You are temporarily protected by the fact that the United Kingdom, unlike other states, has not yet incorporated the Nuremberg principles into national law. If a future government does so, you and all those who remained in the cabinet on 20 March 2003 will be at risk of prosecution for what the Nuremberg tribunal called "the supreme international crime". This is defined as the "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression". Robin Cook, a man of genuine political courage, put his conscience ahead of his career and resigned. What did you do?Great stuff, though he shies away from the final truth - we put her and her ilk there. We're the ones responsible, as voters, for the little Eichmanns we call to account too late, if at all. So Monbiot's ire should be directed not just at the hypocritical, Blears and her croonies, but at the lethargic, unthinking voters who return them, and whose refusal to really bother too much about all that Westminister stuff has left us with the horrible possibility that Blears et al might be the best of the options available. As Monbiot says at the end of his piece, our only choice is "whether to laugh through our tears or weep through our laughter" (2).It seems to me that someone of your principles would fit comfortably into almost any government. All regimes require people like you, who seem to be prepared to obey orders without question. Unwavering obedience guarantees success in any administration. It also guarantees collaboration in every atrocity in which a government might engage. The greatest thing we have to fear in politics is the cowardice of politicians. (1)
Vote for Tory scum or Labour scum. To vote for principles is an oxymoron.
1 - "Just what exactly do you stand for, Hazel Blears - except election?," an open letter to Hazel Blears, written by George Monbiot and published in The Guardian, 10th of February, 2009. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/10/hazel-blears-george-monbiot)
2 - ibid.
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