Tutu Calls Bush/Blair War Criminals

Recently, Archbishop Desmond Tutu (pictured above) refused to share a state with former British prime minister Tony Blair in South Africa (at the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit). He defended his action in an article for The Guardian (a British newspaper). He said it was not appropriate to be on stage with Blair at a leadership summit after Blair (and Bush) has demonstrated a failure of leadership in using lies to justify their invasion of Iraq. Here is some of what Mr. Tutu wrote:

The immorality of the United States and Great Britain's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, premised on the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, has destabilised and polarised the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history.

Instead of recognising that the world we lived in, with increasingly sophisticated communications, transportations and weapons systems necessitated sophisticated leadership that would bring the global family together, the then-leaders of the US and UK fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us. . .

The cost of the decision to rid Iraq of its by-all-accounts despotic and murderous leader has been staggering, beginning in Iraq itself. Last year, an average of 6.5 people died there each day in suicide attacks and vehicle bombs, according to the Iraqi Body Count project. More than 110,000 Iraqis have died in the conflict since 2003 and millions have been displaced. By the end of last year, nearly 4,500 American soldiers had been killed and more than 32,000 wounded.

On these grounds alone, in a consistent world, those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in the Hague.

But even greater costs have been exacted beyond the killing fields, in the hardened hearts and minds of members of the human family across the world.

Has the potential for terrorist attacks decreased? To what extent have we succeeded in bringing the so-called Muslim and Judeo-Christian worlds closer together, in sowing the seeds of understanding and hope?

Leadership and morality are indivisible. Good leaders are the custodians of morality. The question is not whether Saddam Hussein was good or bad or how many of his people he massacred. The point is that Mr Bush and Mr Blair should not have allowed themselves to stoop to his immoral level.

If it is acceptable for leaders to take drastic action on the basis of a lie, without an acknowledgement or an apology when they are found out, what should we teach our children?

I have to agree. The United States and Great Britain are quick to condemn leaders of other countries, and demand they be tried for war crimes, or crimes against humanity. But they want a double standard to be applied to their own leaders, who they think should have immunity from their own crimes. The invasion of Iraq was a war crime (and can no more be justified than Hitler's invasion of Poland or Saddam's own invasion of Kuwait). Bush and Blair will never pay the price for their lies leading to the lost lives of many thousands of people, but they should be held accountable.