Re: Liberty and Security

Yeah verily, on Wed, 24 May 2006 04:18:09 +0000 (UTC), James Nicoll did
exercise fingers and typed:

Although that does raise an interesting (at least to me) question that
I don't see discussed much: If we are going to fight a war against
Terrorism, does that require us to go after our own citizens that are
supporting terrorists? I give you Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber
as examples of Americans supporting terrorism at home, and people who
send support to groups like Kach and the Real IRA as examples of
Americans supporting terrorism abroad. If another country asked us
to hand over suspected terrorist supporters, would we do so if we
thought that they were going to wind up in some other country's
version of Gitmo?

Better example: Eric Rudolph, the Olympic bomber. He was being assisted
when he was on the run and no doubt were he a dusky-hued Muslim said
assistants would be spending time in sunny Cuba rather than living their
lives in quiet anonymity because the terrorist they helped was a white
Christian.

Now if Rudolph had taken off to Canada, bombed an abortion clinic up here
and been caught and tried, would the US hand over those people to us? Doubt
it. And we don't even execute people anymore.

But there's an actual case like that: James Charles Kopp,
currently doing time for the killing of Barnett Slepian, is also
thought to have shot another American doctor, as well as three
Canadians: Romalis, Short and Fainman. He's been charged with the
attempted murder of Short.

Now, what I don't know is the status of the extradition
process at the moment.

His accomplices, Loretta Marra and Dennis Malvasi, could
have got up to ten years but instead were let off with slightly
over two.

Not quite the same thing. Marra and Malvasi were tried for crimes in the
US (and let off lightly), and not handed to us. Moreover, we didn't insist
on pulling in anyone remotely connected to Kopp (or the taxi driver who'd
once dropped him off at an airport) and shipping them off to Melville
Island for the duration.

Hmm, maybe we should have. Bounty hunting is legal in the US. Maybe we
should have posted some wanted posters.
--
Keith
.

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