Happy Birthday, Mr. President! I am the same age, and you are my inspiration – your virility, your vigorous political commentaries, often late at night, your portentous imagination that you are Jesus, or at least holier than the Pope.
It is a pity that instead of being the leader of the free world (the description of former American presidents, if only because of the alternatives), your actions and those of your supporters have made the American race deplorable, either because they elected you or because the rest cannot work out how to get rid of you. Nations that were once your proudest allies cannot trust you and want no part of the wars you monger, despite your threats of tariff punishment.
Ever since I first visited America, I believed it the land of the free. Its children then were taught in schools to recite Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence – “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”. They learnt the wording on the Statue of Liberty – “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. They were told the importance of honesty through the story of the young George Washington who, when asked who cut down a cherry tree, said, “I cannot tell a lie … I did cut it with my hatchet”. How are American kids brought now to emulate the president who lies every day and builds temples to himself like White House ballrooms and tries to add his name to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for the Performing Arts, not to mention that jury verdict against him for sexual assault?
As for your wars, sinking small boats (in one case with their sailors clinging to the wreckage) are standard war crimes. So was invading Venezuela to capture Nicolás Maduro. And so was invading Iran, which began by killing 168 schoolgirls in a missile strike and then backing Israel’s war on Lebanon. Next stop will probably be Cuba, whose people have cruelly been starved of petrol and food, although they have not been a threat to the US since 1963.
You will probably withdraw support from Taiwan, allowing Xi Jinping to invade on the Russian precedent of Ukraine, a country which you will not help Europe to defend. Then may come Greenland, and possibly Canada, although that may be a bridge too far for your megalomania. Who knows?
Initially, I had sympathy with your attack on Iran, triggered in January by the merciless killing of many thousands of peaceful protesters, and their injuries often caused by being shot in the face by Revolutionary Guards. You seemed genuinely moved by this and urged Iranians to rise up against their government, although the CIA did not tell you that they had no weapons to rise up with. But many did so, and were slaughtered while survivors are being executed almost every day, victims of your reckless incitement.
You have never been interested in a deal that would save those who have been imprisoned for relying on your promise of safety and rescue. You have failed to make any clause of the deal requiring Iran to abandon the death penalty or to release its political prisoners. You simply do not care about the victims you have put in harm’s way.
Of course, I am glad that you have just now reached an agreement with Iran. It’s not as good as Barack Obama’s, which you ripped up. A better deal was offered by Iran in February, which you ignored. Meanwhile, thousands died and only last week, US forces committed war crimes by bombing reservoirs supplying water to its dehydrated citizens.
Your Secretary for War Pete Hegseth does not know a war crime when he orders one. Not only is he responsible for bombing the boats, merely suspected of running drugs, but he has just ended the long-lasting rule requiring the army to “give quarter” to surrendered prisoners, the most basic of humanitarian protections for prisoners of war.
Your buddy Elon Musk is now a trillionaire, ironically because it was his bright idea to cut USAID to smithereens, with the consequence of hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths of people who no longer receive food and medicine.
As for your government’s war on the International Criminal Court, you seem completely indifferent to the importance of truth and justice, especially in relation to Netanyahu and his associates, who have been indicted for starving the people of Gaza and ordering the bombing of civilian targets. International laws against war were the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman – go and watch Nuremberg the movie – and stop threatening the court, which is one of the few international institutions still engaged in fighting for a better world.
But otherwise “Happy Birthday, Mr. President”. The cage fighters were an appropriate blood sport to celebrate it. Next year, in your new ballroom, you could have lions and gladiators. You have had a long life, but a low life – and so say all of us.
Geoffrey Robertson AO, KC, is author of World of War Crimes – Eyeless in Gaza and Beyond, published by Penguin Books.
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Geoffrey Robertson KC is a London-based Australian human rights barrister and founding head of Doughty Street Chambers. He is the author of Rather His Own Man: In Court with Tyrants, Tarts and Troublemakers.
