Tony Blair: the true value of "his conviction"

...being the fact that Tony Blair is now the highest-paid public speaker in the world – a multi-millionaire garlanded and protected by the powerful global elite he served, strengthened and lied for while in office as the elected political leader of this country.

But let us be very clear. Blair's artful profiteering is no revelation in itself. It is merely the repugnant small-print of a truly shocking affront to humanity – namely, the impunity with which western war criminals who have wreaked unprecedented violence on millions of innocents now sail breezily on into the sunset, embraced warmly by the free market and all its muscular guardians.

Jim Holstun's outstanding new piece Tony Blair and the business of covering up war crimes, an extract of which is printed below, should be read by all.

On 27 June 2007, Blair left his job as UK prime minister under the cloud of the war on Iraq that he had concocted with former US President George W. Bush. Just hours later, he assumed his new position as the Special Envoy to the Mideast Quartet (EU, Russia, UN, US). He had long been a Zionist and a member of Labor Friends of Israel, and he received heartfelt farewells-and-hellos from Ehud Olmert ("A true friend of the State of Israel") and Tzipi Livni ("a very-well appreciated figure in Israel"). Palestinians living under Israeli occupation did not find this a very promising development.

Though Blair spends only a week a month in the Middle East, he has managed to keep busy. He maintains a gruelling, globe-trotting schedule of lectures, for which he receives up to $500,000. On top of this, he has been at work on his memoirs, for which he received a $7.3 million advance. Consulting work brought him $3.2 million (including a bonus) from J. P. Morgan Chase and $800,000 from Zurich Financial Services. By October 2008, he had amassed at least $19 million, far outdistancing even the enterprising Bill Clinton. He is thought to be the highest paid public speaker in the world.

Please visit the Blair War Crimes Foundation website to sign the appeal to indict Tony Blair. Sign up, and encourage all you know to do so as well.

If you are in any doubt as to why such campaigns are important, consider the testimony of a young Iraqi girl, who dubbed herself Riverbend, who sent regular reports from Iraq up until 2007.

On February 20, 2007, she wrote about the gang rape of an Iraqi woman, Sabine, by Iraqi "security forces". Riverbend concluded her piece with these words:

"As the situation continues to deteriorate both for Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq, and for Americans inside Iraq, Americans in America are still debating on the state of the war and occupation - are they winning or losing? Is it better or worse? Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It’s worse. It’s over. You lost.

"You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets.

"You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq’s first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile."