Legal Group Highlights Bush's Alleged War Crimes (oh canada)

[struggle4progress]

By charlie smith
Publish Date: 25-Nov-2004

An international legal group called Lawyers Against the War has asked federal Immigration Minister Judy Sgro to declare U.S. President George Bush an inadmissable person to Canada under federal immigration legislation. Gail Davidson, a Vancouver lawyer and cofounder of LAW, told the Straight that Bush has been accused of war crimes, which is grounds for refusing someone entry into Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. She added that her group is examining the possibility of laying criminal charges privately against Bush while he is in Canada on November 30.

"If the Canadian government invited him here for a state visit, they couldn't then prosecute him because that would be inveigling him here under false pretences," Davidson said.

On November 19, Davidson and Michael Mandel, an Osgoode Hall law professor and member of LAW, wrote to Prime Minister Paul Martin alleging that Bush committed the Nuremberg Tribunal's "supreme international crime" by waging an aggressive war against Iraq in defiance of international law and the United Nations Charter. They accused Bush of "systematic and massive violations of the Geneva Conventions Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War and Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, as well as the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment".

In their letter, Davidson and Mandel cited a recent study in The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, which estimated that 100,000 Iraqis have died since the U.S.­led invasion began last year. The LAW members claimed that the president's link to war crimes comes not only from his "command responsibility" and willful blindness but also from his direct participation in formulating policies. <snip>

http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=6585

[__Inanna__]

1. Thank you for sharing this interesting news

and thanks to our neighbors to the north for seeing what half of Americans cannot see now, for whatever reason.

[cavanaghjam]

2. The reason is simple

- corporate television only interested that you are comfortable enough to want to shop and insecure enough to feel you need to buy more stuff. Not you personally. But I'm sure you, personally, get my message, unlike those who think Bush, like God, can do no wrong.

[mrbassman03]

3. What would the anti-Canada backlash be like?

If we get so heated about France, far away and out of sight... what would happen if half the country suddenly hated Canada? I am picturing boycotts of hockey games, pouring of maple syrup into the gutters, ummmm... banning universal health care? Sorry, I'm reaching, but it would be interesting, albeit sad to watch.

[renaissanceguy]

4. Simple.

The fundies will wage another war and try to make Canada another republic in their own image.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. Don't forget the uprooting and burning of all the maple trees south

of the border... heh heh heh... wouldn't that suck.

[jamesinca]

6. It would be a huge fallout for the U.S.

Some numbers on the economic front are these, I don't have links they are only things I have picked up in conversation. Two of the largest trading partners in the world are the U.S. and Canada. We send corn and they send pigs across the border. I have heard that 50% of all hydroelectric power created in Canada is eventually sold to the U.S. I do know that Canada has 10% of all the fresh water in the world. 1/3 of all our imported oil comes from Canada and Mexico. I did see a report last year that Canada was having problems keeping up with natural gas for U.S. consumption/contracts.

I think the U.S. would lose out on this one. We are harvesting from their land. To boycott them would be biting the hand that feeds you essentially.