8 OCTOBER
MARGARET THATCHER TOASTS PAKISTAN’S DICTATOR ZIA
[ 8 October 1981 ]
On 8 October 1981 British prime minister Margaret Thatcher attended a banquet hosted by Pakistan’s military dictator, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.
WAR CABINET DISCUSSES TARGETING AFGHAN MEDIA OUTLETS DESPITE WAR CRIME WARNING
US Federal Government via Wikimedia.
[ 8 October 2001 ]
The United States and Britain had commenced a massive aerial bombardment of Afghanistan a day earlier, when the War Cabinet convened on 8 October 2001. Alastair Campbell recorded in his diary, that they discussed ‘targeting some of the Afghan TV output,’ despite the fact that ‘both Harriet ( Harman, the Solicitor General ) and the Attorney General (Lord Peter Goldsmith ) had raised concerns.’1 There is little doubt that any such attack would have inevitably killed civilian journalists and media technicians and while the media outlets may have served a propaganda purpose, they had little or no strategic military value. Any such targeting would therefore have constituted a war crime.
FOOTNOTES
- Alastair Campbell and Bill Hagerty, The Alastair Campbell Diaries: Volume 4 The Burden of Power Countdown to Iraq, Arrow Books, London, 2013, p. 42.
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