So, the macho former president, George Bush, gets wimpy about the protests that were planned by human rights groups, and
cancels his trip to the fabled neutral territory of Switzerland. Well, it was more than the threat of protests--a fear that he might be served with an arrest warrant for war crimes. After all, in his memoirs, Bush admits to having authorized waterboarding, among other things. "Damn right!" A confession statement right there!
Since the arrest of the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998, international leaders can no longer be confident of immunity.
Adds the Guardian:
"Bush enjoys no immunity from prosecution. As head of state he authorised and condoned acts of torture, and the law is clear – where a person has been responsible for torture, all states have an obligation under international law to open an investigation and prosecute." He added: "Bush will be pursued wherever he goes as a war criminal and torturer."
Legal proceedings under way in Spain accuse White House legal advisers, known as the Bush Six, of criminal wrongdoing for advising that the techniques were legal.
"Nobody – from those who administered the practices to those at the top of the chain of command – is under a shield of absolute immunity for the practices of secret detention, extraordinary rendition and torture," said Martin Scheinin, UN special rapporteur on human rights and professor of public international law at the European University Institute. "Legally this case is quite clear. Bush does not enjoy immunity as a former head of state, and he has command responsibility for the decisions that were taken."
It is not merely Switzerland that Bush has to avoid. Recall the Mayor of London's note of warning in the rather conservative British paper,
The Telegraph?
It is not yet clear whether George W Bush is planning to cross the Atlantic to flog us his memoirs, but if I were his PR people I would urge caution. As book tours go, this one would be an absolute corker. It is not just that every European capital would be brought to a standstill, as book-signings turned into anti-war riots. The real trouble — from the Bush point of view — is that he might never see Texas again.
One moment he might be holding forth to a great perspiring tent at Hay-on-Wye. The next moment, click, some embarrassed member of the Welsh constabulary could walk on stage, place some handcuffs on the former leader of the Free World, and take him away to be charged. Of course, we are told this scenario is unlikely. Dubya is the former leader of a friendly power, with whom this country is determined to have good relations. But that is what torture-authorising Augusto Pinochet thought. And unlike Pinochet, Mr Bush is making no bones about what he has done.
Unless the 43rd president of the United States has been grievously misrepresented, he has admitted to authorising and sponsoring the use of torture. Asked whether he approved of “waterboarding” in three specific cases, he told his interviewer that “damn right” he did, and that this practice had saved lives in America and Britain. It is hard to overstate the enormity of this admission.
So, it is for real. Bush, and his fellow travelers, have to rethink their travel plans to many countries; Amnesty International says:
Anywhere in the world that he travels, President Bush could face investigation and potential prosecution for his responsibility for torture and other crimes in international law, particularly in any of the 147 countries that are party to the UN convention against torture.
