Chess Champion Bobby Fischer Versus Ex-President George Bush
By Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com)

No wonder America has no money for humanitarian prison reforms or an overhaul of the decayed criminal justice system. We are in the hot pursuit of dangerous fugitives like Bobby Fischer. Chess phenomenon Fischer is in a weird legal bind. News reports seem to indicate that he has been held at a Tokyo airport for American extradition since July 13, 2004. His American passport was canceled in December 2003. So now he is trying to claim German citizenship since he father was born in Germany, and he may qualify for a citizenship agreement involving your father being from Germany.

So what is the crime Fischer committed? Well, remember back in the 1970’s when Fischer engaged the world in one of the most watched chess matches in history, between Fischer and Boris Spassky? According to the Seattle Times, 20 years later, in 1992, Fischer and Spassky had a rematch, playing each other once again in a $5 million match in Yugoslavia. Ex-president Bush, the first one, enacting an order banning travel to Yugoslavia by Americans during that time. Fischer went anyway, now he is a wanted fugitive. Japan is trying to extradite him to America, he is trying to get German citizenship to go there, where they will not extradite him to the U.S.

Does anyone in America care about this at all? Because I sure don’t. I say drop the stupid charges, and give Bobby his stupid passport. Spend the time and energy wasted on Bobby Fischer instead on things like funding more and better qualified public defenders. I cannot believe the U.S. government has time and energy to waste on this sort of nonsense.