I guess one of the themes running through this blog is that there do exist between nations, and between humanity as a whole, a pre-agreed set of basic laws, assumptions and standards which we have collectively agreed in order to define the limits of our acceptance. They may not be perfect, there may be elements of these rules and laws that some want to quibble over or change to some degree, but ultimately, these agreed upon notions exist to guide humanity away from the evils and destruction visited upon us during the last two centuries when the mechanisation of war and the industrialisation and capitalisation of society have provided a glimpse of the brutality of which the human race is capable.
Hence, there exists conventions on human rights, rules for wars, norms of decency; a set of standardisations to point out those who clearly transgress from the safe middle ground. For instance, Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention defines war crimes as:
"Wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including...wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, or wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial, ...extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly."
This seems entirely reasonable, does not seek to restrict a nation or its army from waging war and engaging in acts of an offensive or defensive nature. This is the norm. For me, it does not go far enough: as a pacifist it simply seems to seek simply to make war and destruction acceptable. And yet, it exists as the norm for delimiting the acceptable act of war from the unacceptable, from the criminal. Which is why it annoys me so much when opponents of brutality and state sanctioned terror are painted as imbeciles and idiots for voicing concerns, or for daring to utter the accusation of 'war crimes' against the UK, the US, or Israel. While all these countries and their morally bankrupt politicians and leaders would happily agree that War Crimes have occurred in Somalia, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or in Sudan, they baulk at the accusation that they too are guilty of these crimes. Yet they are. They are guilty in an objective, legally agreed sense.
These rules exist to govern these actions, they have transgressed these rules, clearly and without argument, and yet they object and react to accusations they are war criminals as if we had accused of them of the most onerous and horrific crimes. And yet, who in their right minds would disagree that the US has been guilty of "unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person" in relation to their Extraordinary Rendition flights and the facilities at Guantanamo Bay? Who would seriously defend the Israeli Defence Force and the thus the Israeli government from accusations that it is guilty of "extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly"? And who could possibly defend charges that the UK government, especially in relation to its new 'anti-terror' laws, is not guilty of "wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial."? In these objective terms all of these countries governments are clearly guilty of war crimes.
These are not sensationalist claims dreamt up by the left, but objectively provable facts using guidelines agreed upon internationally by the very countries now charged with breaching them. In the same way as it is true to state that were the Nuremberg Trials occurring today, in this country, Tony Blair would be found guilty and hung. After all, the defendants at Nuremberg were not even tried with committing war crimes, but simply with "waging and executing an aggressive war". Again, not sensationalist hyperbole, but fact. Tony Blair is a war criminal, and would have been hung for his crimes at Nuremberg.
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