EU: Compelling reasons for Blair as President

George Monbiot has decided that were Blair to become President of the EU, we could arrest him all the more easily for war crimes.

As he explains, the UK doesn't have the laws to be able to do this, but other countries do. So, as President Blair swans it around the world, Monbiot's various spies (encouraged by bounty) will conspire to pounce on him at a moment's notice and effect a citizen's arrest.

Monbiot gives the case against Blair:

"The Downing Street memo, a record of a meeting in July 2002, reveals that Sir Richard Dearlove, director of the UK's foreign intelligence service MI6, told Blair that in Washington: "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." The foreign secretary (Jack Straw) then told Blair that "the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran". He suggested that "we should work up a plan" to produce "legal justification for the use of force". The attorney general told the prime minister that there were only "three possible legal bases" for launching a war: "self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC [security council] authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case." Bush and Blair later failed to obtain security council authorisation.

This short memo, which should be learned by heart by every citizen of the United Kingdom, reveals that Blair knew that the decision to attack Iraq had already been made; that it preceded the justification, which was being retrofitted to an act of aggression; that the only legal reasons for an attack didn't apply, and that the war couldn't be launched without UN authorisation.

The legal status of Bush's decision had already been explained to Blair. In March 2002, as another leaked memo shows, Jack Straw had reminded him of the conditions required to launch a legal war: "i) There must be an armed attack upon a State or such an attack must be imminent; ii) The use of force must be necessary and other means to reverse/avert the attack must be unavailable; iii) The acts in self-defence must be proportionate and strictly confined to the object of stopping the attack."

Straw explained that the development or possession of weapons of mass destruction "does not in itself amount to an armed attack; what would be needed would be clear evidence of an imminent attack." A third memo, from the Cabinet Office, explained that "there is no greater threat now than in recent years that Saddam will use WMD … A legal justification for invasion would be needed. Subject to Law Officers' advice, none currently exists."

It's just a matter of getting him in front of a judge. The crazy plan to make this mass murderer president could be the chance that many of us have been waiting for."

Doesn't he have a point? It'll boost sales for piano wire, I'll bet.