To the Editor:

Nothing other than expertise in the art of mendacity and duplicity qualifies Tony Blair to teach anything to anyone. Having someone who should be arraigned as a war criminal at the International Court of Justice at the Hague is a dubious distinction for Yale. Of course, history belongs to the victors.

But I thought we had come to a stage in civilization when the wrongs committed by leaders and governments would be recognized regardless of who the perpetrators were. Apparently, I was wrong.

Yale’s invitation to ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair to teach at the schools of Management and Divinity next year is a disgrace and sullies the University’s reputation. Tony Blair, along with George W. Bush, was instrumental in the illegal and thoroughly immoral Iraq war. The Downing Street memos have revealed lies about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction that Blair used to hoodwink the British parliament into going along with the Bush/Cheney campaign to control the Middle East’s precious oil at all costs.

In the five years of a brutal and bloody U.S./British occupation, thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed, Iraq’s educational and utilities devastated and millions of Iraqis made refugees. And now Yale is going to have the “distinction” of honoring and compensating (very handsomely) a war criminal.

Sadu Nanjudiah

April 1

The writer is a resident of New Britain.