corruption

Correspondence with Johann Hari concerning his article about Megrahi...

Dear Johann
You may be interested, if you don't know it already, in Gareth Peirce's analysis of the Megrahi case at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n18/gareth-peirce/the-framing-of-al-megrahi. I know you mention in your article that 'there are some serious commentators who argue that Megrahi was framed', but it seems fairly clear that you don't go along with that. I'd be interested to know how you feel confident enough to dismiss it - which is effectively what you do by referring to Megrahi as 'a convicted terrorist - the worst in modern British history'. (You also say that 'Megrahi was sent home to Triploli to be greeted by cheering crowds after serving eleven days for each person murdered'.)

I also think that for those few people who still don't acknowledge that Iraq was about oil (and surely they're relatively few by now, aren't they??) I'm not sure that what I understand to be your main argument will be all that convincing. You seem just to be saying that Blair is unscrupulous (which we knew), that he was prepared to trade a convicted terrorist for oil, therefore he must have been prepared to go to war for oil. (A simplification, of course, of your words, but isn't that the essence?). In a way, I think that by linking this single example of Blair's duplicity and self-interest to the Iraq war, you are almost less likely to convince detractors: what is important in the case of Iraq (and indeed Megrahi) is surely the context, including the history of US and British actions in the Middle East, rather than the intentions and actions of one individual.

If one does accept that Megrahi was almost certainly framed, then it seems to me that there are far more important issues than those addressed in your article. These include:

But though we do not count, we can be sure that Saddam killed more than we did, or would have done had we not killed him first.

A good new report by Landmine Action looks at the attempts of the Bliar government to make sure no-one else's counting of Iraqi deaths was taken seriously. Because we also knew, without counting, that however many deaths we caused, they could not be excessive 'in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated'. That advantage was just too greedily anticipated - too great to be exceeded.

The basic obligations under international humanitarian law as regards civilian casualties in an armed conflict are set out in Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions [...] In particular, indiscriminate attacks are prohibited, and this includes any "attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated".

This obligation under international humanitarian law has been fully complied with by the United Kingdom in respect of all military operations in Iraq.
[…]
In many cases it would be impossible to make a reliably accurate assessment either of the civilian casualties resulting from any particular attacks or of the overall civilian casualties of a conflict. This is particularly true in the conditions that exist in Iraq.

Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw 17 November, 2004 (Hansard)

If we, our chief justice, our officials, or any of our servants offend in any respect against any man, or transgress any of the articles of the peace or of this security, and the offence is made known to four of the said twenty-five barons, they shall come to us - or in our absence from the kingdom to the chief justice - to declare it and claim immediate redress. If we, or in our absence abroad the chief justice, make no redress within forty days, reckoning from the day on which the offence was declared to us or to him, the four barons shall refer the matter to the rest of the twenty-five barons, who may distrain upon and assail us in every way possible, with the support of the whole community of the land, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, or anything else saving only our own person and those of the queen and our children, until they have secured such redress as they have determined upon. Having secured the redress, they may then resume their normal obedience to us.

Magna Carta

Quite right too. Let the barons look after us and keep the king in check. But whatever the rulers may do or have done, let us continue to obey them.

So what's new.