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Amnesty International wants Canada to arrest Bush
SattvaPaul
South Wales, UK Veteran
Comments
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Canada-Amnesty-Bush-arrest/2011/10/12/id/414225
I think that's just how it works
It's not uncommon for those who make Laws so be above them....
Bush didn't make international law though, someone else created it and it's bassically like he's the only one who could have broken it
In essence international government is too vast. It cannot customize to fit the various cultures.
That being said I don't agree with pre-emptive war. However I believe thats up to the individual nations to put a stop to that.
No problem, Jeffrey. Actually, I need to correct myself: it's Rumsfeld who Germany has an arrest warrant on.
@Telly03 Let's leave this Stalinist "If you're not with us, you're against us" mentality back in the GW Bush administration, where it first cropped up. If we can't analyze and critique, we can't move forward and improve. I'm with Mountains on this one. Dissent has its roots in patriotism.
Amnesty International considers that there is enough material in the public domain – even if one were to rely only upon information released by United States authorities, and by former US President George W. Bush himself – to give rise to an obligation for Canada, should former President Bush proceed with his visit to Canada on or around 20 October 2011, to investigate his alleged involvement in and responsibility for crimes under international law, including torture, and to secure his presence in Canada during that investigation.
1. Acts of torture (and, it may be noted, other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and enforced disappearance) were committed against detainees held in a secret detention and
interrogation program operated by the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) between 2002 and 2009.
2. The CIA established this secret program under the authorization of then-President George W. Bush.
3. Since leaving office, former President George W. Bush has said that he authorized the use of a number of “enhanced interrogation techniques” against detainees held in the secret
CIA program. The former President specifically admitted to authorizing the “waterboarding” of identified individuals, whose subjection to this torture technique has been
confirmed.
4. Additionally, torture and other ill-treatment, and secret detention, by US forces occurred outside the confines of the CIA-run secret detention program, including against detainees
held in military custody at the US Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, and in the context of armed conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
5. George W. Bush was Commander in Chief of all US armed forces at the relevant times.
6. The Administration of George W. Bush acted on the basis that he was essentially unrestrained by international or US law in determining the USA’s response to the attacks in the USA on 11 September 2001. Among other things, President Bush decided that the protections of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, including their common article 3, would not be applied to Taleban or al-Qa’ida detainees.
7. George W. Bush, as Commander in Chief at the relevant times, if he did not directly order or authorize such crimes, at least knew, or had reason to know, that US forces were about to
commit or were committing such crimes and did not take all necessary and reasonable measures in his power as Commander in Chief and President to prevent their commission or, if the crimes had already been committed, ensure that all those who were alleged to be responsible for these crimes were brought to justice.
8. The USA has failed to conduct investigations capable of reaching former President George W. Bush, and all indications are that it will not do so, at least in the near future.
9. The facts summarized above, which are matters of public record, are sufficient to give rise to mandatory obligations for Canada under international law (including but not limited to
the UN Convention against Torture), should former US President George W. Bush enter Canadian territory, to:
· launch a criminal investigation;
· arrest former President Bush or otherwise secure his presence during that investigation; and
· submit the case to competent authorities in Canada for the purposes of prosecution if it does not extradite him to another state able and willing to do so.
in 50 years, i wonder what our history books will say of this whole bush/cheney war period...
Not remotely, in any kind of way related to current world events, nor what would happen if Bush were arrested.
Exactly. It was called a powder keg in my world history class.
News
UK news
War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal
International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."
President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law.
But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable.
The declaration of the United Nations secretary-general, Kofi Annan, on the Iraq war was shocking in its simplicity. He described it for the first time as "illegal". No caveats. No equivocation. None of the ambiguity loved by diplomats, especially at UN headquarters.
"From our point of view and from the charter point of view, it was illegal."