Listen to Amnesty International's U.S.A. Advocacy Director Jumana Musa's first-hand report of the Feb 2008 military "trial" of Omar Khadr, a citizen of Canada, who was picked up at 15 years old six years ago, held and tortured at Guantánamo, where among other charges he is accused of being part of a conspiracy which began when he was 10 years old! Despite his age and international laws protecting children, Omar Khadr is a chargeable "person" under the rules of the Military Tribunals Act which does not specify age according to the U.S. governement. So that they can continue to hold, torture and try Omar Khadr, they have clarified that for the purposes of the MTA the definition of a person is someone who has been born alive. Of course, this flies in the face of a government which says a person is a person beginning at conception. Theoretically, under their new definition of a person chargeable under the Military Tribunals Act, six-month-old babies could be held in Guantánamo without charges indefinitely.

"If it were up to me I would close Guantánamo not tomorrow but this afternoon . . . Essentially, we have shaken the belief that the world had in America's justice system . . . and it's causing us far more damage than any good we get from it." -- Jun 10 2007, Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State for The Wuss [George W. ("The Wuss" - his daddy used up "The Wimp") Bush] Video source

Close Gitmo!
Wear Orange Jan 11 2008
6 years since Gitmo took its first "disappeared"

These state the following:

"Principle VI

The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

(a) Crimes against peace:

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i)

"Principle VII

Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law."

The evidence against you is as follows:

1. You orchestrated the sacking of the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Jose Bustani. Bustani had offered to resolve the dispute over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, and therefore to avert armed conflict. He had offered to seek to persuade Saddam Hussein to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention, which would mean that Iraq was then subject to weapons inspections by the OPCW. As the OPCW was not tainted by the CIA's infiltration of UNSCOM, Bustani's initiative had the potential to defuse the crisis over Saddam Hussein's obstruction of UNMOVIC inspections.

Apparently in order to prevent the negotiated settlement that Bustani proposed, and as part of a common plan with other administration officials to prepare and initiate a war of aggression, in violation of international treaties, you acted as follows:

In March 2002 your office produced a ‘White Paper’ claiming that the OPCW was seeking an “inappropriate role” in Iraq.

On 20th March 2002 you met Bustani at the Hague to seek his resignation. Bustani refused to resign. (Charles J Hanley, Associated Press, 5 June, 2005)

On 21st March 2002 you orchestrated a No-Confidence Motion calling for Bustani to resign as Director General which was introduced by the United States delegation. The motion failed.

On 22nd April 2002 the US called a special session of the conference of the States Parties and the Conference adopted the decision to terminate the appointment of the Director General effective immediately. You had suggested that the US would withhold its dues from OPCW. The motion to sack Bustani was carried. Bustani asserts that this ‘special session’ was illegal, in breach of his contract and gave illegitimate grounds for his dismissal, stating a ‘lack of confidence’ in his leadership, without specific examples, and ignoring the failed No-Confidence vote.

In your book, Surrender is Not an Option, you describe your role in Bustani's sacking (pages 95-98) and state the following:

"I directed that we begin explaining to others that the US contribution to the OPCW might well be cut if Bustani remained".

"I met with Bustani to tell him he should resign ... If he left now, we would do our best to give him 'a gracious and dignified exit'. Otherwise we intended to have him fired".

"I stepped in to tank the protocol, and then to tank Bustani".

You appear, in other words, to accept primary responsibility for his dismissal.

Bustani appealed against the decision through the International Labour Organisation Tribunal. He was vindicated in his appeal and awarded his full salary and moral damages.

• (The tribunal ruling can be found here )

2. You helped to promote the false claim, through a State Department Fact Sheet, that Saddam Hussein had been seeking to procure uranium from Niger, as part of a common plan to prepare and initiate a war of aggression, in violation of international treaties.

The State Department Fact Sheet was released on the 19th December 2002 and was entitled ‘Illustrative Examples of Omissions From the Iraqi Declaration to the United States Security Council’. Under the heading ‘Nuclear Weapons’ the fact sheet stated –

"The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger.

Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?"

In a US Department of State press briefing on July 14th 2003 the spokesman Richard Boucher said, “The accusation that turned out to be based on fraudulent evidence is that Niger sold uranium to Iraq.”

Your involvement in the use of fraudulent evidence is documented in Henry Waxman’s letter to Christopher Shays on the 1st March 2005. Waxman says “In April 2004, the State Department used the designation ‘sensitive but unclassified’ to conceal unclassified information about the role of John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control, in the creation of a fact sheet distributed to the United Nations that falsely claimed that Iraq sought uranium from Niger”.

“Both State Department intelligence officials and CIA officials reported that they had rejected the claims as unreliable. As a result, it was unclear who within the State Department was involved in preparing the fact sheet”.

Waxman requested a chronology of how the Fact Sheet was developed. His letter states –

“This chronology described a meeting on December 18,2002, between Secretary Powell, Mr. Bolton, and Richard Boucher, the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Public Affairs. According to this chronology, Mr. Boucher specifically asked Mr. Bolton ‘for help developing a response to Iraq's Dec 7 Declaration to the United Nations Security Council that could be used with the press.’ According to the chronology, which is phrased in the present tense, Mr. Bolton ‘agrees and tasks the Bureau of Nonproliferation,’ a subordinate office that reports directly to Mr. Bolton, to conduct the work.

"This unclassified chronology also stated that on the next day, December 19, 2003, the Bureau of Nonproliferation "sends email with the fact sheet, 'Fact Sheet Iraq Declaration.doc,'" to Mr. Bolton's office (emphasis in original). A second e-mail was sent a few minutes later, and a third e-mail was sent about an hour after that. According to t=987e chronology, each version ‘still includes Niger reference.’ Although Mr. Bolton may not have personally drafted the document, the chronology appears to indicate that he ordered its creation and received updates on its development.”

Both these actions were designed to assist in the planning of a war of aggression. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg ruled that "to initiate a war of aggression ... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime".

Canada violating Geneva treaty in Afghanistan torture
Opposition accuses government of hiding reports
Presses demand for immediate end to detainee transfers
17 Nov 2007
Opposition MPs have called on the government to order the Canadian Forces to halt the transfer of detainees to the government of Afghanistan, alleging that Canada has violated the Geneva Conventions by permitting prisoner abuse torture to continue. Liberal defense critic Denis Coderre alleged in the House of Commons yesterday that government documents released this week prove that the government knew that torture was taking place in Afghan prisons and did nothing. "For months, the government tried to hide specific reports on torture," Mr. Coderre said during Question Period. "These reports of torture are now confirmed. Canada must stop the transfer of detainees or it will continue to violate the Geneva Conventions."