Editor:
It appears there are various views on whether or not Mayor Dianne Watts should allow George W. Bush to speak at Surrey’s Economic Forum along with the other former president, Bill Clinton.
I personally have no problem with either one of these people speaking, although I can’t get my head around the question of why anyone would want to hear what they have to say.
America’s finances are in the toilet thanks in part to these two and their policies. Either one could have been influential in keeping strong banking regulations in place. It seems, however, that they were much more interested in the Federal Reserve policies of deregulation.
Should anyone be taking their advice, especially in Canada where strict regulations have saved us from the fate of the U.S.?
For those who so readily pass flatulence out of their ears, here are a few facts. The pre-emptive strike war on Iraq was predicated on lies told by Bush about weapons of mass destruction that Iraq supposedly had and which could and would threaten America. To my knowledge, there have been five Canadians killed because of this war. This, then, means Bush should be charged for depraved indifference by any federal prosecutor or any prosecutor from a township where one of these individuals resided.
Will this happen? Of course not.
What will happen is that the repressive arm of the law, the RCMP, will be ordered by Watts to protect Bush and undoubtedly arrest anyone who happens to threaten Watts’ and her cronies’ perspective of reality.
Winrich Al Riede, Surrey
• • •
Will we throw shoes?
That failed U.S. president George W. Bush – on whose watch neoconservative economics precipitated the 2008 recession and the second wave we are about to enter – should be invited to speak to the Surrey Regional Economic Summit is bizarre enough.
Beyond belief is the idea that in Canada, this nation, which invented peace-keeping through United Nations international co-operation, a city should invite a unilateralist U.S. president whose aggressive wars arguably meet the international definition of war crimes and who authorized “special rendition” of Canadians to Third World torture-chambers for “enhanced interrogation.”
For those interested in the Bush message on economics, they need simply look to his neoconservative client government in Ottawa, which is following the same path to ruin.
What is graver still is the shame of perceived endorsement of a man who has shamed his country and who – in a world where might does not make right –would assuredly be tried before the International Criminal Courts for crimes against humanity and aggressive war.
Will we throw our shoes? Probably not, we’re polite, we’re Canadian.
But let our American friends know Bush is not welcome in polite society.
Brian D. Marlatt, White Rock