19th March 2023
Anti-war protests in London, February 2003
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague this week issued an arrest warrant for Russian President, Vladimir Putin, for allegedly overseeing the abduction of Ukrainian children. The pressure upon the ICC, from the governments of Ukraine and the United States, to point the finger at Putin for war crimes has been building and their position has finally been made public.
Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky was quick to applaud the ICC saying that the issuing of the warrant was “an historic decision which will lead to historic accountability.” The US based Yale Humanitarian Research Lab alleges that 6,000 Ukrainian children have been sent to Russian “re-education” camps while Zelensky claims that the number is 16,000 or more.
It is little surprise that US President Joe Biden, also welcomed the issuing of the warrant.
“He’s clearly committed war crimes,” Biden told reporters on Friday. “I think it’s justified,” he said, referring to the arrest warrant.
German leader, Olaf Scholz, has also chimed in claiming that the issuing of the warrant shows that “nobody is above the law.”
The court also issued an arrested warrant to Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, on the same charges. Lvova-Belova has an altogether different take on the alleged deportations stating,
“It’s great that the international community has appreciated this work to help the children of our country: that we don’t leave them in war zones, that we take them out, that we create good conditions for them, that we surround them with loving, caring people.”
The Russian intervention in Ukraine has undoubtedly been a disaster for the peoples of both nations. Given the right wing nationalist leanings of both governments in the conflict, it is no surprise that the issue of children is one which could be weaponised by either side. What is equally noteworthy about the ICC announcement however is the timing.
On the 20th March it is the 20th anniversary of the illegal US invasion of Iraq in 2003, without United Nations support, but with backing from Britain. The now infamous “dodgy dossier” which claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, along with the desire of the US to avenge the 9/11 bombings of 2001, in which Iraq played no part, were the excuses for the US led regime change operation.
Getting rid of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, whom both the US and Britain had previously backed in a prolonged conflict with Iran, was deemed sufficient reason to inflict widespread destruction upon Iraqi cities, its health, education and service infrastructure and its people.
By May 2003 US President George W Bush had declared “mission accomplished”. For Bush this meant that Saddam was removed and the Ba’ath Party infrastructure destroyed. It did not mean that the US had any plan to rebuild the ruined nation, which quickly degenerated into chaos, conflict and instability.
The right wing opposition to Saddam have since established a corrupt political structure that protects their power through a system of patronage and corruption. It is a widely held view in Iraq that, “Saddam has gone but 1,000 more Saddams have replaced him”.
Demonstrations against the corrupt regime have been met with brutality and repression. In one protest alone in 2019, where young people demanded fundamental political rights, over 600 were killed and many more injured or arrested.
An estimated 500,000 Iraqi citizens are likely to have died from direct war related violence, with over 4.2 million people being displaced by 2007, according to the UN Refugee Agency. US troops occupied the country until the official withdrawal in 2011, although 2,500 remain in order to address the threat of Islamic State, another consequence of the destruction of Iraq.
No-one involved in the illegal initiation or perpetration of the war in Iraq have had warrants for war crimes issued against them by the ICC.
In the build up to the invasion demonstrations, notably on 15th February 2003, had attracted an estimated 30 million people to protest in opposition to the war in 600 cities across the world, notably one million people on the streets of London alone, with thousands more on the streets of Glasgow.
While these protests did not stop the war the momentum behind them left a strong legacy of anti-war sentiment which the British ruling class have been working to dilute ever since. Much of the support for Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader was built around his anti-war views and emphasis upon international solidarity. The smear campaign against Corbyn was consciously targeting his internationalism, especially in relation to the cause of Palestine, to undermine his ‘patriotic’ credentials and associate support for peace movements as a sign of weakness.
The carefully orchestrated media campaign around the war in Ukraine is also part of this process, justifying the massive spend upon weapons to prop up the Ukrainian government, as opposed to stressing the need for diplomatic solutions to the crisis, which will recognise the claims of all parties involved.
A peace narrative would not fit with the anti-Russian objectives of NATO and its allies, nor would it support the demonisation of the Russian President which appears to be central to the Western game plan. The ICC warrant appears to be the latest part of that strategy. The profile which the media have given the issue is designed to drown out any parallels with the position of leaders such as Tony Blair and George W Bush, who do not have the ICC on their backs for their war crimes.
The fact that 20 years on the people of Iraq, not to mention those of Afghanistan, Libya and Palestine, find themselves in a worse position than before US and NATO interventions is not the story the West wants to tell. The ICC warrant against Putin may be an attempt by the West to suggest that no one is above the law but it also serves to highlight the fact that not all leaders are subject to it.
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