(Reuters) - Former President George W. Bush has canceled a visit to Switzerland, where he was to address a Jewish charity gala, due to the risk of legal action against him for alleged torture, rights groups said on Saturday.AP says that the cancellation was the idea of his hosts.
Bush was to be the keynote speaker at Keren Hayesod's annual dinner on February 12 in Geneva. But pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal investigation if he enters the Alpine country.
Criminal complaints against Bush alleging torture have been lodged in Geneva, court officials say.
I've mentioned before, a time or two, that the cavalier admissions by Bush Administration officials that they discussed the use of torture, much less approved of it, would come to haunt them if they ever wanted to leave the country.
And so it has.
Writing in his memoirs [/barf] that he gave his approval to use waterboarding was either the height of arrogance or stupid almost beyond measure, and I do not rule out "arrogantly stupid". It is a damnable shame, though, that we won't clean up our own mess from Bush's use of torture. But that's what happens when the successor in office puts on the blinders and only looks "forward".
I heavily applaud the idea that great waste bush be arrested and tried for torture and other crimes against nature, but wouldn't he as past president be considered to diplomatic immunity? Would the secret service allow him to be arrested and cuffed? Could they legally stop a foreign country from arresting gwb? A short look does not find the answers. I would assume that if not on an official jaunt representing the US he would not have immunity. But IANAL so take that for what it's worth.
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