Wednesday, July 11, 2012

One gets booed, the other gets applause

In the United Kingdom, a War Hawk continues to be free range but his actions may yet pen him in.

thepoodle


From May 13, 2007, that's Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Exit the Poodle."  Sadly, the Poodle did not stay exited and now he wants to be considered someone worth listening to.  And, possibly, if you were planning a genocide or how to bankrupt a nation, Tony Blair might be able to share some valuable tips.  But if you're looking for wisdom, you better look elsewhere. 
Stop the War Coalition's Lindsey German has a Guardian column on Tony Blair.


Five years after he left Downing Street, Tony Blair's attempted comeback to political life shows how little he understands about what went wrong with his career, and about the level of opposition to him that still remains.
He has planned a series of fundraising events to facilitate his return to grace, including an "in conversation" with Tessa Jowell and a £500-a-head dinner alongside Ed Miliband tomorrow. Jowell had to hastily cancel her appearance for fear of demonstrations. Tonight's Blair event at Arsenal's Emirates stadium in north London will be met by protests organised by the Stop the War coalition over his role in the Iraq war.
It appears that his old friend and partner in crime, Alastair Campbell, will be there. While we have to assume that those attending will not choke on their dinners, many Labour members and voters will find all this too much to stomach.

War Hawk Blair has been attempting to remake his image for several months now and with little success.  Blair's having to learn that while urine can be bleached out, apparently the blood of over a million dead Iraqis can't.   Lewis McCrary (National Interest) notes:


Despite abundant press coverage, Blair's return to the British public stage has been rocky, with what was to be his first big appearance this week—at a Labour party rally—cancelled after antiwar groups threatened to disrupt the event. These protesters may have sensed that Blair was up to his old tricks, advocating crusades for democracy in the Middle East. And who could blame them after he wrote recently in London's Evening Standard that the West must teach the Middle East that "democracy is not just a way of voting but a way of thinking" and some Muslim Brotherhood positions "are going to be incompatible with progress, possibly with peace." Iraq did not prove that sometimes the free world should "leave a brutal dictatorship in power"; rather, Blair says he has learned of a new inconvenience, "tribal forces of disruption that make the pathway to the future very hard to navigate."


Press TV adds:


Anti-war activists have now planned another rally against Blair outside Arsenal Stadium in London where the dinner is planned to be held.
“Tony Blair is on the comeback trail to rehabilitate his political career. Help give him the welcome he deserves when he speaks at Arsenal Stadium on Wednesday 11 July: War Criminals are not welcome here... or anywhere except at the International Criminal Court facing war crime charges,” the Stop the War Coalition, which has organized the protest, said. 

Tony Blair's been confronted anytime he's gone in public, to offer testimony, to deliver a speech he's been obscenely paid for, etc. By contrast Iraqi-American Sami Rasouli doesn't have to flee. He's not a Frankenstein and villagers aren't trying to chase him down.  As the director of Muslim Peacemaker Teams, he has worked in Iraq with Iraqi refugees.    Carlos Gallego (Asian American Press) reports on an event he recently participated in:


Sami Rasouli began by introducing the audience to his wife and four year old son and then quickly moved to a lesson in history. He noted while some in the audience are aware of what is really going on in Iraq and the Middle East most have no clue as the mainstream media fails to cover the truth.
“The truth needs a tongue to speak,” said Rasouli.
He proceeded to connect the dots by noting that as early as 1956, M. King Hubbert of Shell Oil predicted peak oil use in the US would occur in 1975 and after 1975 and there would be a need to get oil and natural gas from elsewhere. He correlated how in 1998 former Vice President Cheney served as CEO at Halliburton and their views seemed to influence U.S. policies in the Middle East, he continued on how then 911 came about and 2 years later the United States invaded of Iraq.
Rasouli mentioned while the media has lead us to believe that Israel has been silent, that in fact they support and encourage much of the turmoil occurring in the Middle East. He spoke of the U.S. polices along with Israel’s desire to have its borders stretch from one river to the next (from the Nile to the Euphrates) create havoc throughout the Middle East.


In addition to Rasouli being able to walk freely in the daylight -- while Tony Blair has to sulk in the shadows --  the Iraqi & American Reconciliation Project is planning a dinner to honor Sami Rasouli who has done much work for and in Iraq.  The dinner in his honor is planned for July 17th at the Crescent Moon banquest hall in Minneapolis.


The following community sites -- plus Adama Kokesh, Pacifica Evening News, Antiwar.com and CSPAN -- updated last night and this morning:

Cedric's Big Mix
The deadlock
23 minutes ago
The Daily Jot
THIS JUST IN! HE STILL STRUGGLES!
23 minutes ago 
Uploads by username: "AdamKokesh"
We are nullifying laws on an individual basis
1 hour ago
 
 
 
Law professor Francis A. Boyle is an expert in international law and human rights law. We'll close with this:

MOTHERS OF SREBRENICA AND PODRINJA ASSOCIATION
V.
UNITED NATIONS OFFICIALS AND OTHERS INCLUDING CARL BILDT
(CRIMINAL COMPLAINT FOR THE SREBRENICA MASSACRE)
UNITED NATIONS, THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS.
The Mothers of Srebrenica and Podrinja Association, headquartered in Vogosca, Bosnia and Herzegovina file a Criminal Complaint with the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Madame Carla Del Ponte, on Friday, February 4 against the following Officials of the United Nations Organization and others for the role they played in the fall and genocidal massacre at Srebrenica in July of 1995: BOUTROS BOUTROS-GHALI, KOFI ANNAN, YASUSHI AKASHI, BERNARD JANVIER, RUPERT SMITH, HERVÉ GOBILLIARD, JORIS VOORHOEVE, CEES NICOLAI, THOMAS KARREMANS, ROBERT FRANKEN, THORVALD STOLTENBERG, CARL BILDT, DAVID OWEN, MICHAEL ROSE, THEIR SUBORDINATES, SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC, RADOVAN KARADZIC, AND RATKO MLADIC.
The genocidal massacre at Srebrenica was the single greatest human rights atrocity perpetrated in Europe since the genocidal horrors inflicted by the Nazis during the Second World War. Approximately 10,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were systematically exterminated during just a few days by the Bosnian Serb Army under the direct command of Milosevic, Karadzic, and Mladic. During this time, the above-named United Nations Officials and their subordinates deliberately and maliciously refused to do anything to stop this genocidal massacre at the U.N.-declared "safe area" of Srebrenica despite having the legal obligation, the legal and political authority, and the military power to do so.
The Complaint accuses the above-named United Nations Officials and their subordinates of planning, preparing, conspiring, instigating, complicity, and otherwise aiding and abetting, in the planning, preparation, conspiracy, complicity, and execution of crimes referred to in articles 2 to 5 of the ICTY Statute: Article 2--Grave Breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949; Article 3--Violations of the Laws or Customs of War; Article 4--Genocide; and Article 5--Crimes against Humanity.
Under ICTY Statute article 18(1), this Complaint establishes a "sufficient basis to proceed" toward the investigation and indictment of the above-named United Nations Officials and their subordinates by the Prosecutor. Pursuant to article 18(4) of the Statute, the Complaint requests that the Prosecutor prepare the appropriate indictments against the above-named United Nations Officials and their subordinates, and transmit these indictments to a Judge of the ICTY Trial Chamber for confirmation. If confirmed by the Judge, theComplaint requests that pursuant to Statute article 19(2), the Prosecutor request the Judge to issue international warrants calling for the arrest, detention, surrender and transfer to the Tribunal of the above-named United Nations Officials and their subordinates. The Complaint also requests that the Prosecutor ask the confirming Judge to freeze the worldwide financial assets of the above-named United Nations Officials and their subordinates so that the Mothers of Srebrenica and Podrinja Association might receive some small degree of reparations for the terrible harm that the above-named United Nations Officials and their subordinates deliberately and maliciously inflicted upon them and their deceased next-of-kin at Srebrenica and its environs during July of 1995.
WE WILL NOT REST UNTIL JUSTICE IS DONE!
Mothers of Srebrenica & Podrinja
Sakiba ðere 9
Vogosca
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Tel: 0038771432970;432497;210269
Fax: 0038771210269
Professor Francis A. Boyle
Attorney for the
Mothers of Srebrenica & Podrinja
LawBuilding
504 E. Pennsylvania Avenue
Champaign, Illinois 61820 U.S.A.
Tel: 217-333-7954Fax: 217-244-1478
E-mail: fboyle@law.uiuc.edu




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