{"id":33191,"date":"2018-04-06T10:53:25","date_gmt":"2018-04-06T15:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=33191"},"modified":"2018-04-06T10:53:25","modified_gmt":"2018-04-06T15:53:25","slug":"crime-and-no-punishment-for-the-iraq-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=33191","title":{"rendered":"Crime and No Punishment for the Iraq War"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"row \">\n<figure class=\"columns image image--lead image--ratio-2-1\"><picture class=\"fbg-image__element\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyunload lazyloaded\" src=\"https:\/\/webapi.project-syndicate.org\/library\/314a63794d20fd99f53300530494add4.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/webapi.project-syndicate.org\/library\/314a63794d20fd99f53300530494add4.jpg\" \/><\/picture><span class=\"image__copyright\">STEPHEN JAFFE\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row fbg-image article__container\" data-sticky-target=\"interaction-article\" data-page-area=\"article-top\" data-sticky-offset=\"20%\">\n<div class=\"small-12 medium-10 medium-offset-1 large-8 large-offset-2 xlarge-7 columns article__interaction fbg-image__inlay\"><\/div>\n<h3 class=\"small-12 medium-10 medium-offset-1 large-8 large-offset-2 xlarge-7 columns article__title article__title--main u-mb-se\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.project-syndicate.org\/commentary\/iraq-invasion-illegal-war-of-aggression-by-peter-singer-2018-04\">Crime and No Punishment for the Iraq War<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"small-12 medium-10 medium-offset-1 large-8 large-offset-2 xlarge-6 xlarge-offset-3 columns\">\n<section class=\"article__abs u-mt-se\" dir=\"ltr\">It is unlikely that former US President George W. Bush or any member of his administration will ever stand trial for initiating a war of aggression in Iraq. But it is still worth recounting the illegality of that act, not least because it is directly relevant to official US thinking on Iran and North Korea today.<\/p>\n<p data-line-id=\"57b2cf7454ad49b1a9ed4ddf6d582067\">PRINCETON \u2013 Last month, the <em>New York Times<\/em> marked the 15th anniversary of the US-led war against Iraq with a poignant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/03\/19\/opinion\/iraq-war-anniversary-.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">column<\/a> by Sinan Antoon, an Iraqi novelist living in the United States, entitled \u201cFifteen Years Ago, America Destroyed My Country.\u201d Antoon opposed both Saddam Hussein\u2019s brutal dictatorship and the 2003 US-led invasion, which plunged the country into chaos, inflamed ethnic tensions, and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. By destabilizing the region, the war enabled the rise of the Islamic State, which at its height occupied a substantial slice of Iraqi territory, beheading its opponents, attempting genocide against the Yazidi minority, and spreading terrorism around the world.<\/p>\n<p data-line-id=\"f2e90266265942ba8bef734ad1434c43\">The war to overthrow Saddam was, beyond doubt, a tragic blunder. Antoon maintains that it was also a crime. If that is correct, its perpetrators are still at large. Few Americans will take seriously the assertion that President George W. Bush and other members of his administration \u2013 including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and John Bolton, recently appointed by President Donald Trump as his next National Security Adviser \u2013 are war criminals. Nor will many Britons think of Prime Minister <a href=\"https:\/\/www.project-syndicate.org\/columnist\/tony-blair\">Tony Blair<\/a> in that light. Yet the case for saying that they committed a crime is surprisingly strong.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>STEPHEN JAFFE\/AFP\/Getty Images Crime and No Punishment for the Iraq War It is unlikely that former US President George W. Bush or any member of his administration will ever stand trial for initiating a war of aggression in Iraq. But it is still worth recounting the illegality of that act, not least because it is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[10704,441,442,6763,2006,16489,8402,862,3047,19714],"class_list":["post-33191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-illegal-war","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-iraq-war","tag-north-korea","tag-peter-singer","tag-project-syndicate","tag-war","tag-war-crimes","tag-war-of-aggression"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33192,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33191\/revisions\/33192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}