The Most Reverend Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, calling out the neocons in The Observer

As a radical Anglo-Catholic, I have always had a great deal of respect and admiration for His Grace Desmond Tutu, and he has just provided us all with yet another reason why that respect and admiration is wholly justified. His Grace recently withdrew, after much prayer and consideration, from the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit where one Anthony Blair was also to be in attendance. His reason? He could not bring himself to sit alongside someone ‘who had justified the invasion of Iraq with a lie’. He then proceeded to pointedly lambaste the former Prime Minister in The Observer, saying that both Bush and Blair should face trial at the International Criminal Court for the consequences of their actions:

The immorality of the United States and Great Britain's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, premised on the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, has destabilised and polarised the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history.

Instead of recognising that the world we lived in, with increasingly sophisticated communications, transportations and weapons systems necessitated sophisticated leadership that would bring the global family together, the then-leaders of the US and UK fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us.

If leaders may lie, then who should tell the truth?

[...]

Last year, an average of 6.5 people died there each day in suicide attacks and vehicle bombs, according to the Iraqi Body Count project. More than 110,000 Iraqis have died in the conflict since 2003 and millions have been displaced. By the end of last year, nearly 4,500 American soldiers had been killed and more than 32,000 wounded.

On these grounds alone, in a consistent world, those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in the Hague.

[...]

Leadership and morality are indivisible. Good leaders are the custodians of morality. The question is not whether Saddam Hussein was good or bad or how many of his people he massacred. The point is that Mr Bush and Mr Blair should not have allowed themselves to stoop to his immoral level.

If it is acceptable for leaders to take drastic action on the basis of a lie, without an acknowledgement or an apology when they are found out, what should we teach our children?

My appeal to Mr Blair is not to talk about leadership, but to demonstrate it. You are a member of our family, God's family. You are made for goodness, for honesty, for morality, for love; so are our brothers and sisters in Iraq, in the US, in Syria, in Israel and Iran.

I did not deem it appropriate to have this discussion at the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit in Johannesburg last week. As the date drew nearer, I felt an increasingly profound sense of discomfort about attending a summit on "leadership" with Mr Blair. I extend my humblest and sincerest apologies to Discovery, the summit organisers, the speakers and delegates for the lateness of my decision not to attend.

I have little else to add, other than that this is another courageous telling of truth to power, and acting on that truth, from a man of conviction whose entire career has been an exercise in precisely such courage and truth-telling. All the more so when one considers that very few people in our own news media or public service have made the same kind of stand. Our Lord bless and keep you, Your Grace; and long may you yet bear witness for him!

(Also, if you will permit me a brief moment of cinematic nerdiness, I would pay good money to see a biopic with Samuel Jackson portraying Archbishop Tutu. That would be completely worth watching.)

Wielding the Lightsabre of Radical Anglo-Catholic Awesomeness