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George Monbiot plans to arrest John Bolton

repost | 26.05.2008 16:43 | Iraq | Terror War | World

In the following article on the Guardian site George Monbiot says:

"I do not want to advocate something I am not prepared to do myself. I was planning to stay at home on Wednesday, but I now intend to come back, listen to Mr Bolton speak, and then carry out this arrest. I hope that others at Hay might join me."

Read on for the full article...

We have all but forgotten the war with Iraq. We tend to see it now as little more than a "political mistake", like the 10p tax fiasco or Labour's mishandling of the byelection campaign in Crewe. The press and public attention have moved on and focused on more pressing matters, like the price of property.

But this mistake has killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people in a country that was doing us no harm. Mistakes of this kind - an unprovoked war of aggression - were characterised by the Nuremberg tribunals as "the supreme international crime". Mistakes of this kind would, in any regime governed by international law, see their perpetrators put behind bars for the rest of their natural lives. But the great crime of the Iraq war has been normalised and domesticated.

So successful has this process of normalisation been that in three days' time one of its perpetrators will be coming here - to Hay-on-Wye, the epicentre of polite society - to promote his book and sell some copies. I do not regret the fact that he is coming here - far from it - but I see it as a sign of the extent to which the great crime he helped to commit is viewed as an ordinary part of the political process.

John Bolton first made the demand for a war against Iraq as a signatory of an open letter sent to President Clinton by the Project for a New American Century in 1998. In 2001 he joined the Bush administration as the hilariously-titled Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control in the State Department. He appears to have been imposed on the department by Dick Cheney, to play the role of Colin Powell's minder.

He immediately started destroying international law, successfully waging war against the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the biological weapons protocol, a treaty on small arms and light weapons and, perhaps presciently, America's participation in the International Criminal Court.

In April 2002, Bolton orchestrated the sacking of the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Jose Bustani. Bustani's offence was to have offered to resolve the dispute over Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction, by sending weapons inspectors to Iraq.

Bolton helped to promote the false claim, through a State Department fact sheet, that Saddam Hussein had been seeking to procure uranium from Niger. He was instrumental in assembling and promoting the bogus case for war.

Only when those who help to launch illegal wars fear punishment will future governments desist from launching them. As citizens I believe we have a duty to try to deter future war crimes. So I propose that we allow John Bolton to speak here, and then carry out a citizen's arrest.

Section 24A of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 permits any citizen to "arrest without a warrant ... anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be guilty" of an offence.

I do not want to advocate something I am not prepared to do myself. I was planning to stay at home on Wednesday, but I now intend to come back, listen to Mr Bolton speak, and then carry out this arrest. I hope that others at Hay might join me.

repost
- Homepage: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/george_monbiot/2008/05/lets_book_bolton_at_hay.html

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Media Lens Thread

26.05.2008 17:00

Discussion about this on the Media Lens Message board:

 http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1211810395.html

Chris
- Homepage: http://medialens.org/board/


Shameless

27.05.2008 10:15

I didn't see him trying anything like this all the years Blair has been in the country. Or any of the other British citizens who colluded with the Bush administration.

MonkeyBot 5000


things change bot, good on u monbiot

27.05.2008 13:42

things change bot, good on u monbiot

Green Syndicalist MEMBER IWW,ICA,


What's changed?

27.05.2008 15:27

The same people who took Britain to war are still here, in this country. They never left!

He's picking on a US official that it's acceptable to complain against when he could have done this with any one of our own politicians that we arguably have more of a duty to bring to justice than some yank. At least Mark Thomas aimed for the top when he took out a contract on George Bush.

I just think it's hypocritical to do something like this to John Bolton if you're not prepared to do it to Brown or Blair or any of the other lying bastards who helped them.

MonkeyBot 5000


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Self promoting middle class arsehole! Watch him slime out of this one!

27.05.2008 16:00

Self promoting middle class arsehole! Watch him slime out of this one!
Unless the egotistical knob is getting ready to push one of his awful books or self promoted crap tv documentaries he does fuck all and I can assure you in this case he will do fuck all and have loads of excuses to follow up!

@narchist


You're nicked

27.05.2008 17:49

If you are serious about any action then you don't discuss it in advance. By saying that, Monbiot will know he cannot carry it out. However we could.

The mechanics of a civilian arrest are obvious. You appear next to the person with a locking device like handcuffs or cable ties. While you are probably right to punch them to the ground, you also don't want to be shot so be sneaky instead. You surreptiously entrap them and your photo gets taken. You get beaten up by their security. You get a wee newspaper story that could change an opinion, plus a lot of tabloid abuse.

I'm not sure why we should support a journalist from a pro-war newspaper though, it smells like a corporate pr stunt. Why is his newspaper paying for war-criminals to attend the festival and why isn't he asking that question ?


"The greater part of what my neighbours call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behaviour. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?" - HD Thoreau

ny


George Monbiot Queries (October 2003)

28.05.2008 12:08

expose the gatekeepers


Marcus hahaha Brigstocke at the barricades (ouch)

28.05.2008 20:00

Campaigner fails to arrest ex-Bush official over 'war crimes'

- and he couldn't even get Mark Steele let alone Mark Thomas...it reminds me on the Milan Rai stunt. Lest I need to remind you, good intentions count for nothing -


Michael White
Wednesday May 28, 2008
guardian.co.uk

The environmental campaigner, George Monbiot, last night failed in his attempt to make a citizen's arrest on the senior ex-Bush administration official John Bolton over "war crimes" committed by the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

As Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN, ended his hour-long discussion at the Hay festival, Monbiot, who had earlier challenged him for alleged breaches of the post-war Nuremburg Principles, moved towards the stage waving a charge sheet.

Article continues
But security staff, alerted by pre-publicity, intervened and bundled Monbiot out of the tent as 20 supporters chanted "war criminal" and waved placards. The comedian, Marcus Brigstocke, who tried to pursue Bolton as he left the other side of the tent, was also blocked by security staff.

When challenged by Mobiot during the debate to say why - in planning, preparing and waging war against Saddam Hussein - he was no different from "Nazi war criminals" condemned at Nuremburg, Bolton cited Iraqi defiance of the UN resolutions 687 and 678 which underpinned the 1991 Iraq war and ceasefire.

That defiance released other parties from the obligation to the ceasefire, he told Monbiot. "You are wrong as a matter of law and a matter of fact," he said.

In his earlier discussion Bolton defended the right of the US to launch pre-emptive nuclear attacks and to promote regime change or - if necessary - a military attack against Iran in order to prevent it acquiring nuclear weapons.

He also told questioners that, as a lawyer, he was not prepared to offer a view on either extreme rendition or torture of suspects because he had not studied the issues - a claim which provoked dismay.

Monbiot whose second attempt to catch Bolton behind the tent was also prevented, left the scene. Brigstocke told reporters it had been "absolutely pathetic." Bolton should have been willing to test his claims in court.

ny


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