The British Military in Iraq: A Legacy of War Crimes and Atrocities by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted at Global Research
3 September, 2010

“Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war.” (Tony Blair, speech as newly elected Prime Minister, 1997.)

August is seemingly Spotlight on Illegal Invasion month. President Obama has made his Mission-Lost-Cause speech about US., Iraq fantasy “withdrawal” – leaving behind 50,000 troops, perhaps 50,000 mercenaries, and some have suggested 100,000 “advisors.”

Blood Money by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted at Global Research
21 August, 2010

“Let me ask you one question, is your money that good? Will it buy you forgiveness? Do you think that it could?” (Bob Dylan, Masters of War.)

Sometimes a topic simply will not go away. These weeks, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, Q.C., former Prime Minister, alleged potential war criminal, surreal Middle East Peace Envoy – who led an administration who shared responsibility for, if not quite rivers of blood, bloodied market places, mosques, squares, homes, humans, hospitals, beyond counting – just keeps coming back and back.

John Pilger: Rebranding the Iraq War – The US has no intention of leaving Iraq

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

AlJazeeraEnglish | August 21, 2010

US combat forces have left Iraq, but who should be held accountable for the invasion and occupation that has left hundreds of thousands dead? Veteran investigative journalist John Pilger joins the show to discuss.

Mr. Blair: About Your Book Signing: Dedication Suggestions… Every letter of Every Word is Written in a Child’s Blood by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
13 August, 2010

“Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.”  (Psalms 16:18.)

I note you will be signing your book, “A Journey”, at Waterstone’s flagship book shop, on London’s Piccadilly, on the 8th September. As this will seemingly be a day when democracy is suspended, security near unprecedented, bags, cameras, briefcases, mobile ‘phones checked in before being allowed to ask for your signature, I may not be able to get to near to you with these suggestions, so some ideas from afar for your dedications.

Tony Blair: A Bright Shining Lie (Part 2) by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
19 July, 2010

“If justice and truth take place,
If he is rewarded according to his just desert,
His name will stink to all generations.”
(William Wesley, 1703-1791.)

It has been a good couple of weeks of medal gathering for Charles Anthony Lynton Blair, QC. To add a lucrative and glittering array (1) he has added to the (30th June) announcement of the (US) National Constitution Center’s Liberty Medal, the award of a second “Freedom Medal” (first, January 2009, from the US) on 10th July.

The man who scribbled: “I just do not understand this”, in the margin of the advice from his top Law Lord, that the the invasion of Iraq would be illegal without a second United Nations Resolution, ignored, or dodged legalities, committing his country to the destruction of a sovereign nation, has been honoured again, this time, some might say, appropriately.

Miliband: People in the Middle East respect us for having fulfilled our warning that it was Iraq’s last chance to avoid war

Propaganda Alert

compiled by Cem Ertür
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
11 March 2010


1) David Miliband: People in the Middle East respect us for having fulfilled our warning that it was Iraq’s last chance to avoid war (8 March 2010)

relevant document:

2) Tony Blair: Iraq is better, our own security is better with Saddam out of power (28 January 2010)

Blair warned in 2000 Iraq war was illegal By Michael Savage

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

[tweetmeme source= “DandelionSalads” only_single=false]

By Michael Savage
The Independent
Tuesday, 2 March 2010

Secret papers withheld by Chilcot inquiry reveal Foreign Office fears over invasion

An invasion of Iraq was discussed within the Government more than two years before military action was taken – with Foreign Office mandarins warning that an invasion would be illegal, that it would claim “considerable casualties” and could lead to the breakdown of Iraq, The Independent can reveal.

The extent of Whitehall opposition to the policy eventually backed by Tony Blair emerges just three days before Gordon Brown will appear at the Iraq Inquiry, where he will be asked to explain his role in the Government’s decision to invade.

[…]

via Blair warned in 2000 Iraq war was illegal – UK Politics, UK – The Independent

h/t: CLG

Plan to oust Saddam drawn up two years before the invasion

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

By Michael Savage, Political Correspondent
The Independent
Monday, 1 February 2010

A secret plan to foster an internal coup against Saddam Hussein was drawn up by the Government two years before the invasion of Iraq, The Independent can reveal.

Whitehall officials drafted the “contract with the Iraqi people” as a way of signalling to dissenters in Iraq that an overthrow of Saddam would be supported by Britain. It promised aid, oil contracts, debt cancellations and trade deals once the dictator had been removed. Tony Blair’s team saw it as a way of creating regime change in Iraq even before the 9/11 attack on New York.

[…]

via Plan to oust Saddam drawn up two years before the invasion – UK Politics, UK – The Independent

h/t: CLG

see

Inside the mind of a psychopath and the Chilcot ‘Inquiry’ By William Bowles

The madness of Tony Blair, the futility of the Chilcot inquiry

The Chilcot ‘Inquiry’: a theatre of the absurd By William Bowles

Inside the mind of a psychopath and the Chilcot ‘Inquiry’ By William Bowles

By William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Creative-i
1 February 2010

Reams have been written about the appearance of Tony Blair at the so-called inquiry. Very few if any have even come close to identifying the real nature of the beast called Tony Blair.

Were he a working class man, head of a crime gang for example, Blair’s ‘pathology’ would have been central to most mainstream media coverage, revealing the class bias in how the the media treat the ruling elites. His judgment, even his arrogance maybe questioned but not his mental state.

---

There seems to be some disagreement over what constitutes a sociopath or psychopath but in trawling the web I came across all kinds of definitions. For example,

The madness of Tony Blair, the futility of the Chilcot inquiry

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
30 January 2010

So will the Chilcot Inquiry into the illegal invasion of Iraq actually do anything when it finally reaches its conclusions? It seems unlikely. Over the last two months, we have had some fascinating moments: on November 26, for example, when Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain’s ambassador to the US, delivered testimony which, as I explained at the time, “demonstrated, without a shadow of a doubt, how ‘regime change’ in Iraq was agreed between George W. Bush and Tony Blair in April 2002, and how the rush to war by the US meant that furious attempts to justify the plan were doomed to fail, ‘because there was no smoking gun.’”

The Chilcot ‘Inquiry’: a theatre of the absurd By William Bowles

By William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Creative-i
29 December 2009

Crossposted at Strategic Culture Foundation, 16 December 2009

Why does the extermination of an entire culture cause not a ripple in our public discourse? The answer is obvious: we don’t have any kind of discourse with those who wield power. The Chilcott ‘Inquiry’ demonstrates this down to a tee. It’s brazen in its disregard for the reality of the crimes the British state has committed in Iraq and continues to commit in Afghanistan. And brazen in the way it scoots a lot of very guilty-looking ‘witnesses’ through the process as painlessly as possible. How has this come to pass?

Normalising the Crime of the Century By John Pilger

Dandelion Salad

By John Pilger
Information Clearing House
www.johnpilger.com
December 09, 2009

I tried to contact Mark Higson the other day only to learn he had died nine years ago. He was just 40, an honourable man. We met soon after he had resigned from the Foreign Office in 1991 and I asked him if the government knew that Hawk fighter-bombers sold to Indonesia were being used against civilians in East Timor.

“Everyone knows,” he said, “except parliament and the public.”

“And the media?”

“The media – the big names – have been invited to King Charles Street (the Foreign Office) and flattered and briefed with lies. They are no trouble.”

Secret letter to reveal new Blair war lies

Dandelion Salad

By Simon Walters, Mail on Sunday Political Editor
http://www.dailymail.co.uk
Last updated at 1:48 AM on 29th November 2009

An explosive secret letter that exposes how Tony Blair lied over the legality of the Iraq War can be revealed.

The Chilcot Inquiry into the war will interrogate the former Prime Minister over the devastating ‘smoking gun’ memo, which warned him in the starkest terms the war was illegal.

[…]

via Secret letter to reveal new Blair war lies | Mail Online

h/t: CLG

see also

Lord Goldsmith ‘warned Tony Blair Iraq war could be illegal’ in 2002 – Telegraph

h/t: CLG

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see

The Iraq War ‘Inquiry’: ‘Revelations’? What revelations? By William Bowles

Iraq Inquiry: Sir Christopher Meyer Confirms That Iraq War Was Illegal by Andy Worthington

The Iraq inquiry + Iraq inquiry hears regime change claim

The Iraq War ‘Inquiry’: ‘Revelations’? What revelations? By William Bowles

By William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Creative-i
27 November 2009

“We spent a long time at dinner on IRAQ. It is clear that Bush is grateful for your support and has registered that you are getting flak. I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States. And you would not budge either in your insistence that, if we need pursued regime change, it must be very carefully done and produce the right result. Failure was not an option.” – David Manning (Blair’s policy advisor).[1]

I read with amazement the ‘revelations’ concerning war criminal Tony Blair’s visit to Camp Crawford in March 2002 where Bush/Blair decided that ‘regime change’ was the order of the day. But there’s nothing new about these ‘revelations’, indeed I and many others reported this meeting literally years ago.

“The start date for the military campaign was now pencilled in for 10 March [2003]. This was when the bombing would begin.” — George Bush

Iraq Inquiry: Sir Christopher Meyer Confirms That Iraq War Was Illegal by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
26 November 2009

No matter how it ends up being spun, Sir Christopher Meyer’s testimony to the Chilcot Inquiry today demonstrated, without a shadow of a doubt, how “regime change” in Iraq was agreed between George W. Bush and Tony Blair in April 2002, and how the rush to war by the US meant that furious attempts to justify the plan were doomed to fail, “because there was no smoking gun.”

Meyer, who was Britain’s ambassador to the US between 1997 and 2003, was speaking about British and American policy towards Iraq between the 9/11 attacks and the invasion of March 2003. He explained how, before 9/11, the general feeling in the Bush administration was that Iraq was “running out of steam,” and that it was a low priority, but that, immediately after the 9/11 attacks, Iraq rose to the top of the US agenda.