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 --
I say: No, he was detained pending extradiction to Spain, at least that was my understanding. I agree with you about the impropriety of the US or its pet poodle trying a foreign head of state. But them, P was our pal.
Carrol: 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.
Me: Generally agreed, though Chile is actually not a third world, underdeveloped country.
Carrol: 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.
Me: Well, being hurt or even killed by the way is one thing. Beinf deliberately kidnapped, tortured, and murdered is another.
Carrol: 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.
Me: Hardly: The US doesn't want to have its own leaders facing thsi kind of diffuculty either. Course these days, maybe we'd just insit on our specialness,a s we do with our armed forcesa nd the International Criminal Court, on the 1000 lb gorilla theory.
Carrol: I want to keep heads of state pretty much untouchable except by their own people.
Me: Generallt this is the rule. "Acts of state" are normally not actionable, period.
Carrol: 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.
Me. Agreed. I'm with you and against Luke and Nathan on this one. US out of everywhere!
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?
As Yoshie said, it's the German title of Brecht's To Those Born Later, beginning, "Truly we live in dark times!"
jks
--------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20021020/6d2f45c3/attachment.htm>