I've heard a number of politicians say that we are engaged in an illegal war in Iraq.
But I've not heard any of them take the next step that seems to me to be a logical consequence of such a view: urging British service personel to refuse to obey what must be an illegal order to serve in an illegal war?
Friday, February 23, 2007
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I think there was a case a year or so ago of a soldier who did try to challenge his orders in court. The judgment went against him and he was court-martialled. This may have something to do with their reluctance.
Okay, but if they really think its illegal and immoral and terribly important that would be the logical, indeed, the right thing to do, and hang the consequences?
Except that if the court decided then, in our system of case law and precedent, that is the legal position as regards individual soldiers. I think maybe the government could be taken to task by the UN but that's a different matter.
But the politicians havent conceded that the courts have rightly declared and asserted (an interesting hybrid speech act, by the way) that the war is legal so...
Do we not have some sort of international criminal court now? Could Blair be prosecuted there? By whom? There's no UN court as such is there? How ignorant I feel of all this.
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