US says it has right to kidnap British citizens

[cooper]

Funny thread, this.

You know how people were parroting about how people suspected of warcrimes and what have you should stand trial in the International Criminal Court in The Netherlands? People like Milosevic and his cronies? Well, back in 2002 the ASPA was signed into law by our powerful ally America which states in part that the US has the right to invade The Netherlands to free any troops held there for the purpose of putting them on trial.

Source

Is it really so shocking to people to realize The American Way these days in terms of foreign policy is "Do as we say, not as we do"? It's been that way for quite some time now...

[VaKo]

No, its just that its so blatant now. TBH, I know what the American gov is like and there actions don't surprise me, but the degree of capitulating from my own gov is sickening.

What we really need is Europe to start funding and running its own defense systems instead of relying on America. If we don't need there troops here then it would be far easier to deal with them on our terms.

Then again, the only reason I'm posting this is because I'm angry.

[metatron]

So your advocating nuking a civilian population in response to them not being happy you invaded there homes? Aside from the fact that there is nothing worth nuking out there, what did they do to warrant it? I damn well know that 90% of people here would take up arms if an invading army occupied there home town. Using nukes to fight terrorism has to be the dumbest thing you have typed, its like cutting someones arm off because they were stung by a hornet.

Yes as far as I'm concerned as long as your not American or English and a hand full of European countries, it doesn't matter. If I don't personally know/ like you I wouldn't care. Amorality is key here, you are too much of a bleeding heart liberal.

[VaKo]

You reap what you sow.

I may be a bleeding heart liberal, I really don't care. I personally think its overkill, there a better, more subtle ways of subverting terrorism at its root rather than trying to cut all the heads off of a hydra at once. Dropping a nuke on civilians is the fastest way to start a global nuclear war, which does directly effect your bottom line. After all, if you have done it and you claim to be the most moral people on the planet, the people who don't make such claims have nothing to loose anymore. These things can be dealt with more subtly.

[metatron]

You reap what you sow.

I may be a bleeding heart liberal, I really don't care. I personally think its overkill, there a better, more subtle ways of subverting terrorism at its root rather than trying to cut all the heads off of a hydra at once. Dropping a nuke on civilians is the fastest way to start a global nuclear war, which does directly effect your bottom line. After all, if you have done it and you claim to be the most moral people on the planet, the people who don't make such claims have nothing to loose anymore. These things can be dealt with more subtly.

Morality is very subjective, what is considered wrong by one community is not by another. In my mind the end justifies the means, life is not precious it’s just life at the end of the day.

A global nuclear war is very unlikely as the countries that have them, would only be an issue if you directly threatened them, I think it would make them develop more weapons and I’m sure more countries would try and acquire them but this is more then likely already happening just in secret.

[VaKo]

Pakistan has nukes. Pakistan is also teetering on the edge of collapse and has shares a chunk of its border and population with Afghanistan. While the current nuclear club is relatively safe, open use of weapons would encourage proliferation amongst nations who aren't as stable and/or friendly. And this would lead to global war, especially if a few of these found there way into the US (send 20 in, if one gets threw the net you have still won).

The thing is that we are dealing with people who think it is an honor to die for there cause, killing them doesn't work because they don't care and just ends up providing the media with yet more pictures of dead "civilians" which are used to incite more people to the cause. Since we lack the will to kill them all, we don't have many options. But the one thing we haven't tried is giving them something to live for. Yeah, bleeding hearts and so forth, but people who own stuff are less willing to die than some slum kid who has just seen his house bulldozed or bombed. A culture war, with patience would have more effect in the long run, as instead of playing wack-a-mole you can just turn the machine off.

[metatron]

Pakistan has nukes. Pakistan is also teetering on the edge of collapse and has shares a chunk of its border and population with Afghanistan. While the current nuclear club is relatively safe, open use of weapons would encourage proliferation amongst nations who aren't as stable and/or friendly. And this would lead to global war, especially if a few of these found there way into the US (send 20 in, if one gets threw the net you have still won).

The thing is that we are dealing with people who think it is an honor to die for there cause, killing them doesn't work because they don't care and just ends up providing the media with yet more pictures of dead "civilians" which are used to incite more people to the cause. Since we lack the will to kill them all, we don't have many options. But the one thing we haven't tried is giving them something to live for. Yeah, bleeding hearts and so forth, but people who own stuff are less willing to die than some slum kid who has just seen his house bulldozed or bombed. A culture war, with patience would have more effect in the long run, as instead of playing wack-a-mole you can just turn the machine off.

I would also nuke Pakistan in all honesty, although weapons are only as good as there delivery method and there intercontinental missile technology is very limited. In regards to people who think it is an honour to die, the Japanese’s were the same way to some extent but once they realise that there death will not only bring them honour but the complete annihilation  of his/her country and his people they think twice and give up.  The only way to win a war is by showing them you want to win more and your do anything to win.

[digip]

You say you want a revolution

Well you know

We all want to change the world

You tell me that it's evolution

Well you know

We all want to change the world

But when you talk about destruction

Don't you know you can count me out

Don't you know it's gonna be alright

Alright Alright

You say you got a real solution

Well you know

We'd all love to see the plan

You ask me for a contribution

Well you know

We're all doing what we can

But if you want money for people with minds that hate

All I can tell you is brother you have to wait

Don't you know it's gonna be alright

Alright Alright Alright

You say you'll change the constitution

Well you know

We all want to change your head

You tell me it's the institution

Well you know

You better free your mind instead

But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao

You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow

Don't you know know it's gonna be Alright

Alright Alright

We all hate shit people and the shit rulers of the world. We all live in places that disgust us at times, and at other times, we would defend our home soil to our last breathe. Patriotism does not mean do as your told. Patriotism means questioning your leaders. It means standing up to what is wrong and standing together for what is right.

I personally hate the whole US vs the world thing. From other countries, its the same as them against us mentality and same here. People get so caught up in borders and lines drawn on maps that they forget that NONE of that matters. We are but a tiny speck in the universe and our troubles are trivial at best in scope of the big picture. We will wage wars, murder, anger, hate and cause crimes against humanity for lifetimes to come, and it's not the U.S. I am talking about. It is MAN. Man is the root of all these problems in the world. Not man in the sense of Male, but man as in Mankind, Men, woman, all of us.

After 9/11 the world stood together with one voice at complete outrage and disgust for what the terrorists did. Assholes like Bush and his administration used that as a con against the world. To get what he wanted, he kept playing the fear card and for a while it worked, but the people of the U.S. are sick and tired of him just as much as the rest of the world is. U.S. foreign policy has gone from bad to worse in the past 8 years and Bush is mainly to blame for it. I don't think anyone can dispute that fact. We can't even feed, clothe and home our own people, yet we spend so much money on supposeldy helping third world countries, etc, etc. Bullshit. We spend money and get conress to allow the administration to our hard earned savings so they can then change where and what they end up spending it on, most of the time becoming unaccountable. Look at Katrina. Where did all the money go? 9/11/ Where is Bin Laden? Why after we got rid of Sadamm didn't we leave and allow the international community to step in? Instead Bush and the administration turned up their noses andgave a big middle finger to the world.

Tony Blair was one of those people who fell for it hook, line and sinker. He stood by Bush, only to commit career suicide in the eyes of the world. He ended up with the short end of the stick. Then you had bombings in the UK. Spain. France. Anyone who allied with the U.S. was now under attack and still are, only they just haven't made a strike yet. A few failed attempts, like the nail bombs in cars and the doctors who were arrested recently, but if we had handled 9/11 better, I think we would see less of this kind of hate towards us and our allies and more help on an international level. Anyone who thinks we live in a safer place after 9/11 is living in a false reality. Things have only gotten worse and I don't see them getting better any time soon without getting much worse first.

I have ranted on that enough... To your original post, the extradition of these people should have been taken care of through the court systems and not be a priority on the news front or the U.S.'s piggy bank. Just let businesses and the judicial system do their part. The fact that it made it to the news is just to shows how much of what the U.S. does now is being watched under a microscope. I kind of like the fact that it shows the U.S. in an unflattering light, because it shows the truth of how things are in the world and you can't have change to fix things if you don't know what needs fixing. Personally, and this is just my opinion, I think if they were/are US citizens, lived in the US for any period of time, or did business as a US entity(as in have a US tax id, etc), then they should go to trial for the said offense to clear their name one way or the other, but if they are not US citizens, never lived here, and never did business as a US entity, then they should be tried in the UK under international law of some sort to defend themselves of these accusations. In our courts yoru innocent until proven guilty. Beiung extradited does not make them guilty and does not mean they go directly to jail(although they will probably take them into custody, and jail or house arrwst of some sort will probalby follow).

I am sure that the U.S. could have handled this better but I make no excuses for their complete lack of updating modern law and to quote something from the 1860's as valid in modern times is just plain retarded. Bounty Hunting in general goes after U.S. citizens who flee trial or flee their home state or leave the country when there is a warran out for their arrest. For people who do not live here, I personally do not think "Bounty Hunting" applies and they should follow whatever the international laws are for extradition through the courts. And I wasn't saying they shouldn't fight extradition. I think that they should persue the process through the courts to find an end to the issue at hand.

[cooper]

I would also nuke Pakistan in all honesty. The only way to win a war is by showing them you want to win more and your do anything to win.

The problem here is that if the US is going to nuke _a_ country, it will be forced to nuke a _lot_ of countries.

If Iraq goes up in nuclear smoke, what do you think Iran will do? Or Syria, Lybia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait? Saudi Arabia owns like 6% of the US economy, and the world is greatly dependent on their oil. No more cheap oil for the US I suppose. And I'm sure Iran will feel compelled to develop a nuclear weapon of their own now, since the threat is clearly real. And since Israel is american ally #1 for some reason, all those nations are likely to unite and paint the desert with the blood of the jews. It will fix the palestinian problem though. So I guess you'd have to nuke all those nations too just to make sure. Or maybe just bomb them really hard with conventional weapons so they get with the program.

Pakistan would need to get a swift visit from the angel of death as you stated, along with Afghanistan and a whole bunch of other -stan nations there. India will be happy for a while, but eventually turn on the US because of nuclear fallout. Plus if you're going to nuke nations to make sure they tote the party line, you should really nuke Bangalore so all those american jobs stop going there.

I'm pretty sure Korea should be on the list aswell. The threat they pose to the US itself is minimal at best, but they're swinging their dicks far too much. This would then piss China off of course, which just happens to be the country that is bankrolling most of the US economy these days with foreign loans. Suddenly America is bankrupt. And nuking China won't fix that. But since that will be the case, better nuke them so we're at least at a mostly level playing field.

Then there's the obvious target: Cuba! Yeah, fuck Fidel and the horse he rode in on. Chavez will be outraged of course, but dump a nuke on his ass and see if he changes his tone. I'm sure that would shut him up.

Now, many of the countries mentioned are allies of Russia, so Putin will probably be bitching non-stop about this whole mess. People not respecting him and all, saying he's got a small dick for not retaliating. After 2 or 3 bombs I'm pretty sure he'll be compelled to nuke the US if anything to save face. They have too many nukes to wipe out pre-emptively, but you would probably try and save, um, half the US? The parts that don't matter of course.

By now a LOT of people in Europe will have gotten mighty scared. The US has shown that it can go completely bonkers. The political isolement that the US will put itself in will be staggering. Economic sanctions from its former allies, no more oil from the arab neck of the woods, no more loans from China, and half the country wiped off the earth thanks to Russia.

I doubt even you wouldn't admit that it's a bit naive to assume dropping a nuke or two on a country would've prevented the current mess in any way, or fix it if performed later.

[VaKo]

I would also nuke Pakistan in all honesty, although weapons are only as good as there delivery method and there intercontinental missile technology is very limited. In regards to people who think it is an honour to die, the Japanese’s were the same way to some extent but once they realise that there death will not only bring them honour but the complete annihilation  of his/her country and his people they think twice and give up.  The only way to win a war is by showing them you want to win more and your do anything to win.

Thing is we're not fighting Japan. Japan was an old school empire, run from the top down that was seeking to expand its borders. They had stuff, so as soon as we dropped nukes on them it became apparent that instead of gaining more stuff it was very likely to loose everything it had.

What we are facing now is pretty much open source warfare. Little cells that can operate on there own with information on the internet. They don't have a leadership structure, or at least not one we're familiar with, so there is no one who could sign a surrender order. We're fighting an ideology, not a regular war, so there is no way we can fight it as we would fight other army's. We have to fight it on an ideological and cultural level, which is why we are doing so badly.

[SmoothCriminal]

To be honest I don't know how this topic went to nucs.  Realistically America will probably never again use nucs, if it does it most likely will be in the defense of our country against another nuclear country.  You can say that you want to nuc a country all you want, but if you think about it you really don't.  It would cause millions of people to die who do not deserve to, and will turn the world against you.  The only person that would resort to nucs does not have a heart.  Just look at the cold war, despite being one of the most volatile times in world history, you are looking at some of the fewest amount of war related deaths around the world, and not one nuce was fired at another nation during those times.  Japan is another issue altogether.  Nuking them probably saved lives in the end.  They fought to the death, and if we had to have invaded them not only would thousands of our soldiers have died, but probably millions of their citizens/soldiers would have died.

[markhimself]

the name vote4bush that i have is just random and dosnt stand for any of my veiws. my friends thought of it. dont vote for bush.

[SmoothCriminal]

americans...

they think they have all the power in the world. they dont

why did they take down the twin towers and blame it on iraq. for money. for oil.

now they kidnap OUR sitizens:O 

us english should not have to put up with their crap. they fucked us up as it is anyways with bush and blair.

cant wait till they get a new president. Bush should pay.

Spoken like a true ass...

[digip]

americans...

they think they have all the power in the world. they dont

why did they take down the twin towers and blame it on iraq. for money. for oil.

now they kidnap OUR sitizens:O 

us english should not have to put up with their crap. they fucked us up as it is anyways with bush and blair.

cant wait till they get a new president. Bush should pay.

Where is the ignore button..oh, there it is.

http://www.twistedpairrecords.com/digip/ignorebutton.jpg[/img]

[SomeoneE1se]

americans...

they think they have all the power in the world. they dont

why did they take down the twin towers and blame it on iraq. for money. for oil.

now they kidnap OUR sitizens:O 

us english should not have to put up with their crap. they fucked us up as it is anyways with bush and blair.

cant wait till they get a new president. Bush should pay.

ok first off n00b!

second then why is your nick vote4bush if you hate him so much

please keep posting because it's only a matter of time before you get yourself banned

[HarshReality]

I wont go into a 'political' debate. But in wartime.. who in hell says "there are rules". This week, UN POW rules apply and then they dont obligate.. in any wartime situation or for that matter dispute you always have one side that is going by a 'white book' policy and the other side is taking full advantage of it. In war or conflict there is only one rule that applies... win. History is written by the victors.

As for the 'US bashing' this and that how about keeping it on a civil tone. No government is perfect, US gov (yea I live here) just doesnt hide details as well as other countries. And as far as a comment I saw about "US thinks they have all the power" I beg to differ, we cant even take care of our own since everything is outsourcing to other countries. Back in the day people border jumped and what not to get here for the american dream now its more like 'leave and find a better life anywhere BUT the US'. Granted its not as bad as some other countries but in comparison to the past it just plain blows.

The biggest joke I have ever seen was the movie 'Sicko' where they were talking about US healthcare vs. other countries. Get on a boat and goto Cuba to get your meds taken care of... cost too much here.

[VaKo]

I wont go into a 'political' debate. But in wartime.. who in hell says "there are rules". This week, UN POW rules apply and then they dont obligate.. in any wartime situation or for that matter dispute you always have one side that is going by a 'white book' policy and the other side is taking full advantage of it. In war or conflict there is only one rule that applies... win. History is written by the victors.

The big problem here is that America has a fairly weird, insular view of war. In Europe we've been doing it for thousands of years, so yes, having rules about what you can and can't do in war is a sensible idea. Mainly because even if you win, you still have to deal with the people you've just beaten. We were forced to learn that lesson when we fucked over Germany after the Great War. How you win is important, people won't forget what you did and it *will* come back to haunt you.

[cooper]

If America thought the Geneva Convention (you know, that book of rules to play by when you're at war with someone) was such a load of bollocks they shouldn't have signed and ratified the fucking thing!

[SmoothCriminal]

If America thought the Geneva Convention Peanut Butter (you know, that book of rules to play by when you're at war with someone do whatever the fuck we want because we won the cold war) was such a load of bollocks balls they shouldn't have signed and ratified the fucking thing ATTACK IRAQ!

Post edited to better reflect American values (some of the wording is changed to better appeal to America.

From

U.S. Gov

[VaKo]

The Fearful Superpower

It's not just Bush's fault. America is scared of the new world, and that's no way to run a hyperpower.

By Fareed Zakaria

NEWSWEEK

Updated: 4:51 PM ET Dec 12, 2007

For the past few years, America has been alienated from the world. We have all read the yearly polls with the same damning numbers. But on one issue, the United States and the world agree: majorities everywhere expect things to improve markedly after George W. Bush. Whether it's in Europe or Asia, the refrain from politicians, businessmen and intellectuals is the same. "We don't hate America," one of them told me recently. "We hate Bush. When he's gone, it will be a new day."

But will it? The question will be put to the test in a year, when a new president enters the White House.

There's little doubt that the style and substance of U.S. foreign policy over the past seven years has provoked enormous international opposition. What is less clear is that the style and substance were unique products of the Bush administration. Some part of the global response was surely the product of longstanding unease with U.S. dominance. After all, France's foreign minister coined the term "hyperpuissance" to describe America under Bill Clinton, not George W. Bush.

Then came 9/11. Ever since the attacks, the United States has felt threatened and under siege and determined to carve out maximum room to maneuver. But where Americans have seen defensive behavior, the rest of the world has looked on and seen the most powerful nation in human history acting like a caged animal, lashing out at any and every constraint on its actions.

At the heart of this behavior is fear. Americans have become scared of the new world that is emerging around them. As long as this atmosphere of fear envelops U.S. politics, it will surely produce very similar results abroad. Washington's real task, therefore, is to combat such unthinking emotion.

Yet the opposite is happening. Republicans are falling over each other to paint an atmosphere of dire threat that requires strong, even brutish action to protect the American people. Democrats, while far less guilty of fearmongering, have been afraid to combat this hysteria.

Consider the top GOP candidates to replace Bush. On the campaign trail, Rudolph Giuliani endlessly repeats his mantra that "we are facing an enemy that is planning all over this world … to come here and kill us." Mitt Romney has explained that while "some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo, my view is we ought to double [the size of] Guantanamo." And John McCain sometimes sounds cavalier about bombing Iran—despite the fact that, if it happened, it would be the third U.S. war against a Muslim country in seven years.

The notion that the United States today is in grave danger of sitting back and going on the defensive is bizarre. Since 2001, Washington, with bipartisan support, has invaded two countries and dispatched troops around the world, from Somalia to the Philippines, to fight Islamic militants. It has ramped up defense spending by $187 billion—more than the combined military budgets of China, Russia, India and Britain. It has created a Department of Homeland Security that now spends more than $40 billion a year. How then would Giuliani go on the offensive? Invade a couple more countries?

To recover its place in the world, the United States should first recover its confidence. It remains the world's only superpower, the only big country with a total portfolio of military, economic and political dominance. Most major states are either well disposed toward it or, at worst, neutral. The challenges America confronts come from small, faceless terrorist organizations and a few rogue nations. This is not to minimize the challenges. Today's asymmetries of power mean that small groups can do big damage. But it is to put things in perspective. When President Bush speaks of Iran's nuclear program as the road to World War III, one wonders if he has noticed that Iran's total GDP is just one sixty-eighth that of the United States, or that its military spending is less than 1 percent of the Pentagon's.

The real challenges that the United States faces come not from globalization's losers but from its winners, not from yesterday's bombs but from tomorrow's factories. The crucial project for the next president will be to change the basic focus of U.S. foreign policy, away from the Middle East and toward the Far East. When the history of these times is written, surely the great trend that will dominate the accounts, far larger than the war in Lebanon or the tensions over Iran, will be the rise of China and India and how they reshaped the world.

This power shift is having broad and benign effects around the planet; global growth is a marvel to behold. But it is also producing massive complications and dislocations. It creates high demand for raw materials and energy. Countries that possess such resources—Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia—have become powerful islands of exception to the rules of markets and trade that are sweeping the world. Thus global capitalism is producing its own well-funded anticapitalists. Environmental degradation proceeds in much of the world on a colossal scale. And these problems get exacerbated by changes in climate, rainfall and habitation. Scarcities of water and wheat and other grains might turn out to be the fault lines of the future as populations move in search of secure and arable land.

There is no way to turn off the underlying global growth, nor should one try. Every previous expansion of global capitalism has led to greater prosperity across the world. But this is a massive, complex process that requires enormous focus and attention. And while other nations around the world, from China to Chile, are playing to win, the United States as a government has barely focused on any of the major challenges or opportunities they present. The Bush administration is too busy settling disputes between Sunnis and Shiites in downtown Baghdad.

The world we are entering will need new solutions to its problems. There are too many new players for the old structures to work. Asia is rising, but not only Asia. Economic activity and political confidence are also growing in Latin America and even Africa. Nongovernmental actors are becoming more powerful every day. New media sources—from Al-Jazeera to India's NDTV—are presenting diverse and contrarian narratives of current events. Welcome to the post-American world.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/77068

I think this pretty much sums it up.

[SmoothCriminal]

Luckily many people are no longer taking Rudi Guliani as a serious candidate, the only thing in his vocabulary was "9/11".  The country I am sad to say sometimes does seem to be in state of fear.  That is why republicans have been doing so good.  Luckily lately more and more people are starting to see the light.  Many candidates are still clinging to ideas of defense that have no place in our country.  All I am looking for in a candidate is:  Someone to stop the torture, keep an open dialog with all countries regardless of if we like them or not (Iran), have a phased withdrawal from Iraq (over a few years), ease up on things like the patriot act, doesn't have their head up their ass, will try and fix our county's/government's economy (average combined debt is 160,000), and stop inflation of the U.S. dollar.  With that being said I don't like many of the candidates, Hilary is probably right now who I feel is the best (but she does have her head up her ass), I used to like Obama, but he is taking some bad stances (threatened Iran with military action to stop nucs (which we now know don't exist)).