{"id":1953,"date":"2003-11-16T07:24:54","date_gmt":"2003-11-16T23:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2003\/11\/16\/bush-denied-license-to-kill\/"},"modified":"2019-12-06T10:43:44","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T18:43:44","slug":"bush-denied-license-to-kill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2003\/11\/16\/bush-denied-license-to-kill\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush denied &#039;license to kill&#039;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Incredible. Among the list of concessions that the US wanted from Britain in preparation for Bush&#8217;s upcoming visit were <a href=\"http:\/\/observer.guardian.co.uk\/uk_news\/story\/0,6903,1086397,00.html\" title=\"'Shoot-to-kill' demand by US\">Tube closures, minigun battlefield weaponry to use against rioters, and diplomatic immunity for American agents in case protesters are shot<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Home Secretary David Blunkett has refused to grant diplomatic immunity to armed American special agents and snipers travelling to Britain as part of President Bush&#8217;s entourage this week.<\/p>\n<p>  In the case of the accidental shooting of a protester, the Americans in Bush&#8217;s protection squad will face justice in a British court as would any other visitor, the Home Office has confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>  The issue of immunity is one of a series of extraordinary US demands turned down by Ministers and Downing Street during preparations for the Bush visit.<\/p>\n<p>  These included the closure of the Tube network, the use of US air force planes and helicopters and the shipping in of battlefield weaponry to use against rioters.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>While these outrageous requests were turned down, the UK has agreed to create a &#8216;sterile zone&#8217; extending for blocks around the President&#8217;s travel plan to keep people away.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s more disturbing? The fact that we have an administration with the unmitigated gall to make such requests in the first place? Or the fact that we have a President who is so mistrusted, disliked, and outright hated by so many people that they feel the need for that level of security?<\/p>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/atrios.blogspot.com\/2003_11_09_atrios_archive.html#106895444234853347\" title=\"Shut the Tube?\">Atrios<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What&#8217;s more disturbing? The fact that we have an administration with the unmitigated gall to make such requests in the first place? Or the fact that we have a President who is so mistrusted, disliked, and outright hated by so many people that they feel the need for that level of security?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2042],"tags":[14],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}