Kendall-Smith makes a stand
I admire Malcolm Kendall-Smith, an RAF doctor of dual British-NZ citizenship for refusing to return to Iraq because he believes the occupation to be illegal. Good for him. If only there were more like him who had the courage and wisdom to stand up and refuse to take part in the biggest crime so far this century. The "war", the invasion and the occupation are illegal according to international law. But the US puts itself above the law. There is always one law for the USA and completely different laws for countries that don't like US capitalism, globalisation and imperialism. It's completely fine, for example, for the US to hoard "weapons of mass destruction" and develop biological weapons, but not countries who are not 'good buddies' with the bully that is the United States. Double standards. But I digress. Here are excerpts about Kendall-Smith:
LONDON: A British Air Force doctor who refused to go to Iraq because he said the war was illegal is due to face a court martial for refusing to obey orders.
Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, 37, faces five charges of disobeying a lawful order after he refused to train and go to Iraq last year.
If convicted at the Court Martial Centre in Aldershot, Kendall-Smith, who was raised in New Zealand and holds dual British-New Zealand citizenship, could be jailed.
The military doctor had served in both Iraq and Afghanistan in the past, but said he realised last year the Iraq war was illegal and that he could not return.
At a hearing last month, his legal team had asked for permission to argue that the order to deploy was illegal, but presiding judge Jack Bayliss ruled that the airman could not use that defence.
"None of the orders given to the defendant in this case was an order to do something which was unlawful," Bayliss said.
Opponents of the conflict were hoping to use the case to test in a British court whether the war itself was legal.
Kendall-Smith's lawyers had argued that British Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to send British troops to Iraq amounted to aggression, a crime under international law.
But the judge ruled that by the time Kendall-Smith refused to go in 2005, the United Nations Security Council and a new Iraqi government had both granted explicit permission for foreign troops to be in Iraq.
The question of the legality of the invasion two years earlier was therefore irrelevant, he said.
Prosecutors maintained from the outset that Kendall-Smith, as a doctor and non-combatant, was not being asked to do anything that might be a war crime.
"Telling a flight lieutenant to attend in Basra as a doctor could not involve any illegality, either in the giving of the order or in complying with it," prosecutor David Perry said.
Opponents of the war have called it illegal because it began without a UN resolution specifically authorising invasion, although the British government's top lawyer Lord Goldsmith advised Blair that military action was lawful.
After the invasion, the UN Security Council passed resolutions permitting US-led forces to remain in Iraq.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3634912a12,00.html
ALDERSHOT, England — A British air force officer who refused to serve in Iraq told a court martial Wednesday that the actions of the U.S. armed forces were “on a par with Nazi Germany.”
Flight Lieut. Malcolm Kendall-Smith, a Royal Air Force doctor, has pleaded not guilty to five charges of failing to comply with a lawful order for refusing to deploy to Basra last year.
Kendall-Smith, 37, had served twice in southern Iraq with British forces, but refused to return a third time in June.
He said he was not prepared to take part in an illegal “act of aggression.”
“I have evidence that the Americans were on a par with Nazi Germany with its actions in the Persian Gulf,” Kendall-Smith said.
“I have documents in my possession which support my assertions. This is on the basis that ongoing acts of aggression in Iraq and systematically applied war crimes provide a moral equivalent between the U.S. and Nazi Germany.”
Kendall-Smith, a dual British-New Zealand citizen, is on trial at the Aldershot Court Martial Centre southwest of London.
Edmonton Sun http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/World/2006/04/12/1531833.html
Good on him, I say.
And here's Saddam Hussein being tried for the deaths of a few hundred Kurds in the 80s at a time when the US was buddies with him and did nothing - they didn't give a shit and, in fact, enabled the massacre by ignoring it completely. Meanwhile, US soldiers have killed thousands of Iraqis and for what? It's all a farce. There is no justice in this world and never will be while the US of A is in control - the bullies of the world.
