International human rights lawyers in western Canada greeted George W. Bush's arrival at an economics summit Thursday by asking a Canadian court to consider a torture complaint by four Guantanamo captives, three of them free and one still held at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.
The move is part of a global Guantanamo protest effort to ground the man who set up the prison camps in 2002. In February, the former president canceled a plan to speak at a United Israel Appeal gala fundraiser in Geneva ahead of a similar torture complaint.
But Thursday the former president made his latest visit to Canada, apparently unconcerned by a sign-waving protest. He joined fellow former President Bill Clinton at a $599-a-head lunch at the Surrey Regional Economic Summit in suburban Vancouver.
Matt Eisenbrandt of the Canadian Centre for International Justice filed the four-count complaint that included a proposed 69-page draft indictment on Thursday morning. He got a Jan. 9 hearing date at the British Columbia Provincial Court in Surrey.
TVNL Comment: No one has been held accountable for the crimes of the Bush administration, and surely never will. American 'exceptionalism' permits leaders to kill and maim and torture with impunity. But, of course, they hate us for our freedom. Bill Clinton should be ashamed to appear with Bush. But, then again, he sold out long ago.