This just in from the Times of London (a sister company of Fox News, interestingly). It is this kind of thing, I think, that contributes to the generally low international esteem for our fine country, and the sadly small number of remaining members in the Coalition of the Willing:
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.
The admission will alarm the British business community after the case of the so-called NatWest Three, bankers who were extradited to America on fraud charges. More than a dozen other British executives, including senior managers at British Airways and BAE Systems, are under investigation by the US authorities and could face criminal charges in America.
Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the “extraordinary rendition” of terrorist suspects.
In 1812 the British capture of Americans led to the War of 1812 let us hope there are no hawks in the British parliament đŸ˜‰
I don’t think our government is grabbing them to use them as in the Navy.
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p>attempt to kidnap persons living in the UK for trial (or anything else) in the US. On the other hand, the American operatives can be shot and possibly killed in the attempt. It works both ways. And, if it happens once, the UK government can forbid private planes from landing in the UK and unloaded until they have been been completedly vetted.
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p>A minor but semi-related factoid: recall that, in about 1960, Israel successfully kidnapped Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and sent him to Israel to stand trial for crimes that were not even committed in the region. Nobody particularly cared about that kidnapping, except maybe Eichmann.
we treat our friends, can there be any doubt how we treat our enemies (torture)? Although I’m disgusted at what our government has become, I’m happy that it’s so confident in itself that it will openly state to it’s central ally who’s the daddy. Let there be no doubt left in anyone’s minds, American or British, what we’re all supporting in Washington.
Frankly as Raj pointed out most of these British citizens are people the government doesn’t really care about, if we are to assume that there is a decent probability a majority of the suspects were in fact terrorists or plotters of some kind than the UK is being made normatively safer at the expense of civil liberties for a huge minority of the population that will actually be arrested.
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p>Hypothetically purely from a utilitarian/game theory perspective its better for the UK if .0001% of its population is arrested if it prevents say .01% of the population from dying in an attack. You in effect lose some citizens to save a whole lot more.
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p>Of course from an international law/international relations perspective its pretty awful but I doubt the UK will continue to raise that many objections.
Frankly as Raj pointed out most of these British citizens are people the government doesn’t really care about,
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p>out of my comment.
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p>Seriously.