Fwd: Mayor of London warns GWB not to visit

Hi everyone: This was sent to me by one of our readers. What do you think?
--Kim

>The original news item about the Mayor of London's remarks was on BBC
>news two or three days ago. I am unable to find it on the net today
>-why???? I have copied the text of the following web entry for fear it
>may also disappear.
> Francesca
>
>http://blog.reidreport.com/2010/11/book-tours-for-war-criminals-or-what-the-london-mayor-told-dubya/
>
>Jay Leno and the folks over at Fox “News” may find George W. Bush’s tale
>of waterboardin’ and fetus-in-a-jar hijinx to be just the greatest of
>fun, but in most of the world, the first of those two things is a war
>crime.
>
>Case in point: England, where the conservative mayor of London has some
>keen advice for the former U.S. president:
>
> 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.
>
>
>See, whereas to the American media Mr. Bush is little more than a
>delightful bumbler, ambling through interviews about his absolutely
>crackers new book, “Decision Points,” his “damn right!” admission to
>authorizing waterboarding makes him pretty much a criminal in Europe,
>where they take the convention against torture seriously (unlike in the
>U.S., where we don’t “relitigate the past.”) To put it plainly, as Mayor
>Boris Johnson did:
>
> “Waterboarding” is a disgusting practice by which the victim is
> deliberately made to think that he is drowning. It is not some
> cunning new psych-ops technique conceived by the CIA. It has
> been used in the dungeons of dictators for centuries. It is not
> compatible either with the US constitution or the UN convention
> against torture. It is deemed to be torture in this country, and
> above all there is no evidence whatever that it has ever
> succeeded in doing what Mr Bush claimed. It does not work.
>
>
>Even as Dick Cheney and his spawn and followers call it: “enhanced
>interrogation” that includes stuff Pol Pot did is a war crime, and as
>Jonathan Turley points out:
>
> The controversy may only be the first international reaction to
> the book. While our media has discussed the book rather
> matter-of-factly as acknowledging his order to waterboard
> suspects, other nations take international treaties seriously
> and view this as an admission of a war crime.
>
> Previously, Cheney and others were the subject of international
> calls for arrest after they admitted to roles in the torture
> program. The United States has a clear obligation to prosecute
> those responsible for our torture program. However, President
> Obama has promised to block any investigation of torturers and
> has stopped any investigation of those who ordered the war
> crime. In the absence of nations enforcing their international
> obligations, other nations will often set forward to enforce the
> rule of law.
>
>
>Oh, and…
> In addition, since we tortured foreign citizens, those countries
> would have grounds to issue a warrant as was the case in the
> arrest of former dictator of Chile Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet
> was arrested in London in 1998 on an order from Spanish Judge
> Baltazar Garzon who cited Spanish victims in Chile. Regardless
> of the grounds, any warrant for Bush would put Obama in an even
> more ignoble position on torture (if that is possible). He would
> have to fight an effort to enforce human rights law while
> blocking such enforcement at home. We would be in the same
> position as Serbia in both protecting accused war criminals and
> resisting efforts of other countries in seeking to prosecute
> them.
>
> In the meantime, Bush’s book tour schedulers may want to avoid
> those countries which care about human rights and focus on such
> natural allies as China, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. He might
> want to avoid Italy, Spain, and much of Western Europe.
>
> Cheney and Bush have now virtually dared anyone to come after
> them. They know that Obama has chosen politics over principle.
> The question is whether the shunning in London will become an
> actual effort in another country to issue an arrest warrant.
>
>
>And that goes for Don Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, Judge Bybee,
>Doug Feith and David Addington, too…
>And while Andrew Sullivan focuses on the impact of Bush’s London
>shunning on the long view of him:
>
> It’s good to be reminded of real conservative values, which
> include abhorrence of torture and a dedication to the rule of
> law. By those standards, George W. Bush is not now a
> conservative, merely a thug, twisting the law to engage in
> something utterly alien to Anglo-American ideals. And a smug
> thug at that. Watching his interview on Hannity ­ yes, I managed
> to get through most of it ­ I was reminded of this man’s utter
> shallowness and moral unseriousness. Glib doesn’t begin to
> describe his solipsistic denial of his own barbarism.
>
>
>The short view might not be so good either — since Bush will likely have
>to do much of his traveling within the United States for awhile. … or
>maybe he could flee to Argentina or to Jedda, Saudi Arabia, like Idi
>Amin did…
>This is more than just schadenfreude from a staunch Bush opponent. We
>now face the very real possibility of having a former president of the
>United States who is limited in his personal travel, along with former
>senior members of his administration, because they have to actually fear
>arrest — arrest — in foreign capitals due to their own admission of war
>r
>crimes.
>
>That is the extent to which George W. Bush sullied the presidency, and
>the reputation of this country, by authorizing torture.
>
>Heckuva job, George.