In early 2011 the Boston Tea Party National Committee passed a resolution supporting War Crimes trials “for every person that has violated the ‘law of war’.” The BTP added that any potential War Crimes trials should be privately funded, instead of being paid for with taxpayer money. It seems that someone listened and on November 23, 2011 former U.S. president George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair were found guilty of war crimes by the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal after a four day hearing in Malaysia. The tribunal was initiated by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who is also President of the Perdana Global Peace Foundation, and was modeled after the 1967 tribunal in Sweden and Denmark that found the U.S. guilty of a war of aggression in Vietnam.
The prosecution argued that the U.S. and U.K. had advanced the viewpoint that regime change in Iraq could be the basis for the use of force. “This viewpoint had been expressed as far back as 1998 when president Clinton suggested that Saddam Hussein had to be removed to end his threat. The Iraq Liberation Act passed in 1998 declared that… the regime headed by Saddam Hussein [be removed] from power. This then became the official U.S. policy. Bush and Blair had on various occasions since then expressed this viewpoint.”
The prosecution further argued that “the Doctrine of regime change and doctrine of humanitarian intervention were declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in Nicaragua v U.S. [1986]. The U.S. by passing the Iraq Liberation Act went against the decision in the Nicaragua case.”
The judges agreed and ruled “[t]he 2003 invasion of Iraq was an unlawful act of aggression and an international crime… They acted in flagrant violation of international law of war and peace… We therefore find that the charge against the two accused is proved beyond reasonable doubt.” The tribunal ordered that Bush and Blair’s name be entered in a register of war criminals, urged that they be recognized as such under the Rome Statute, will petition the International Criminal Court to proceed with binding charges and will petition the United Nations to pass a resolution to end the American occupation of Iraq.
The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal is also scheduled to hold a separate hearing next year on charges of torture linked to the Iraq war against Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and four others.