Re: Cooperating With The US In The GWOT Is A Crime Now

1

You do mean "the law of countries with which you're working", don't you, as opposed to the nebulous concept of "international law"? If I understand the story correctly, the Italians were arrested for allegedly violating Italian law, not "international law".

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2

Hmm.... this page refers to "European arrest warrants", not Italian. But that's still an EU thing, not some sort of globally-applicable international law.

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3

Still... not good to be getting the allies in trouble with their own laws, no? Makes it kind of tricksy to be allies then.

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4

GB, you should take a moment to drop down a post and help silvana hate on this week's Modern Love column. It's about spouse training!

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5

I agree, it seems like "other countries' laws" (i.e. law that is actually enforced on a regular basis) should be in the place of "international law".

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6

The term that everyone is searching for is "foreign law."

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7

You know what kinda worries me? The possibility that cooperating with US agents in contravention of local laws might have been the norm until this Administration's abuses put a spotlight on the practice.

I'm reminded of why I thought I was a far-leftist during Clinton's presidency.

Of course, now, I'd be willing to accept anyone not insane. I've even been having fantasies of not voting for President Bloomberg. Is this weary cynicism just a result of paying more attention?

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8

wait...Gary has a blog?

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9

how did that happen? wrong thread.

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10

That reminds me: Gary Farber was totally on this six months ago. It's a shame more people don't read his blog.

The way I see it, though, if foreign laws didn't want to be violated, they shouldn't have worn that skirt.

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11

yeah, gawd. The construction on those statutes was so tight! How could you not violate those??

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12

yeah, gawd. The construction on those statutes was so tight! How could you not violate those??

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13

Well, if by "cooperating" you mean "kidnapping someone in broad daylight from the streets of a Western European country," then yes, cooperating with the US can be a problem.

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14

I've said in earlier threads, EU countries should withdraw all judicial and law-enforcement cooperation with the US -- given that the US, you know, kidnaps and tortures EU citizens.

Prosecutions like this may help, though.

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15

And (if the tone of the post was at all unclear) such prosecutions are in my view a good thing. It just burns me that we've squandered all the good will in the world by asking people to commit criminal acts for us.

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16

And we'd love to imagine, what is certainly partly true, that the return of responsible government will be tearfully embraced, like someone coming out of an episode: "Is it you? Is it really you?"

But in their minds, and ours, the question remains how much of our real nature the current government has expressed with rare obviousness and candor.

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17

Yeah, what 13,14,15 said. From my understanding, "extraordinary rendition" is a euphemism for "jacked you up and fed you to secret prisons in Egypt." The kind that humanitarians get all huffy about.

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18

From my understanding, "extraordinary rendition" is a euphemism for "jacked you up and fed you to secret prisons in Egypt."

Those secret prisons remind me of an episode in Ron Suskind's new book. The FBI has been delivered what's purported (falsely, it turns out) to be Zawahiri's head (in a box, like Gwyneth Paltrow's in Seven), but needs to perform DNA analysis:

"The CIA was brought in, and moved into action. Unmatched DNA can determine sex and age, but for specific identity they needed a DNA match from a family member. Zawahiri's brother, Mohammed, was in custody in Cairo. A CIA operations manager called a chief at Egyptian intelligence.

"He explained the situation.

"The Egyptian listened. 'No problem,' he said. 'We'll get his brother, cut off his arm, and send it over.'

"'No ... Christ!' the agency man stammered. 'No, just a vial of blood. A vial of blood's all we need.'

"The Egyptian sighed. 'Fine. Whatever you want. You want blood? We'll send blood.'"

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