woensdag, februari 10, 2010
Iraq and the fig-leaf of just war theory
Discussing the Chilcot Inquiry into the invasion and occupation of Iraq on BBC Radio 5 on 20 January this year, John Rentoul, quoting Nick Cohen, challenged ‘the anti-war mob’, and more specifically Philippe Sands, to tell him how any war could be ‘illegal’. Cohen, like Rentoul, is an apologist for the Iraq War, petulant about critics who insist it was illegal. His petulance, elaborated in the article quoted below, is rooted in his (entirely correct) insistence that the murderous Sadaam Hussein regime was itself acting in ways which were plainly illegal. But my concern isn’t with whether two wrongs make a right. Rather it’s with Cohen’s ‘simple question’:I am growing old and grey waiting for John Humphrys or Jon Snow to show a spark of journalistic life and ask Nick Clegg, Philippe Sands and all the rest of them the simple question: "What do you mean by an 'illegal war'?"
Read more >> | openDemocracy
Labels: Irak onderzoek, Iraq, Iraq Inquiry Chilcot, Just War, United Kingdom
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donderdag, januari 28, 2010
Goldsmith at Chilcot: line by Lyne
he attorney general's change of mind on the legality of force against Iraq appears a tragic compromise of his independenceLord Goldsmith's appearance at the Iraq inquiry was just what one would expect from a leading lawyer who is used to appearing before the country's highest courts. He was calm and reassuring – a bit like drinking hot chocolate, said a friend – and he was well-prepared and authoritative.
But did he do enough to dispel the doubts about the integrity and independence of the decision-making process that led to his eleventh-hour opinion that the Iraq war was unambiguously lawful?
By Philippe Sands
Read more >> | The Guardian
Labels: Irak onderzoek, Iraq Inquiry Chilcot, United Kingdom
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US lawyers persuaded Lord Goldsmith to change his mind on Iraq war
ony Blair only got the “green light” to invade Iraq after his Attorney General visited Washington and was told by US lawyers that he was wrong to oppose the war.Lord Goldsmith told the Iraq Inquiry today that he altered his advice a few weeks before the bombing of Baghdad after a series of meetings with American legal advisors. He had initially warned that United Nations resolution 1441, passed in November 2002, did not provide a legal basis for overthrowing Saddam Hussein.
Read more >> | US lawyers persuaded Lord Goldsmith to change his mind on Iraq war - Times Online
Labels: Irak onderzoek, Iraq Inquiry Chilcot, United Kingdom
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dinsdag, januari 26, 2010
Chilcot inquiry: Lawyers expose pressure to give green light for war
oreign secretary resisted legal advice on invasion of Iraq- Attorney general's advice not sought until eleventh hour
While Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, was roundly dismissing the unanimous advice of his top lawyers that an invasion of Iraq would be illegal, officials in Downing Street were strongly resisting similar unwelcome advice, this time from Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general.
Previously classified documents released today at the Chilcot inquiry offer a rare, perhaps unprecedented, insight into manoeuvring at the heart of government about one of the most serious issues to confront ministers – whether to go to war, and the lawfulness of it.
Read more >> | The Guardian
See also >> | Lord Goldsmith
See also >> | Straw's clash with lawyers laid bare at Iraq inquiry - BBC News
Labels: Irak crisis, Irak onderzoek, Iraq Inquiry Chilcot, United Kingdom
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donderdag, januari 21, 2010
Jack Straw appearance at Chilcot Inquiry blows open Iraq war divisions
he stark divisions at the heart of government on the eve of the Iraq war were blown open again today when Jack Straw hinted that he considered his position in the build-up to the conflict.The Justice Secretary, who was Foreign Secretary at the time of the invasion, handed a 25-page memo to the official Iraq Inquiry before he gave evidence this afternoon, which stated that he believed he had a "profoundly difficult" moral dilemma when he was asked whether to support the war.
“The moral as well as the political dilemma were profoundly difficult," he wrote. "I was also fully aware that my support for military action was critical.
Read more >> | The Times Online
See also >> | The Jack Straw Memorandum (pdf)
See also >> | Chris Ames - The Guardian
See also >> | I could have vetoed UK military action in Iraq, Jack Straw tells inquiry - The Guardian
See also >> | Jack Straw at the Iraq war inquiry - The Guardian
See also >> | Jack Straw says 45-minute Iraq claim has 'haunted us'
See also >> | The Iraq Inquiry Timetable
Labels: Irak onderzoek, Iraq, Iraq Inquiry Chilcot, United Kingdom
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dinsdag, januari 19, 2010
Iraq inquiry: Hoon says UK war backing not inevitable
ritish involvement in the invasion of Iraq was not decided until it was approved by MPs, Geoff Hoon has said.The ex-defence secretary said the UK always hoped diplomatic efforts on Iraq would be successful and had never given "unconditional" support for war.
It would have been "inappropriate" for the cabinet to discuss the legal advice it received on the war, he said.
Letters show that the attorney general warned Mr Hoon in April 2002 about the legality of military action.
Read more >> | BBC News
Labels: Irak crisis, Iraq, Iraq Inquiry Chilcot, United Kingdom
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zondag, januari 17, 2010
Straw privately warned Blair that Iraq invasion was legally dubious
etter to PM from foreign secretary challenged gravity of threat from Saddam in lead-up to pivotal meeting with BushJack Straw privately warned Tony Blair that an invasion of Iraq was legally dubious, questioned what such action would achieve, and challenged US claims about the threat from Saddam Hussein, it was revealed today
Read more >> | The Guardian
Labels: Foreign Policy, Irak crisis, Irak onderzoek, Iraq, United Kingdom, United Nations
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dinsdag, januari 12, 2010
Iraq war was illegal, Dutch panel rules
nquiry says conflict had no sound mandate in international law as it emerges UK denied key letter to seven-judge tribunalThe war in Iraq had "no basis in international law", a Dutch inquiry found today, in the first ever independent legal assessment of the decision to invade.
In a series of damning findings, a seven-member panel in the Netherlands concluded that the war, which was supported by the Dutch government following intelligence from Britain and the US, had not been justified in law.
Read more >> | The Guardian
Labels: Dutch politics, Foreign Policy, Irak onderzoek, Iraq, United Kingdom, United Nations
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Alastair Campbell defends 'every word' of Iraq dossier
ony Blair's ex-spokesman Alastair Campbell has said he "defends every single word" of the 2002 dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.Mr Campbell told the UK's Iraq war inquiry the dossier could have been "clearer" but did not "misrepresent" the threat from Saddam's weapons.
Read more >> | BBC News
Labels: Irak onderzoek, Iraq, United Kingdom, United States
- posted by DD @ 3:36 PM Perma Link/Print (0) comments
maandag, december 28, 2009
Afghanistan: What Could Work
ool poker-players, we are tempted to believe, only raise or fold: they only increase their bet or leave the game. Calling, making the minimum bet to stay, suggests that you can't calculate the odds or face losing the pot, and that the other players are intimidating you. Calling is for children. Real men and women don't want to call in Afghanistan: they want to dramatically increase troops and expenditure, defeat the Taliban, and leave. Or they just want to leave. Both sides—the disciples of the surge and the apostles of withdrawal—therefore found some satisfaction in one passage in President Obama's speech at West Point on December 1:I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.
But the rest left them uneasy. This was not, as they might have imagined, because he was lurching between two contradictory doctrines of increase and withdrawal, but because the rest of his speech argued for a radically different strategy—a call strategy—which is about neither surge nor exit but about a much-reduced and longer-term presence in the country. The President did not make this explicit. But this will almost certainly be the long-term strategy of the US and its allies. And he has with remarkable courage and scrupulousness articulated the premises that lead to this conclusion. First, however, it is necessary to summarize the history of our involvement and the conventional policies that have long favored surge and exit.
By Rory Stewart
Read more | Afghanistan: What Could Work - The New York Review of Books
Labels: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, United Kingdom, United Nations, United States
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vrijdag, december 25, 2009
The making of the modern state
he Glorious Revolution of 1688 has long been consigned to the revolutionary B-list, dismissed as a bloodless back-room deal. A new history proves the event worthy of its name, writesThe Revolution of 1688-89 was the culmination of a long and vitriolic argument about how to transform England into a modern nation,” Pincus writes. He suggests that later generations took the achievements of the Glorious Revolution for granted. With the passage of time, it boomed less louder, and its effects were perhaps subtler. But the argument had hardly ended. The Glorious Revolution inaugurated a new phase in history, in which commerce supplanted landed wealth as the ultimate guarantor of economic success, and the “Dutch model” became the way of the world. Though the later revolutions in America and France would revise the terms of the liberal state – the first toward democracy, the second toward equality – the world made by 1688, as Pincus so adroitly demonstrates, is the one in which we still live today.
Read more | The making of the modern state - The National Newspaper
Labels: History, United Kingdom
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maandag, juni 15, 2009
Cameron: Iraq inquiry looks 'fixed'
ritish Prime Minister Brown announced today an inquiry into the start and conduct of the Iraq war. It is met with scepticism in parliament.Labels: Iraq, United Kingdom
- posted by DD @ 6:23 PM Perma Link/Print (0) comments
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