Bush Cancels Visit To Switzerland...

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
21

[quote]Pane wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Pane wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]TQB wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Wouldn’t he still have SS protection? It doesn’t seem like the police would be dumb enough to try it.[/quote]

Yeah, because the SS woulkd take on a Swiss SWAT team one their own territory.

I dont think they would be dumb enough to try that.

[/quote]

Uh, what all these people are forgetting is Diplomatic Immunity.
[/quote]

Doesn’t apply unless he is an accredited US diplomat to Switzerland. Holding a Diplomatic Passport (assuming that he does) has nothing to do with immunity.
[/quote]

Acts of former heads of state are covered under diplomatic immunity.

[/quote]

No they are not. During time in office, they are protected by the functional immunity from prosecution under international law, but they are open to prosecution after leaving office, for crimes committed before or after their time in office, or for crimes committed by them in a personal capacity during their reign. In some cases, this immunity can be void like it was in the case of Pinochet.

Bush is not, nor was he ever, a diplomat.
[/quote]

Sorry, wrong.

Abstract

This decision of the House of Lords is significant because it is the first decision of a major court of an important country refusing to grant a former head of state immunity from adjudication in the context of alleged gross violations of human rights. It is shown that state immunity, diplomatic immunity and head of state immunity are to be distinguished and the rules pertaining to head of state immunity are explained. Whereas the author agrees with the result of Lords’ decision, he disagrees with the reasoning because the majority circumvented the immunity question by artificially qualifying the alleged human rights violations of General Pinochet as private acts.
[/quote]

So how does this make me wrong?
[/quote]

Because they only were able to arrest Pinochet via the bullshit reasoning that his acts were “private”.

Since noone claims that Bush tortured for fun or personal gain, he acted as a heads of state and everything he did as an acting head of state falls under diplomatic immunity.

The only ones that could probably go after him is the Interantional court in den Haag, but the US has not signed that agreement as far as I know, precisely because they are in a very real danger that a lot of their former administrations and diplomats woulod end up there.

22

[quote]Pane wrote:

[quote]Big Banana wrote:

[quote]Pane wrote:

[quote]Big Banana wrote:

[quote]johnnytang24 wrote:
So will they do the same to Obama since he has not closed Gitmo?[/quote]

And sends people to third world nations to be tortured.

Good question. I don’t know Swiss politics but I suspect these people are of the Bush = Hitler and Obama = Messiah type.[/quote]

The US under Bush clandestinely sent people to Switzerland to be tortured (as well as many other countries), was found out, and now he faces possible prosecution. Not much to do with any political love for either of them. [/quote]

Huh? Switzerland was torturing for Bush and now they want to arrest him? I think you have your facts mixed up.[/quote]

The CIA was torturing IN Switzerland. A country is not just it’s government, so ‘Switzerland’ can also refer to a geographic location…[/quote]

Please provide details of CIA torture on Swiss soil.

23

[quote]Big Banana wrote:

[quote]Pane wrote:

[quote]Big Banana wrote:

[quote]Pane wrote:

[quote]Big Banana wrote:

[quote]johnnytang24 wrote:
So will they do the same to Obama since he has not closed Gitmo?[/quote]

And sends people to third world nations to be tortured.

Good question. I don’t know Swiss politics but I suspect these people are of the Bush = Hitler and Obama = Messiah type.[/quote]

The US under Bush clandestinely sent people to Switzerland to be tortured (as well as many other countries), was found out, and now he faces possible prosecution. Not much to do with any political love for either of them. [/quote]

Huh? Switzerland was torturing for Bush and now they want to arrest him? I think you have your facts mixed up.[/quote]

The CIA was torturing IN Switzerland. A country is not just it’s government, so ‘Switzerland’ can also refer to a geographic location…[/quote]

Please provide details of CIA torture on Swiss soil. [/quote]

the bourne movies LOL.

24

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]TQB wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Wouldn’t he still have SS protection? It doesn’t seem like the police would be dumb enough to try it.[/quote]

Yeah, because the SS woulkd take on a Swiss SWAT team one their own territory.

I dont think they would be dumb enough to try that.

[/quote]

Uh, what all these people are forgetting is Diplomatic Immunity.
[/quote]

Doesn’t apply unless he is an accredited US diplomat to Switzerland. Holding a Diplomatic Passport (assuming that he does) has nothing to do with immunity.
[/quote]

Acts of former heads of state are covered under diplomatic immunity.

[/quote]

This.

25

Interesting take on this case.

"Our belief is that Bush violated U.S. and international law when he authorized torture, including the water boarding of detainees. Torture is a crime under a federal statute, Torture Statute, as well as under the War Crimes Act, and the Convention Against Torture, of which the U.S. was a major proponent…

Let’s correct one major misconception some have about the basis for this action and how it relates to the U.S. legal system at the outset. The Convention Against Torture, which mandates that Switzerland and 146 other countries including the United States investigate and prosecute torturers, is part of U.S. law. Its ratification and its enforcement is part of our constitutional democracy.

The anti-American and anti-Constitutional acts were Bush’s decision to authorize torture and the U.S. failure to hold him accountable. Politics are being used as a weapon against the law by claims that these are policy choices. They are not. As the State Department Legal Advisor Harold Koh stated, torture can never be a “policy choice.” Likewise, the investigation and prosecution of our homegrown torturers is a legal obligation and should not be driven by politics."