Tony Blair Barred From Canada

"George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Tony Blair be barred from Canada"

Courts in Canada and the U.S. have confirmed the involvement of the Bush administration in war crimes by Lawyers against the War (LAW)

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper Office of the Prime Minister 80 Wellington Street Ottawa ON K1A 0A2 The Honourable Rob Nicholson, Attorney General of Canada Minister of Justice, House of Commons The Honourable Peter Van Loan Minister of Public Safety, House of Commons The Honourable Jason Kenney Minister of Immigration, House of Commons The Honourable Lawrence Cannon Minister of Foreign Affairs, House of Commons Dear Prime Minister, Attorney General & Ministers Nicholson, Van Loan, Kenney and Cannon; Re: Request that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Tony Blair be barred from Canada Lawyers Against the War (LAW) is writing to inform you of planned visits to Canada by: · George W. Bush, former President of the United States of America (U.S.) on October 20, 21 and 22 2009 to Edmonton, Saskatoon and Montreal; · Dick Cheney, former Vice-President of the U.S. to British Columbia from October 8 to 15, 2009; · Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (U.K.) to Surrey British Columbia on October 6, 2009.

LAW is writing to request that G. W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Tony Blair each be barred from entering Canada in accordance with the inadmissibility provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) provisions that bar entry to foreign nationals suspected of human or international rights violations. Credible Accusations: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Tony Blair have each been accused by knowledgeable groups and individuals throughout the world of complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity and other gross human rights abuses. Accusation of 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 well documented. For example, Professor Michael Haas, in 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 supervision of Bush and Cheney. Tony Blair has been credibly accused of authorizing, directing or failing to prevent, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed while he was prime minister during the invasion and occupation of Iraq. None of these accusations have been dismissed or confirmed by a court of law. However, the credible inculpatory evidence supporting the accusations is overwhelming and there does not appear to be any credible exculpatory evidence refuting the accusations. Reliable Evidence: Evidence that is part of the public record far exceeds the ‘reasonable grounds’ required by the inadmissibility sections of the IRPA. That torture and other criminal treatment was used by U.S. officials on non-Americans imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and other offshore U.S. prisons is no longer open to question. In our letter of February 23, 2009 we advised you of some recent reports.[5] These reports indicate that Bush and Cheney authorized and directed and failed to prevent torture and other prohibited treatment of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and other U.S. controlled offshore prisons. Evidence now available establishes that Canadian citizen Omar Khadr is one of the victims of those criminal acts, prohibited by CAT and by Canadian law. Additional torture memos released by the Obama administration indicate that Bush and Cheney approved for use on prisoners held in these offshore prisons, sleep deprivation (used on Khadr), water boarding (simulated drowning) and other treatments prohibited by international and Canadian law. Records and documents released to date indicate that that Blair and Bush knowingly planned and carried out the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq that has resulted in the death, injury and displacement of millions of people. Court Decisions: Courts in Canada and the U.S. have confirmed the involvement 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 13 November 2001 order[8] depriving Guantánamo Bay prisoners of habeas corpus was unlawful under both 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 that same 13 November 2001 order violates the Geneva Convention fair trial rights. Under international (Geneva Conventions) and Canadian (Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act and the Geneva Conventions 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, Canada’s domestic law and Canada’s international law obligations. The Federal Court of Canada in Khadr v. the Prime Minister et al, 2009 FC 405, ruled that the U.S. treatment, of Omar Khadr in

Guantánamo 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 CAT and that Khadr’s detention was illegal under international law. Canadian law: As observed by UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Navi Pillay all states are responsible for enforcing international humanitarian law by ensuring that violators are prosecuted and held accountable. Canada, as a signatory to CAT, the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute for an International Criminal Court, has a legal duty to take effective measures to prevent and punish war crimes and crimes against humanity (torture is both) wherever such crimes occur, no matter what the nationality of the perpetrator(s) or victim(s). The Geneva Conventions and CAT impose a mandatory duty to prosecute people suspected of, in the case of CAT, torture and in the case of the Geneva Conventions, war crimes and crimes against humanity, once they enter Canada. In order to fulfill these duties Canada has passed laws to prevent people suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity from entering Canada for any purpose. Canada has also made war crimes and crimes against humanity--committed anywhere in the world, against and by any person(s)-crimes under Canadian law. Canada’s duty to prosecute these crimes is triggered when the victim is a Canadian citizen—e.g. Omar Khadr--or the suspected offender enters Canada. Reports of visits to Canada by Bush, Cheney and Blair coupled with evidence of their involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity trigger these legal duties. Unless the Attorney General of Canada plans to initiate prosecutions once each enters Canada, Canada’s legal duty is to ensure that Bush, Cheney and Blair are not allowed to enter Canada. The duty to direct, supervise and carry out all the steps necessary to ensure this result rests with the Prime Minister, the Attorney General of Canada and with the Ministers of Immigration and Public Safety. The Minister of Foreign Affairs is included as a recipient of this letter in the event that he elects, as a courtesy, to advise G.W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Tony Blair of their inadmissibility as was done in the case of British MP George Galloway. While the latter decision is discretionary, taking the steps necessary to prevent entry is required by law. The law does not allow an option of suspending the law to allow, even temporary, immunity to former heads of states or political colleagues who stand credibly accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity of other gross human rights violations. Indeed, the rule of law forbids such preferential treatment. Official Investigations of War Crimes: There are several ongoing official investigations of the aforementioned accusations against the Bush and Blair administrations of crimes committed during extra-legal wars. Three examples are: in the U.K., the Chilcot Inquiry; in the U.S., Attorney General Eric Holder has ordered an investigation into “whether or not federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations”; in the Hague, the International Criminal Court is conducting preliminary investigations of accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan. Conclusion: LAW demands that the government of Canada immediately take all necessary steps: 1. To advise George W. Bush, former president of the U.S. and Dick Cheney, former vice-president and Tony Blair, former prime minister of the U.K. that they are inadmissible to Canada, at least until the above mentioned official investigations have been completed, made public and exonerated each of them; and,

2. To take all steps necessary to ensure that G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Tony Blair are denied entry to Canada as required by both Canadian law and Canada’s international law obligations; and, 3. If any one of G.W. Bush, Dick Cheney or Tony Blair is not advised of his inadmissibility or, being advised, presents himself for entry, to treat this letter and the sources referred to, as a report under s. 44. (1) of the IRPA and to refer the matter to the Immigration Division for an admissibility hearing; and, 4. To take the steps necessary to have the George W. Bush administration, between October 2001 and November 2008 designated as a “government that…has engaged in systematic or gross human rights violations, or a war crime or a crime against humanity within the meaning of subsections 6(3) to (5) of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, pursuant to s. 35(1)(b) of the IRPA. We remind you of your government’s oft repeated statement, “The most effective measure to ensure that Canada is not a safe haven for suspected perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide is their early detection and subsequent prevention of entry into Canada.” We are ready to provide such additional information as you may require, including excerpts from the statutes and international instruments referred to. We request an immediate reply and prompt action by the Prime Minister, Minister of Immigration, Attorney General of Canada, Minister of Public Safety and by the Canadian Border Services Agency to comply with Canadian law and Canada’s international law obligations and to bar entry to Canada by G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Tony Blair on the grounds of their suspected involvement, while heads of state, in authorizing, directing, supervising and failing to prevent war crimes and crimes against humanity. Sincerely, Gail Davidson, Lawyers against the War www.StopWar.ca Derrick O’Keefe, Editor, www.Rabble.ca Copies to: Leader Jack Layton-NDP Joe Comartin, Justice Critic Paul Dewar, Foreign Affairs Critic Don Davies, Critic on Immigration & Public Safety Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff Bob Rae, Foreign Affairs Critic Dominic Leblanc, Justice Critic Maurizio Bevilacqua, Immigration Critic Gilles Duceppe, Leader of the Bloc Québécois Real Ménard, Justice et Procureur Général Serge Ménard, Sécurité Publique Thierry St-Cyr, Citoyenneté

& Immigration Paul Crete, Affaires Etrangères Lawyers Against the War (LAW) is a Canada-based committee of jurists and others who oppose war and advocate for adherence to international humanitarian law and against impunity for violators. Contacts: Gail Davidson, Tel: 604 738 0338; Fax: 604 736 1175, Email: [email protected] Editor's Note footnotes ommitted from internet version. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8824638200653883905&hl=en#

WAR CRIMES

Tony Blair

Aliases: Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, Bambi, Bush's Poodle

DESCRIPTION Age: Sex: Height: Weight:

Late 40's Male ?? xxx pounds

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Blair also took that position that killing for values was legitimate. The idea that you can kill innocent people, simply in order to enforce your values, is extreme by western ethics standards. ... If Tony Blair may legitimately kill any person X, Y, or Z in Belgrade or Freetown, to enforce his values, then why is it not legitimate for them to come to London,

and kill Tony Blair for their values? Ideology and ethics of Tony Blair With the NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia, British Prime Minister Tony Blair dropped more bombs on the country than the previous Conservative government did in 18 years. Blair now leads a government which attacks or invades countries without UN approval - the sending of British troops to Sierra Leone in the latest example Lawyers serve indictment on NATO leaders for war crimes Found guilty of nineteen separate crimes by the Members of the International War Crimes Tribunal including "Killing and Injuring a Defenseless Population throughout Yugoslavia" and "Using Depleted Uranium, Cluster Bombs and Other Prohibited Weapons" GUILTY! http://www.zpub.com/un/un-tb.html

Fake faith and epic crimes John Pilger Published 02 April 2009 The Brussels War Crimes Tribunal and the newly established Blair War Crimes Foundation are building a case for the former British prime minister’s prosecution http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/war-crimes-blair-pilger-iraq http://blairfoundation.wordpress.com/

These are extraordinary times. With the United States and Britain on the verge of bankruptcy and committing to an endless colonial war, pressure is building for their crimes to be prosecuted at a

tribunal similar to that which tried the Nazis at Nuremberg. This defined rapacious invasion as “the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes [sic] in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”. International law would be mere farce, said the chief US chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, the Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson, “if, in future, we do not apply its principles to ourselves”. That is now happening. Spain, Germany, Belgium, France and Britain have long had “universal jurisdiction” statutes, which allow their national courts to pursue and prosecute prima facie war criminals. What has changed is an unspoken rule never to use international law against “ourselves”, or “our” allies or clients. In 1998, Spain, supported by France, Switzerland and Belgium, indicted the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, client and executioner of the west, and sought his extradition from Britain, where he happened to be at the time. Had he been sent for trial, he almost certainly would have implicated at least one British prime minister and two US presidents in crimes against humanity. The then home secretary, Jack Straw, let him escape back to Chile. The Pinochet case was the ignition. On 19 January, the George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley compared the status of George W Bush with that of Pinochet. “Outside [the United States] there is no longer the ambiguity about what to do about a war crime,” he said. “So if you try to travel, most people abroad are going to view you not as ‘former president George Bush’ [but] as a current war criminal.” For this reason, Bush’s first defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who demanded an invasion of Iraq in 2001 and personally approved torture techniques for use in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, no longer travels. Rumsfeld has twice been indicted for war crimes in Germany. On 26 January, the UN special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, said: “We have clear evidence that Mr Rumsfeld knew what he was doing but nevertheless he ordered torture.” The Spanish high court is currently investigating a former Israeli defence minister and six other top Israeli officials for their role in the killing of civilians, mostly children, in Gaza. Henry Kissinger, who was largely responsible for bombing 600,000 peasants to death in Cambodia in 1969-73, is wanted for questioning in France, Chile and Argentina. Yet, on 8 February, as if demonstrating the continuity of American power, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, James Jones, said: “I take my daily orders from Dr Kissinger.” Like them, Tony Blair may soon be a fugitive. The International Criminal Court, to which Britain is a signatory, has received a record number of petitions relating to Blair’s wars. Spain’s celebrated judge Baltasar Garzón, who indicted Pinochet and the leaders of the Argentinian military junta, has called for George W Bush, Blair and the former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar to be prosecuted for the invasion of Iraq – “one of the most sordid and unjustifiable episodes in recent human history – a devastating attack on the rule of law” that had left the UN “in tatters”. He said: “There is enough of an argument in 650,000 deaths for this investigation to start without delay.” This is not to say Blair is about to be collared and marched to The Hague, where Serbs and Sudanese dictators are far more likely to face a political court set up by the west. However, an international agenda is forming and a process has begun which is as much about legitimacy as the letter of the law, and a reminder from history that the powerful lose wars and empires when legitimacy evaporates. This can happen quickly, as in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of apartheid South Africa – the latter a spectre for apartheid Israel. Today, the unreported “good news” is that a worldwide movement is challenging the once-sacrosanct notion that imperial politicians can destroy countless lives in the cause of an ancient piracy, often at a remove in distance and culture, and retain their respectability and immunity from justice. In his masterly Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, R L Stevenson writes in the character of Jekyll: “Men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their own person and reputation sat under shelter . . . I could

thus plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and, in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty. But for me, in my impenetrable mantle, the safety was complete.” Blair, too, is safe – but for how long? He and his collaborators face a new determination on the part of tenacious non-government bodies that are amassing “an impressive documentary record as to criminal charges”, according to the international law authority Richard Falk. He cites the World Tribunal on Iraq, held in Istanbul in 2005, which heard evidence from 54 witnesses and published rigorous indictments against Blair, Bush and others. At present, the Brussels War Crimes Tribunal and the newly established Blair War Crimes Foundation are building a case for the former prime minister’s prosecution under the Nuremberg Principle and the 1949 Geneva Convention. In a separate indictment, a former judge of the New Zealand Supreme Court, E W Thomas, wrote: “My predisposition was to believe that Mr Blair was deluded, but sincere in his belief. After considerable reading and much reflection, however, my final conclusion is that Mr Blair deliberately and repeatedly misled cabinet, the British Labour Party and the people in a number of respects. It is not possible to hold that he was simply deluded but sincere: a victim of his own self-deception. His deception was deliberate.” Protected by the fake sinecure of Middle East envoy for the Quartet (the US, EU, UN and Russia), Blair operates largely from a small fortress in the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem, where he is an apologist for the US in the Middle East and Israel, a difficult task following the bloodbath in Gaza. To assist his mortgages, he recently received an Israeli “peace prize” worth $1m. He, too, is careful where he travels; and it is instructive to watch how he now uses the media. Having concentrated his postDowning Street apologetics on a BBC series of obsequious interviews with David Aaronovitch, Blair has all but slipped from view in Britain, where polls have long exposed a remarkable loathing for a former prime minister – a sentiment now shared by those in the liberal media elite whose previous promotion of his “project” and crimes is an embarrassment, and preferably forgotten. On 8 February, Andrew Rawnsley, the Observer’s former leading Blair fan, declared that “this shameful period will not be so smoothly and simply buried”. He demanded, “Did Blair never ask what was going on?” This is an excellent question made relevant with a slight word change: “Did the Andrew Rawnsleys never ask what was going on?” In 2001, Rawnsley alerted his readers to Saddam Hussein’s “contribution to international terrorism” and his “frightening appetite to possess weapons of mass destruction”. Both assertions were false and echoed official Anglo-American propaganda. In 2003, when the destruction of Iraq was launched, Rawnsley described it as a “point of principle” for Blair who, he later wrote, was “fated to be right”. He lamented, “Yes, too many people died in the war. Too many people always die in war. War is nasty and brutish, but at least this conflict was mercifully short.” In the subsequent six years, at least a million people have been killed. According to the Red Cross, Iraq is now a country of widows and orphans. Yes, war is nasty and brutish, but never for the Blairs and the Rawnsleys. Far from the carping turncoats at home, Blair has lately found a safe media harbour – in Australia, the original Murdochracy. His interviewers exude an unction reminiscent of the promoters of the “mystical” Blair in the Guardian of more than a decade ago, though they also bring to mind Geoffrey Dawson, editor of the Times during the 1930s, who wrote of his infamous grovelling to the Nazis: “I spend my nights taking out anything which will hurt their susceptibilities and dropping in little things which are intended to soothe them.” With his words as a citation, the finalists for the Geoffrey Dawson Prize for Journalism (Antipodes) are announced. On 8 February, in an interview on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Geraldine Doogue described Blair as “a man who brought religion into power and is now bringing power to religion”. She asked him: “What would the perception be that faith would bring towards a greater

stability . . . [sic]?” A bemused and clearly delighted Blair was allowed to waffle about “values”. Doogue said to him that “it was the bifurcation about right and wrong, that’s what I thought the British found really hard [sic]”, to which Blair replied that “in relation to Iraq I tried every other option [to invasion] there was”. It was his classic lie, and it passed unchallenged. However, the clear winner of the Geoffrey Dawson Prize is Ginny Dougary of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Times. Dougary recently accompanied Blair on what she described as his “James Bondish Gulfstream” where she was privy to his “bionic energy levels”. She wrote: “I ask him the childlike question: does he want to save the world?” Blair replied, well, more or less, aw shucks, yes. The murderous assault on Gaza, which was under way during the interview, was mentioned in passing. “That is war, I’m afraid,” said Blair, “and war is horrible.” No counter came that Gaza was not a war, but a massacre by any measure. As for the Palestinians, noted Dougary, it was Blair’s task “to prepare them for statehood”. The Palestinians will be surprised to hear that. But enough gravitas; her man “has the glow of the newly-in-love: in love with the world and, for the most part, the feeling is reciprocated”. The evidence she offered for this absurdity was that “women from both sides of politics have confessed to me to having the hots for him”. These are extraordinary times. Blair, a perpetrator of the epic crime of the 21st century, shares a “prayer breakfast” with President Obama, the yes-we-can man now launching more war. “We pray,” said Blair, “that in acting we do God’s work and follow God’s will.” To decent people, such pronouncements about Blair’s “faith” represent a contortion of morality and intellect that is a profanation of the basic teachings of Christianity. Those who aided and abetted his great crime and now wish the rest of us to forget their part – or who, like Alastair Campbell, offer their bloody notoriety for the vicarious pleasure of some – might read the first indictment proposed by the Blair War Crimes Foundation: “Deceit and conspiracy for war, and providing false news to incite passions for war, causing in the order of one million deaths, four million refugees, countless maimings and traumas.” These are indeed extraordinary times. www.johnpilger.com

Tony Blair was awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom

by George Bush, while Israel attacked Gaza in January 2009

Stop Blair ! Petition against the nomination of Tony Blair as "President of the European Union We, European citizens of all origins and of all political persuasions, wish to express our total opposition to the nomination of Tony Blair to the Presidency of the European Council. http://www.stopblair.eu/ http://stopblair.eu/indexsk.html