andie nachgeborenen (Justin) wrote:
>
> [clip]
> Carrol says:
>
> Many of us argued against the Spanish attempt to try Pinochet....
> the attempted kidnapping of Pinochet,
>
> I say: As I recall, he was detained in England subject to a lawful
> extradition request. No one invaded or even snuck into Chile and
> dragged him out of his home (as the Israelis did to Eichmann--you got
> a problem with that, Carrol?). When it was determined that he was
> unfit to stand trial, he was sent home. Whats' the problem?
I was too laconic. The primary problem is that England, not Spain, was the locus of the trial -- and I don't like any imperial power presuming to judge the acts of state (no matter how horrid) of the ruler of a "third world" nation. Next, in _every_ civil war (or even most large civil disturbances) at least a few foreign nationals get hurt. That must, for example, have happened to a few at the time of the Cuban Revolutionl. The Pinchet trial would have formed the basis (had Castro attended the WTO meeting at Seattle) for (say) some u.s. satellite someplace requesting that Castro be arrested and extradited. I want to keep heads of state pretty much untouchable except by their own people.
In political terms -- I think an important obligation of leftists in the U.S. is to build public repugnance at the U.S. claims to tutelage over weaker powers, _regardless_ of how one personally might regard any particular state in question.
Your new subject line is a good one. Crimes under that label go back a long way.
Carrol
P.S. Where in the hell did you drag that e-mail name from? I'm too lazy to prowl the shelves for my german-english dictionary. Is it German or fractured German/english?