Another One Bites The Dust
Aug. 27th, 2007 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2157093,00.html
First Rove, and now Gonzales.
Two men who desperately need Christmas gifts consisting of full Presidential pardons.
That still won't give them the ability to travel to Europe.
First Rove, and now Gonzales.
Two men who desperately need Christmas gifts consisting of full Presidential pardons.
That still won't give them the ability to travel to Europe.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-08-28 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-28 03:46 pm (UTC)That calls for a little rejoicing. And they STILL won't be able to travel to Europe.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-28 04:09 pm (UTC)You hate them, to the point that it clouds your judgement. The reality is that what they did they did in their capacity as American officials, and the US government, even if run by Democrats at the time, would not sit idly by while they were taken hostage, even by Europeans under supposed cover of law. The reason why the American government would not do so is that the officials manning it would reflect that they might be next, should they let this stand and they do something to displease the Europeans.
And they STILL won't be able to travel to Europe.
Yes, Drew, they will. This threat of European hostage-taking of Americans only exists in your deluded imagination.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-29 12:10 am (UTC)Again, he is a man in desperate need of pardon.
Arrest, trial and prosecution for crimes against humanity is not "being held hostage." It would make for an interesting legal situation.
Don't be so certain that America wouldn't simply write them off. We certainly did that to a lot of POWs in Southeast Asia.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-29 03:10 pm (UTC)It would be perceived, in America, as hostage-taking of our ex-officials in order to deter future foreign policies disapproved of by Europe. Most importantly, it would be perceived by whichever officials were CURRENTLY in office as being such a policy.
The current officials would have a VERY strong incentive to punish Europe for any such action, because the current officials might be in the same position after they left office, should some future European state choose to disapprove of some actions taken while in office. Hence, the likelihood of (at the minimum) serious economic sanctions and (at the maximum) outright war (*) would be rather high.
Don't be so certain that America wouldn't simply write them off. We certainly did that to a lot of POWs in Southeast Asia.
(1) The continued existence of those POW's was in debate,
(2) The POW's were not high-ranking American officials.
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(*) Probably a limited war, perhaps confined to aeronaval battles, and probably fought scrupulously by the Rules of War on both sides. One obvious American objective would be eliminating the European nuclear-missile carrying submarine force, which would greatly reduce the likelihood of damage to the American homeland should things escalate out of hand.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-29 03:39 pm (UTC)As for the POWs, we knew some of them were alive and made a decision to write them off.
You seem to think that American soldiers are disposable and former American officials are not.
In fact it's the other way around. Otherwise Carter would never have been permitted to negotiate in Haiti.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-29 04:32 pm (UTC)This is true. However, those who are currently high-ranking American officials would still be impelled to punish their kidnappers, because the same thing might happen to themselves after THEY leave office. You are assuming that "high-ranking American officials" are imbeciles incapable of seeing their own long-term self-interest.
As for the POWs, we knew some of them were alive and made a decision to write them off.
That is a controversial claim. Furthermore, even if true there was little public evidence of this, so the US government could pretend not to believe it to be the case. The same option would not exist if the EU took former US officials hostage: the "arrests," "trials" and "convictions" would be public and the subject of 24-hour news coverage. If the current US officials did not respond harshly, they might as well be hanging "kidnap me once I'm out of my post" signs on themselves.
You seem to think that American soldiers are disposable and former American officials are not.
No, but I suspect that American officials see things that way.
In fact it's the other way around. Otherwise Carter would never have been permitted to negotiate in Haiti.
Carter was not taken hostage. And the point behind sending him was that, as an ex-President, he was someone against whose captors America would have been honor-bound to go to immediate war against.
In other words, the reason they sent Carter was precisely BECAUSE America would obviously not tolerate his being made hostage -- and the Haitian junta knew this.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-30 12:19 am (UTC)For what passes for the record, I'm certain that any European nation that chose to seize an ex-American official on whatever pretext would think long and hard before doing so.