Two weeks ago when I arrived in Istanbul for my annual summer visit, I was surprised to encounter people wearing buttons urging President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair to come to Turkey. “Gel Bush,” “Gel Blair,” they read. “Come Bush,” “Come Blair.” I was shocked. Last year at this time, just before both leaders came to Istanbul to attend the NATO summit, the emphasis was just the reverse. President Bush was the focus of a large campaign whose buttons told him to stay away from the country: “Gelme Bush!” – Don’t Come! The President’s visit took place after revelations of torture at Abu Ghraib. Posters plastered throughout the country described him as a mass murderer and torturer.

So what had changed? Why were people urging him and Mr. Blair to come now?

What had changed was that the culminating session of the year long, global World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) was taking place here between 23rd and 27th of June. The WTI has had several purposes gathered into one essential goal: the trial by conscience of Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair for the abuses of power and violations of international law and norms of human decency that have taken place in Iraq since the American-led invasion of 2003. The buttons I saw this year were calling on the leaders of the war coalition to come to Istanbul and face their accusers. These included eyewitnesses and survivors of the violence against civilians and the civilian infrastructure; social and natural scientists who have studied the cultural, environmental, and ecological destruction caused by the war and its weaponry; lawyers, scholars, and experts on international law, the United Nations, ethics, politics, and war from Iraq, Turkey, Europe, and the United States. These were not supporters of Saddam Hussein. They were opponents of illegal war and military occupation who made the case against Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair to an expert jury of conscience, led by notable ethicists and public figures from around the world, including Arundhati Roy and the prominent Turkish public intellectual, Murat Belge.

A few personalized notes, to add to the record: The evidence and argumentation were extremely powerful. I attended two full days of the conference. After each day I was both engaged and exhausted by what I heard and felt. I have known the American case for and against the war through exposure to the national media in the US; but I had not been exposed in such an enduring fashion to the experience of the war from the other side, or to the meticulous research on the international standards and conditions of human decency that have been breached by the war.

The tribunal was not adequately covered in the US media. On the Saturday night of the conference, after listening to a full day of presentations, I surfed the Internet to read the day’s news. With some pleasure, I perused Paul Krugman’s essay, “The War President” (June 24, 2005), in which he, too, called on Mr. Bush to be held accountable for fabricating evidence for the war. The timing between Krugman’s call and the participants in the conference in Istanbul could not have been better, I thought. So, I immediately drafted a short letter to the Times, in which I noted Mr. Krugman’s call for accountability and a broader discussion on “the need to get out” of Iraq, and I wrote: “Just such a discussion has been occurring since Friday in Istanbul, at the World Tribunal on Iraq, where scholars, activists, lawyers, journalists, and witnesses from many countries have gathered to demand that Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair be held accountable for their aggressive violations of the rule of law and fundamental norms of human decency. Participants are expanding the historical record from various perspectives and express unity on the need to end the harmful American presence in Iraq. With the Jury of Conscience’s verdict due on Monday, the participants are engaging right now in the kind of exchange Mr. Krugman hopes to see in the US. For the presentations [and the final judgment of the jury] see www.worldtribunal.org/main.”

One can still visit that site and read the proceedings. The letter was my own effort to participate in the work of the conference by getting the word of the WTI into the news. I wanted others to know that the conversation that Mr. Krugman and many others in the US are now calling for had already begun. The Times did not publish the letter, nor to my knowledge did it cover the WTI. But the friends to whom I sent it were pleased to learn of the Tribunal. Several expressed shock at not having heard about it.

Mr. Bush, who along with Mr. Blair did not turn up for the Tribunal, has said in defense of the war and occupation that he believes that the US is “laying the groundwork for peace.” It is a strangely optimistic point of view, one that asks us to look steadfastly beyond all the daily violence, committed by all sides, to a post-conflict period of peaceful resolution. In effect, he suggests that we put aside all that is happening in front of our eyes with methods and tools of mass violence and coercion – including those he’s commanded into battle – and trust in his capacity to see through the daily carnage and terror, bombings and beheadings, to a brighter day. In this context, the work of the WTI should be noted and studied, for its participants asked us to see and know the violent war condition we now inhabit – its illegality, its assault on ethical relations between us – and to demand justice on behalf of all those suffering and all that is being destroyed in the current era of global war. Gel Bush… It’s never too late to get caught up with what’s been happening on your path to peace.

Andrew Davison is associate professor of political science at Vassar College where he teaches courses in political theory and politics in the Middle East. His latest book is Conquering Hearts and Minds:The American War Ideology in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, 1990-2003. For more, see Andy Davison.

Photo: An unattributed photo of an American Tank in Iraq. Click on the photo and note the words ‘New Testament’ on the Tank’s barrel.