Blair War Crimes

Tony Blair (whoops, just typed his name as Bliar, as in B-liar) admitted that he would have supported removing Saddam Hussein from power even without the argument that Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction. In response,

A lawyer for Saddam Hussein’s jailed former deputy prime minister, Tareq Aziz, wrote to Britain’s top legal adviser Saturday asking permission to prosecute Blair for war crimes.

It seems to me that Blair, former Prime Minister of what was, until World War II, one of the greatest modern empires, denounced the possibility of leading his still great island nation with dignity and independence and claimed the role waiting for him as the greatest lap-dog-prime-minister of the expanding United States empire. So much for the inspiring empire on which the sun never set; the British empire that should have inspired awe in all people, despite its many faults, because of the grandeur it promised and the hope (even false hope) which it engendered. The empire that challenged France for moral greatness even in France’s best day, the empire which challenged even the intellectual and artistic grandeur of the short-lived Weimar Republic — that empire is no more. That is nothing new, but, Blair, you have sounded the final note. Was that your wish?

Postscript: I titled this post “Blair War Crimes” well aware of the bluntness of that title. I do not mean to adjudicate blame without cause. There are many people who have committed war crimes. Some of those people have been tried and prosecuted, some have not. I say “Blair War Crimes” with perfect sincerity and with an understanding of what that means; he has not been found guilty in a court of law, so I cannot say he is guilty except by the perception that he has, along with many others, committed war crimes.