Germany Seeks to Arrest 13 CIA Agents

[RX Bandit]

Originally Posted by David Octavius

Such a loaded statement, you assume that those that are taken are in fact guilty of doing harm or will do harm. When there is a possibility they may not be (just as a possibility they may be), you have no idea of their guilt or innocence, of course because they are foreigners they don't count right? If it is so obvious they are guilty than why not legally arrest them and let the truth come out in court? Justice after all is truth and when the truth comes out, we will get more support for our cause.

On time sensitive issues of national security the judicial process will not save lives. My presumption (with limited experience of intelligence analysis, but still experience) is that the US and US proxies have working, efficient and the closest thing to dead accurate intelligence. Rendition is not about taking someone off the street that hasn't shaved in a week and looks Arabic. There is always reason and intelligence to back it up.

And it is time sensitive. The intelligence suggests it is.

And the cornerstone of the argument (mirrored by a UCLA law professor, just as one example off of the top of my head) is that the Bill of Rights ends at the US border and only applies to US citizens. The fifth amendment does not apply to foreigners and even more so does not apply to those targeted by US intelligence as unregistered enemy combatants and agents.

But back to your loaded statement, if it came out that we went into sovereign countries and took their citizens and find they are innocent (as Italy and Germany seem to think) then it would harbor MORE resentment for us by the terrorists making us less safe, so I can say just as easily that by supporting these renditions you deem the life of our American children to be nothing because all these renditions do is motivate our enemy and help them recruit to attack us. Your logic doesn't hold any water.

The logic holds water because you seem to believe that the average Italian or German is in the suitable pool of people likely to become unregistered militants against the US and US interests. Your unspoken logic indicates that a rendition of an Italian citizen who is a suspect will "motivate our enemy and help them recuit to attack us". How will taking a suspected Italian motivate unregistered militants (aka al Qaeda, Mahdi army, Hamas, Hizbullah etc)?

Italy and to a lesser extent Germany, are civilized countries. They do not spawn the unregistered militants within their borders - their citizens are certainly free to flee and join Hizbullah or the Mahdi army - but compelling state interests of Italy and Germany as our allies make them exactly this: full of hot air to complain to the UN and the media and nothing will ever come of it. This might be a case of bullying our friends to pay for our lunch with their milk money, but this will not set off a world war. Germany has made deals with the Arabs to avoid being attacked on their own soil but they are a white Christian nation and they will not remain off of the radar forever as more militant strains of Islam find their ways into power.

I see in the end of your statement you made sure to say that as long as it is not happing to Americans its ok, so if Italy and Germany did the same to us - their CIA's kidnap one of our own its different right? Such hypocritical and myopic thinking is the reason why we don't get the global support we need to defeat the terrorists.

Sixth amendment. USA has it and US citizens are protected by the constitution. If Italy kidnapped an American suspected of being an unregistered militant against compelling Italian domestic and foreign interests...well I won't play the what-if game because I really enjoy lasagna.

Without going into semantics you can claim the USA is bullying friendly nations by rendition but these renditions serve their own interests as allies of the US - and the average Italian is never at peril - it is only those elements of the populations that are subversive.

Having lived in the UK and traveled Europe widely I can tell you this (if you don't have experience with them): they have rather idealist and archaic perceptions of the human being that are incompatible with their recent history or any human experience thus far documented. They would rather (this is a generalization but it proves a point) set free a thousand criminals than condemn one innocent man to prison for a crime he did not commit.

The US realist/realpolitik outlook is the arhat assertion: our intelligence is flawless and we should take out an unregistered militant rather than sacrifice the life of an innocent American.

The fierce nationalism associated with that type of assertion is myopic, in your own words, but only myopic from the eyes of European perspective who at this point in history is far too pacifist and idealist about the world we live in. They live in the world of appeasement today that gave rise to Hitler.

[PetriW]

Originally Posted by RX Bandit

On time sensitive issues of national security the judicial process will not save lives. My presumption (with limited experience of intelligence analysis, but still experience) is that the US and US proxies have working, efficient and the closest thing to dead accurate intelligence. Rendition is not about taking someone off the street that hasn't shaved in a week and looks Arabic. There is always reason and intelligence to back it up.

I assume this is why you're finding huge amounts of WMDs in Iraq in just a few days right? Just as I assume if one of your neighbours tell the FBI you're an Al'Quada member you'll agree to spend half a decade at Guantanamo?

Originally Posted by RX Bandit

The logic holds water because you seem to believe that the average Italian or German is in the suitable pool of people likely to become unregistered militants against the US and US interests. Your unspoken logic indicates that a rendition of an Italian citizen who is a suspect will "motivate our enemy and help them recuit to attack us". How will taking a suspected Italian motivate unregistered militants (aka al Qaeda, Mahdi army, Hamas, Hizbullah etc)?

Arresting an innocent then transporting him to a third country for torture, that's what's wrong here. If they arrested the guy and interrogated him in Italy _without_ torture (could be FBI and Italian security service cooperating) the situation would be quite another.

Originally Posted by RX Bandit

Italy and to a lesser extent Germany, are civilized countries.

WTF mate? Still think it's 60 years ago?

Originally Posted by RX Bandit

Having lived in the UK and traveled Europe widely I can tell you this (if you don't have experience with them): they have rather idealist and archaic perceptions of the human being that are incompatible with their recent history or any human experience thus far documented. They would rather (this is a generalization but it proves a point) set free a thousand criminals than condemn one innocent man to prison for a crime he did not commit.

Yes, we have quite another attitude to what's acceptable and what's not. Just as you have one view for what's acceptable in the USA and what's acceptable everywhere else. We however strive to treat americans, chinese, muslims and so on just as we treat our fellow citizens. I realize this idea that foreigners might be just as decent people and should be treated with as much as your fellow americans is novel to you. But honestly, if you believe the CIA should be able to torture citizens of allied nations, then please don't be surprised when foreign intelligence tortures american citizens, it was after all you who taught us what is proper treatment of foreign citizens of allied nations.

Originally Posted by RX Bandit

The US realist/realpolitik outlook is the arhat assertion: our intelligence is flawless and we should take out an unregistered militant rather than sacrifice the life of an innocent American.

Hello, weapons of mass destruction calling.

Originally Posted by RX Bandit

The fierce nationalism associated with that type of assertion is myopic, in your own words, but only myopic from the eyes of European perspective who at this point in history is far too pacifist and idealist about the world we live in. They live in the world of appeasement today that gave rise to Hitler.

Uhuh, worst bullshit I've read on this forum so far.

[PetriW]

I firmly believe the European Union to be one of the most successful peace projects so far in history. The economies in Europe are so intertwined today that a war is essentially unthinkable. After the fall of the Soviet Union the EU has been rapidly expanding eastward, pumping huge amounts of money into the new members and modernizing their economies and laws so the states become modern democracies. Heck, even Turkey is making efforts to reform in order to keep the door open to EU membership. Just as the balkans are.
We may be socialist, pacifist and idealist but the so far the EU is a success and more unions in it's image are cropping over the world.

[RX Bandit]

Originally Posted by PetriW

I firmly believe the European Union to be one of the most successful peace projects so far in history. The economies in Europe are so intertwined today that a war is essentially unthinkable. After the fall of the Soviet Union the EU has been rapidly expanding eastward, pumping huge amounts of money into the new members and modernizing their economies and laws so the states become modern democracies. Heck, even Turkey is making efforts to reform in order to keep the door open to EU membership. Just as the balkans are.
We may be socialist, pacifist and idealist but the so far the EU is a success and more unions in it's image are cropping over the world.

The EU even in its theoretical framework and in its predecessor even had large problems - and today it is nothing more than a hate mongering gang of loosely grouped nations who are trying to reform into a major counterweight to the US...but get this, they are trying to reform into the US's image. Their limited prestige is best achieved by hate mongering against the US and making US the enemy. McDonalds is the enemy. Going into Iraq was bad, all Americans are the enemy. Ignoring Kyoto has made us the enemy.

Economics, I'll mostly concede that argument. USSR industrialized farmland countries to their west for their own gain of industry and influence - and we all know how well that turned out. We'll see how the Eastern European countries deal fifty years from now under the burgeoning influence of socialist pacifist influence.

One example of the EU's structural and political failure is how last summer over discussions of a European-wide university (modeled in the image of MIT which would profiteer and initiate a Silicon Valley of Europe) Europe could not agree on one city or one country to place the Silicon Valley 2.0. So they ended up deciding to just beef up individual universities of each country on their own and "cooperate" which will never lead to their end goal. That's a fact, this next one is lesser so and people that actually stuck with Computer Science as a career instead of leaving for more interesting things will be able to answer this: the Europeans started developing a counterbalance to Google and they are calling it Quaero (that part is not the part I don't know) but I have been hearing rumors they have had catastrophic setbacks because member nations will not even provide assistance because of the worry over influence and prestige associated with the project since it was originally proposed by France. I don't know like I said if those rumors are true but it would really help my case

You'll find no bigger fan of Turkey at the moment than me in the West. I support their EU bid for the prestige associated with a final declaration of them NOT being middle eastern. They really aren't European but they are more European than middle eastern. The good thing about the EU bid possibility coming up is that is has shown how bigoted most of Europe is concerning islam. Europeans have their own flaws that never get talked about, its always the racist and homophobic Americans. The bad thing about the EU bid possibility is Turkey's relationship with Israel. EU is anti-Zionist. If Turkey joined the EU and I was PM (which of course I won't be) I would call for all Jews living in Europe to make aliyah in retribution. Turkey is a friend of Israel but under burgeoning EU influence it won't take long before Ankara becomes another effete drone of Paris.

[PetriW]

Most americans think going to Iraq was bad too!

Originally Posted by RX Bandit

the Europeans started developing a counterbalance to Google and they are calling it Quaero

Correction, French-Germans started developing, and now French only (if not scrapped).
The french are the way french are, we all know they're nationalists, but that doesn't mean everything they do is bad.

And of course there's prestige involved in everything done here, it's the nature of an international organization, member states look after their own interest, they'll argue for a couple of years then agree on a path that is acceptable to everyone.
The EU taking over power from individual nations is a sensitive area and takes time, so you can not expect it to function similar to a country in decisiveness, especially not in all areas. You also have to consider it's 500 million people speaking 23 different languages (official ones) in 27 countries, not exactly the same as the USA. We also have slightly more political parties in the EU.


And I know we have racism here, just as you do over there.

[JSmythe]

To think the EU is not powerful is silly.

[David Octavius]

Originally Posted by RX Bandit

The logic holds water because you seem to believe that the average Italian or German is in the suitable pool of people likely to become unregistered militants against the US and US interests. Your unspoken logic indicates that a rendition of an Italian citizen who is a suspect will "motivate our enemy and help them recuit to attack us". How will taking a suspected Italian motivate unregistered militants (aka al Qaeda, Mahdi army, Hamas, Hizbullah etc)?

Italy and to a lesser extent Germany, are civilized countries. They do not spawn the unregistered militants within their borders - their citizens are certainly free to flee and join Hizbullah or the Mahdi army - but compelling state interests of Italy and Germany as our allies make them exactly this: full of hot air to complain to the UN and the media and nothing will ever come of it. This might be a case of bullying our friends to pay for our lunch with their milk money, but this will not set off a world war. Germany has made deals with the Arabs to avoid being attacked on their own soil but they are a white Christian nation and they will not remain off of the radar forever as more militant strains of Islam find their ways into power.



Sixth amendment. USA has it and US citizens are protected by the constitution. If Italy kidnapped an American suspected of being an unregistered militant against compelling Italian domestic and foreign interests...well I won't play the what-if game because I really enjoy lasagna.

Without going into semantics you can claim the USA is bullying friendly nations by rendition but these renditions serve their own interests as allies of the US - and the average Italian is never at peril - it is only those elements of the populations that are subversive.

Is this how Neo-cons think? Seriously?

If history has told us anything, is that intelligence is not perfect, they get it wrong sometimes - they are human after all. The bay of pigs, Vietnam, Iraq etc. Its not even the intelligence gathering itself that is the problem per se, its how the decision makers interpret and what their supervisors are pressured to believe. I don't blame the CIA agents - its our own leaders who want their self fulfilling prophecy.

Your logic hold no water not because of what I think of the average Italian or German but of terror organizations around the world, you think they don't see what is happing and use it as propaganda to recruit others against "American Imperialism" or whatever the catch they use these days?

What seems to be the problem is that you don't mind asserting force no matter what its form because you think thats what will get the job done. However my view is that nothing exists in a vacuum - what we do or not do affects this war on terror as much as what "they" do.

These forced renditions will have a negative impact in the end, we will look bad and it will "embolden" the enemy. We have to learn that force is necessary sometimes (Afghanistan) but not all the time (Iraq, North Korea). Somethings are indeed time sensitive and should be treated so - but many of it is not and these renditions were not time sensitive, if they are guilty, let Justice stand or else what are we doing?

[Kytro]

Originally Posted by RX Bandit

Germany and Italy cannot press the CIA to stop rendition - they can only further aggregate complicated foreign relations by trying to instill their decidedly pacifist and less than progressive intelligence systems upon us.

What do you think gives the US the right to be operating in other nations in the first place?

US Intelligence has not been all that accurate, anyway.

In any case it isn't about being pacifist but about the rights of other nations to have their laws respected - if the CIA operates in another nation and does some things that nation dislikes, if they are an ally it will only hinder future co-operation.

Further there is no evidence that rendition is effective or needed, nor that the US government is capable of determining this objectively without judical oversight