Sandra Finley

2009-10-13 Addendum sent to Attorney General: you DO have responsibility to arrest Bush, the Law of Complementarity

 George Bush war criminal  No Responses »
Oct 132009
 

October 13, 2009

TO: Don Morgan, MLA
Saskatoon Southeast
Address: Minister of Justice and Attorney General

109 – 3502 Taylor Street East
Saskatoon, SK
S7H 5H9
Details: Constituency Assistant: Rita Flaman Jarrett

306.955.4755 (Tel)
morgan@donmorgan.ca (Email)

Dear Honourable Don Morgan, Attorney General for Saskatchewan,  

George W Bush is scheduled to be in Saskatoon on October 21, 2009. 

Please see the enclosed letters to the Attorney General of Canada and to the RCMP, Division F Commander.   They request that the responsible persons carry out their duties under the law to arrest and prosecute George Bush. 

The laws that apply and the evidence against Bush are included in the letter to the RCMP. 

“If the most powerful among us are not accountable to the law, our justice system fails.” 

I thought you would like to be advised of the steps taken in relation to George Bush, in your role of responsibility for the administration of justice in Saskatchewan. 

I am confident that the responsible persons in Canada will see that justice prevails.  

Best wishes,

Sandra Finley  (contact info)

ADDENDUM SENT,  THE LAW OF COMPLEMENTARITY MAKES RESPONSIBILITY CLEAR  

Dear Honourable Don Morgan, 

In your position of responsibility for the administration of justice in Saskatchewan, I would appreciate if you could relay to the Police, the Principle of Complementarity under International Law which places the onus on domestic jurisdictions to arrest and prosecute persons such as Bush.  Also Canada’s adoption and enlargement of the International Laws in the year 2000.  Please see the following text. 

Thank-you. 

Best wishes,

Sandra Finley 

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Persons responsible for arresting or prosecuting George Bush when he comes to Canada Oct 20 – 22  say “not my responsibility.  I don’t have jurisdiction.  It’s International Law (or whatever)”.

 These officials in Canada DO have jurisdiction and responsibility for the arrest and prosecution of George W Bush under the Principle in International Law called Complementarity.  The explanation of the Principle is simple.     /Sandra

COMPLEMENTARITY

 Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

 From his book,  “Intent for a Nation”  (2007)

 Page 111:

 “Countries that ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court take on certain obligations.  Prominent among these is the obligation to investigate and prosecute, under their domestic criminal laws, any individual located on their territory who is accused of any crime prohibited by the statute.  This is because the International Criminal Court operates on the basis of a principle called “complementarity,” whereby most prosecutions are supposed to take place in domestic courts.  The International Criminal Court steps in only when it deems that the relevant domestic court is unable or unwilling to fulfill that role, or when the UN Security Council refers a situation directly to it.  

In 2000, the Canadian Parliament adopted legislation implementing the Rome Statute into Canadian law.  The Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act provides Canadian domestic courts with jurisdiction over a wide range of international crimes, regardless of the nationality of the alleged perpetrator or the location where he or she allegedly committed the crime.  The act also goes further than the Rome Statute by providing jurisdiction retroactively over crimes.”

2009-10-13 Bush: important simple legal principle, “Complementarity” (International Law)

 George Bush war criminal  No Responses »
Oct 132009
 

Persons responsible for arresting or prosecuting George Bush when he comes to Canada Oct 20 – 22  say “not my responsibility.  I don’t have jurisdiction.  It’s International Law (or whatever)”. 

I am annoyed at myself for forgetting this which I read when first getting into the question of Lockheed Martin’s involvement in the Canadian census.   They were manufacturers of land mines and cluster munitions, in contravention of International conventions that Canada has signed onto.   There should be economic sanctions against them, not the awarding of Government contracts.   (Lockheed Martin also has a long, long list of court convictions.  They break the law all the time.) 

But back to Bush:   these officials in Canada DO have jurisdiction and responsibility for the arrest and prosecution of George W Bush under the Principle in International Law called Complementarity.  The explanation of the Principle is simple.  Please spread it around,  especially to people in the justice system, including the police.  Thanks.  

COMPLEMENTARITY 

Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law, University of British Columbia, Vancouver 

From his book,  “Intent for a Nation”  (2007) 

Page 111: 

“Countries that ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court take on certain obligations.  Prominent among these is the obligation to investigate and prosecute, under their domestic criminal laws, any individual located on their territory who is accused of any crime prohibited by the statute.  This is because the International Criminal Court operates on the basis of a principle called “complementarity,” whereby most prosecutions are supposed to take place in domestic courts.  The International Criminal Court steps in only when it deems that the relevant domestic court is unable or unwilling to fulfill that role, or when the UN Security Council refers a situation directly to it. 

In 2000, the Canadian Parliament adopted legislation implementing the Rome Statute into Canadian law.  The Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act provides Canadian domestic courts with jurisdiction over a wide range of international crimes, regardless of the nationality of the alleged perpetrator or the location where he or she allegedly committed the crime.  The act also goes further than the Rome Statute by providing jurisdiction retroactively over crimes.”

2009-10-10 Corporations at the Universities. Selling Out. Richard Florizone and UDP. Nuclear at the University.

 Take back the University  No Responses »
Oct 102009
 

The corporations corrupt science and our knowledge base.  We lose necessary research that serves the public interest.  It is past time to take back what is ours.

CONTENTS

(1)    NEW BOOK “SELLING OUT: ACADEMIC FREEDOM & THE CORPORATE MARKET” BY HOWARD WOODHOUSE

(2)    THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN, AN END-RUN AROUND THE PUBLIC INTEREST

(3)    REGARDING MY PRESENTATION ON ENERGY TO STANDING COMMITTEE, OCT  9TH

(4)    CORPORATIONS APPROPRIATING THE KNOWLEDGE RESOURCE OF OUR ECONOMY (INCLUDES FLORIZONE)

(5)    THE PATTERN IS ALWAYS THE SAME. LEARN TO RECOGNIZE IT.

(6)    FIRST THEY CAME FOR

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(1)   “SELLING OUT: ACADEMIC FREEDOM & THE CORPORATE MARKET”

Howard Woodhouse wrote a book on 6 case studies of corporate involvement at the University of Saskatchewan.

Canadians should know about this book. The other items in this email make it clear why.

–   – – – – – – – – – –

Selling Out: Academic Freedom and the Corporate Market http://www.amazon.ca/Selling-Out-Academic-Freedom-Corporate/dp/0773535802

In a powerful defense of the values that define education, Howard Woodhouse uses concrete and vivid examples to show how universities in Canada have been engulfed by the market model of education and how administrators have done little to resist this trend. “Selling Out” demonstrates that the logics of value of the market and of universities are not only different but opposed to one another. By introducing the reader to a variety of cases, some well known and others not, Woodhouse explains how academic freedom and university autonomy are being subordinated to corporate demands and how faculty have attempted to resist this subjugation. He argues that the mechanistic discourse of corporate culture has replaced the language of education – subject-based disciplines and the professors who teach them have become ‘resource units’, students have become ‘educational consumers’, and curricula have become ‘program packages’. Graduates are now ‘products’ and ‘competing in the global economy’ has replaced the search for truth. Challenging the current orthodoxy that the market model is the only way forward, Woodhouse argues that governments have a responsibility to fund universities, recognizing that they are the only places in society where the critical search for knowledge takes precedence.

About the Author

Howard Woodhouse is professor of educational foundations and co-director of the University of Saskatchewan Process Philosophy Research Unit.

Book Launch . .  October, 2009

Selling Out: Academic Freedom and the Corporate Market

(McGill-Queen’s University Press)

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(2)  THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN, AN END-RUN AROUND THE PUBLIC INTEREST

I remain greatly concerned about the role of the Universities in Saskatchewan, in the promotion of the nuclear and tar sands industries.

(To say nothing of their service to Monsanto (ownership of seeds) and other of the biotech corporations, the GMO’s and biotech pharmaceuticals.)

We citizens are paying for the research for the nuke and tar sands industries, through the:

  • Canadian Nuclear Studies Centre at the University of Saskatchewan and the
  • Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC) at the University of Regina.

This is in direct opposition to what the public wants.

The public has made a clear statement through the Perrins’ Report in September that we do not want nuclear.  We want to transition to a path that is truly clean, green and based on renewable energy sources.

In spite of the Perrins’ Report on the public consultations this past summer (the people of Saskatchewan say “no” to nuclear) and this new round of “Standing Committee” meetings on Energy, the nuclear ship has set sail at the University.  They are established at the University, how do we get them un-established?

If we don’t, the research

  • to develop the “small” reactors for tar sands production, and
  • for radioactive waste disposal

is going to move straight ahead.  The Cdn Nuclear Studies Centre at the U of S  has been in operation for more than a year.  They are on their way.

The oil and gas (tar sands) people and the nuclear industry need the money to flow to the Universities in Saskatchewan. It’s an end-run around the public interest. Makes it look as though the Government is not funding and is not taking a position that will get them booted out of power. They are the discrete pimps for the industry, wittingly or unwittingly – – if only because they do not step back and re-assess the situation.

The Federal money Brad Wall applied for at the end of July 2009, for research on “small” reactor technology at the University of Saskatchewan, will be decided in November.

We need to determine what interests are represented by the 4 people on the panel that will make the decision as to where the Federal money for nuclear will go.   http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS147689+19-Jun-2009+MW20090619

Between the Administration at the University, the Government and the two Industries, the players are in place to carry the ball – at the University.

It is no surprise that the mandate of the Cdn Nuclear Studies Centre at the U of S includes radioactive waste disposal.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization met in Saskatoon in mid-September, in a meeting closed to the public. We know that the industry has targeted Saskatchewan as a place to dump the radioactive waste.  We know that the industry has no place to get rid of the radioactive spent fuel bundles from the more than a hundred nuclear reactors in the U.S. that have been accumulating for decades. Not to mention a site for disposal of all the other radioactive waste there and in Canada.

Richard Florizone, Vice-President of Finance, University of Saskatchewan, did not disclose that the Canadian Nuclear Studies Centre was already up and running in his statements to the public consultation process.  He lied about acid rain. His video-taped presentation for the Saskatchewan public contained misleading and half-truths.  (see itme #4 below)

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(3)  REGARDING MY PRESENTATION ON ENERGY TO STANDING COMMITTEE, OCT 9T

The theme of my verbal presentation was that the economics of resource depletion dictate that we transition to renewable energy sources.  We don’t have a choice, unless we want collapse of the economy.

The economy is built upon non-renewable energy sources.  If we don’t transition off them, we’ll hit the wall hard when the depletion is complete (I used the cod fishery example).

Nuclear electricity in Saskatchewan is for 2 things:  tar sands production and export to the U.S.

It will only accelerate the depletion of already-dwindling supplies of fossil fuels (tar sands) and water (hydro-electricity) in the U.S. The U.S. resource-depletion problem will be transferred to Canada.  (It already is with tar sands and water.)

I emphasized that the Nuclear Studies Centre at the University of Saskatchewan has been in operation for more than a year.  The public consultations therefore lacked integrity:  we were providing input on something that has already been decided.

The university is serving the interests of the industry and not the public interest.

The Committee asked their standard question about what I’d do regarding the implementation of renewables.  I responded by saying that it is only through research and experimentation that we will find out how to make the transition to renewables.

It is the role of the University in our society to serve that research and learning function.  Instead the University is studying nuclear power production and radioactive waste disposal.

During the questions I was able to bring in the acid rain that is destroying northern Saskatchewan, thanks to the tar sands.

When the resource depletion is complete the oil and gas companies will pick up and leave, exactly as they have done everywhere else in the world.  We will be left with a destroyed environment, just like the tar sands in Alberta.  People will not be able to support themselves.

The following might make it seem as though the exchange was heated.  It wasn’t.  I feel a little sorry for the SaskParty (Conservative) guys.  They are the back-benchers.  They aren’t bad people.

The Sask Party MLA Randy Weekes denied the relationship between expanding electricity needs in the province and tar sands production.  I said that the Petroleum Technology Research Center at the University of Regina is working on the large electrical diodes that will be used and that will require vast amounts of electricity.

When asked about how we in Saskatchewan are viewed by the rest of Canada and the world, I said we are looked upon with pity. (I should have said loathing.)

The rest of the world is moving ahead.  We are pursuing a path (nuclear & tar sands) that not only will make us offensive to the rest of the world in terms of GHG emissions and climate change.  But also, we will be pitied because we will have impoverished our environment which in turn will impoverish us, eventually.  You cannot have prosperity in an impoverished environment.

The Sask Party MLA Randy Weekes denied that a decision has been made on nuclear power.  I responded with the information about the Cdn Nuclear Studies Centre that has been in operation for more than a year.  If there has been no decision, then why is their mandate both nuclear power production and radioactive waste storage?

It was my impression that the Sask Party MLA’s might not have known that the Centre is already up and running.

I was able to get in a word about the Canada-U.S. Western Energy Corridor. It is further evidence that the decision has been made,  in spite of their assertions that it hasn’t.

And so on.

When the Committee broke after my presentation, a committee member told me that his Father’s life was saved in the 1950s by nuclear medicine.

He said that I (Sandra) don’t favour nuclear studies at the University but without it, his Father would have been dead.  I mentioned that the issue we are grappling with is about energy and not medicine and suggested that, regardless, we are moving to less harmful ways of treating disease.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.  The courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.  There are a number of men on the committee who are simply tuned in to the nuclear frequency.

It is possible (ha!) that some of them privately dismissed what I had to say about resource depletion – they don’t believe it, or don’t want to.

The good thing is that the meetings are recorded and we can file our information. Leave no doubt that we will tread a green path and not a scorched one (as Winona LaDuke describes it).

The deadline for submissions is Oct 16th.  Details in another email.

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(4)    CORPORATIONS APPROPRIATING THE KNOWLEDGE RESOURCE OF OUR ECONOMY  (INCLUDES FLORIZONE)

An economy is based upon a resource. The people who gain ownership of the resource make very large profits (think oil and gas, potash, etc. – public resources that corporations have been given a right to develop or exploit).

The profits are enlarged by crying that the royalties are too high (they’ll take their business to another jurisdiction – ha!). Direct the money to the corporate coffer and out of  the public purse.

And simultaneously, transfer costs to the public purse by crying about too much “government regulation”.  Which is simply a way of transferring all of the environmental and health costs of their operations to us to pay for, through taxation.  Another form of “bail-out” or transfer of wealth from the public to the large transnational corps.

We are repeatedly told that the new economy is a “knowledge economy”.  It is not surprising that the corporations are taking over the universities.

Starting with the work on GMOs I repeatedly run into professors, students and staff at the University who are not free to speak their minds.  Honest discourse has been replaced by subservience to corporate agendas.

I would like to collectively give us a big shake.  If you cannot speak freely at the University, what comes next? … maybe the young people among us do not know the poem “First they came . . . “. I appended it as a reminder, item #6.

I observed the loss of integrity again, repeatedly, through the Uranium Partnership Development (UDP or “NUKE”) Panel struck by the Government of Saskatchewan and chaired by Richard Florizone, Vice-President of Finance of the University of Saskatchewan.

More than 2,000 citizens heard the lie from Florizone that the acid rain problem in Canada has been solved.

The public meetings were about nuclear reactors.  Why was Florizone even mentioning acid rain?

Understand the relationship between the tar sands (acid rain production) and “small” nuclear reactors which are to be developed under the “Uranium Development Partnership”.  (Actually, the “small” reactors have already been developed in the U.S., in Japan and elsewhere.  Whatever is done in Saskatchewan will build on that. The University is a vehicle through which to get the “small” reactors up and running.)

Huge amounts of electricity are needed for the large electrical diodes that will heat the far underground to get the tar to the point where it will flow.  It is projected to take more than 3 years of 24-hour heating just to get the first tar on the Saskatchewan side of the border flowing.

Imagine the vast quantities of electricity (heat) needed by the tar sands producers.

The increase in acid rain from tar sands processing continues , and will continue, unabated.  Since it was first identified that some areas  of northern Saskatchewan (downwind) are already past critical load limits (CCME Report, 2003) there has only been EXPANSION of the tar sands.  The Government is sitting on the updates on how bad the acid rain problem now is.

It is very convenient for the industry to have the Vice-President of the University tell us all that the acid rain problem in Canada is no longer a problem because we are so smart we fixed it.  It’s about the use of lies (propaganda)to remove obstacles. to tar sands expansion.

Further, Florizone led the public to believe that we were being consulted about the whole uranium/nuclear question, including whether or not there would be a nuclear studies centre of excellence at the U of S.

While he was doing that, he had to know that the Canadian Centre of Nuclear Studies at the University was already  established.  In the “On Campus News”, July 17, 2009 the Vice-President of Research, Karen Chad was interviewed.  She said that the Centre has been in operation for more than a year.  (Link no longer valid http://www.usask.ca/communications/ocn/09-july-17/2.php.)  The decision had been made and implemented.

The mandate of the Canadian Centre of Nuclear Studies at the U of S includes research into “power production” and radioactive waste disposal (“safe storage” as she calls it).

Call a spade a spade.  Richard Florizone is not the kind of role model acceptable at the University.  We pay his salary so that our children have a centre of learning, where people search for truth.  They should not be taught that lies and deception are just part of the way we do business.

We are being sold out by people in Government who are facilitating the transfer of ownership of the University to the transnational corporations.

The rumbling started a while back.  Howard Woodhouse has now given us a vehicle (his book “Selling Out: Academic Freedom and the Corporate Market”) – the train is moving out of the station.  I invite you to jump on board.  Good times are a-comin’!  We are well on our way to taking back what is ours.  It may take a while but we’ll do it.

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(5)    THE PATTERN IS ALWAYS THE SAME.  LEARN TO RECOGNIZE IT.

The pattern is always the same.  Resources – Fish, Crops, Animals, and now Knowledge.

With the cod fishery:  what you had was concentration into fewer and fewer hands, and then into corporate-ownership.  Even big fishermen can’t afford refrigerated factory trawler ships.  They killed a renewable resource that once made it possible for local people to provide for themselves.

The public money “invested” in the depleting resource (cod) ended up benefitting very few people, a characteristic of the “public-private-partnerships” (Big Business – Big Government collaborations) that we now recognize.

The fight is still on to stop and reverse the takeover of the food supply.  I’ll send out an email about the documentary movie I recently saw at the Broadway Theatre, “Food, Inc.”.   It would be excellent if everyone could see it.  It reminds me of our never-ending fight over GMO Wheat.

Here is another characteristic I have noticed:  relatively weak people who are manipulable are moved into strategic positions in the University, in Government, and in the bureaucracy.  Often they are people who go back-and-forth between those 3 institutions and carry their connections with them.   More Money and rubbing shoulders with people who are perceived to be influential are sufficient to give a person who is basically insecure the illusion that they have power and importance.  They are not, in the words of Einstein, people “who see with their own eyes and feel with their own heart.”

If you look at the characteristics of the corporate takeover of the food supply, you can see PRECISELY the same process now underway at the University in relation to our energy sources and knowledge base.

I have explained in other emails:  control of the knowledge base is a critical component of a fascist and militaristic state.

These developments are dangerous and we need to succeed in putting a stop to them.

Lordy – how is it that we got born into this particular time in history and in this place?!  Do we rise to the occasion or not?  And what are the consequences if we don’t?

I can see why people choose to be ignorant!   The line from the song by Canadian Neil Young written in response to the National Guard gunning down students who were protesting the Viet Nam War at Kent State University in Ohio, “How can you run if you know?”.   It’s easier if you use the “Don’t know” model!

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(6)     FIRST THEY CAME FOR

NOTE:  we are perverse!  When we are threatened our natural reaction is to clam up.  That is EXACTLY what we should NOT do.  You are vulnerable if people do not know your situation.  You isolate yourself by not speaking.

Choose who you will speak to.  People have an innate desire to be helpful, to be useful.  If you speak to the right people, you begin to create a mass.  A mass is needed.  If the threat is real, the mass will form to give you support.

Thank-you to Howard for speaking up and drawing attention to the need for the citizen-owners of the University to rally behind him to take back our resource.   Mount the steeds!

First they came for the university professors, and I did not speak out – because I was not a university professor.  (Ha!  I just added my own line.)  The rest is real:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

2009-10-08 Arrest Bush: Letters to RCMP and Chief of Police. COMPREHENSIVE argument.

 Baltasar Garzon, Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), George Bush war criminal  No Responses »
Oct 082009
 

Related to the Bush visit (Oct 20-21-22 Edmonton-Saskatoon-Montreal).

Letters (below) to:

  • RCMP F Division (Sask) Commander  (arrest)
  •  Chief of Police   (arrest)
  • Letter to the Attorney General of Canada (prosecution)

 

Interesting update, item 15 in the letters:

“LAW & ORDER” TV PROGRAMME MAKES CASE FOR PROSECUTION OF BUSH ADMINISTRATION TORTURERS, OCTOBER 2, 2009

I almost feel guilty putting my name to the attached two letters because they are a collaborative creation.

But never mind – please feel free to cut, copy and paste to send your own letter to members of the justice system.

“Peace will not come out of a clash of arms but out of justice lived and done by unarmed nations in the face of odds.” Gandhi

 

I included a copy of the letter to the RCMP in the letter to the Attorney General of Canada.

For you, much of it is a repeat of information in previous emails.

The first item, SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RULE OF LAW,  is to me the most important part. We are in big trouble if the laws do not apply to those who govern.

I think we can and will and must win this one. A mass of informed people will do it – please forward this to others.

 

UPDATE (Sept 2014):

George Bush and his cohorts were not arrested, but they seem to have stopped coming to Canada.    They may have stopped travelling – – they are at risk of being arrested.

See the  international efforts  Arrest George Bush. Rule of Law essential to democracy.

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October 8, 2009

FROM:   Sandra Finley  (address and contact information)

TO:   RCMP

Commander Division F

Bag 2500

6101 Dewdney Avenue

Regina, SK  S4P 3K7

Dear Commander of F Division,

RE:  George Bush in Saskatoon, October 21.  Duty to arrest under the Rule of Law.

Please review the enclosed information regarding the laws as they apply to George W. Bush.

I request that you carry out your duties under the law and arrest Bush when he comes to Saskatchewan.

I know this is a touchy issue.  It is not a political one.  It is not a question of whether it may or may not be popular with some people or organizations.

It is a question of whether people are equal before the law.

The substantial information appended is more than sufficient ground upon which to arrest George Bush.

I have written to the Attorney General of Canada, Robert Nicholson.  He must carry out his duty which is to prosecute after Bush has been arrested.

Thank-you.

Best wishes,

Sandra Finley

 

CONTENTS

(1)  SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RULE OF LAW:   GEORGE BUSH’S VISIT IS AN EXTREMELY SERIOUS MATTER

(2)  LETTER TO THE CHIEF OF POLICE

(3)  INTERNATIONAL AND CANADIAN LAWS, AS THEY APPLY TO BUSH

(4)  G.W. BUSH SHOULD BE BARRED ENTRY UNDER INADMISSIBILITY PROVISIONS OF THE IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE PROTECTION ACT (IRPA)

(5)  CANADIAN LAW OBLIGES THE POLICE IN SASKATCHEWAN TO ARREST BUSH

(6)  DUTY TO BAR ENTRY TO CANADA

(7)  DUTY TO INVESTIGATE ALLEGATIONS OF TORTURE

(8)  DUTY TO PROSECUTE

(9)  VINCE BUGLIOSI’S BOOK, “THE PROSECUTION OF GEORGE W. BUSH FOR MURDER” AND TESTIMONY AT THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE HEARINGS (YOUTUBE)

(10)  MESSAGE FROM RAMSAY CLARK, FORMER UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL

(11)  SPANISH JUDGE RESUMES TORTURE CASE AGAINST SIX SENIOR BUSH LAWYERS,  8.9.09   

(12)  UPDATE ON THE SPANISH PROSECUTION, OCTOBER 7.  LEGAL COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST BUSH, BLAIR AND OTHERS

(13)  BOOK, THE GUANTANAMO FILES, THE  STORIES OF THE 774 DETAINEES IN AMERICAN’S ILLEGAL PRISON

(14)  TORTURED LAW, VIDEO FOOTAGE

(15)  TV PROGRAMME  “LAW & ORDER” MAKES CASE FOR PROSECUTION OF BUSH ADMINISTRATION TORTURERS, OCTOBER 2, 2009

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(1)  SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RULE OF LAW:   GEORGE BUSH’S VISIT IS AN EXTREMELY SERIOUS MATTER

(UPDATE, June 2016:  I excerpted this to create its own posting:  Democracy: Significance of the Rule of Law )

We are in big trouble if the laws do not apply to those who govern.

Many of us do not appreciate the significance of  The Rule of Law.  We take it for granted.

We don’t stop to think what it would be like if we DO NOT HAVE the rule of law.

We don’t stop to think about WHAT UNDERMINES the rule of law? . . .  If people see that the law applies to them, but not to rich people, they grow to hold the law in disdain.

Unequal application of the law breaks down the rule of law.  The response then, of those who govern, is to invoke martial law, a police state, because people become unruly.

People comply with the law if they see that is it fair and equally applied.  You can have a measure of PEACE in the community if the Rule of Law is upheld.

Many of us do not appreciate that it is the CITIZENS in a democracy who have responsibility for ensuring that the rule of law is upheld.

We don’t bother to understand that World War Two happened because the PEOPLE in Germany, the influential, the educated, the police, the lawyers, and judges DID NOT stand up and speak up when they saw things that were wrong in the application of the laws.

Citizens have to stop things BEFORE they get out of hand. The German people did not do that.  After a certain point, bad actors cannot be stopped, except through the extreme measures of (World) war.

IF YOU BELIEVE that young lives were expended for a good cause in World War Two, then get the hell off your butts and do something to preserve what they fought and died for.

In pre-war Germany, people did not stand up and insist that law-breakers be arrested and tried in courts of true justice.

As bad actors amassed power, they were allowed to break the laws with no fear of prosecution.

“All persons, regardless of wealth, social status, or the political power wielded by them, are to be treated the same before the law.

“The rule of law means that the law is above everyone and it applies to everyone. Whether governors or governed, rulers or ruled, no one is above the law, no one is exempted from the law, and no one can grant exemption to the application of the law.

“The rules must apply to those who lay them down and those who apply them – that is, to the government as well as the governed.  Nobody has the power to grant exceptions.”

People must, of course, KNOW WHAT THE LAW IS, if the rule of law is to be upheld.

We are in big trouble if we are ignorant, because then we are disempowered and at the mercy of bad actors.

The laws as they apply to George Bush for crimes against humanity are spelt out in the letter below to the Chief of Police.

We do not have the luxery of being ignorant, and we do not have the luxery of being complacent.

/Sandra

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(2)  LETTER TO THE CHIEF OF POLICE

September 10, 2009

Sandra Finley  (address and contact info)

 

TO:   Saskatoon City Police

Chief Clive Weighill

 

HAND DELIVERED

 

Dear Chief Weighill,

 

CONCERNING:    G.W. Bush visit to Saskatoon, October 21, 2009

 

George W. Bush is responsible for an illegal war on Iraq.  I ask people how they would like it if he had done to Canada what he did to Iraq.

G.W. Bush authorized the use of treatment prohibited by the Convention against Torture and Canadian law.  His coming to Canada will trigger Canada’s jurisdiction and duty to prosecute him.

What can the Saskatoon City Police do?  Can you start an investigation perhaps?  There is lots of information already collected.  I think it would mostly be a matter of using existing documents.  Please see appended information.  I would be happy to obtain more, if that would be helpful.

You may know that there are many lawyers and organizations around the world who are working on the legal case against Bush, in order to bring him before the International Criminal Court.

If he was the president of an African country (e.g. Al Bashir of Sudan, Darfur notoriety) who is responsible for similar but lesser deeds, he would be tried by the International Criminal Court.

It may take some time, but in the end G.W. Bush will be tried for his crimes against humanity – – worse than those of any criminal you have in your custody today.

There is more than a month’s time for the justice community in Saskatchewan to figure out how to deal with the entry into our City of a most likely war criminal.

Please see the appended legal duties of Canada in this situation.

I have left a message for:

  • Karl Bazin in his role of President of the Law Society of SK   (Swift Current  778-3632 home)
  • Terry Kimpinski, President of the SK branch of the Canadian Bar Association   Saskatoon  (306-244-6686.)
  • I phoned Bedford Biofuels in Calgary (a sponsor of the Bush visit) and then sent them the legal case against Bush.  Maybe they are unaware.

This is so offensive that they would bring Bush here.  I have a sick feeling when I think that we would in any way celebrate the perpetrators of illegal war and torture, and worse yet, do nothing to see that justice is applied equally.  Mr. Bush is not above the law.

The Star Phoenix sent out a full colour advertisement by email for the event.  The names across the bottom of the ad indicate that the sponsors here are the Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce, The Saskatoon Star Phoenix, TCU Place, and American Express.

I will contact others and encourage my friends to circulate the information.  I am sure that working together, citizens and law enforcement, we can find a way out of this dilemma.

You are in a very difficult position vis-à-vis law enforcement.  I would not wish to be in your boots.

 

(INSERT:  Sept 12th.  When I think of it, the Chief of Police is not in a difficult situation, especially if citizens rally behind him.  If the rule of law is to prevail, the laws MUST apply equally to everyone, regardless of their perceived stature. It is the job of the Chief of Police – he would understand this better than anyone.)

 

Please contact me if I can be of further assistance.

 

Best wishes,

Sandra Finley

(THE FOLLOWING Items 3 & 4 are THE LEGAL  ARGUMENT INCLUDED IN THE COMMUNICATION TO CHIEF WEIGHILL.)

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(3)  INTERNATIONAL AND CANADIAN LAWS, AS THEY APPLY TO BUSH

Canada’s legal duties

By ratifying the Convention against Torture and the Rome Statute for an International Court, Canada agreed not only to make the torture and other war crimes and crimes against humanity crimes under Canadian law but also to participate in acting effectively to prevent and punish these crimes wherever they occur. To ensure Canada’s ability to fulfill these duties, Parliament has:

o       Passed laws enabling Canada to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity wherever the crimes occurred and whatever the nationality of the suspected perpetrators and the victims. (e.g. Criminal Code, torture provisions and the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act.)  Under the Convention against Torture , when a person suspected of any involvement in torture enters Canada, Canada has a duty to either prosecute that person or extradite him to a state that is willing and able to prosecute.

o       Passed laws to ensure that Canada will not allow people suspected of war crimes and/or crimes against humanity and/or gross human rights abuses to enter Canada or otherwise provide a safe haven, even temporarily, for people suspected of any involvement in carrying out or acquiescing to war crimes, crimes against humanity or other gross human rights abuses. (e.g. Immigration and Refugee Protection Act)

The Canadian Ministers responsible are not enforcing these laws.  In spite of significant intelligent, peaceful protests, G.W. Bush was allowed entry into Canada in March and May 2009 and Colin Powell was allowed entry in June 2008.

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(4)  G.W. BUSH SHOULD BE BARRED ENTRY UNDER INADMISSIBILITY PROVISIONS OF THE IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE PROTECTION ACT (IRPA) 

G. W. Bush should be barred from entering Canada in accordance with the inadmissibility provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA).

Foreign nationals suspected of human or international rights violations are not allowed into Canada.

George W. Bush has been accused by knowledgeable groups and individuals throughout the world of complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity and other gross human rights abuses.

Bush (and Dick Cheney) are known to have authorized and directed the torture of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and other U.S. controlled prisons.

A Canadian citizen, Omar Khadr has been subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment prohibited by international law—treatment and interrogation techniques approved by Bush and Cheney.

States are responsible for enforcing international humanitarian law (the laws of war) by ensuring that violators are prosecuted and held accountable.

As a signatory to the Convention against Torture, the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute Canada has a duty to take effective measures to prevent and punish torture and other war crimes and crimes against humanity wherever such crimes occur, no matter what the nationality of perpetrators or victims.

War crimes and crimes against humanity carried out by the Bush administration under the supervision and direction of G.W. Bush as President and Commander in Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces and Dick Cheney as Vice-President are very well documented.  Evidence that is part of the public record far exceeds the ‘reasonable grounds’ required by the IRPA.

Michael Haas (his book, George W. Bush, War Criminal?  The Bush Administration’s Liability for 269 War Crimes) identifies and documents evidence of 269 war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the U.S. under the direction and supervison of Bush and Cheney.

(INSERT, Sandra Finley:  There is also the work of Vince Bugliosi in the U.S. in relation to Bush (testimony before the House Judicial Committee (on Youtube) and his book “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder”.  I didn’t mention those to Chief Weighill, but should have.  Please see Item #9 for more information.)

Courts in Canada and the U.S. have confirmed the involvement of G.W. Bush, as president and other members of the Bush administration in war crimes.  The U.S. Supreme Court in Rasul v. Bush 542 U.S. 455 (2004) ruled that Bush’s order  depriving Guantánamo Bay prisoners of habeas corpus was unlawful under U.S. and international law. Again in 2006 the U.S. Supreme Court in Hamdan v Rumsfeld, 126 S,Ct. 2749 (2006) ruled that the Guantánamo Bay regime created by Bush’s 13/Nov/01 order violated Geneva Convention fair trial rights.   Under international (Geneva Conventions) and Canadian (Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act) depriving a prisoner of a fair trial is a war crime.

The Supreme Court of Canada in Canada (Justice) v. Khadr, 2008 SCC 28 confirmed that the Bush administration’s treatment of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay violated the Geneva Conventions and both Canada’s domestic law and international law obligations.  The Federal Court of Canada in Khadr v. the Prime Minister et al 2009 FC 405, found that the U.S. treatment, including of Omar Khadr in Guantanamo Bay and the use of sleep deprivation (moving Khadr every three hours for a period of three weeks to ‘soften’ him up for interrogation by Canadian officials) violated the Convention against Torture (CAT) and that Khadr’s detention was illegal under international law.

If the law is applied equally, if citizens are to have confidence that the laws apply equally, G.W. Bush will be denied entry to Canada, in accordance with the IRPA.  I think we have to work together to see that he is somehow stopped from coming to Saskatoon.  We can do what is within our control, at the least.

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(5)  CANADIAN LAW OBLIGES THE POLICE IN SASKATCHEWAN TO ARREST BUSH

Canadian law obliges the Police in Saskatchewan to arrest G.W. Bush for torture when he arrives in Saskatchewan. To investigate allegations that G.W. Bush, while President of the United States of America and Commander in Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces counseled, aided and abetted torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, Bagram detention centre in Afghanistan, the Police must review the extensive investigations and conclusions of the reports already conducted by experts around the world including. On the basis of those reports the Police are bound to recommend to the Attorney General of Canada that torture charge be laid against G.W. Bush unless there is another jurisdiction ready and able to prosecute him for torture. In the latter event, Canada’s duty would be to extradite Bush to that jurisdiction for trial.

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(6)  DUTY TO BAR ENTRY TO CANADA

An essential component of Canada’s duty to prevent and punish torture and other war crimes and crimes against humanity–wherever they occur–is to ensure that people suspected on reasonable grounds of involvement (e.g. authorizing, directing, executing, failing, as a person in charge, to stop) in such crimes don’t find a safe haven from prosecution in Canada. There is no exception that allows entry to suspects for short periods of time. By failing to enforce the relevant sections of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that bar people suspected of involvement in such crimes in the case of Bush, Cheney and Blair from Canada, the government of Canada is effectively granting domestic immunity to each of them. By granting immunity to Bush, Blair and Cheney, Canada also encourages and gives license to other leaders to engage in these horrific crimes with impunity–at least from Canada.

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(7)  DUTY TO INVESTIGATE ALLEGATIONS OF TORTURE

Under CAT, Art. 12, Canada has also an urgent duty to investigate allegations of torture and of other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as part of its duty to prevent such crimes. CAT Committee rulings establish that delay by a state to investigate allegations of torture or inhumane or degrading treatment is itself a violation of CAT.  Canada’s duty to investigate became imperative, at the latest, in March 2004 when Canada received notice that the US had subjected Canadian citizen Omar Khadr to prolonged sleep deprivation and isolation to prepare him for questioning by Canadian officials.

Canada has enacted the jurisdiction to prosecute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and war crimes as defined by the Rome Statute for an International Criminal Court, wherever they occur and whatever the nationality when the victim is a Canadian citizen. The Criminal Code of Canada (CC) s. 269.1 & 7(3.7) establishes jurisdiction to prosecute torture committed outside Canada when the victim is a Canadian citizen.  The Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act (CAHWCA) and the Geneva Conventions Act make grave breaches of the GCs, including unlawful confinement and deportation and denial of a fair trial, war crimes and establish Canada’s jurisdiction to prosecute such crimes wherever they occur when the victim is a Canadian citizen.

The common law duty of the RCMP, Canada’s national police force, to investigate and prevent such crimes, has been enacted by statute and recognized by Canadian courts.  To meet the challenge of investigating crimes committed outside Canadian territory, Canada has also established the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Program (War Crimes Program).

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(8)  DUTY TO PROSECUTE 

The mandate of the War Crimes Program is to “…ensure that the Government of Canada has properly addressed all allegations of war crimes…against Canadian citizens…[and]…to ensure that Canada complies with its international obligations…In order to meet this objective, the RCMP, with the support of DOJ [Department of Justice], investigates allegations involving reprehensible acts that could lead to a possible criminal prosecution.”

References

15 See Halimi-Nedzibi v. Australia in which a 15-month delay was adjudged a breach of Article 12 and Blanco Abad v. Spain where a delay of 32 days was held by the CAT Committee to be a breach of CAT Article 12.

16 Criminal Code of Canada, ss. 269, 7(3.7); Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act, (2000, c.24) ss. 6(1) (3)

& 8(a) (iii), Geneva Conventions Act, R.S. 1985 c. G-3.

17 RCMP Act, R.S. 1985, c. R-10, s. 18 and Royal Canadian Mounted Police Regulations, 1988, SOR/88-361, s. 17.

18 “[common law] recognizes the existence of a broad conventional or customary duty in the established constabulary as an arm of the State to protect the life, limb and property of the subject.” Shacht v. R. [1973] 1 O.R. 221 at pp. 231-32.

19 Overview of Operations, mandates and Structure, Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Program:

http://www.justice.gc.ca/en/ps/wc/oms-ams.html.

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(9)  VINCE BUGLIOSI’S BOOK, “THE PROSECUTION OF GEORGE W. BUSH FOR MURDER”  AND TESTIMONY AT THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE HEARINGS (YOUTUBE)

Excerpt from 28/07/2008:

Vince Bugliosi’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, on YouTube video.   http://watsupjb75.blogspot.com/2008/07/bugliosi.html

Other testimony is available by clicking on the caption under the video:  “For a cross section of the testimonies at the Judiciary Committee Hearings”

Baby boomers will remember Bugliosi’s prosecution of Charles Manson.  I read his book “Helter Skelter” way back then, about the Manson “family” and the murders.

Bugliosi’s testimony before the Judiciary Committee is based on his most recent book, “The Prosecution of George W Bush for Murder”.

Excerpt from the book:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vincent-bugliosi/the-prosecution-of-george_b_102427.html

“Perhaps the most amazing thing to me about the belief of many that George Bush lied to the American public in starting his war with Iraq is that the liberal columnists who have accused him of doing this merely make this point, and then go on to the next paragraph in their columns. Only very infrequently does a columnist add that because of it Bush should be impeached. If the charges are true, of course Bush should have been impeached, convicted, and removed from office. That’s almost too self-evident to state. But he deserves much more than impeachment. I mean, in America, we apparently impeach presidents for having consensual sex outside of marriage and trying to cover it up. If we impeach presidents for that, then if the president takes the country to war on a lie where thousands of American soldiers die horrible, violent deaths and over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children, even babies are killed, the punishment obviously has to be much, much more severe. That’s just common sense. If Bush were impeached, convicted in the Senate, and removed from office, he’d still be a free man, still be able to wake up in the morning with his cup of coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice and read the morning paper, still travel widely and lead a life of privilege, still belong to his country club and get standing ovations whenever he chose to speak to the Republican faithful. This, for being responsible for over 100,000 horrible deaths?* For anyone interested in true justice, impeachment alone would be a joke for what Bush did.”

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(10)  MESSAGE FROM RAMSAY CLARK, FORMER UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL

I urge you to read the complete text of the MESSAGE FROM RAMSEY CLARK to the protestors of the Bush visit to Calgary.  He is a former United States Attorney General:

Ramsay Clark starts:  “My congratulations and gratitude to Canada’s peace movement and its many organizations and individuals protesting the March 17th, 2009 appearance of former US President George W. Bush for a speech at a private lunch in Calgary.  .

We dare not blink at the magnitude, diversity and pervasive impact of the known crimes committed by the Bush administration.  With unity, cooperation and perseverance, We Shall Overcome, or be undone, together. We dare not fail. … “

(Sept 10, 2009 – unfortunately, the blog is no longer there and I didn’t copy the whole text.)

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(11)  SPANISH JUDGE RESUMES TORTURE CASE AGAINST SIX SENIOR BUSH LAWYERS,  8.9.09

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/09/08/spanish-judge-resumes-torture-case-against-six-senior-bush-lawyers/

Spanish judge resumes torture case against six senior Bush lawyers

8.9.09

 The Spanish newspaper Público reported exclusively on Saturday that Judge Baltasar Garzón is pressing ahead with a case against six senior Bush administration lawyers for implementing torture at Guantánamo.

Back in March, Judge Garzón announced that he was planning to investigate the six prime architects of the Bush administration’s torture policies — former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; John Yoo, a former lawyer in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, who played a major role in the preparation of the OLC’s notorious “torture memos”; Douglas Feith, the former undersecretary of defense for policy; William J. Haynes II, the Defense Department’s former general counsel; Jay S. Bybee, Yoo’s superior in the OLC, who signed off on the August 2002 “torture memos”; and David Addington, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff.

In April, on the advice of the Spanish Attorney General Cándido Conde-Pumpido, who believes that an American tribunal should judge the case (or dismiss it) before a Spanish court even thinks about becoming involved, prosecutors recommended that Judge Garzón should drop his investigation. As CNN reported, Mr. Conde-Pumpido told reporters that Judge Garzón’s plans threatened to turn the court “into a toy in the hands of people who are trying to do a political action.”

On Saturday, however, Público reported that Judge Garzón had accepted a lawsuit presented by a number of Spanish organizations — the Asociación Pro Dignidad de los Presos y Presas de España (Organization for the Dignity of Spanish Prisoners), Asociación Libre de Abogados (Free Lawyers Association), the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de España (Association for Human Rights in Spain) and Izquierda Unida (a left-wing political party) — and three former Guantánamo prisoners (the British residents Jamil El-Banna and Omar Deghayes, and (Link no longer valid) Sami El-Laithi, an Egyptian freed in 2005, who was paralyzed during an incident involving guards at Guantánamo).

The newspaper reported that all these groups and individuals would take part in any trial, which is somewhat ironic, as, although Judge Garzón has been involved in high-profile cases that have delighted human rights advocates — his pursuit of General Pinochet, for example — he has been severely criticized for his heavy-handed approach to terrorism-related cases in Spain (as in the cases of Mohammed Farsi and Farid Hilali, amongst others), and, in fact, aggressively pursued an extradition request for both Jamil El-Banna and Omar Deghayes on their return from Guantánamo to the UK in December 2007, in connection with spurious and long-refuted claims about activities related to terrorism, which he was only persuaded to drop in March 2008.

It is, at present, uncertain whether another attempt to stifle Judge Garzón will derail him from his pursuit of the Bush administration’s lawyers, as he is not known for letting adversaries stand in his way. At the end of June, the Spanish Parliament pointedly passed legislation aimed at “ending the practice of letting its magistrates seek war-crime indictments against officials from any foreign country, including the United States,” on the basis that no Spanish Court should be able to judge officials of foreign countries except when the victims are Spanish or the crimes were committed in Spain.

However, on Sunday, when Público spoke to Philippe Sands, the British lawyer, and author of Torture Team, which provided much of the first-hand evidence for Garzón’s case, Sands explicitly stated that there was “no legal barrier” to prevent Judge Garzón’s prosecution from proceeding. He explained that he believed the recent decision by US Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special investigator to investigate cases of torture by the CIA is related to the Spanish lawsuit and the importance it has acquired because of its instigation by Judge Garzón. Sands told Público, “The recent decision by Eric Holder emphasizes how appropriate the Spanish investigation is. Many commentators believe that this decision has had a significant and direct impact in the United States, reminding people that there is an obligation to investigate torture.”

He added, “Judge Garzón’s actions have acted like a catalyst, and are supported by many people in the United States, including some members of Congress. He has reminded everybody that a blind eye cannot be turned to these actions and that there are people who are not going to let that happen.” He also explained that Eric Holder’s gesture is only a first step, “limited to cases in which interrogators may have exceeded the limits formally approved by lawyers in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel,” that the architects of the “legal decisions that purported to justify the use of torture are not in immediate danger in the United States,” and that there is, therefore, “no legal barrier to the continuation of the Spanish investigation.”

He concluded by stating that it was “important” that Judge Garzón proceeds with the case in Spain, because, although Eric Holder “has confirmed the importance of the Convention Against Torture, he has taken only a first step that “does not really address the actions of those who were truly responsible for its violation.”

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(12)  UPDATE ON THE SPANISH PROSECUTION, OCTOBER 7:  LEGAL COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST BUSH, BLAIR AND OTHERS

Prosecution News

A legal complaint was filed in Spain, October 7, 2009 against Bush, Blair and others for commissioning, condoning and/or perpetuating multiple war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq. http://brusselstribunal.org/

The next step: This complaint will be assigned to one of six investigative judges and that judge will decide whether to “admit” the case for investigation or not.

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(13)  BOOK, THE GUANTANAMO FILES, THE  STORIES OF THE 774 DETAINEES IN AMERICAN’S ILLEGAL PRISON

 Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK).

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(14)  TORTURED LAW, VIDEO FOOTAGE 

To view 10 minute documentary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJnQbPtgMAU

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(15)  TV PROGRAMME  “LAW & ORDER” MAKES CASE FOR PROSECUTION OF BUSH ADMINISTRATION TORTURERS, OCTOBER 2, 2009

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/lawo-o02.shtml

By Patrick Martin
2 October 2009

Last Friday’s season premiere of NBC’s crime drama “Law & Order” was a rarity for American television: an unsparing and essentially honest examination of the crimes being committed by the American government, in the name of the “war on terror.”

The episode is entitled “Memos from the Dark Side,” a reference to Vice President Dick Cheney’s phrase describing US tactics in the “war on terror.” It has the familiar structure of the long-running program: the first half-hour focuses on the police investigation of a murder, the second half-hour on the outcome of the case in court.

The murder victim is an Iraq war veteran, a former guard at the Abu Ghraib prison who participated in the torture-killing of a prisoner and is haunted by it. In a moving video “diary,” not discovered until after his death, he avows, “I didn’t join the service to murder people.”

The veteran is shot down after he confronts a professor at a New York City law school over the professor’s role in drafting the legal memoranda spelling out permissible methods of interrogating prisoners. The professor ultimately confesses to the shooting, claiming self-defense, and a grand jury refuses to indict him.

Sam Waterston in Law & Order: Memos from the Dark Side

It is here that the program takes a sharp political turn. The district attorney, Jack McCoy, played by Sam Waterston, intervenes to propose that the law professor (clearly modeled on former Justice Department attorney John Yoo) be prosecuted on charges of conspiracy, using the fact that the torture memoranda were drafted at the office of the US Attorney in Manhattan to assert local jurisdiction.

“You want to prosecute a member of the Bush administration for assaulting suspected terrorists?” his top assistant district attorney, Michael Cutter (played by Linus Roache), asks incredulously. “The word is torturing,” McCoy replies, “and yes, it’s about time somebody did it.”

When the law professor objects that he can’t be charged with conspiracy without co-conspirators, McCoy extends the case, bringing indictments against the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the former secretary of defense, former vice president Cheney, and others in the chain of command (whether this includes former president Bush is left unstated).

These indictments touch off a political and legal uproar, with countermotions by a battery of lawyers for the prominent defendants and threats to McCoy’s political career, culminating in the intervention of the Obama administration to head off the prosecution of its predecessors.

There are several points at which the executive assistant DA Cutter expresses doubts about the prosecution case, voicing both some sympathy for the right-wing justifications for torture and concern over the political repercussions for McCoy. But he is eventually convinced of the legal basis of the case and serves as lead trial attorney.

At several points during the latter half of the program, the script makes use of verbatim sections of actual documents written by Yoo and other Justice Department torture apologists, including one where the lawyer upholds the right of the president to order a child’s testicles to be crushed to force his parent to talk.

In perhaps the most striking sequence, the author of the torture memos is confronted on the stand with photographs of other famous examples of the brutal treatment of “illegal enemy combatants”—the summary execution of a Vietnamese prisoner on the streets of Saigon by the chief of the US-controlled secret police, and the hanging of Polish resistance fighters by the Nazis during World War II.

The comparison between the methods of the Nazis and the methods of American imperialism does not faze the former Bush aide. He defends not only these atrocities, but even the right of King George III to treat American militiamen in a similar fashion during the Revolutionary War.

The most politically important aspect of the program is not merely its hostility to the Bush administration, however justified, but its portrayal of the Obama administration (although the new president is never mentioned by name).

A Justice Department official and former colleague approaches McCoy to pressure him to abandon the prosecution, pointing out that the attorney general has already begun such an investigation. When McCoy dismisses this—correctly—as targeting only “small fry,” while the decision makers go scot free, the official tells him cynically that it’s all “just politics.”

Later, the same official uses Obama’s own words, declaring, “We’re looking forward, not backward.” When McCoy refuses to cave in, the Justice Department goes to federal court seeking an injunction to suppress the case under the “supremacy clause” of the Constitution. At the end of one hearing, the official sneers at McCoy that he should be careful not to provide “aid and comfort to the enemy.”

This allegation is the staple of all defenders and apologists for the crimes of American imperialism. It is rebutted effectively by the former doubter, Cutter, in his closing argument to the jury. He declares that it is not “treasonable” to question the actions of the government. On the contrary, he tells the jurors, they need to decide what they want the government to be able to do “in your name.”

Whatever the conscious intentions of those who created the program, they have given voice to the growing suspicion and hostility towards the new administration felt by millions of people, many of whom voted for Obama in the hope that the installation of a Democrat in the White House would mean an end to the Bush policies of war and attacks on democratic rights, only to see these policies continued with slightly altered rhetoric.

There has been little notice taken in the American media about the unusually pointed political exposure in the “Law & Order” season premiere. In liberal quarters on the Internet, such as Huffington Post and Salon magazine, the program was highly praised, but with a significant silence on its criticism of the Obama administration.

Salon featured a 10-minute audio interview with head scriptwriter Rene Balcer by Glenn Greenwald, in which not a single question touched on the portrayal of the Obama Justice Department official. While noting Balcer’s use of comments by Cheney, Yoo and other Bush administration officials, Greenwald made no mention of the citation of Obama’s “looking forward, not backward” apologia for allowing Bush administration officials to escape prosecution for ordering and condoning torture and other violations of international law.

Balcer told Greenwald that he was in part motivated to write the episode by anger over the role of some of his Hollywood counterparts at program’s like Fox Television’s “24,” which regularly glorifies torture.

“I was embarrassed by how some in my community of writers and producers on television had irresponsibly embraced torture by having their heroes use it as a supposedly effective means of getting information,” Balcer said, “and how these same writers and producers were peddling lies even in the face of the Defense Department sending experts to talk to them and enlighten them on the realities of torture.”

Perhaps the most politically duplicitous response to the “Law & Order” broadcast came from Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who posted an extended commentary on Huffington Post hailing the NBC program. “What McCoy understands is that in America, the rule of law applies to everyone. No one is above the law, not even (and some might say especially) the most powerful,” Romero wrote. “In real life, there has yet to be an investigation into the high-level authorization of torture, a crime that has stained the reputation of our nation at home and abroad.”

Romero described the appointment of a special prosecutor by Attorney General Eric Holder as “a good first step and a positive sign,” suggesting that prosecution of higher-level officials could ensue. He then concludes his post by asking, “Now the question is, in real life, will Attorney General Holder rise to the occasion?”

This rhetorical question falsifies the actual position of the Obama administration, since both Holder and Obama have flatly rejected the prosecution of those who authorized torture and wrote the legal apologetics. Only those CIA agents whose abuse of prisoners went beyond the letter of the authorized torture methods face any investigations, and even those are unlikely to face legal sanctions.

Romero made no reference to the broadcast’s actual criticism of the Obama administration, which is portrayed, quite correctly, as opposing prosecution of the Bush administration for fear that its own crimes could be prosecuted by a successor. In context, this is nothing more than an ACLU cover-up for Obama’s right-wing policies. Protecting torturers is fine as long as it is done by a Democratic administration.

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2009-10-08 Arrest Bush: Letter to Attorney General of Canada

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), George Bush war criminal  No Responses »
Oct 082009
 

(More info at  http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=664 )

 

October 8, 2009

 

FROM:

Sandra Finley

(contact information)

 

TO:

Honourable Robert Nicholson

Attorney General of Canada

Member of Parliament

House of Commons

Parliament Buildings

Ottawa ON

Canada K1A 0A6

 

 

Dear Attorney General Nicholson,

 

 

RE: George Bush in Saskatoon, October 21. Duty to prosecute.

 

 

I request that you will carry out your duty under the rule of law to prosecute George W Bush.

 

Enclosed please find a copy of the letter I have sent to the Commander of Division F of the RCMP (Saskatchewan).

(INSERT:  see http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=664  )

 

I request of him that he carries out his duties under the law to arrest Bush when he comes to Saskatchewan.

 

This is not a political issue, nor a question of whether some people or organizations have an “opinion”.

 

It is a simple matter of whether people are equal before the law.   Do we actually have the rule of law in Canada?

 

Please review the information enclosed. You will find therein sufficient legal grounds to support the arrest and prosecution of George W Bush.  Indeed, given the superiority of the law it is dictated that Bush be arrested, charged and prosecuted.

 

Thank-you.

 

Best wishes,

Sandra Finley

2009-10-07 I want parents to know this about vaccinations, mercury, Rumsfeld, and money devoid of conscience. (Rumsfeld’s connection to Tamiflu)

 Vaccinations (incl corruption of science & govt)  No Responses »
Oct 072009
 

NOTE:   The issue is slow poisoning by mercury that we are putting straight into our bodies; the issue is  not vaccinations and not dental fillings that contain mercury.

2009-07-25 “Vaccinations: Deadly Immunity” by Robert F Kennedy Jr  (Autism)  precedes this posting.  It documents the role of Big Pharma.

The youtube video below shows what happens to neural pathways in the brain when mercury is introduced.    There is also more information on the BigPharma connection and Rumsfeld.

Mercury (ethyl mercury) is introduced when it is used as a preservative in vaccinations.   Mercury from dental amalgams is discussed further in later postings.

The  connection between death and disease caused by mercury in various forms, and other heavy metals, has been known for a very long time.  Mercury is one of the worst.

I am extremely concerned (actually I wonder at some people who knowingly promote vaccinations that contain mercury in any form).

Parents of young children especially should receive the information, for them to make their own assessment about the safety of various vaccinations.   It seems to me that if you do not receive a written guarantee that a vaccine does not contain thimerasol (any kind of mercury) you should not touch it with a ten-foot pole.

Your very best protection against flu viruses is:

– strengthen the immune system.

– be Women Who Run with the Wolves. Don’t be naïve about the money of Big Pharma and its influence in the not-health system.   The ones who thrive and survive are the wary ones.  Gullible ones do not.

I am forwarding this to everyone I know who is associated with the medical profession.  Their only source of information should not be Big Pharma or the government.  Too many of the government regulatory agencies, American and Canadian, serve the interests of the biotech ag and pharmaceutical corporations.

Yesterday there was a report on Fox News, of all places.  See item #1.

I think the cat is out of the bag on the connection between Bush Administration official Donald Rumsfeld, the corporate profits behind the flu vaccine (Big Pharma) and what high-level government officials and biotech pharmaceutical corporations know.  They are afraid of liability lawsuits and so they have tried to keep a lid on the information.

Big Pharma creates fear or a “condition” and then spends millions of dollars on product propaganda.  The following is related to the flu vaccination.   Thank-you for the information on the vaccination against cervical cancer.  I am not going to circulate it.  In my estimation, it is the same story as the flu vaccination.

Many thanks to Gare, to Al and to others for their input.

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CONTENTS

(1)  FOX NEWS OCT 6TH, WHY YOU SHOULD NOT VACCINATE YOUR CHILDREN AGAINST THE FLU

(2)  UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY, DEPT OF MEDICINE,  HOW MERCURY CAUSES BRAIN NEURON DEGENERATION

(3)  ROBERT F KENNEDY JR ON LINK BETWEEN VACCINATIONS (THIMERASOL, MERCURY) AND AUTISM.  WHAT THE PHARMACEUTICAL CORPORATIONS AND AMERICAN OFFICIALS KNOW

(4)  PERSPECTIVE ON SWINE FLU, LIKELIHOOD OF DEATH

(5)  DONALD RUMSFIELD’S (BUSH ADMINISTRATION)   FINANCIAL LINK TO THE FLU VACCINE

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(1)   (Jan 2011:  recommend skip this and go to #2)    FOX NEWS OCT 6TH, WHY YOU SHOULD NOT VACCINATE YOUR CHILDREN AGAINST THE FLU  http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/06/Why-You-Should-NOT-Vaccinate-Your-Children-Against-the-Flu-This-Season.aspx

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(2)  UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY, DEPT OF MEDICINE,  HOW MERCURY CAUSES BRAIN NEURON DEGENERATION

A google of “mercury brain” comes up with this excellent youtube video:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VImCpWzXJ_w

One of the researchers from the University of Calgary who participated in the research is Dr. Naweed Syed.  I phoned his office in the Departments of Cell Biology / Physiology (Medicine) 403-220-5479, to confirm the authenticity of the video.  His assistant said that he usually gives permission for the video to be used.   Permission received.

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(3)  ROBERT F KENNEDY JR ON LINK BETWEEN VACCINATIONS (THIMERASOL, MERCURY) AND AUTISM.  WHAT THE PHARMACEUTICAL CORPORATIONS AND AMERICAN OFFICIALS KNOW

Read at  2009-07-25 Originally discussed in email sent 20/04/2005.

If you’ve already read it, skip to (4)  PERSPECTIVE ON SWINE FLU, LIKELIHOOD OF DEATH

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(4)  PERSPECTIVE ON SWINE FLU, LIKELIHOOD OF DEATH

Hi;

An interesting slant on H1N1.

Take care.

Al

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Hi Al,

I did a bit of googling to ensure the Rumsfeld connection.   (See #5)

/Sandra

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VImCpWzXJ_w

perspective on Swine Flu

Who is benefiting from Swine flu?

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(5)  DONALD RUMSFIELD’S FINANCIAL LINK TO THE FLU VACCINE (BUSH ADMINISTRATION).

http://www.gilead.com/pr_933190157 �

Donald H. Rumsfeld Named Chairman of Gilead Sciences

Foster City, CA — January 3, 1997

Gilead Sciences Inc. (Nasdaq: GILD) today announced that board member Donald H. Rumsfeld will assume the position of Chairman, effective immediately. Mr. Rumsfeld succeeds Michael L. Riordan, M.D., who founded Gilead in 1987 and has served as Chairman since 1993. Dr. Riordan will continue to serve as a director on the board.

“Gilead is fortunate to have had Don Rumsfeld as a stalwart board member since the company’s earliest days, and we are very pleased that he has accepted the Chairmanship,” Dr. Riordan said. “He has played an important role in helping to build and steer the company. His broad experience in leadership positions in both industry and government will serve us well as Gilead continues to build its commercial presence.”

“In my years with Gilead, I have witnessed the evolution of one of the industry’s premier biotechnology companies,” Mr. Rumsfeld said. “Michael Riordan’s founding vision and enormous accomplishments are evident in the VISTIDE® product approval, deep pipeline and talented team that will continue to move Gilead to develop novel treatments for viral diseases.”

Mr. Rumsfeld, who joined Gilead as a director in 1988, is currently in private business and is distinguished for his accomplishments in both industry and government. Mr. Rumsfeld served as chief executive officer of G.D. Searle, a worldwide pharmaceutical company, from 1977 to 1985. During this time, his stewardship of Searle earned him awards as the Outstanding Chief Executive Officer in the pharmaceutical industry in 1980 and 1981. He also served as chairman and chief executive of General Instrument Corporation, a diversified electronics company and world leader in broadband and all digital high definition television technology.

A graduate of Princeton University, Mr. Rumsfeld has served in numerous positions of public service, including four terms in the U.S. Congress, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, White House Chief of Staff and as the 13th Secretary of Defense. In 1977, Mr. Rumsfeld was awarded the nation’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In addition to Gilead, Mr. Rumsfeld presently serves as an advisor to several companies and as a member of the board of directors of ABB AB; Gulfstream Aerospace Corp.; Kellogg; Metricom, Inc.; Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Tribune Company. Mr. Rumsfeld’s current civic activities include service on the board of trustees of the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship, Freedom House and the RAND Corporation.

– – – – – – – —

http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/

Rumsfeld’s growing stake in Tamiflu

Defense Secretary, ex-chairman of flu treatment rights holder, sees portfolio value growing.

October 31, 2005: 10:55 AM EST

By Nelson D. Schwartz, Fortune senior writer

NEW YORK (Fortune) – The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the globe, but it’s proving to be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that’s now the most-sought after drug in the world.

Rumsfeld served as Gilead (Research)’s chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.

The forms don’t reveal the exact number of shares Rumsfeld owns, but in the past six months fears of a pandemic and the ensuing scramble for Tamiflu have sent Gilead’s stock from $35 to $47. That’s made the Pentagon chief, already one of the wealthiest members of the Bush cabinet, at least $1 million richer.

Rumsfeld isn’t the only political heavyweight benefiting from demand for Tamiflu, which is manufactured and marketed by Swiss pharma giant Roche. (Gilead receives a royalty from Roche equaling about 10% of sales.) Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on Gilead’s board, has sold more than $7 million worth of Gilead since the beginning of 2005.

Another board member is the wife of former California Gov. Pete Wilson.

“I don’t know of any biotech company that’s so politically well-connected,” says analyst Andrew McDonald of Think Equity Partners in San Francisco.

What’s more, the federal government is emerging as one of the world’s biggest customers for Tamiflu. In July, the Pentagon ordered $58 million worth of the treatment for U.S. troops around the world, and Congress is considering a multi-billion dollar purchase. Roche expects 2005 sales for Tamiflu to be about $1 billion, compared with $258 million in 2004.

Rumsfeld recused himself from any decisions involving Gilead when he left Gilead and became Secretary of Defense in early 2001. And late last month, notes a senior Pentagon official, Rumsfeld went even further and had the Pentagon’s general counsel issue additional instructions outlining what he could and could not be involved in if there were an avian flu pandemic and the Pentagon had to respond.

As the flu issue heated up early this year, according to the Pentagon official, Rumsfeld considered unloading his entire Gilead stake and sought the advice of the Department of Justice, the SEC and the federal Office of Government Ethics.

Those agencies didn’t offer an opinion so Rumsfeld consulted a private securities lawyer, who advised him that it was safer to hold on to the stock and be quite public about his recusal rather than sell and run the risk of being accused of trading on insider information, something Rumsfeld doesn’t believe he possesses. So he’s keeping his shares for the time being.

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/tamiflu-scandal-gilead-sciences-donald-rumsfeld-connection

Tamiflu Scandal: Gilead Sciences’ Donald Rumsfeld Connection

Share:

by Tina Kells | May 1, 2009 at 02:02 pm

Tamiflu is being touted as the best way to combat the H1N1 Swine Flu virus which has communities around the world in a pandemic panic, but is there a hidden agenda behind the push?  Tamiflu is only one of two readily available anti-viral medications, yet Relenza isn’t getting the same cure-it attention.

Could the fact that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has substantial interest in Gilead Sciences, the company that exclusively produces Tamiflu, be part of the reason that Relenza is taking a back seat in the H1N1 Swine Flu treatment plan?

The suggestion of a US government/Tamiflu conflict of interest is not new.  It first surfaced in 2005 when then President George W. Bush pushed for and won $7.1 billion in emergency funding to prepare for an influenza pandemic that was not even yet on the horizon.

George W. Bush pushed for the emergency funding to develop a strategy against a Bird Flu type pandemic in the US, more than 14% of which went to one company, Gilead Sciences, producer of Tamiflu.  Not so scandalous in and of itself until you learn that prior to becoming Defense Secretary Donald Rumsleld was Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences, a post he held from 1997 to 2001.

2009-10-06 Bush: Law Suit against 4 US Presidents & 4 UK Prime Ministers for War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity & Genocide in Iraq

 George Bush war criminal  No Responses »
Oct 062009
 

 Ad Hoc Committee For Justice For Iraq

Press contacts:

Hana Al Bayaty, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal
+20 10 027 7964 (English and French) hanaalbayaty@gmail.com

Dr Ian Douglas, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal, coordinator, International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq
+20 12 167 1660 (English) iandouglas@USgenocide.org

Serene Assir, Advisory Committee, BRussells Tribunal (Spanish) justiciaparairak@gmail.com

Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal
+20 11 181 0798 (Arabic) albayaty_abdul@hotmail.com

Dirk Adriaensens, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal
+32 494 68 07 62 (Dutch) dirkadriaensens@gmail.com

 
Law Suit against 4 US Presidents & 4 UK Prime Ministers for War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity & Genocide in IraqStatement on Closure of Legal Case for Iraq in Spain

By BRussells Tribunal
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17535
Global Research, February 10, 2010
BRussells Tribunal – 2010-02-07
 Law Suit in Spanish Court directed against George H. W. Bush, William J. Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack H. Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair and Gordon Brown

MADRID/CAIRO: Public inquiries on the decision to wage war on Iraq that are silent about the crimes committed, the victims involved, and provide for no sanction, whatever their outcome, are not enough. Illegal acts should entail consequences: the dead and the harmed deserve justice.

On 6 October 2009, working with and on behalf of Iraqi plaintiffs, we filed a case before Spanish law against four US presidents and four UK prime ministers for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Iraq. The case presented spanned 19 years, including not only the wholesale destruction of Iraq witnessed from 2003, but also the sanctions period during which 1.5 million excess Iraqi deaths were recorded.

We brought the case to Spain because its laws of universal jurisdiction are based on principles enshrined in its constitution. All humanity knows the crimes committed in Iraq by those we accused, but no jurisdiction is bringing them to justice. We presented with Iraqi victims a solid case drawing on evidence contained in over 900 documents and that refer to thousands of individual incidents from which a pattern of accumulated harm and intent can be discerned.

When we brought our case, we knew that the Spanish Senate would soon vote on an amendment earlier passed by the lower house of parliament to curtail the application of universal jurisdiction in Spain. We were conscious that this restriction could be retroactive, and we took account of the content of the proposed amendment in our case filing. As we imagined, 2009 turned out to be a sad year for upholding universal human rights and international law in Spain. One day after we filed, the law was curtailed, and soon thereafter our case closed. Serious cases of the kind universal jurisdiction exists to address became more difficult to investigate.

One more jurisdiction to fall

Despite submitting a 110-page long referenced accusation (the Introduction of which is appended to this statement), the Spanish public prosecutor and the judge assigned to our case determined there was no reason to investigate. Their arguments were erroneous and could easily have been refuted if we could have appealed. To do so we needed a professional Spanish lawyer  either in a paid capacity or as a volunteer who wished to help the Iraqi people in its struggle for justice. As we had limited means, and for other reasons mostly concerning internal Spanish affairs, which were not our concern, we could not secure a lawyer in either capacity to appeal. Our motion for more time to find a lawyer was rejected.

We continue to believe that the violent killing of over one million people in Iraq since 2003 alone, the ongoing US occupation  that carries direct legal responsibility  and the displacement of up to a fifth of the Iraqi population from the terror that occupation has entailed and incited suggests strongly that the claims we put forward ought to be further investigated.

In reality, our case is a paramount example of those that authorities in the West  Spain included  fear. To them, such cases represent the double edge of sustaining the principle of universal jurisdiction. Western states used universal jurisdiction in the past to judge Third World countries. When victims in the global South began using it to judge Israel and US aggression, Western countries rushed to restrict it. Abandoning universal jurisdiction by diluting it is now the general tendency.

Call for wider collective effort to prosecute

We regret that the Spanish courts refused to investigate our case, but this will not discourage us. We have a just cause. The crimes are evident. Those responsible are well known, even if the international juridical system continues to ignore Iraqi victims. Justice for victims and the wish of all humanity that war criminals should be punished oblige us to search for alternative legal possibilities, so that the crimes committed in Iraq can be investigated and accountability established.

At present, failed international justice allows US and UK war criminals to stand above international law. Understanding that this constitutes an attack  or makes possible future attacks  on the human rights of everyone, everywhere, we will continue to advocate the use of all possible avenues, including UN institutions, the International Criminal Court, and popular tribunals, to highlight and bring before law and moral and public opinion US and UK crimes in Iraq.

We are ready to make our experience and expertise available to those who struggle in the same direction. We look forward to a time when the countries of the global South, which are generally victims of aggression, reinforce their juridical systems by implementing the principle of universal jurisdiction. This will be a great service to humanity and international law.

Millions of people in Iraq have been killed, displaced, terrorised, detained, tortured or impoverished under the hammer of US and UK military, economic, political, ideological and cultural attacks. The very fabric and being of the country has been subject to intentional destruction. This destruction constitutes one of the gravest international crimes ever committed. All humanity should unite in refusing that law  by failing to assure justice for Iraqi victims  enables this destruction to be the opening precedent of the 21st century.

Ad Hoc Committee For Justice For Iraq

Press contacts:

Hana Al Bayaty, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal
+20 10 027 7964 (English and French) hanaalbayaty@gmail.com

Dr Ian Douglas, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal, coordinator, International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq
+20 12 167 1660 (English) iandouglas@USgenocide.org

Serene Assir, Advisory Committee, BRussells Tribunal (Spanish) justiciaparairak@gmail.com

Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal
+20 11 181 0798 (Arabic) albayaty_abdul@hotmail.com

Dirk Adriaensens, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal
+32 494 68 07 62 (Dutch) dirkadriaensens@gmail.com

Web:
www.brusselstribunal.org �
www.USgenocide.org �
www.twitter.com/USgenocide �
www.facebook.com/USgenocide  

This statement:
http://brusselstribunal.org/LegalCaseSpain070210.htm  

INTRODUCTION TO THE LEGAL CASE FILED BEFORE THE AUDIENCIA NACIONAL ON 6 OCTOBER 2009

The following is the introduction to a legal case filed 6 October 2009 before the Audiencia Nacional in Spain against four US presidents and four UK prime ministers for commissioning, condoning and/or perpetuating multiple war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq. The case was filed under laws of universal jurisdiction.

This case, naming George H W Bush, William J Clinton, George W Bush, Barack H Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair and Gordon Brown, was brought by Iraqis and others who stand in solidarity with the Iraqi people and in defence of their rights and international law.

Introduction

The respondents herein identified in this complaint have all held or hold high public office in the administrations of the United States and the United Kingdom, and/or commanding authority in the respective armed forces of these countries, and whilst in command or in office actively instigated, authorized, supported, justified, executed and/or perpetuated:

1. A 13-year sanctions regime on Iraq known and proven to have an overwhelmingly destructive impact on Iraqi public health, especially child mortality
2. The use of disproportionate and indiscriminate military force, including numerous extra-legal strikes and bombing campaigns throughout the 1990s, entailing the purposeful destruction of Iraqs water and health facilities, and defence capacities, and the widespread contamination of Iraqs ecosphere and life environment by the unjustified and massive use of depleted uranium munitions
3. The prevention by means of comprehensive sanctions, and/or military strikes, of the reconstruction of Iraqs critical civil infrastructure, including its health, water and sanitation systems, and the decontamination of Iraqs ecosphere/life environment, backed by the threat of Security Council veto where unanimity was not present for such strikes and/or the continuance of the sanctions regime
4. The launching of an illegal war of aggression against Iraq based on deliberate falsification of threat assessment intelligence and systematic efforts to conceal from the general public in the United States and the United Kingdom, and other countries, along with parts of the military command structure of the respective armed forces deployed, the true aims and objectives of that war
5. Establishing by design an occupation apparatus that by its incompetence, inexperience, corruption and/or ideological or sectarian alignment and actions would finalize the destruction of the Iraqi state and the attempted destruction of Iraqi national unity and identity, entailing an attack upon Iraqis as a whole and the intended destruction of the Iraqi national group as such.

The acts ordered and/or continued and perpetuated by the respondents identified in this complaint were unlawful in nature, were known to be and/or ought reasonably to have been known to be unlawful in nature, and were based on manifest and purposive lies, manipulations, deliberately misleading presentations of facts, and baseless assertions and other false justifications. The consistency of the propaganda effort that supported and contextualized these unlawful acts was such  and was aimed and known to be so  that it constituted an international campaign of demonization and dehumanization of Iraqis, the Iraqi nation, the Iraqi state, Iraqs civil and military leadership, Iraqs civil administrative apparatus, and Iraq in its Arab context. As such, and through actions taken and summarized below, the respondents:

1. Deprived the Iraqi people of all or the majority of their fundamental rights as established and protected by international human rights law and international humanitarian law, expressed in the UN Charter and conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions, including the right of defence
2. Structured and implemented policies that continue to deprive the Iraqi people of their sovereignty and the exercise of their freedom, human rights, and civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, as established and guaranteed by international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including the UN Charter and conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions
3. Consistently gave political and legal cover to these acts, even as these acts were known to be and/or ought reasonably to have been known to be in violation of international law, including peremptory or jus cogens standards of law
4. Asserted and defended extra-legal immunity for all those engaged in acts that have attacked the protected rights of the Iraqi people, and established a pattern of impunity for those accused of such attacks by failing to adequately investigate and prosecute specific and general allegations of grave abuses, and/or to ensure responsibility is assumed throughout the chain of command that permitted or failed to prohibit such attacks, and/or dismissed or distorted numerous customary legal standards, including the laws of war and those that outlaw the preemptive use of force in international relations
5. Abused and overran international law, the guarantor of international order, peace and security, which the United Nations System exists to protect and is deemed to embody, enshrined in the UN Charter, and upon whose foundation the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gains positive affect and final meaning.

Opportunity for redress for Iraqi victims in their own national jurisdiction is non-existent as Iraq remains occupied, its sovereign institutions dismantled and non-functioning. Despite numerous individual petitions submitted to its chief prosecutor, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has stated that it has no jurisdiction to hear cases of abuses and violations of human rights standards and international humanitarian law in Iraq. In light of US and UK threats to use permanent member veto power in the past, it is not foreseeable that the Security Council in the future will refer complaints in Iraq to the ICC, and nor can Iraqis wait for Security Council reform. Without effective investigation and prosecution of these abuses and violations, the international community runs the risk of allowing a precedent of unlawful action of such grave magnitude to be set without censure, thereby endangering the rights and dignity not only of Iraqis but also of people the world over. Such a precedent would be contrary to the UN Charter and the principles upon which the international order of states is deemed to be founded. The basis for public acceptance of a state of law is that it protects peace and defends the wellbeing of the people. Failure to investigate and effectively prosecute the catalogue of grave abuses and violations perpetrated by the respondents in Iraq, and against the Iraqi people, would constitute an ongoing and inherent threat to the basis of the international order in general and to international peace and security specifically.

Alongside those in official positions of authority, key political advisers, lobbyists, strategists and corporate representatives have also played a crucial role in the ideological and political justifications and legitimization sought and falsely proposed in order to execute the overall policy embraced, inclusive of an accumulated pattern of attacks, military and otherwise, that has lasted 19 years to date, culminating in the 2003 illegal war of aggression waged on Iraq and that continues to be executed despite wide and ongoing condemnation. Though there are nuances of responsibility inherent to the nature of policy construction and execution, the personal relations and interconnections between primary and secondary level individuals involved, and the groups or common circles to which they belong, testify to a large degree of cohesion present in intent and action among the respondents identified and those who support and benefit from the policies they have pursued. At the least, this shared intent is one of deliberate harm; at worst, it amounts to an objective intent to destroy for definable, and at times publicly enunciated, strategic, geopolitical and geo-economic reasons. Furthermore, none of the respondents can reasonably claim they did not have knowledge of the likely outcome of their policies, and those they supported, as all had not only participated in the design and execution of these policies, but they continued to execute said policies once their effects were widely known and had been proven to be detrimental to  and destructive of  the health, sovereignty and rights of the Iraqi people, and further have defended these policies and in majority continue to do so.

From the start of the implementation of a US-instigated and dominantly administered sanctions regime up to the present day, an approximate total of 2,700,000 Iraqis have died as a direct result of sanctions followed by the US-UK led war of aggression on, and occupation of, Iraq beginning in 2003. Among those killed during the sanctions period were 560,000 children. From 2003 onwards, having weakened Iraqs civil and military infrastructure to the degree that its people were rendered near totally defenceless, Iraq was subject to a level of aggression of near unprecedented scale and nature in international history, occurring in parallel with the promotion of a partition plan for Iraq, the substantial direct funding of sectarian groups and militias that would play a key role in fragmenting the country under occupation, both administratively and in terms of national identity, the cancellation of the former state apparatus and the dismissal of its personnel entailing the collapse of all public services and state protection for the Iraqi people, the further destruction of the health and education systems of Iraq, and the creation of waves of internal and external displacement totaling nearly 5,000,000 Iraqis, or one fifth of the Iraqi population. By December 2007, the Iraqi Anti-Corruption Board reported that there were up to 5,000,000 orphans in Iraq, while the Iraqi Ministry of Womens Affairs counts 3,000,000 widows as of 2009.

Such massive destruction of life, having as context a 19-year period of accumulated attacks, with numerous warnings and opportunities for remedy and a reversal of policy ignored, cannot be mere happenstance. Indeed, the paramount charge that must be investigated, and that plain fact evidence suggests, is that this level of destruction has been integral to the US and UKs shared international policy for Iraq. The destruction in whole or in part of the Iraqi people as a national group, and depriving this group of all or the majority of its rights, appears from a reasoned account of the catalogue of violations, abuses and attacks to which the Iraqi people have been subject to be the unlawful means pursued purposely by the respondents in order to redraw by force the strategic and political map of the Arab region and Iraqs place within that context, and to capture, appropriate and plunder, via the cancellation of the sovereignty of the Iraqi people and the destruction and fragmentation of their identity and unity as a national group, Iraqs substantial natural energy resources. Historically, the Iraqi national group, variegated yet cohesive, was and continues to be, despite the aggression faced, firmly rooted in its overwhelming majority in the concept of citizenship of the Iraqi state  a state founded on public provision of services and a nationally owned energy industry. The policy that the respondents have sought and continue to seek to impose, that has entailed privatizing and seizing ownership of Iraqi citizens resources, along with the administrative and political partition of the former unitary state, is contrary to the basis of, and cohesion of, the Iraqi people as a national group.

Until prevented by effective legal investigation and precautionary action, it is highly likely that the combined US/UK strategy in Iraq will continue, though its tactics may change. Iraqis in the majority show no sign of surrendering their right to and belief in Iraqi citizenship, including sovereign control over Iraqs natural resources. Between a belligerent foreign aggressor and a resilient, resistant people legal action is crucial to end the ongoing and by all likelihood perpetual slaughter of Iraqis and the destruction of their national identity and rights. We are before immoral and unlawful acts, contrary to the basis on which the international order of state sovereignty and peace and security rests, and that brought about and continue to pursue the destruction of the Iraqi state and attempted destruction of the Iraqi nation. Whereas 1,200,000 Iraqis, according to credible estimates, have lost their lives to violence since 2003 alone, the Iraqi people continue to lose their lives or at best live under constant fear of death, mutilation, detention, exile and lack of access to their rightful resources and freedoms. The sum of these conditions, the outcome of a pattern of purposeful action whose consequences could be foreseen, and of which detailed and compelling notice was served, situated in a context of false justifications, deceptions, and outright lies, and matched by the unlawful use of force, and disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force, amounts to substantive violations of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

As proof of the widespread impact of past and current US and UK policies, in 2009 the American Friends Service Committee, in collaboration with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), reported that some 80 per cent of Iraqis surveyed in Iraq had witnessed a shooting, 68 per cent had been interrogated or harassed by militias, 77 per cent had been affected by shelling/rocket attacks, 72 per cent had witnessed a car bombing, 23 per cent of Iraqis in Baghdad had had a family member kidnapped, and 75 per cent had had a family member or someone close to them murdered.

Military operations in Iraq from 2003 have already cost for the United States an estimated $800 billion, with long-term costs estimated at $1.8 trillion. By 2009, the estimated cost for the United Kingdom, according to figures released by the UK Ministry of Defence, was £8.4 billion ($13.7 billion). The United States continues to spend $12 billion on the war per month. There has been a total of 513,000 US soldiers deployed to Iraq since 2003. Some 170,000 were stationed during the Surge campaign of 2007, and 130,000 remain deployed as of June 2009. In addition to regular armed forces, the US administration is believed to employ up to 130,000 additional private security contractors and has refused to release official numbers in this regard. Security companies have been granted blanket immunity under Iraqi law. Equally, there is no effective mechanism, or hope, for Iraqis to hold US and UK forces to account directly.

The narration of facts that follows is substantiated with evidence detailed in the Annex. Other facts to be investigated while reported are not mentioned in the following.

For further information:
www.brusselstribunal.org �
www.USgenocide.org �
www.twitter.com/USgenocide �
www.facebook.com/USgenocide  

2009-10-04 Bush: Letter to Brett Wilson’s legal counsel. (Brett is organizer of the Bush event.)

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, George Bush war criminal  No Responses »
Oct 042009
 

The news report on Brett Wilson’s “Chat with Bush” is appended.

Some of you know Brett Wilson from “The Dragon’s Den” on TV.  He is involved in bringing George Bush to Canada.  He is going to be asking questions of Bush at the event in Saskatoon.

Brett has business interests in the oil and gas sector.  And he established the Prairie Merchant Corporation.

After reading the news article (appended) it seems to me that Brett’s legal counsel might do a better job of briefing Brett.   I sent him an email of encouragement.

/Sandra

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LETTER TO BRETT WILSON’S LEGAL COUNSEL

 

SENT:  Sunday October 4th, 2009

 

Prairie Merchant Corporation

John Gulak, Legal Counsel

 

Dear John,

 

Brett Wilson is Managing Director and President of Prairie Merchant Corporation.  Perhaps you provide legal advice to him?

 

Concerning George Bush’s visit to Saskatoon:

The dismay in the community has nothing to do with George Bush’s right to speak, or of people to hear what he has to say.

It is a simple question of whether we have a democracy or not, of whether the laws apply to everyone, or not.

At Law School you will have studied the idea that no one is above the law.  Under the Rule of Law, no one can exempt anyone else from the application of the law.

You will have studied some international law.

Perhaps you could review some of it with Brett.  He may also like to know that many people are writing to the Attorney General of Canada to insist that he uphold the rule of law in Canada.

You may know from newspaper reports that we are in conversation with the police forces regarding the arrest of George Bush. I presume that the Attorney General cannot prosecute if the police have not arrested.

The legal arguments are summarized below.

You will be able to explain to Brett Wilson that some people have a duty under the law to perform the functions of their positions.  If they do not, citizens have recourse to the court system to address their failure to carry out their duties.

If there is fault in the following argument, I am anxious to know what it is.

I would be happy to forward further information to you – what the Spanish justice system is doing in relation to the war crimes of the Bush administration and some notes regarding what is being done inside the United States to bring Bush to justice.  Please ask if you’d like the info.

 

Best wishes to you,

Sandra Finley

Saskatoon SK  S7N 0L1

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

If the most powerful among us are not accountable to the law, our justice system fails.

The Government of Canada has a legal duty to bar George W. Bush from Canada – as a suspected war criminal – or to prosecute him for torture once he enters Canada.  The law allows no other options.

 

Dear Attorney General Nicholson,

George W. Bush arrives in Canada, October 20, 2009.

As you know, Canada is a signatory to international legal covenants such as the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute.  As signatories we are legally bound to enforce these laws.  Furthermore, Canada has enacted supporting legislation.

Under the Canadian Criminal Code, the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, and the Geneva Conventions Act, torture and other war crimes and crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world are crimes in Canada.  Canada has a legal duty to prosecute such crimes.  The duty to prosecute is triggered when the suspected perpetrators enter Canada.

While President of the United States, George W. Bush waged war on Iraq without credible justification, the most serious breach of International Law which prohibits wars of aggression.  His government has held prisoners of war indefinitely without due process and has authorized the use of torture against many of these detainees, also in breach of international law.

To fail to apply the laws equally would be to breach your Oath of Office and to undermine the rule of law in Canada.  The Attorney General does not act on directions from his colleagues or anyone else in discharging his duties in the enforcement of the law.

George W. Bush must be arrested and prosecuted.

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APPENDED

BRETT WILSON’S “CHAT WITH BUSH”, SASKATOON STAR PHOENIX

Chat with Bush

Wilson prepares for Q&A

By Jason Warick, Saskatchewan News Network

October 3, 2009

North Battleford native and Calgary entrepreneur W. Brett Wilson will be moderating the Conversation with George W. Bush at TCU Place on Oct. 21. Bush, who served as the American president from 2000 to 2008, will give a speech, followed by a 45-minute question and answer session with Wilson.

Bush is scheduled to give a similar presentation in Edmonton the day before speaking in Saskatoon and appears in Montreal the following day. Bush events in Calgary and Toronto earlier this year sold out, attracting 2,000 and 6,500 people, respectively. An organizer for the Saskatoon event declined to release Bush’s speaking fee.

Wilson, a University of Saskatchewan graduate, is a panelist on the CBC television show Dragon’s Den, where inventors and businesspeople pitch ideas to the panel of “dragons” in the hope they will invest.

StarPhoenix reporter Jason Warick spoke to Wilson Friday.

The SP: Why did you want to be part of this event?

Wilson: I am fascinated by any and all world leaders — (Bill) Clinton, Bush, the Dalai Lama and other people of that calibre. I think anyone and everyone can learn from them, whether you agree with them or not.

The SP: George W. Bush is one of the most famous people in the world. Are you nervous?

Wilson: I am excited nervous, not scared nervous. For me, it’s like a sporting competition, where you’re about to go into one of the most interesting games you’ve ever been involved in. This guy (Bush) is a professional, through and through. I’m not looking to create a Frost-Nixon event here. I’m looking to see if we can’t engage Bush in (a) conversation that people in the audience find fascinating.

The SP: Have you thought about how you’ll address him?

Wilson: You know, I suspect there’s a formal way of doing it. I grew up in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, so it’s not something we put on — you know, how do you address the prime minister. If memory serves me, I believe he’s entitled to be called “president” all of his life. It would be President Bush or Mr. President.

The SP: George W. Bush made a series of monumental, controversial decisions during his eight years in office. How will you prepare for the conversation?

Wilson: Certainly I’ve been online, and spent some time with a couple of political scientists, just making sure that I have a rough briefing. I’m not looking to get into a debate with him, but rather to encourage the conversation in a way that is meaningful for everyone there.

The SP: Do you think George W. Bush was a good president?

Wilson: You know, I don’t think my views on that are relevant. The important thing is I respect him. I will say my respect for him grew measurably after the event I saw him do in Calgary (in March). I thought he was far more articulate than the press has given him credit for and he had a compelling story, defending the actions he took as being in the best interests of the country that he was elected to run.

The SP: What’s the one question you’d most like to ask George W. Bush?

Wilson: I haven’t formulated the question, but it’s going to connect to the regrets he might have had in terms of the cost of being in public office on his family and friends.

The SP: Will you be discussing Sept. 11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Canada’s refusal to send troops to Iraq?

Wilson: I’ve been told that I can ask anything I want. Now, I’ve been asked to run the questions by them so they can anticipate, but let’s be clear: George W. Bush has been asked every question in the book. There’s nothing I’m going to do that’s going to surprise him or trick him. He’ll answer any of those questions however he so chooses. I’m pretty sure I’m going to go some places that other people have gone in that regard.

The SP: Some critics, including a Saskatoon group which is protesting the visit, call George W. Bush a war criminal. Will you ask him about that?

Wilson: I don’t know that’s either professional or respectful. I’d have to judge that at the time. I think people have the right to protest. But the people who’ve paid and choose to listen have the right to listen. Their right to protest does not cause George Bush to sit quiet. The people who want to listen have the right to listen unencumbered by nonsense. As long as the protesting’s done respectfully, I think there’s a role and a place for it. I think I’ve got better questions to ask him than the relevance of the disorganized chaos outside the building.

The SP: You’re a host on the CBC program Dragon’s Den. Would you invest in a business with George W. Bush if he asked?

Wilson: Would I invest in a business with George W. Bush? In George Bush, you’ve got someone who’s got such a high profile that, in my mind, integrity and honesty are above reproach, and those are pretty high characteristics for me in terms of the sort of people I want to do business with. So I’d have to ask a few more questions, but I’d certainly be willing to continue the conversation.

© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix

2009-09-30 Bush visit to Canada: We are rockin’ sockin’!

 George Bush war criminal  No Responses »
Sep 302009
 

Why am I exhilarated?! 

I love the creativity and power we have when we work together for good. 

Scroll down to the wonderful poster “Wanted for War Crimes:  George W. Bush”.  Peter (Saskatoon) did it.  I love it! 

Read the material – Gail (Vancouver) provides it.

We are empowered by her work.  You can see it in Peter’s poster.  And in my correspondence. 

The Saskatoon organizing for George Bush’s visit on Oct 21 is growing fast.  

Hey, Edmonton and Montreal ~   come join us!  Give us a hand. 

As pointed out in an earlier email, the rule of law is absolutely necessary to our peace and security.  No one is above the law, not even George Bush.

http://forum.stopthehogs.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1425#1425 

Gail’s input below points out the role of the Attorney General of Canada (AGC) in bringing the law to bear. 

The Minister of Justice is automatically also the Attorney General:

Robert Nicholson, M.P. for Niagara Falls.

http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/mag-mpg/index.html  

In Saskatoon we are thinking that we’ll send the legal case to the AGC and to every person who might be responsible for arresting Bush when he sets foot in Canada.  Let’s say that they do not arrest Bush.  That would open the way AFTER Bush’s visit, to bring legal action against the responsible persons for failure to carry out their duties. 

Trudy is coming by today.   She is going to work on a draft template letter to AGC Robert Nicholson, which we’ll also send to the Saskatoon Chief of Police.  It’ll be delivered to the RCMP detachment in Saskatoon and emailed to many other people. 

Will send it to you as soon as it’s ready.  It needs to go to every possible person in the justice and policing system in Canada.  In the meantime, we need to poster Saskatoon like mad. 

Cheney and Blair are also scheduled to visit Canada.  Equally distasteful, but I’m focusing for now on Bush.  If we can cause the law to be applied to him, or at least keep him out of the country, it will add to the level of awareness.   

Canadians will do their part in ensuring that the rule of law prevails.  Eventually the people responsible for torture and illegal war will be brought to justice because we demand it.  

This is so great! 

Many thanks to everyone,

Sandra

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Thanks to Gail (Lawyers Against the War (LAW)): 

Saskatoon Groups oppose illegal visit of G.W. Bush to Canada.  

George W. Bush Welcoming Committee-Saskatoon on Facebook: Over 1,800 people have joined and the group is planning a rally for October 21, 2009.  To join or print a “Wanted for War Crimes: G.W. Bush, poster, go to   http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=130160394722 

Criminal Complaint against G.W. Bush to the Saskatoon Chief of Police: Sandra Finley. On September 10, 2009 Sandra delivered a letter to the Saskatoon Chief of Police advising him of G.W. Bush’ visit to Saskatoon on Oct. 21 and asking him to commence an investigation of Bush for torture and other crimes. Appended to the letter were: a list of the applicable Canadian laws, a list of briefs of evidence of Bush’ involvement in torture and other crimes and statements regarding Bush’ personal culpability for crimes of a number of people, including former U.S. Attorney General Ramsay Clark and former U.S. star prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi. Also included was a news item about the criminal investigation of U.S. lawyers who wrote the torture memos approved by Bush and Rumsfeld by the Spanish Court. http://forum.stopthehogs.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1425#1425 

The Saskatoon Chief of Police is apparently not aware that torture and other war crimes and crimes against humanity are crimes in Canada no matter when they occurred and no matter what the nationality of the perpetrators or victims. (such as the Criminal Code, the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act and the Geneva Convention Act). He is also apparently not aware that once a suspected perpetrator of one of these crimes (Bush is suspected of committing crimes falling into 269 different categories of crimes–replied by saying,

“This letter is in response to your correspondence dated September 10 and September 14, 2009 regarding the upcoming visit of George W. Bush.
Although the pending visit may not be popular with some people/organizations, there is no legal ramification to bar the event.  In reply to your request for the Saskatoon Police Service to begin an investigation into past actions by the former President; as a municipal
police agency in Canada, we have no jurisdiction in this matter of international law.”

N.B. Under Canadian laws, including the Criminal Code (in force since 1987), the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act (in force since 2000), and the Geneva Conventions Act (in force since 1985), torture and other war crimes and crimes against humanity– committed anywhere in the world, by and against any person(s)–are crimes in Canada and Canada has a legal duty to prosecute such crimes. The duty to prosecute such crimes committed outside Canada, under the Criminal Code and the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act is triggered when the suspected perpetrators enters Canada and/or when a victim is a Canadian citizen. Under the Geneva Conventions Act, the jurisdiction to prosecute does not require a trigger. Prosecutions require the written consent of the Attorney General of Canada. Under the Criminal Code a citizen can lay an information alleging torture without the prior consent of the Attorney General of Canada.  

Edmonton Alberta: Two people have expressed interest in laying an information for torture against Bush under the Criminal Code. LAW has information about how to lay a private information for torture and some draft wording for torture charges against Bush and Cheney.  

Montreal: A Montreal lawyer is exploring the possibility of bringing an application in Federal Court for an order of mandamus compelling the government to prevent Bush, Blair and Cheney from entering Canada under the provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. 

Bush visit to cost taxpayers over $500,00: A Globe and Mail article (Bill Curry writing on September 26) estimates that the cost of Bush’ visits will exceed $500,000, based on the Calgary cost of $124,000 to the RCMP alone: Toronto was $108,000. That apparently does not include the cost of local police. An ex-police officer phoned LAW last week to advise that he suspected Bush was and will be given special permission to bring his own body guards along with their own arms across the border with him. 

LAW’s September 10, 2009 letter is available http://www.lawyersagainstthewar.org/letters.html

(I HAVEN’T FIGURED OUT HOW TO UPLOAD THE “WANTED” POSTER.  IT’S GREAT AND SHOULD BE HERE)  

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Lawyers Against the War
Tel:  +1 604 738  0338
Fax: +1 604 736  1175
Email:  law   AT  portal.ca
Website: www.lawyersagainstthewar.org

2009-09-26 Protect your turf. “Small” reactors. NUKE RALLY in Saskatoon, Update Sept 26.

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Energy  No Responses »
Sep 262009
 

Saskatchewanians & Albertans & “remote”:  you should be familiar with Dwain Lingenfelter’s statements to the Star Phoenix in item 3 concerning “small” reactors.  We should all understand “small” reactors.

NOTE:  I often include text and not just the web address (URL) for information, to guard against future need for the info when the web page is gone.

CONTENTS

  1. INTRODUCE CHINESE-AMERICAN TURF WAR IN SASKATCHEWAN
  2. CLEAR-EYED
  3. IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND “SMALL” “RESEARCH” REACTORS

A. DWAIN LINGENFELTER EXPLAINS THEM

B. “SMALL” REACTORS AND THE SASK UDP REPORT

C. “SMALL” REACTORS FOR MINING IN REMOTE LOCATIONS

D. “SMALL” REACTORS FOR REMOTE COMMUNITIES

E.  AND IT’S ALL THERE ON THE INTERNET!

4.  WE MUST WIN THE TURF WAR

5.  UPDATE ON THE PARADE & RALLY

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(1) INTRODUCE CHINESE-AMERICAN TURF WAR IN SASKATCHEWAN

In one of the next emails I’ll set out the evidence to show that the turf war between American and Chinese interests for control of resources (especially oil and gas) is pitched in Saskatchewan; it’s happening right now.  . . . but this email is about the NO NUKES rally?

Most of you already know the relationship between the nuclear and tar sands industries.  Electricity from nuclear reactors is needed for expansion of the tar sands.  You can’t talk about one without talking about the other – not here.

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(2) CLEAR-EYED

There is no ignorance to blur our sight.  We can look over the fence into Alberta’s backyard, read National Geographic, view thousands of pictures on the internet, or read Andrew Nikiforuk’s book on the Tar Sands to see what lies in store if the nuclear reactors get the go-ahead, to enable expansion of the tar sands.

We may as well throw in the towel on climate change.  And prepare for a rough road because MORE investment in a dwindling resource (in this case oil and gas) only hastens the depletion and ensures that the economy upon which the resource is founded will fail.  The lessons of resource depletion dictate that you TRANSITION OFF the resource, if you wish to avoid economic collapse.

If that’s not enough, tar sands bring about rape and pillage, disease and death of the eco-systems, severe abuse of water, next-to-no royalties, totally ineffective regulation, deals made in secret, loss of the public interest, and reassurances that it will be different.  Everything is good.  We will have lots of money.

When you impoverish the environment, you impoverish the people who are dependent upon it.  Show me where this is not true.

“Only when the last tree has died, the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we cannot eat money.”

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(3) IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND “SMALL” “RESEARCH” REACTORS

A. DWAIN LINGENFELTER EXPLAINS THEM

Dwain Lingenfelter was Deputy Premier of Saskatchewan before going to Nexen Oil and Gas in Calgary for 8 years, after which he returned to Saskatchewan to be elected, in June 2009, to the leadership of the provincial NDP which is now the official opposition party.

Dwain was interviewed (Oct 2005) while a Vice-President at Nexen and on tour in Saskatchewan. The article says that the technology for the “small” reactors they want for tar sands development is ten years away.

Personally, I believe the “research reactor” touted by the Government and the University for the U of S is “research” to develop the technology for the “small” reactors for tar sands production.

The 2005 article spells out that the industry wants “small” reactors” “largely because a single, large nuclear reactor isn’t the best option to serve the many tarsands projects that are too far away from each other.”  . . . “adding that smaller reactors may be more viable option, but that technology is a decade away.”

THE ARTICLE

Lingenfelter campaigning for nuclear plant

Murray Mandryk, With files from James Wood of the Regina Star-Phoenix Leader-Post

October 26, 2005      (Web address no longer valid)

Former NDP deputy premier Dwain Lingenfelter is embarking on a campaign to convince Saskatchewan residents that a nuclear power plant in northwestern Saskatchewan would be a huge economic opportunity for this province.

Lingenfelter, now a vice-president at Calgary-based oil company Nexen Canada Ltd., will speak to the North Saskatoon Business Association on Nov. 8 on the benefits of building a nuclear reactor in Saskatchewan across the border from the tarsands in Fort McMurray, Alta.  . . . ”  (INSERT: Nexen, of course, has investments in the tar sands and oil and gas in the province.)    . . .

Leader of the “Official Opposition?”

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B. “SMALL” REACTORS AND THE SASK UDP REPORT

Add to Lingenfelter’s explanation:

While the public consultations on the “Uranium Development Partnership” for Saskatchewan was underway, the Government of Saskatchewan met a July 31st, 2009 deadline to apply to the Federal Govt for funding related to nuclear reactors.

The application was sold to Saskatchewanians as being for a “research” reactor and for radio isotope production.   The Appendix for the UDP Report makes it clear that a “research” reactor is about the “small” reactors needed for tar sands expansion.

It seems pretty clear to me,

– based on what the tar sands industry wants (the October 2005 article re Lingenfelter in his role of Vice-President of a tar sands corporation)

added to

– Brad Wall’s commitment to the Canada – U.S. Western Energy Corridor (Wall and Schweitzer, the Governor of Montana, are the “spear-heads” for sending “non-renewable” energy and “clean” – industry-speak for “nuclear” energy – to the U.S.) that the “research” reactor at the University of Saskatchewan isn’t just a little reactor; it’s research to create the “small” reactors needed for tar sands expansion and other mining.

– – – – – – – – – – – –

This is an aside, but it’s important.

The UDP Report (the Government) and Richard Florizone, Vice-President of Finance at the University (he also chaired the UDP Panel) – talk as though the Canadian Centre for Nuclear Studies at the University of Saskatchewan is part of the “public consultation” process.

But read the On Campus News:

Nuclear studies centre already under development July 17,  2009  (Link no longer valid http://www.usask.ca/communications/ocn/09-july-17/2.php)

Excerpt, quoting Karen Chad, acting vice-president of research:

“In some ways, it fits in beautifully for the University of Saskatchewan because for the past year we’ve been developing this centre.  The (Saskatchewan) proposal is very targeted to the production of medical isotopes but we can do much more than that.”

As it has taken shape, the nuclear studies centre has drawn together multiple disciplines – basic science, health, humanities, engineering, medicine, public policy – working at various points in the nuclear cycle, explained Chad. That cycle extends from exploration and mining to power production to safe storage. The centre sees these academic and research activities as opportunities for “health, wealth and well-being.”

What was the purpose of the “public consultation”?

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C.  “SMALL” REACTORS FOR MINING IN REMOTE LOCATIONS

Firm raises eyebrows with suggestion for nuclear powered mines

By Lynn Moore, Montreal Gazette   August 18, 2009     (Web address no longer valid)

MONTREAL – A mining exploration company figures small nuclear reactors for electric-power generating stations would be ideal for remote operations such as its project in the James Bay region of Quebec.

Western Troy Capital Resources Inc. says a team of advisors is now considering an array of reactor designs suitable for such use and it has initiated contact with the regulatory community.

The venture took root about a year ago when the company was looking at power options for its molybdenum and copper project at MacLeod Lake, CEO Rex Loesby said.

The property is located in boreal wilderness more than 500 kilometres north of Quebec City.

“When we looked at this (option), we said, ‘Gee, why aren’t people doing this in Canada?’ It seems like an obvious thing to do,” Loesby recalled.

Remote sites now rely heavily on fossil fuels and generators, he said.

Western Troy would replace those power sources with reactors that could generate about five to 20 megawatts of power, Loesby said from his Toronto office.

“These little ones, even if you don’t get the economies of scale (gained from building a 1,000 MW nuclear power plant), if something goes wrong, it doesn’t wipe out half a city,” said Loesby, adding that remote mining sites are not located near cities.

Environmental groups are not so enamoured with the idea.

The idea of nuclear reactors at mine sites “is mad,” Jamie Kneen, MiningWatch Canada’s communications and outreach co-ordinator, said.

“I can’t see how it is going to get through the regulatory process.”

The notion is “suspect for a number of reasons” including issues surrounding disposal of radioactive waste, said Dale Marshall, climate policy analyst for the David Suzuki Foundation.

“A significant number of mining proponents are saying that climate change is already affecting their operations, specially infrastructure on mines,”  said Marshall.

“Probably the last thing we want to do is have a whole lot more nuclear reactors being impacted by those climatic events and potentially leading to accidents in those power facilities.”

The idea of using nuclear reactors to power the extraction industry is not new, said Paul Stothart, the Mining Association of Canada’s vice-president of economic affairs, said in an email.

“For example, there has been considerable discussion in the (Alberta) oilsands where reactors could be used to provide power and heat and hence significantly reduce the amount of fossil fuel used in the . . . production process,” he wrote.

While it is “conceivable” that small nuclear reactors in remote regions would offer environmental advantages by reducing fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions, “this technology would presumably raise questions regarding community acceptance, site location and permitting, management of waste . . . etc.,”  Stothart said.

Glenn Harvel, an associate professor of nuclear science at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, is among the advisors working with Western Troy. While still in its preliminary stage, the project presents “an exciting opportunity for Canada,” he said.

There are hurdles to overcome “but it is feasible,” he added. A key challenge is “finding the right vendor and then getting everyone in the licensing process to agree that this is a worthwhile thing to do,” Harvel said.

While potential vendors – all foreign – have said they could provide a suitable reactor for between $25 million to $75 million, no firm quotes have yet been sought.

Montreal Gazette

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

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D.  “SMALL” REACTORS FOR REMOTE COMMUNITIES

And I think that almost all of the Inuit communities use diesel-powered generators for the electricity supply for their communities.  The diesel is brought in by barge in the summertime.  With the crunch on oil and gas, those generators are another prime market for replacement by “small”, remote nuclear power plants.

The article (Lingenfelter) doesn’t mention this latter use, but I’m quite sure it’s there.

– – – – – – – – – — – —

E.  AND IT’S ALL THERE ON THE INTERNET!

(Link no longer valid  http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=948)

Posted on Jul. 16, 2008
By Robert Bryce

Nukes Get Small

But entrepreneurs are now developing small nuclear reactors that could ultimately become just as important as their bigger, more famous counterparts. These micro-nukes produce a small fraction of the power that their bigger cousins do, but they may have applications in far more locations, particularly in remote areas where electricity is prohibitively expensive. The small reactors may also be used for temporary power production, or at locations like military bases that need highly reliable electric power.

Small reactors could be extraordinarily useful in both the upstream and downstream sectors of the oil industry. In the upstream, a small reactor would be highly valuable for use in oil sands, heavy oil, or oil shale projects that consume huge quantities of natural gas to produce the steam needed to process the bitumen, heavy oil, or shale. The small reactor could also be used in refineries, which must burn natural gas or other hydrocarbons to produce steam for various processes. Further, the small reactors can be ganged, so they could be scaled up to provide power for small cities that don’t need (or can’t afford) a much larger reactor.

Several companies are vying to be the first to commercialize small reactors.

Among the most promising competitors are two American companies: Hyperion Power Generation and NuScale Power Inc.

Excerpt from the website, where there is more info . . .   Toshiba is another of the companies that is developing a small reactor.  Hyperion has submitted its application to have its “small” reactor licensed in the U.S.  The process is years-long….

Also, this from the industry website:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf33.html

(September 2009)

There is revival of interest in small and simpler units for generating electricity from nuclear power, and for process heat.

The interest is driven both by a desire to reduce capital costs and to provide power away from large grid systems.

The technologies involved are very diverse.  . . .

The most prominent modular project is the South African-led consortium developing the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor of of 170 MWe.

In China, Chinergy is preparing to build a similar unit, the 195 MWe HTR-PM.

A US-led group is developing another design with 285 MWe modules driving a gas turbine directly, using helium as a coolant and operating at very high temperatures.

All three are high-temperature reactors which build on the experience of several innovative reactors in the 1960s and 1970s…

Generally, modern small reactors for power generation are expected to have greater simplicity of design, economy of mass production, and reduced siting costs. Many are also designed for a high level of passive or inherent safety in the event of malfunction*. ..

Already operating in a remote corner of Siberia are four small units at the Bilibino co-generation plant. These four 62 MWt (thermal) units are an unusual graphite-moderated boiling water design with water/steam channels through the moderator. They produce steam for district heating and 11 MWe (net) electricity each. They have performed well since 1976, much more cheaply than fossil fuel alternatives in the Arctic region.

Also in the small reactor category is the Indian 220 MWe Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) based on Canadian technology.  This design is not detailed in this paper simply because it is well-established and India is now focusing on 450 MWe and 700 MWe versions of it.

Light Water Reactors (LWR)

US experience has been of very small military power plants, such as the 11 MWt, 1.5 MWe (net) PM-3A reactor which operated at McMurdo Sound in Antarctica 1962-72, generating a total of 78 million kWh. There was also an Army program for small reactor development and some successful small reactors from the main national program commenced in the 1950s. One was the Big Rock Point BWR of 67 MWe which operated for 35 years to 1997.

Of the following, the KLT and VBER designs have conventional pressure vessel plus external steam generators (PV/loop design). The others mostly have the steam supply system inside the reactor pressure vessel (‘integral’ PWR design). All have enhanced safety features relative to current PWRs.

The Russian KLT-40S is a reactor well proven in icebreakers and now proposed for wider use in desalination and, on barges, for remote area power supply.

Here a 150 MWt unit produces 35 MWe (gross) as well as up to 35 MW of heat for desalination or district heating (or 38.5 MWe gross if power only).

These are designed to run 3-4 years between refuelling and it is envisaged that they will be operated in pairs to allow for outages (70% capacity factor), with on-board refuelling capability and spent fuel storage. At the end of a 12-year operating cycle the whole plant is taken to a central facility for overhaul and storage of spent fuel. Two units will be mounted on a 20,000 tonne barge. … ”

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(4)  WE MUST WIN THE TURF WAR

If we lose in Saskatchewan, how is that a loss for Canadians?  The obvious answer is the impact on global climate change that expansion of the tar sands will mean.  It won’t matter how green Ontario and B.C. are.

But there is another significant issue.  Review Canadian history.  David Orchard’s “The Fight for Canada” is a good starting place.  The Americans have tried repeatedly over the last two centuries to invade and takeover Canada.

The only difference today is in the tactics.

The beneficiaries of the takeover are the same as they are in the Congo (Patrice Lumumba murdered – copper), in Bhopal (Union Carbide, owner Dow Chemical) – the list of abuses is long.

The Government of the U.S. (China) places the interests of its corporations above all; they are the beneficiaries alongside some Canadian investors in one form and another.

As preposterous as it may seem, I think WE Canadians have to win the turf war in Saskatchewan.  If either the American OR Chinese interests win, the land that gives us life will be destroyed.  But also, David Orchard will have to write another book, “The Fight for Canada is Lost”. We will be thoroughly owned and exploited by corporate interests. Suck out the life-blood.

Again, we cannot claim naïveté:  go on the internet, look at the pictures and the story of the Niger delta (the Ogoni people, KEN SARO WIWA AND 8 OGONI PEOPLE EXECUTED. Royal Dutch Shell was the main “developer” of the oil and gas in the Niger Delta. The industry much prefers a “stable” place like Canada.)

Put the pictures side-by-side:  tar sands, Niger Delta, Sarnia ON, Fort Chippewyan, Falconbridge in South America and the others. There are no exceptions.  The pictures are the same.

So if they offer reassurances that it will be different, tell them you are not so stupid, or so insecure that you believe in lies.

Throw your weight in with us.  If you don’t know a soul in Saskatchewan you can phone to tell them about the Rally & Parade, then send us your prayers.

We have to have every single person possible on-board.  Not just to show the support for Renewables (for stopping the destruction of the Earth), but also because it’s a wonderful way to build our connectedness.

The strength of our connectedness will determine who wins the turf war: American or Chinese corporate, or citizens.

We’re down to the last week! The Parade & Rally “No Nukes – Go Renewables” is Sunday, October 4th in Saskatoon.

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(5)  UPDATE ON THE PARADE & RALLY

RON WRITES:

I stopped at our Lloyd TV station with a couple of Rally Posters & GUESS WHAT They had no idea this event was scheduled >>>> Anyhow now they are going to air it on the news And post it on their Co op advertising Calender that happens to be aired 4 times a week

John Allen from just outside of Lloyd an organic farmer and Lakeland College worker … is going to try to make it to the Rally.  Carla found him through MEETUP.

There are a few private cars heading down (as well as the busload of people).

(INSERT:  Please follow Ron’s lead – talk directly to your local media, if applicable.  We don’t have work assignments – we rely on each of us to do, and through doing, to see more that can be done!)

– – –  – – – – – – – – — –

Michelle from Prince Albert has been working hard to get EVERYONE to contact all the organizations and people they know, to spread the word about the Rally.  It’s called mobilizing!

– – – – – – – – – – – –

Saskatoon has been tied up with the organizing details around porta-potties and “the bowl” and how to use every minute of the programme. Now it’s an all-out effort in this last week to spread the word about the Rally.

It’s awesome!  The Students’ Union offered to put notice of the Rally on the plasma TV screens they have on-campus.  Karen and Dave put together a great ad that has four “feed-ins”.  They took the same ad to Rainbow Cinemas.  The fellow there is coming to the Rally!  we got a great deal – the ad is running in both Saskatoon and in Regina.

Flyers are being handed out at the Farmers Market this morning.  They were handed out in front of Persephone Theatre last night. And at the Musicians for Peace event on Monday.  Posters continue to go up.  Another person sat down and telephoned 60 friends.

Facebook events are going great.  . . . I hate to say any of this because I only know a fraction of what everyone is doing!

Leave no stone unturned.
Every single last person who comes to the Rally is absolutely needed to create the critical mass. We are stopping an invasion and takeover and  destruction, may I remind you?!

The biggest risk we face now is not getting enough people to the Rally.

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See you there!

12:00  U of Scampus, NE corner of The Bowl (central green space). Parade Marshalls gather to receive instructions. Please spread the word – we need more marshalls and cheer leaders.

1:00 – the Rally is officially underway.  We have a sound system to deliver the “Go Renewables” (not nukes) message to the University.

1:15 – The Parade leaves the University headed for downtown.

2:00 – Musicians start at the Vimy Memorial (bandshell in the park south of the Bessborough Hotel.

2:30 – the last of the Parade reaches the bandshell

The Rally continues with speakers and musicians.  Winona LaDuke keynote.

4:30 – Wind-up

5:00 – out-of-town buses leave.

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