The CIA's rendition of the Qaeda guy captured in South America under Clinton — okay, or not?

Assuming your facts are true weighing against would be an apparent lack of indictment, and - disappeared? - no trial. Not good.

But weighing for rendition would be the self-defense claim. Was this before or after the embassy bombings? USS Cole? How real was the plot that was broken up by his rendition? In any event, 9/11 was real enough so...I say it was okay on self-defense grounds, with discomfort over what happened to him afterwards.

But then, I'm pretty hawkish when it comes to al Qaeda. By my assessment, Bush is largely to blame for 9/11 for putting the kibosh on the Clinton administration's aggressive initatives towards al Qaeda.

By all means, take action against the offending country. Apply diplomatic pressure, negotiate terms for extradition, impose sanctions, refuse to trade, hell, even declare war if they are actively assisting terrorists to plan and carry out attacks on you. But just because a country refuses to extradite someone, this is not justification for just going in and taking the guy.

You are completely missing the point. Your suggestion above does not solve the problem. By going the diplomatic route you presumably tip off the fugitive that he has been located so he can disappear again, which is exactly what happened in the case of KSM which Richard Clarke described. The 9/11 attacks may have been averted is we had done what I am urging, instead of what you prefer.

me: What if the result of the host country's refusal to extradite resulted in a war that caused massive civilian casualties?

you: What if, what if. Blah blah. What if the guy is actually innocent?

Dude, don't "what if blah blah" me - you're the one who, in the paragraph above, advocated "hell, even start a war" instead of rendition. That's a great idea: invade a country and kill their people so that we may respect their sovereignty. Did you think any of this through before posting? And if the guy is innocent he should get acquitted - remember, we're arguing rendition to give someone a trial, not to put them in a black hole.

Anyway, the idea that a war may be avoided by rendition isn't so far-fetched: I can think of one, possibly two wars that we are fighting now which might have been avoided if we had just grabbed KSM when we had the chance, instead of giving Qatar the heads up.

To me the question is one of constitutionality.

I think when the hypothetical is set up so that congress cannot be involved, we really are just restating the 'ticking time bomb.'

Question for you: in the hypothetical we've been discussing (fugitive who has attacked us and is planning future attacks) do you not this is an act of self-defense? The president does not need Congressional authorization of war to act in self-defense.

Of course, if we are talking about al-Qaeda operatives, rendering them is Congressionally approved via the AUMF.

But guess what? This is all a red herring. Rendition is legal under US law! That has already been well-settled in this thread. That's not the issue. The issue as I see it is that it may violate some international law, and whether it is good policy.

ondelette: I have missed some parts of this thread. Did you cite the non-US law that is violated by rendition? Glenn started out asking if anyone knew of such a law, and I think you may have answered at some point.

Amity: I like the way you think!

And I was saying that is the core piece that requires one law to be broken to comply with another one, and I didn't know how to feel about it.

Yes, that's it, isn't it? The "piece that requires one law to be broken to comply with another one."

That's what I've been trying to get at, all this time.

Thanks so much for the excellent, substantive reply.

Cheers.

I can't truly say that I knew that was the core problem until I did all that writing yesterday and today.

Well, exactly.

That's why I spend what is probably an...inadvisable...amount of time here in the UT comments section, from time to time.

Speaking of the "laboratory of ideas." The chance to really thrash out what starts as a gut impulse idea, with all these immensely informed and articulate persons.

Glenn and Rosen on Moyers really brought me back to a time when...there were some TV talk shows where a really intellectual good time could be had by all. Nice.

Cheers.

On the 9-11 issue, there is a simple answer that will satisfy the observed facts. Your government is fucking lying to you! Only an idiot (or Chomsky) would buy the official report. However, much like Union Leader Jimmy Hoffa, we do not know with any real certainty who did it or the exact "how" of the matter. We certainly do not know that Osama bin Laden did it.

I'm a little fascinated by this bizarre need of yours to keep insisting this in the face of all the available evidence to the contrary.

Let me ask you: there have been three videotapes released in which bin Laden takes responsibility for 9/11. Is it your theory these were all faked? And, if so, by whom? The CIA?

How did they pull off the tape which shows bin Laden in the company of some of the 9/11 hijackers?

And, what's the motivation to frame bin Laden? As a pretext to invading Afghanistan? Just had to get our hands on all those valuable rocks? Oh, don't tell me - it's the heroin trade we were after, right?

Are you aware that there actually was a high-level conspiracy in the US government to blame the wrong guy for 9/11? Which completely fell apart and has now been thoroughly discredited to the point where even Bush himself was finally forced to admit that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with it?