You can tell it’s a bad year when the words “war crime” come up more than once. Sadly there will always be leaders who commit war crimes but you do not often hear the charge levelled in the free West… until now.
In the past eight months, war crimes have been linked to two Western leaders: one former leader and one new leader. The term is often used as a rhetorical flourish rather than a genuine allegation so when serious accusations are made we have to pay attention.
What is a War Crime
Yes, there is a law of war. It’s an international law laying out acceptable actions and justifications for conflict. It’s an almost charming idea – that despite the awful circumstances that lead to war, all parties agree to act within a certain set of rules. And those rules are nobly intended to protect all involved, safeguard human rights and achieve peace as soon as possible.
The following are considered war crimes under the law of war: taking hostages, rape, torture, using weapons that cause undue suffering or superfluous injury, using child soldiers, killing or threatening to kill civilians or prisoners of war, destroying civilian property, pillaging, and perfidy.
They aren’t going to make a Buzzfeed “best of” list anytime soon. It’s a roll call of horror, so how on earth have a previous British PM and the President of US both had a brush with war crime accusations?
Tony Blair
The Chilcot Report was released among enormous interest back in July. For those too young to remember, the Chilcot Enquiry was looking into the events surrounding the Iraq war and whether our justifications for invading Iraq were illegal.
Many felt that Tony Blair’s behind-the-scenes actions contravened the law of war but the world-weary among us expected a wishy-washy statement that said nothing.
What we actually got was pretty damning about Blair but the enquiry’s purpose was to investigate the former PM, not to legally charge him. In the end, it was simply confirmation for those who opposed the war and a wake-up call for everyone else.
The UK has some seriously dodgy history. We did a lot of bad things to millions of people in the name of the Empire. We have to acknowledge that, live with it and learn from it. We’d like to put it all behind us but when a recent PM is seen by many as a war criminal, we need to reconsider whether we have really left behind the those bad dealings of the past.
Donald Trump
In a TV interview in December 2015, the real estate developer who would become the most powerful man in the world said the US should target and kill the families of terrorists. The anchors’ reactions are pretty priceless but this isn’t funny. Trump went further. When a General warned that the military wouldn’t carry out illegal orders, Trump merely responded “they’re not going to refuse me, believe me“.
The new President has also spoken a lot on the subject of torture. In a massive breach of the principles espoused by every other modern US president Trump declared that he wanted to compete with ISIS brutality. “We have to play the game the way they’re playing the game,” he said. When told this would be illegal, Trump started talking about simply changing the laws. He wants to allow torture methods like waterboarding, which makes captives feel as if they’re drowning over an extended period. According to Trump, “nobody knows if it’s torture”.
Trust us on this one, Donald. Having been slowly drowning in your diatribes for the past two years, we can assure you that it’s torture.
Our Job
Cast your mind back to that list of war crimes and you’ll remember that torture and targeting civilians were big no-nos. What Trump is threatening to do really is a war crime. Just to clarify: a president has openly, unabashedly and repeatedly stated on TV that he would commit internationally illegal acts.
Nixon hadn’t even admitted to illegalities when he was impeached and booted out of the White House. So we need to ask why these threats have been accepted as yet another Trumpism. By now we’ve learned that this President could do everything he promised just to prove he can.
And we need to brace ourselves by gaining at least some understanding of the arcane subject of the international rules surrounding conflict. Knowledge is key and we need to know the law, even if our leaders don’t.
The post War Crimes: They’re Not Just For ‘Foreigners’ appeared first on Felix Magazine.
War Crimes: They’re Not Just For ‘Foreigners’ posted first on http://www.felixmagazine.com/
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