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tony blair
Corbyn Accuses Starmer Government of ‘Echoing Tony Blair’s Obedience to Washington’
"Blair dragged the UK into an illegal war that triggered a spiral of hatred, conflict, and misery," Corbyn said. "Twenty-three years later, another Labour prime minister is doing his best to follow in Blair’s footsteps."
Mar 03, 2026
As UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer allows British bases to be used as part of the US-Israeli war against Iran, the former leader of his Labour Party says he's making the same mistake that another Labour PM made 23 years ago.
Jeremy Corbyn, the socialist member of Parliament who led Labour from 2015 to 2020, said on Tuesday that Starmer was "echoing Tony Blair’s obedience to Washington", referring to the then-prime minister's decision in 2003 to join US President George W. Bush's war in Iraq.
"Ignoring the wisdom of ordinary people who could see the catastrophe ahead, Blair dragged the UK into an illegal war that triggered a spiral of hatred, conflict, and misery. More than a million Iraqi men, women, and children paid the price." Corbyn wrote in a Tuesday piece for the democratic socialist publicationTribune.
Infamously pledging to Bush, "I will be with you, whatever," Blair helped to promote the false claims that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. And despite a lack of support from the United Nations, he joined Bush's "coalition of the willing," committing 46,000 British troops to the war.
"This was the last time a Labour prime minister blindly backed the wishes of the US and its warmongering president," Corbyn said. "Twenty-three years later, another Labour prime minister is doing his best to follow in Blair’s footsteps and drag us into a catastrophic, illegal war."
Unlike Bush, US President Donald Trump has not yet put boots on the ground in Iran, instead waging a destructive campaign of aerial bombings and missile strikes that have taken out the nation's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other senior Iranian officials.
As of Monday, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a US-based monitor of human rights in Iran, reported that at least 742 civilians had been killed since Saturday by US and Israeli attacks, with nearly 1,000 injured and more than 600 deaths still under review.
While Starmer has stressed that the UK "had no role" in launching the war, he has lent credence to the questionable case the US and Israel have made to justify it, including emphasizing that Iran "must never have nuclear weapons."
Iran has always contended its nuclear program was not for military purposes, and it had no desire to produce a nuclear weapon. Prior to Saturday’s strikes, reports indicated that Iranian negotiators had offered to give up the nation's entire stockpile of enriched uranium.
And though he has accused Iran of launching "indiscriminate strikes" across the Gulf, Starmer has been reticent to criticize similar actions by the US and Israel, which have had vastly larger death tolls, including the bombing of a girls' school that reportedly killed 165 people, most of them girls between ages 7 and 12, and attacks on several hospitals.
One day after the first strikes were conducted, and following mounting pressure from Trump, Starmer announced that he'd given the US approval for "specific, limited defensive" use of three Royal Air Force (RAF) bases—Fairford in England, Akrotiri in Cyprus, and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean—in order to destroy Iran's missiles "at source" after a drone hit Akrotiri, causing minimal damage.
However, Starmer continued to claim that the UK had learned the "mistakes of Iraq," and "will not join offensive action now."
Corbyn said that Starmer's insistence that bases would only be used "defensively" was merely "meaningless vocabulary that reveals Starmer’s contempt for the intelligence of the British people."
In Parliament on Monday, Starmer said that "the use of the bases is to allow the US to use its ability to take out the ability of Iran to launch the attacks in the first place."
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday used similar reasoning to justify launching the war, explaining that Iran was likely to retaliate against a planned Israeli attack and that it therefore posed an "imminent threat" to US personnel even though that threat was contingent on Israel attacking first.
Corbyn described the idea of a "preemptive strike" as a contradiction in terms. "Under this convoluted reasoning," he said, "almost any attack on anybody can be classified as a defensive measure. Starmer’s words are Newspeak—and cannot shield his government from complicity in the devastation ahead."
Like in the United States, the British public has expressed low support for American and Israeli actions against Iran. According to a YouGov poll published on Monday, 49% disapprove of US military action, compared to 28% who support it. Fewer than 1 in 5 Labour voters said they supported it.
Voters also said they oppose their government's involvement. Compared with just 32% of Brits who said they supported letting the US use British bases, 50% said they opposed it.
"For too long, Britain has blindly followed the US as it indulges in disastrous imperial fantasies," Corbyn said, noting the UK's continued support for Israel over two years of US-sponsored genocide in Gaza.
Corbyn is now an independent MP who co-founded a new political party after being thrown out of Labour in 2020 over dubious accusations of antisemitism, which he has alleged stem from his strong criticism of Israel.
"It’s time to forge a different path. Now is not the time to try to rescue a ‘special relationship’ characterised by impunity, genocide, and war," he said. "Now is the time to forge an independent foreign policy based on international law and peace."
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Why the Architects of Erasure Will Not Succeed in Gaza
Palestine has been subjected to waves of imperial conquest and colonial rule for thousands of years—and yet we, the Indigenous people of this land, remain.
Jan 21, 2026
The men in Western capitals who are making decisions about Gaza have no real understanding of its people. They do not know their history, their lineage, their culture, or their deep roots in the land. And now, added to them, are the rich and insulated men who have never associated with ordinary people even in their own countries—men who have never known hunger, fear, displacement, or the sound of bombs in the night.
These are the men who presume to determine the fate of a people who have lost their homes, their family members, and their limbs. They dine together on champagne and caviar, slap each other on the back for their “strategizing,” and congratulate themselves on their cleverness—while entire families are being erased and a wounded people are reduced to numbers in briefing papers.
Yet this is exactly what is happening. Men in Armani suits, taking their directives from a president who does not even know the geography of the region—much less its history—are now presiding over a grotesque tribunal whose real concern is not justice or peace, but real estate, luxury projects, and the protection of the occupiers. It is a scene reminiscent of the Dark Ages of Europe, when humanity was set aside so that a handful of rulers could live in comfort and isolation, untouched by the suffering they decreed for others.
They shuttle back and forth in carefully staged visits, with the media serving as their marketing arm, recording their words as if they were gospel truth, while the victims of this genocide continue to languish in tents, under rubble, and in extreme heat and cold. To make themselves look important—and to pretend they are learners and peacemakers—they “consult” with the occupiers, bribe or threaten the dependent regimes surrounding Palestine in the name of their so-called noble mission, and then announce to the world their “progress” in bringing peace to the region.
What these men do not understand is that even while bombs rain down on us from the sky, we focus not only on surviving, but on succeeding.
Even before they began this so-called mission, these wealthy men were already complicit in the destruction of Gaza. They are on record describing Gazans as barbaric killers who must be “reined in” because a small number of armed resisters refused to submit quietly to life under brutal Israeli occupation. Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald Trump and a close ally of Benjamin Netanyahu, has spoken openly about further ethnic cleansing. He was quoted as saying, “It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.”
When Steve Witkoff was asked whether a genocide was taking place in Gaza, he replied, “Absolutely not… No, no… there was a war being fought.” This, despite the fact that many major human rights organizations and genocide scholars—including Jewish and Holocaust experts—have described what is happening in Gaza as genocide.
As for Tony Blair, he has never seen a Western war he did not like. He was among the first to support the invasion of Iraq, took part in the Kosovo war, and remains an ardent supporter of Israel and its occupation. These men—and their wealthy Arab collaborators—see no problem in deciding the fate of the Palestinians without a single Palestinian at the table.
Their aim is clear: to keep Israel armed and protected as it continues what it has been doing since 1948—ethnically cleansing, colonizing, and reshaping Palestine in their so-called enlightened Western image and their so-called democracy.
They see Gaza only through maps, military briefings, and political calculations—not through the lives of human beings who carry memory, dignity, and an unbroken history in their very bones. You cannot govern, partition, or destroy a people you have never taken the time to know.
Yet as a Palestinian, I am not shocked or surprised by these delusions. I am not even discouraged by the scale of destruction or the theater of cruelty disguised as diplomacy. After all, our history is riddled with empires and conquerors. Palestine has been subjected to waves of imperial conquest and colonial rule for thousands of years—and yet we, the Indigenous people of this land, remain.
What these men do not understand is that even while bombs rain down on us from the sky, we focus not only on surviving, but on succeeding. While every university in Gaza has been destroyed, surviving professors have continued teaching and training new doctors to replace the many medical workers who were killed. What they will never understand is that children whose limbs were severed by bombs are forming soccer teams and playing the game they love on crutches.
What these so-called peacemakers will never understand is this: The men, women, and children whose fate they are trying to decide come from a lineage that has outlived every empire, outlasted every conqueror, and will still be here long after these architects of destruction have been forgotten.
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'War Criminals Are Proposing a War Criminal': Tony Blair Floated to Lead Gaza Transition
"The suggestion that Tony Blair—a key architect of the disastrous Iraq occupation and an apologist for Israel's war crimes—should take control of Gaza is insane and obscene."
Sep 26, 2025
Amid reporting this week that former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair could head a postwar transitional authority in the Gaza Strip, with support from US President Donald Trump, critics of the proposal are blasting the ex-Labour Party leader as a war criminal.
"It's the war criminal in chief now planning to assist in ethnic cleansing and persecution. After his successes in Afghanistan and Iraq," Lindsey German, convenor of the UK's Stop the War Coalition, said on social media Friday, sharing a BBC article about the development.
While serving as prime minister from 1997 to 2007, Blair played a key part in the US-led War on Terror, sending British troops to Afghanistan and Iraq. Though the 72-year-old has never faced formal charges for war crimes, critics from the UK to the Middle East and beyond have long argued that he should "be sitting in The Hague on trial" for his role in the illegal invasion.
As The Guardian noted Thursday: "After stepping down as prime minister in 2007, he took on the role of Middle East envoy until 2015, and he enjoys a high standing with many Gulf leaders. But Blair is bitterly resented by many Palestinians—who see him as having impeded their efforts to attain statehood—and more broadly across the region for his role in backing the 2003 US invasion of Iraq."
"The Palestinian people have the same right as all people to determine their own future, free from foreign interference or occupation."
Blair began working on a postwar proposal just months after Israel began bombing Gaza in October 2023 and met with Trump at the White House in August. In response to The Guardian's report that the president "is backing" a plan for Blair to lead the proposed Gaza International Transitional Authority, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said: "War criminals are proposing a war criminal as head of.... Gaza. It would be precious comedy if it were not so tragic."
Scottish historian William Dalrymple—co-host of the podcast Empire, whose recent episodes have focused on Gaza—quipped, "Given Blair's superb record in the Middle East, what could possibly go wrong?"'
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest US Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, said in a statement: "The suggestion that Tony Blair—a key architect of the disastrous Iraq occupation and an apologist for Israel's war crimes—should take control of Gaza is insane and obscene. The Trump administration should reject this neo-colonial proposal, which insults the people of the region and threatens to spark more conflict."
" Palestinians do not need a British war criminal to govern them. They need freedom, justice, and an end to the decades of brutal occupation and apartheid. Any attempt to impose outside Western leadership on Gaza after the genocide would almost certainly lead to more disaster," he added. "The Palestinian people have the same right as all people to determine their own future, free from foreign interference or occupation."
Chandni Desai, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto working on a book titled Revolutionary Circuits of Liberation: The Radical Tradition of Palestinian Resistance Culture and Internationalism, pointed to the UK's control of Palestine in the 20th century.
"The UK 'recognizes' the state of Palestine—but is the British Mandate back?" Desai said. "Tony Blair, who helped kill a million Iraqis, is now the US' pick to 'manage' Gaza. The empire never left. Gaza doesn't need a colonial viceroy, its people want liberation and self-determination."
Abdullah Omar, a 24-year-old Palestinian who has been documenting his experience "trying to survive the genocide" on social media, similarly wrote: "Tony Blair, who killed a million Iraqis. He is the one America wants to appoint to manage the Gaza Strip."
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Trump Admin Circulating Plan to Transform Depopulated Gaza Into High-Tech Cash Cow
Under the proposal, the US would take control after "voluntary" relocation of Palestinians from the strip, where proposed projects include an Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone and Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands.
Sep 01, 2025
The White House is "circulating" a plan to transform a substantially depopulated Gaza into US President Donald Trump's vision of a high-tech "Riviera of the Middle East" brimming with private investment and replete with artificial intelligence-powered "smart cities."
That's according a 38-page prospectus for a proposed Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration, and Transformation (GREAT) Trust obtained by The Washington Post and published in a report on Sunday. Parts of the proposal were previously reported by the Financial Times.
"Gaza can transform into a Mediterranean hub for manufacturing, trade, data, and tourism, benefiting from its strategic location, access to markets... resources, and a young workforce all supported by Israeli tech and [Gulf Cooperation Council] investments," the prospectus states.
However, to journalist Hala Jaber, the plan amounts to "genocide packaged as real estate."
Here comes the Gaza Network State.A plan to turn Gaza into a privately-developed “gleaming tourism resort and high-tech manufacturing and technology hub” with “AI-powered smart cities” and “Trump Riviera” resortgift link:wapo.st/4g2eATo
[image or embed]
— Gil Durán (@gilduran.com) August 31, 2025 at 10:18 AM
The GREAT Trust was drafted by some of the same Israelis behind the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), whose aid distribution points in Gaza have been the sites of deliberate massacres and other incidents in which thousands of aid-seeking Palestinians have been killed or wounded.
According to the Post, financial modeling for the GREAT Trust proposal "was done by a team working at the time for the Boston Consulting Group"—which played a key role in creating GHF. BCG told the Post that the firm did not approve work on the trust plan, and that two senior partners who led the financial modeling were subsequently terminated.
The GREAT Trust envisions "a US-led multirlateral custodianship" lasting a decade or longer and leading to "a reformed Palestinian self-governance after Gaza is "demilitarized and de-radicalized."
Josh Paul—a former US State Department official who resigned in October 2023 over the Biden administration's decision to sell more arms to Israel as it waged a war on Gaza increasingly viewed by experts as genocidal—told Democracy Now! last week that Trump's plan for Gaza is "essentially a new form of colonialism, a transition from Israeli colonialism to corporate" colonialism.
The GREAT Trust contains two proposals for Gaza's more than 2 million Palestinians. Under one plan, approximately 75% of Gaza's population would remain in the strip during its transformation. The second proposal involves up to 500,000 Gazans relocating to third countries, 75% of them permanently.
The prospectus does not say how many Palestinians would leave Gaza under the relocation option. Those who choose to permanently relocate to other unspecified countries would each receive $5,000 plus four years of subsidized rent and subsidized food for a year.
The GREAT Trust allocates $6 billion for temporary housing for Palestinians who remain in Gaza and $5 billion for those who relocate.
The proposal projects huge profits for investors—nearly four times the return on investment and annual revenue of $4.5 billion within a decade. The project would be a boon for companies ranging from builders including Saudi bin Laden Group, infrastructure specialists like IKEA, the mercenary firm Academi (formerly Blackwater), US military contractor CACI—which last year was found liable for torturing Iraqis at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison—electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, tech firms such as Amazon, and hoteliers Mandarin Oriental and IHG Hotels and Resorts.
Central to the plan are 10 "megaprojects," including half a dozen "smart cities," a regional logistics hub to be build over the ruins of the southern city of Rafah, a central highway named after Saudi Crown Prime Mohammed bin Salman—Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Gulf states feature prominently in the proposal as investors—large-scale solar and desalinization plants, a US data safe haven, an "Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone," and "Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands" similar to the Palm Islands in Dubai.
In addition to "massive" financial gains for private US investors, the GREAT Trust lists strategic benefits for the United States that would enable it to "strengthen" its "hold in the east Mediterranean and secure US industry access to $1.3 trillion of rare-earth minerals from the Gulf."
Earlier this year, Trump said the US would "take over" Gaza, American real estate developers would "level it out" and build the "Riviera of the Middle East" atop its ruins after Palestinians—"all of them"—leave Palestine's coastal exclave. The president called for the "voluntary" transfer of Gazans to Egypt and Jordan, both of whose leaders vehemently rejected the plan.
"Voluntary emigration" is widely considered a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, given Palestinians' general unwillingness to leave their homeland.
According to a May survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, nearly half of Gazans expressed a willingness to apply for Israeli assistance to relocate to other countries. However, many Gazans say they would never leave the strip, where most inhabitants are descendants of survivors of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the creation of Israel in 1948. Some are actual Nakba survivors.
"I'm staying in a partially destroyed house in Khan Younis now," one Gazan man told the Post. "But we could renovate. I refuse to be made to go to another country, Muslim or not. This is my homeland."
The Post report follows a meeting last Wednesday at the White House, where Trump, senior administration officials, and invited guests including former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, investor and real estate developer Jared Kushner—who is also the president's son-in-law—and Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer discussed Gaza's future.
While Dermer reportedly claimed that Israel does not seek to permanently occupy Gaza, Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder and forced starvation in Gaza—have said they will conquer the entire strip and keep at least large parts of it.
"We conquer, cleanse, and stay until Hamas is destroyed," Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently said. "On the way, we annihilate everything that still remains."
The Israel Knesset also recently hosted a conference called "The Gaza Riviera–from vision to reality" where participants openly discussed the occupation and ethnic cleansing of the strip.
The publication of the GREAT Trust comes as Israeli forces push deeper into Gaza City amid a growing engineered famine that has killed at least hundreds of Palestinians and is starving hundreds of thousands of more. Israel's 696-day assault and siege on Gaza has left at least 233,200 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—whose casualty figures are seen as a likely undercount by experts.
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Putin’s George W. Bush Problem: or Bush's Putin Problem?
Perhaps these “birds of a feather” ought to be “tried together?
Jan 14, 2023
V. Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine is a war crime. Although the “NATO expansion” is an apparent effort to encircle Russia on its western border with new NATO members, despite the promise of the Bush I administration not to do so, may be considered on the issue of appropriate punishment, it is no defense to the crime. In fact, aggressive war, or a war of invasion, is the “ultimate war crime” according to the Nuremberg Tribunal and the US Prosecutor Justice Jackson.
Recent precedent supports that Putin is subject to prosecution for the invasion of Ukraine. In particular, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal and Commission were established under the Laws of Malaysia; they had a pre-existing Statute and Rules of Procedure. They also paid for a qualified Team of Malaysian Barristers to defend the Defendants. They put on as vigorous a Defense as could have been made.
Despite that excellent defense, the accused--George W. Bush and Tony Blair--were convicted of war crimes based on overwhelming evidence of their guilt. In Kuala Lumpur, after two years of investigation by the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC), a tribunal (the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, or KLWCT) consisting of five judges with judicial and academic backgrounds reached a unanimous verdict (2011) that found George W. Bush and Tony Blair guilty of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, among others as a result of their roles in the Iraq invasion.
George W. Bush, the former US President, and seven key members of his administration were found guilty of war crimes: Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee, and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia.
In addition to the crime of aggressive war, the trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan following the illegal invasions and wars of aggression.
At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their key legal advisors, who were all convicted as war criminals.
Full transcripts of the charges, witness statements, and other relevant material have been sent to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council, apparently in support of “official criminal prosecution” by that body.
Mr. Putin ought to be concerned that this precedent, along with the Nuremberg Tribunal’s rulings, indicates a serious judgment by informed members of the international community that wars of aggression, and the other crimes that unavoidably follow such invasions, will be met with condemnation and legal action. The people of the world will demand and expect accountability, as no person is above the law.
Although, as of yet, Mr. Bush and his fellow defendants have not been brought before any “official” bar of justice, their status as War criminals will follow them and dog their days should they leave the “protection” of nations arguably complicit in their crimes. They travel internationally at risk of arrest by nations committed to the rule of law. They are branded with the “mark of Cain” indelibly and arguably even more odiously.
Of course, the condemnation of Mr. Putin’s like crime by US and Allied Officials would carry more moral force should Mr. Bush et al. be charged officially by those nations in which they have sought refuge—all such nations bear a duty to do so under the law of nations. Mr. Putin should not take solace in the lack of their prosecution. The unequal application of the law, especially the law of war, has long been one of its major defects. Both "victor's justice" (no consequential prosecution of a prevailing power) and superpower impunity (no documentable legal consequences for superpower war crimes or crimes against humanity) are at issue now as in the past.
However, the Israeli example of hunting down War Criminals from the Nazi regime despite their evasion of the official Nuremberg Tribunal is but one example of what the future may hold for such criminals. Lead amongst these was Simon Wiesenthal, ironically born in Ukraine. The great mass of humanity yearns for justice, despite being burdened with “leaders” whose arrogance erroneously enables them to conclude they are immune from justice. In this regard, universal jurisdiction over war crimes has the potential to ensnare war criminals and is very threatening to the Kissingers and Rumsfelds of this world, who have curtailed their travel schedules apparently out of fear of arrest in some nations that prefer the rule of law to war and justice for all to justice for some.
Perhaps, if brought to trial, Mr. Putin will call Mr. Bush as a witness for his defense. If Mr. Bush eludes accountability, Mr. Putin may argue, then I cannot be held accountable for the invasion of Ukraine without violating the principle of “equal justice under law.” On its face, this claim has some force, especially against US efforts, if any, to prosecute Mr. Putin, as it is foundational in US law that the law applies equally to all.
If Mr. Putin is guilty, then so is Mr. Bush. Selective prosecution in War Crimes cases makes a mockery of the rule of law and supports the claim that Nuremberg and all such efforts are mere “victors justice” that ignores the war crimes of victors while punishing losers, an extreme example of “might makes right.” Surely, it falls short of Abe Lincoln’s aspirational aphorism: “right makes might.”
Or perhaps, the prosecution would call Mr. Bush as an “expert” witness on what it takes to plan and commit a war of aggression, an illegal invasion, to lay a foundation for the tribunal to evaluate Mr. Putin’s plans and acts. This could be problematic, as Mr. Bush could elect to “plead the fifth,” taking the position that his testimony could open him to criminal prosecution for the same crime as Mr. Putin—a criminal war of aggression. And were Mr. Bush to testify his own words could convict him, thus taking the fifth is valid.
Regardless of the legal morass, the foregoing creates, humanity clearly owes a debt to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal. It provides a compelling precedent for the assertion that the law of the international community repudiates “victors’ justice” and that wars of aggression are crimes.
Even Mr. Bush appears to support that view. The 43rd president was making a presentation to an audience at his presidential library in Dallas on Wednesday, May 18, 2022 when he condemned “the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq – I mean Ukraine.” With such a declaration against his interest, Mr. Bush ratified the legitimacy of the Tribunal’s indictment and judgment of conviction.
The law of humanity is bending the moral arc of the universe towards justice, no matter how obstructionists like Mr. Putin, and Mr. Bush, try to stop it. On second thought, perhaps these “birds of a feather” ought to be “tried together?” Were it so, right could make might, and the rule of law could be promoted to its rightful place in a world free of war criminals.
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Hold All Politicians Accountable for Waging War, Not Just Putin
The Russian government has invaded Ukraine using the same pretext of national security that the U.S. used to invade Iraq 19 years ago in 2003.
Mar 05, 2022
As a U.S. diplomat who resigned from the U.S. government in 2003 in opposition to Bush's war on Iraq, I hoped at the time that all Americans would not be vilified by the world for the actions of the Bush administration.
As hard as it might be for some now, I plead that we not vilify the Russian people for the actions of their political leaders. I hope that we can be as generous to peace-seeking Russians as the world was to anti-war Americans.
I have visited Russia twice in the past 6 years and I know the Russians I spoke with--and I would guess that most Russians--do not want war and object to Putin's war on Ukraine.
Thousands of Russians have taken to the streets to protest the war and have been jailed. Thousands of Russians have signed letters and petitions to their own government to stop the military action against Ukraine.
By March 3, 2022, 1.5 million Russians had signed a petition calling for President Putin to end the war on Ukraine. "We demand an immediate ceasefire by the Russian Armed Forces, and their immediate withdrawal from the territory of the sovereign state of Ukraine." The petition described those who decided to start hostilities in Ukraine as "war criminals" who "sanctioned aggressive and war-justifying propaganda in the Russian media." The petition added: "We will seek to hold them accountable for their deeds."
4,000+ Russian scientists, science Journalists have written an open letter against a Ukraine war. Artists, curators, architects, critics, art historians, art managers and other representatives of culture and art of the Russian Federation initiated and signed an open letter against the war. I was honored to be a signatory of a letter from 12 American and 12 Russian women against a war. 44 of the top chess players in Russia wrote a letter of opposition to war on Ukraine.
As we in the United States deal with our concerns about war, I hope that Russian students will be allowed to continue studies in the U.S. without fear of hate and that Russian-American communities will not be targeted for the actions of a government they do not represent.
Six years ago I wrote about a two-week trip to Russia visiting cities in four regions of Russia. The one question that was asked over and over was, "Why does America hate us? Why do you demonize us?"
Most would add a caveat--"I like American people and I think YOU like us individually but why does the American government hate our government?"
Now six years later, the Russian government has invaded Ukraine using the same pretext of national security that the U.S. used to invade Iraq 19 years ago in 2003.
But as they have known from past international actions toward Russia, they will be demonized as individuals for the actions of their government whether they agree with the actions of their government or not, and will be suffering withering international sanctions that will purposefully disrupt their lives.
They wonder why citizens of other countries such as the United States, Saudi Arabia, Israel, United Arab Emirates and others, whose leaders have done the same illegal actions toward other countries and peoples in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Palestine, do not suffer the same outrage for the actions of their leaders.
I agree with the decision of the International Criminal Court prosecutor to open a case against President Putin for his war on Ukraine and ask him to add President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair to the ICC complaint for waging war on Iraq in 2003.
All politicians who wage war must be held accountable, not just President Putin.
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Anti-War Voices Denounce Knighting of Ex-PM Tony Blair
Protest plans got underway as a petition calling for the former prime minister's new knighthood to be rescinded had gathered over 1 million signatures.
Jan 10, 2022
Outrage continues to swell over the recent decision to give a knighthood to former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was instrumental in the bloody U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, with anti-war campaigners in the U.K. gearing up for a protest later this year.
"We will protest at this grotesque award in the name of the Iraqis, the Afghans, the families who lost soldiers, the refugees, and victims of these and subsequent wars."
"Blair should be facing a war crimes trial but instead he will be joining the Queen at Windsor Castle on 13 June to receive a knighthood," Stop the War Coalition (StW) says in an event description for an upcoming protest at the so-called Garter Day procession.
The outrage follows Buckingham Palace's December 31 announcement that Blair, who was prime minister from 1997-2007, was given the title of Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. It's the most senior honor within the British chivalry system, with knights chosen by the queen to "honor those who have held public office, who have contributed in a particular way to national life, or who have served the Sovereign personally."
At the annual procession at Windsor Castle in June, members of the order, including the queen, "process in grand velvet robes, glistening insignia, and plumed hats," according to Buckingham Palace.
Blair's knighthood announcement drew sharp condemnation from StW convener Lindsey German, who, while calling the "honors system... in itself a symptom of the rottenness of British politics," criticized the former prime minister's "culpability in launching the illegal war in Iraq." She added:
He has never shown one iota of remorse for his actions, and for the lies told about "weapons of mass destruction." Instead, he has justified every war and military intervention since. He should be on trial at The Hague rather than parading the medieval trappings of wealth and power. [...]
The Stop the War Coalition was formed 20 years ago to oppose his policies--and we continue to do so. We will protest at this grotesque award in the name of the Iraqis, the Afghans, the families who lost soldiers, the refugees, and victims of these and subsequent wars. He has blood on his hands.
German is far from alone in her criticism.
A Change.org petition started last week that calls for Blair's knighthood to be rescinded has already gathered over 1 million signatures.
"Tony Blair caused irreparable damage to both the constitution of the United Kingdom and to the very fabric of the nation's society," the petition states. "He was personally responsible for causing the death of countless innocent, civilian lives and servicement [sic] in various conflicts. For this alone he should be held accountable for war crimes."
"Blair is the least deserving person of any public honor," the petition adds, "particularly anything awarded by Her Majesty the Queen."
Petition supporters include journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger, who framed it as a way to "stand in solidarity with the men, women, and children whose lives were lost or ruined in the criminal invasion of Iraq."
The honor also puts into stark relief the contrasting treatment between those who launched illegal invasions and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, said Labour MP for Leeds Richard Burgon.
"It says a lot about what is wrong with our system when, after being one of the leading architects of the Iraq War, Tony Blair is honored with a knighthood while Julian Assange, who exposed war crimes in Iraq, faces extradition to the USA and a lifetime in prison," tweeted Burgon.
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In the UK, Calls Grow to Revoke Tony Blair's Knighthood Over Iraq War
"It's just heartbreaking really to think he's being rewarded for all the deaths that have happened. If he had any morals at all, he would decline and refuse it."
Jan 06, 2022
Citing his role in the Iraq War and other devastating conflicts, hundreds of thousands of people in the United Kingdom and beyond are calling for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be stripped of his newly bestowed knighthood.
"He was personally responsible for causing the death of countless innocent civilian lives and servicemen in various conflicts."
As of Thursday afternoon, over 900,000 people had signed the Change.org petition seeking to have Blair's "Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter"--one of the highest honors a British monarch can bestow upon a subject--rescinded. Queen Elizabeth II announced Blair's knighthood on New Year's Eve.
"Tony Blair caused irreparable damage to both the Constitution of the United Kingdom and to the very fabric of the nation's society," the petition states. "He was personally responsible for causing the death of countless innocent civilian lives and servicemen in various conflicts. For this alone he should be held accountable for war crimes."
"Tony Blair is the least deserving person of any public honor, particularly anything awarded by Her Majesty the Queen," the petition asserts.
Blair was then-U.S. President George W. Bush's staunchest ally during the Iraq War, which was waged on a foundation of nearly a thousand lies, including many about erstwhile ally Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and involvement in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The war destroyed Iraq. The Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs says that possibly over 200,000 Iraqi civilians died "from direct war-related violence caused by the U.S., its allies, the Iraqi military and police, and opposition forces from the time of the invasion through October 2019," with the vast majority of those deaths occurring during the invasion and eight-year occupation of the country, according to Iraq Body Count. One survey placed the number of Iraqi deaths at over one million. The Costs of War Project estimates that over 9.2 million Iraqis were displaced by the war.
The U.K. Ministry of Defense (MOD) reported that 179 British troops and MOD personnel died during Operation TELIC, which lasted from March 2003 through May 2011. That's the second-highest total of coalition service member deaths after the U.S., which lost over 4,400 troops and Department of Defense employees in what the Bush administration initially called Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL).
One of the petition's signatories, Elsie Manning, lost her daughter, Royal Army Staff Sgt. Sharron Elliott, when the patrol boat she and three other British service members were traveling in was hit by a bomb near Basra on Remembrance Day in 2006.
Manning told The East Anglian Daily Times she was "absolutely disgusted" to learn of Blair's knighthood.
"It's just a real insult to all those kids that have died and were injured and who are struggling with life," she said. "We as families are absolutely gutted. It's just heartbreaking really to think he's being rewarded for all the deaths that have happened."
"If he had any morals at all," Manning added, "he would decline and refuse it."
Blair also sent thousands of troops to fight in the U.S.-led coalition war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, a conflict in which over 200,000 people were killed and millions more were displaced. Last August, as U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan after 20 years of war and occupation, Blair blasted what he called the "tragic, dangerous, unnecessary" American "abandonment" of the country.
In addition to facing intense criticism for Britain's involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and for backing brutal dictatorships around the world, Blair was also condemned for joining the devastating 1999 NATO air war against Yugoslavia. Echoing then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, Blair listed one of the main reasons for the bombing campaign--which targeted civilian infrastructure, killing hundreds of men, women, and children--as protecting NATO's "credibility."
According to a January YouGov poll, only 14% of Britons approve of Blair's knighthood, with 79% of Conservatives and 56% of supporters of the former prime minister's own Labour Party opposing the move.
"The contempt in which Britain's elite holds the public has never been more eloquently expressed than in the decision to award Tony Blair the highest order of knighthood," Australian journalist John Pilger tweeted earlier this week, sardonically adding, "Rise, Sir Tony!"
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Pandora Papers: 'Biggest-Ever' Bombshell Leak Exposes Financial Secrets of the Super-Rich
"This is the Panama Papers on steroids."
Oct 03, 2021
In what's being called the "biggest-ever leak of offshore data," a cache of nearly 12 million documents published Sunday laid bare the hidden wealth, secret dealings, and corruption of hundreds of world leaders, billionaires, public officials, celebrities, and others.
The bombshell revelations--known as the Pandora Papers--were published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and include private emails, secret contracts, and other records obtained during a two-year investigation involving more than 600 journalists in 117 countries and territories.
"This is the Panama Papers on steroids," said ICIJ director Gerard Ryle, referring to the 2016 expose of the tax-evading secrets of the super-rich. "It's broader, richer, and has more detail."
According to The Guardian:
More than 100 billionaires feature in the leaked data, as well as celebrities, rock stars, and business leaders. Many use shell companies to hold luxury items such as property and yachts, as well as incognito bank accounts. There is even art ranging from looted Cambodian antiquities to paintings by Picasso and murals by Banksy.
"There's never been anything on this scale and it shows the reality of what offshore companies can offer to help people hide dodgy cash or avoid tax," said ICIJ's Fergus Shiel, who added that the people in the files "are using those offshore accounts, those offshore trusts, to buy hundreds of millions of dollars of property in other countries, and to enrich their own families, at the expense of their citizens."
The leaked documents reveal how some of the world's wealthiest people avert the financial consequences of their misdeeds by using offshore entities. Dozens of current and former world leaders feature prominently in the files, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Jordanian King Abdullah II, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
While most of the richest Americans do not appear in the files, The Washington Post reports that "perhaps the most troubling revelations for the United States... center on its expanding complicity in the offshore economy."
Chuck Collins, author of The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions, and co-editor of Inequality.org at the Institute for Policy Studies, said in a statement that "the U.S. has become the weak link in stopping global crime and wealth hiding."
"States like South Dakota and Delaware have morphed their laws to attract billions, sometimes illicitly obtained, from around the world," he said. "We in the U.S. should be embarrassed that we've become a magnet for kleptocratic funds."
Collins added that the Pandora Papers show "it is time for U.S. lawmakers to shut down the hidden wealth system that allows for such aggressive tax avoidance and the sequestering of wealth."
ICIJ said Sunday that the "publication of Pandora Papers stories comes at a critical moment in a global debate over the fairness of the international tax system, the role of Western professionals in the shadow economy, and the failure of governments to stanch the flow of dirty money into hidden companies and trusts," and that the documents "are expected to yield new revelations for years to come."
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Peace Group Challenges 'Architect' of Failed Wars Tony Blair to Public Debate
"Far from having a humanitarian impact, these interventions have served to make the world a much more dangerous and unstable place."
Aug 26, 2021
The Stop the War coalition on Thursday invited former British Prime Minister Tony Blair--whom they called "one of the architects of the war on terror"--to a public debate on the impacts of the U.K.'s wars over the past two decades, framing such a dialogue as necessary "to help guide the foreign policy of the future."
The challenge (pdf) from the antiwar group followed an over 2,700-word essay Blair posted Saturday on his website in which he slammed U.S. President Joe Biden's decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan as "tragic, dangerous, unnecessary," and an act merely "in obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending 'the forever wars,' as if our engagement in 2021 was remotely comparable to our commitment 20 or even 10 years ago."
In 2001, then-Prime Minister Blair led the U.K. to war in Afghanistan alongside U.S. President George W. Bush. In 2003, he backed the Bush-led U.S. invasion of Iraq. Blair also called for British military intervention in Syria.
Stop the War said in their letter to Blair that "the death and destruction caused by the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and the attacks on Syria and Libya was catastrophic in itself and that, far from having a humanitarian impact, these interventions have served to make the world a much more dangerous and unstable place."
"This is not just a quetion of the interrpetation of history," the group continued. "The lessons learnt or not learnt from these wars will have a real impact on the future of our foreign policy."
In contrast to Blair's "continued emphasis on military intervention" to solve global problems, the peace group's letter advocates bringing an "end to the wars" by deploying a "foreign policy based on international cooperation, diplomacy, and negotiation."
MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan also responded to Blair's essay, tweeting Saturday, "Weird Blair said so many words when he could have just said 'SORRY!'"
In a minute-long rant on his show Sunday, Hasan suggested that was the only word proponents of the war in Afghanistan, including ex-government officials, should utter in reaction to the ongoing U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Speaking on Democracy Now! Thursday, British MP Jeremy Corbyn, former chair of the Stop the War coalition, also offered a critical response to comments from Blair.
Along with George W. Bush, Blair "took us into a war that made no sense whatsoever," said Corbyn, lamenting that "all the worst predictions that any of us ever made have all come to pass."
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