Four U.S. Presidents and Four UK Prime Ministers Charged With Genocide | Black Agenda Report

Four U.S. Presidents and Four UK Prime Ministers Charged With Genocide

Glen Ford, BAR executive editor

13 Oct 2009

🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Charges of genocide against four administrations in Washington and London document the continuity of U.S. and British crimes against Iraq. For nearly a generation, the U.S. and U.K. have collaborated in the attempted murder of a nation. It remains a crime in progress.

Four U.S. Presidents and Four UK Prime Ministers Charged With Genocide

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“The U.S. record of direct and indirect involvement in torture and mass killings is unmatched by any other nation since at least World War Two.”

Last week, the government of Spain closed one window of accountability for the most serious crimes committed by the most powerful nations on earth. Under great pressure from the United States, Spain decided to limit its own jurisdiction in cases of genocide and crimes against humanity. Under international law, such crimes fall under the universal jurisdiction of any nation, whether one’s own citizens are victims or not. The logic is that crimes against humanity are offenses against every member of the human species – a crime against all.

Spain had been a venue for bringing high crimes charges against human rights violators in Guatemala, Argentina, China, Israel and elsewhere. The worlds biggest potential defendant for war crimes and crimes against humanity is the United States, whose record of direct and indirect involvement in torture and mass killings is unmatched by any other nation since at least World War Two. It was U.S. pressure that forced Spain to close off its courts from international jurisdiction cases. However, one day before the change in Spanish law, lawyers for the human rights group Brussels Tribunal filed charges of crimes against humanity and genocide against four presidents of the United States and four prime ministers of Great Britain.

The charges cite 1.5 million Iraqi deaths over the course of 19 years of American and British attacks, including two full scale wars of aggression, the “most draconian sanctions regime ever designed,” and subsequent occupation of Iraq. Half a million of the dead, according to the charges, were children. So massive and systematic were the assaults on Iraq, stretching for roughly a generation, the accusers charge the U.S. and U.K. with deliberate destruction of a nation.

“Crimes against humanity are offenses against every member of the human species – a crime against all.”

The bill of particulars is massive. In addition to the dead, “some 4.7 million Iraqis — one fifth of the population — have been forcibly displaced” since the invasion of 2003. Depleted uranium has led to 600 percent increases in cancer cases in some areas. The U.S. and Britain purposely dismantled the Iraqi state, through “’manhunting,’ extrajudicial assassinations, mass imprisonment and torture, of Baathists, the entire educated class of the state apparatus, religious and linguistic minorities and Arab Sunnis, resulting in the total collapse of all public services and other economic functions and promoting civil strife and systematic corruption.

On top of all this, the Americans and Brits attempted to partition Iraq and plunder its natural resources.

The defendants are George Herbert Walker Bush, William J. Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Hussein Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair and Gordon Brown. It is highly unlikely they will be charged in Spain, even though the advocates beat the deadline by a day. The global clearing house for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide is the International Criminal Court. But in recent years that court has prosecuted no one but Africans. The United States refuses to join the International Criminal Court, and thus claims immunity from prosecution. But no one is immune under international law, and one day there will be a reckoning. For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.

More Stories

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Tennessee Abortion Ban Impacts Marginalized Communities
12 Jul 2024
Robyn Baldridge joins to discuss the fight to access abortion care in Tennessee, where they are navigating some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country - including the criminalization of…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Joe Biden's Electoral Prospects
12 Jul 2024
Margaret Kimberley was recently a guest on the Sputnik News program, Fault Lines, with co-hosts Jamarl Thomas and Melik Abdul. They discussed the recent debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump,…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Project 2025 Continues the Historic Racist, Fascist Project
10 Jul 2024
Project 2025 is just the latest in a series of conservative think pieces which outlines how republicans should wield presidential power. The outrage surrounding it ignores democrats’ collusion with…
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
TESTIMONY: Opposition to Military Assistance Act of 1949, W. E. B. Du Bois, 1949
10 Jul 2024
On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the founding of NATO, we reprint W.E.B. Du Bois’ 1949 powerful testimony against the US militarization of Europe and the world.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist , Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Analyzing the Biden and Trump Debate and the 2024 Electoral Process
10 Jul 2024
Reaction to the first 2024 debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump focused on Biden’s performance. Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report editor and columnist, analyzes the politics behind that debate…