It's surreal to read written arguments defending an "extraordinary rendition" using the military in terms of domestic criminal cases. And to so plainly state that international law ought not apply to the leader of the free world, effectively because we think we can and our interests come first, is distressing. If this is an "arrest" of a "fugitive", to keep with the DOJ analogy, it should be subject to the laws of its jurisdiction. Not the laws of whomever has air superiority.
> ... international law does not prevent [us] ... from ... arrest[ing] individuals [residing in a foreign state] for violations of United States law.
God, that's chilling.
> Congress has declined to amend relevant statutes to deny the Executive the ability to engage in rendition.
> Congress's continued appropriation of funds to the agencies known to engage in the practice should be taken as (at minimum) acquiescence.
So, because our Congress can't pass a bill handed from God himself unless it fills their coffers, we're silently consenting to this baloney?
And I get that legal precedence is a thing, but we shouldn't be looking at military operations in Haiti, or Libya, or Iraq as justification for more international shit-stirring. It's a slippery slope.
Albeit semantics, rebranding to the War Department is not good optics if one intends receive said department's advice before carrying out "a use of force that ... does not rise to the level of war in a constitutional sense". This nonsense is maddening.
I guess I had never considered at face value what that kind of arrangement means until reading this DOJ document.
It makes total sense to me that committing terrible crimes should be punishable. When a criminal per domestic law resides in a different country (and the issue crosses national borders), it seems to me (not a lawyer) that the determination of appropriate force must be decided by an international group.
Otherwise, what's chilling to me is... what stops a country from unilaterally abducting anyone they want? The country doing the abducting determines the laws that have been violated, after all. In this document, we've explicitly determined that international law has no bearing on domestic consequences. So do whatever you want, so to speak. Freaky stuff.
> what stops a country from unilaterally abducting anyone they want
I think in a normal functioning world at least, the text of the treaty itself (and how both sides interpret it I suppose) would be the arbiter of how that should play out.
You mean like renditioning the head of one nation nation because of drugs after having pardoned another former head of a nation who was convicted of importing drugs?
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