WAR CRIMINALS

Putin has justifiably been declared a war criminal by the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

He’s plainly a psychopath and seemingly uncaring in his demeanour about the estimated 200,000 deaths he’s singularly responsible for plus the enormous upheaval in the lives of many millions of Ukrainians. All of this in the pursuit of a romanticised vision of yesteryear’s Mother Russia. But he’s certainly not alone in the evil stakes.

For example, the sleazy Tony Blair has a far worse record. In his inexplicable desire to please Bush junior, who can to some degree be excused being a half-wit, he willingly participated in a blatant lie, a fact now well established, re the invasion of Iraq.

I recall this vividly. I was salmon fishing in Scotland when Blair announced on a Sunday that the dossier justifying the proposed invasion would be released on that night.

Eagerly reading the next morning’s newspaper containing the rationale, it was immediately plain to the meanest intelligence that it was bullshit. Massive protests erupted across Europe, to no avail.

The estimates mostly are circa a million plus lives lost as a result yet Blair, now forever a pariah in Britain, goes scot-free.

I was interested to read Helen Clark’s revelations about the invasion on its recent 20^th anniversary. She told the Herald how Blair sought her approval and participation in the proposed invasion and she made it clear it would not be forthcoming.

A few months after the invasion, in New York, she met with Hans Blix, the highly respected Swede, then the United Nations weapons inspector for Iraq, who told her bluntly the secret Iraqi nuclear weapons claim was nonsense.

She also met up with Kofi Annan, the then Secretary General of the United Nations who she described as very depressed about the illegal and totally bogus invasion.

Blair appears, like Putin, to be totally lacking in any morality. He resolved that difficulty by becoming a Catholic, thus allowing him the confession silliness to free his conscience. Putin similarly relies on moral support from the Russian Orthodox Church bishops.

Alas, democracies are now a minority among the world’s 200 plus nations. Despots backed by half-witted soldiers reign everywhere.

History says many end up with unpleasant demises; my favourite being the Libyan buffoon Gaddafi who captured by his own soldiers, copped a bayonet thrust up his bum. His screams would have been music to his citizens’ ears.