Sunday, February 28, 2010

A Bounty Paid For Arresting Tony Blair

From George Monbiot. It sounds like a great idea!
Encouraging citizens’ arrests of Tony Blair for the crime of aggression is perhaps the only remaining option we have, and the astonishing response to the campaign I launched last week shows that many people understand this. In 30 hours, before Paypal blocked the account without notice, the bounty fund at www.arrestblair.org, which rewards people trying to arrest the former prime minister for crimes against peace, cleared £9000. Since then it has been harder to produce a running total, but further pledges, electronic transfers and Tipit contributions amount to several thousand pounds more, and are still coming in at the rate of hundreds of pounds a day. The volume of correspondence has been overwhelming too: it will take weeks to reply to all the pledges and letters of support. There is a massive public appetite to see justice done.

Perhaps something like this will be necessary in Canada. Paul Martin for Haiti. Stephen Harper for the mistreatment of prisoners in Afghanistan.

Of course, some people might disagree. Some people think that we had the right to overthrow Aristide or that all the people we captured in Afghanistan are scum-bags with no claim on human rights. But those people are idiots and I don't worry at all what they think.

2 comments:

no_blah_blah_blah said...

At least there's some semblance of accountability (or desire for it) in Britain. Watching Blair squirm during questioning over the Iraq war a little while back was somewhat satisfying, given that there is zero chance that Bush will ever face the same treatment or disdain in the U.S.

As for Canada, Parliament is finally about to reconvene. The Parliamentary committee looking into the detainee issue was making progress right before prorogation... We'll see how it goes from here.

thwap said...

Oh, I'm hoping our country can redeem itself, if only partially, by throwing that monster's ass in prison.