US: We Can Kidnap British Citizens
Posted by
Kevin
So torture wasn’t enough, we can now kidnap people off the street:
AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.
A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.
Do I really need to explain why this is wrong? We have extradition treaties with these countries. There is a procedure where the US gets to make its case in front of a judge. It is the very definition of due process these treaties protect US citizens as well as foreign citizens. Kidnapping people off the street when the process goes against you is despicable, the kind of nonsense vigilantism that you would expect out of a bad Chuck Norris movie (but I repeat myself).
And it is now official US government policy. Does anyone not think this will make other governments less likely to help the US as their citizens’ contempt for the US grows? Does anyone not think that this will hurt our economy as people decide that, combined with the hassle of getting into the country in the first place, since they could be stolen out of their homes in their own countries without trial or recourse its just not worth the hassle? Does anyone not notice that kidnapping people is wrong?
The stain and the stench of the Bush Administration will take a generation at least to wash away.
Say, wasn’t there a war over this? Back in 1812?!
And to be fair, Bush is in large part a symptom of a much larger stain on the American conscience. We’ve been xenophobic anti-intellectuallists long enough before Bush to have elected him once, and we’ve been dumb enough to let Diebold elect him a second time.
Comment 12/3/2007
Thank you, Dan.
It is really long overdue that we stop using Bush as our collective emotional/intellectual scapegoat. There are couple of things many of us, especially those of us purportedly on the left, need to get through our heads.
1. Bush represents an evolution, or regression if you will, of jingoism, self-entitlement/self-righteousness, and anti-intellectualism that started and gained traction long before Dubya.
2. Even if Bush is losing actual support amongst a sizable contingent of his would-be political allies, his underlying views (the root cause of his country-debilitating actions)are still shared by many - more than many of us on the left would like to admit.
3. As long as we continue to tar and feather Bush, we perpetuate and strengthen the false consciousness that our problems end when the next president is inaugurated. Ad hominem type attacks play right into the hands of those who are trying to divest themselves of a connection with Bush to save political face, while still adhering to underlying neo-con values.
It’s not about Bush!
Fight the disease, not the symptom.
Comment 12/3/2007
“Even if Bush is losing actual support amongst a sizable contingent of his would-be political allies, his underlying views…are still shared by many - more than many of us on the left would like to admit.”
I hope you are right. Thanks for the words of encouragement.
Comment 12/3/2007
I read the article to say a British lawyer (QC) made the statement, cited a case from 1990, and referenced US legislation that is over 100 years old. Not sure how that reflects on Bush (notwithstanding his record on internatonal affairs).
Comment 12/3/2007
Ted,
Wow, that is indeed a terribly misleading snippet. I’d not gotten to reading the article.
I think it still fits 1812 insofar as Britain claimed then that it was abducting those that it had legal power over, which the US took strong exception to. Also, the Bush administration is still relevant insofar as its use of redition (non-exceptional) seems to differ from the past.
But yeah, bad quote mining here.
Comment 12/3/2007