Former chess star and virulent anti-Semite Bobby Fischer has been wanted by the U.S. government since 1992, when he violated U.N. and U.S. economic sanctions against Yugoslavia by winning $3 million for playing chess there.
Fischer was nabbed in Japan last year for having an invalid passport, and his supporters have been trying to get him sent to Iceland, instead of deported back home to face the music in America.
Now, via Japan Today, Kyodo News reports that Fischer will indeed be deported to the U.S. — and he's worried:
...Fischer believes he will not receive a fair trial in the United States, having made controversial statements such as those hailing the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.Hey, relax, Bobby. After you get out of prison, you've got a bright future ahead of you as a university professor.
FOLLOW-UP:
The Mainichi Daily News reports that it may not be game over for Fischer just yet.
4 comments:
Interesting that logically brilliant people can be racist too. What I've always contended intelligence is no measure of if a person is bigotted. What a jerk this guy is. Admires Hitler even.
On to you. You aren't very even handed. Almost hypocritical, in how you constatnly denigrate the U.N. many posts to that effect, then conviently include U.N. charges in you indictment of Bobby Fischer.
Your ability to honestly criticze anything of import is lacking. Evidence of this goes all the way back to one of your first posts about something not important: your assesment of the film the Incredibles. It's easy to keep coming back here, because your thinking many times brings up good points, but is almost always filled with flawed reasoning, or extreme partisanship which clouds clear thinking.
Posted by Fasteddie
Sorry, Fasteddie, but you're missing the point.
A lot of us who criticize the UN don't think the IDEA of the institution is flawed. Therefore, we're likely to agree with at least some of what it says—for example resolution 1441. Our complaint usually arises from the fact that the UN is a vast echo chamber that effects absolutely no change.
So, it's not hypocritical of the Biker to include the UN's charges--he agrees with their words, and thinks action should be taken based on them.
(Gajin, if I'm putting words in your mouth please correct me).
Posted by Brian
Good point, but don't put word's in G.B. mouth he's too full of bile a lot of the time, to give an considered response when someone responds negatively to his first draft thinking.
And most everyone of his post's is ripping this or that, I'd call that consistent bile. Rarely ever, what can be done to fix things. Always the the ridiculing, flippant, voice. Often just plain mean spirited.
So excuse me when I bring up his ripping of the U.N. and thinking he has a giant dual standard. Which is it the U.N. needs to be dismantled? Or it can do some things right once in a while? How can you have it both ways.
Posted by Fasteddie
Just occasionally things at the international diplomatic level don't go as planned. The plan was for Bobby Fischer to be detained in Japan, followed almost immediately by deportation to the United States. Where he would be tried and convicted for breaking US sanctions against Yugoslavia, fined and jailed. Where with any luck he would die in captivity or be driven insane. When you stop and think about it, playing a chess match in Yugoslavia without US permission is hardly a horrendous crime.
Perhaps Japan didn't follow orders, or misunderstood, or more likely the bureaucracy is so plodding they couldn’t get a quick reaction if they tried, but in any event, Japan was on the wrong page of the script. Instead of putting Bobby on the next plane to Police State USA, they shipped him off to their detention centre at Ushiku, right next to the leaking nuclear power station.
First the plotters (US, Japan) failed to grasp Bobby international appeal in the chess world. Then the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan got involved, organising press conferences and keeping the case in the media spotlight. His fiancée had appeal as a Japanese chess champion, and added dignity. And his Japanese lawyer was not just photogenic, she was really forceful. Then his heavyweight US lawyer waded in talking about never having seen such a travesty of justice. So it became a free speech, human rights issue.
You can’t argue with ignorance, and authority holds all the high cards. But finally, when all seemed lost, all avenues of appeal exhausted, the Cavalry in the shape of Iceland appeared over the horizon, sabres drawn and bugles blowing, set to kick ass and not take “No” for an answer. Japan chickened out, not just because they tend to react rather than act, but because they have their hearts set on a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. So even the hint of human rights violation of a celebrity was a risk they couldn't afford. Also, the US was making Japan break its own laws, and the political opposition was making capital, saying Japan was starting to look like America's bitch.
Japanese TV media has been airing documentaries showing the US in a negative light: Lynching of Blacks, Selma march, war crimes in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, use of napalm and depleted uranium munitions in Iraq. And that’s just scratching the surface. Preparing the way for a Japanese troop withdrawal one assumes.
In summation, US inept diplomacy meant Bobby's anti-Semitic views got a lot of undeserved publicity. However the danger is a lot of people could get behind anti-Zionist opinion. The clincher that brought Bobby’s name up on the Patriot Act computer, was the view voiced on Filipino radio that the US had brought 9/11 on itself. Think about it, if in any way 9/11 was a false-flag operation … And suggesting that George Bush should be hung as a war criminal: A world referendum might well produce a majority for that. So all in all, a public relations disaster for the United States and to a lesser extent, Japan. And even after Bobby was in Iceland, the US still played the sore loser, demanding Iceland inform them when Bobby left the country. Will always savour Iceland’s response, essentially telling the US to shove it, because Iceland was not a police state.
Posted by Andrew Milner
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