehow take the Ministry of Defense by surprise?
This shoddy state of affairs is a measure of the true attitude of the Labour Party towards the military they are about to order into action. Yet somehow they find money for welfare payment to asylum seekers and legal aid to burglars who want to sue householders who use force to defend their property.
The mighty N.Z. Bear has a splendid article about what he would do if he was UN Secretary General for a day, fisking UN Resolution 1441 and Iraqi non-compliance. Good stuff!
Salam Pax, as always, full of juicy goodness interspersed with a sobering discourse. Just go and raed.
Others may be interested in my evening reading: Apparatus of Lies, a recently published White House document.
It’s the first time I’ve read a full story on the bomb shelter filled with civilians we hit in Iraq during the last war. It turns out there was a lot more to this than met the News camera’s eye.
What’s the last thing you need while desperately trying to survive as your country is mercilessly bombed by a state-of-the-art US Air Force? How about a bunch of Western pacifists who can’t speak Arabic and don’t know their Dinars from their elbows standing around getting in the way?
The ‘human shield’ left for Iraq yesterday. In three Routemaster buses (the kind they stopped making around 1946, you see them in all the old movies). So at least we can assume it will take them several months to get there, which will be a relief to Baghdad because, as Adriana Cronin noted a few weeks ago, Baghdad residents like the always-interesting Salam Pax don’t actually want a ‘shield’ of pointless woolly Westerners making a burden of themselves. They would actually rather have proper help, like food and first aid on the border crossings, if anyone happens to feel like a bit of charity Gulf war work.
But this pack of doves’ real enemy is not American bombers or Western politicians: it’s you and me, the public. Although insistent that, “Nobody really wants this war except those who stand to gain from this by selling guns,” (well of course, there’s a stash of rifles ready and waiting up in my airing-cupboard right now) they are actually attempting to hold ordinary Western members of the public to ransom. Former US marine Ken Nichols-O’Keefe, founder of “The Truth Justice Peace Human Shield Action Group” is going on hunger strike, not until the war is stopped, but until more people join his cause.
Ten thousand supporters is the exact price he stuck on his own head.
“If we don’t get 10,000 people, I think this is a world that will be hard to live in for all of us” said Ken.
Well, at least he won’t be living in it; that should help a little bit.
“This conflict will lead to World War Three,”
…he went on, presumably in a burst of wishful thinking…
“We need to stop this war first and foremost, if we don’t, shame on us all and pity on us all.”
Shame and pity it is, then.
So, comrades, get yourselves out there with the Shield of Confusion, or the war vet snuffs it. What a choice. As shieldster Ube Evans said:
“Somebody’s got to save humanity from themselves. I’m very scared.”
Baghdad: be very afraid. These people are trying to help you.
Although, as the hunger strike isn’t scheduled until Ken arrives in Iraq, and as it will take them all so long to get there in the double-deckers, my guess is that T.T.J.P.H.S.A.G.’s (say it loudly with enthusiasm and people will think you’re speaking Arabic) real secret plan is to trundle up some time around Christmas when the war is over, have a little holiday, buy a few carpets, and fly back home again. Let’s hope so, for the Iraqi people’s sake.
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