Glenn makes a good point:
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan places the blame for this weekend’s failed coup attempt on an Islamic preacher and one-time ally, Fethullah Gulen (above), who now resides in Pennsylvania with a green card. Erdogan is demanding the U.S. extradite Gulen, citing prior extraditions by the Turkish government of terror suspects demanded by the U.S.: “Now we’re saying deliver this guy who’s on our terrorist list to us.” Erdogan has been requesting Gulen’s extradition from the U.S. for at least two years, on the ground that he has been subverting the Turkish government while harbored by the U.S. Thus far, the U.S. is refusing, with Secretary of State John Kerry demanding of Turkey: “Give us the evidence, show us the evidence. We need a solid legal foundation that meets the standard of extradition.”
In light of the presence on U.S. soil of someone the Turkish government regards as a “terrorist” and a direct threat to its national security, would Turkey be justified in dispatching a weaponized drone over Pennsylvania to find and kill Gulen if the U.S. continues to refuse to turn him over, or sending covert operatives to kidnap him? That was the question posed yesterday by Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor of Guantánamo’s military commissions who resigned in protest over the use of torture-obtained evidence:
That question, of course, is raised by the fact that the U.S. has spent many years now doing exactly this: employing various means — including but not limited to drones — to abduct and kill people in multiple countries whom it has unilaterally decided (with no legal process) are “terrorists” or who otherwise are alleged to pose a threat to its national security. Since it cannot possibly be the case that the U.S. possesses legal rights that no other country can claim — right? — the question naturally arises whether Turkey would be entitled to abduct or kill someone it regards as a terrorist when the U.S. is harboring him and refuses to turn him over.
And no, I am not trolling. I’ve asked from day one how we would feel if Mexico or Canada used drone strikes on targets in the US.
Keith G
Not sure that matters.
As for US policy:
“Pluck the beam out of your own eye…..” And all that
catclub
Remember in 2001 when we demanded that the Taliban in Afghanistan turn over Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban asked for evidence?
I wonder if the evidence we had then was any better than the evidence that Turkey has on Gulen.
rikyrah
Eh.
This is who we are as a country.
I would like to know more about the guy in PA that they say organized the attempted coup.
Bitter Scribe
The difference I see here is that AFAIK, Pakistan and the other nations where we conduct drone strikes against terror suspects are not “harboring” them in the sense of giving them official permission to be on their soil, the way the U.S. has with Gulen. Granted, Pakistan and the rest may not be doing much (or anything at all) to find those people on their own, but I don’t think they’ve given their official blessing for those men to be where they are.
Mike J
I don’t recall the US bombing NATO countries, no matter who the target was.
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
Turkey coup attempt: Government had list of arrests prepared before rebellion, EU commissioner says
kindness
I bet if Canada and Mexico were droning Americans that American politics would be much more civilized.
gene108
I believe Israel has a covert-ops team that does similar things in nations it feels are threatening it. I’m not sure how many other countries do this sort of thing.
We’d be angry. And we’d obliterate them.
joes527
@Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again): What? A government using events as cover to take the actions it wanted to take anyway? Unpossible!
polyorchnid octopunch
Cue the Greenwald Derangement Brigade in 3 2 1 ….
redshirt
OHNOES! DRONEZ!!!!
Betty Cracker
It’s true that the US doesn’t drone-kill terrorism suspects in NATO countries, but our government has kidnapped people in friendly countries like Italy and delivered them to torture sites. Greenwald isn’t wrong about Americans being hypocritical about that sort of thing. Where he errs (IMO) is in pretending that there are simple solutions, that there’s no real difference between President Obama’s handling of the GWOT and Bush’s and that anyone who opposes immediate suspension of the drone program is a neo-liberal Obama sycophant who doesn’t care about brown folks.
Brachiator
@kindness:
I bet if Canada and Mexico were droning Americans, Canada and Mexico would cease to exist.
Techocrat
What does “justified” mean in this context? Who defines the moral framework?
If he’s killing their people, I personally wouldn’t fault them for a drone strike. But I don’t speak for every American or every Turk.
John Revolta
This so-called “coup attempt” stinks like yesterday’s eggplants. 3000 judges fired the next day, and 8000 cops suspended already. The “rebels” had Erdogan’s plane locked in and didn’t shoot. I ain’t buying it……………
aimai
Very, very, good post. But, of course, the answer is age old:
Feudalism Now!
When Turkey operates a larger MIC than we do, it can try to drone in our borders. We are the bully on the planet, have been for 60 years. This is the extension of being a Superpower. Until we yield the mantle of Policeman of the World, we will over reach and other nations will acquiesce because we are the crazy guy with the gun.
Techocrat
Bah, stuck in moderation. :(
p.a.
Radiation has notorious contempt for political borders.
Mary G
O/T: I have the convention on and they have a rock band playing in between speakers. The only person I recognize is the lead guitar player , GE Smith . They have been playing random covers and it’s fun to watch the awkward dancing. The white hairs have their fingers in their ears. They did Bowie’s Station to Station , which was an odd choice and pissed me off. I guess they figured that since he’s dead, he won’t demand that they cease and desist.
aimai
Having said that one of the issues is the difference between warfare/law as between parties consenting to a common set of rules, nation states in other words, and warfare/law between a state and a stateless or supra-national entity like a terrorist organization. While a particular state, like Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Yemen is not at war with us there are stateless or international terrorists who are and who come on US soil and do, in fact, kill US citizens–what else was 9/11 but a multi aircraft attack on US citizens? Does the fact that it was guided and not a drone make it ok?
Drones, and the targeted killing of people we think are international terrorists,is a quite natural evolution in asymetrical warfare. I may oppose it on moral, legal, and strategic grounds but I quite see where it is coming from. There’s pretty much almost no alternative when dealing with an international threat sited in a failed, or a state covertly supporting the violence. India would be for sure droning the shit out of Pakistan in retaliation for the many Pakistani based attacks on Indian soil. If they could.
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
Shorter Greenwald (and this covers his entire body of work): Government bad. Never, ever, ever vote.
Way to suppress the vote, Glenn. The Kochs and Pierre thank you for the way you hinder regulation. Expect a little something extra in the envelope this month.
Cacti
You just can’t help yourself, can you Cole?
Dr0nez!
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: True.
The criticisms of the drone program are legitimate. However, it also seems to attract people who have a particular animus toward Obama, just because it’s one of the very few areas of military policy where you can make an argument from the left that Obama is “worse than Bush” (since the drone program was just getting started under Bush, and it killed the most civilians during the early Obama years).
burnspbesq
The relevant precedent is al-Awlaki.
In order for Turkey to be justified in using lethal force against Gulen, it would have to establish that (1) the United States is unwilling or unable to hand him over and (2) a capture mission is infeasible.
I think Turkey would struggle on (1). AFAIK, there is no history of the United States refusing to extradite when a proper request is made, and I don’t think there is reason to doubt that we could find Gulen and take him into custody if there were a reason to do so.
laura
There’s precedent if you consider the bombing of Orlando Letelier in DC during the dirty wars in South and then Central America.
I have no recollection that Kissinger recommended we bomb Argentina or Chile.
schrodinger's cat
Of course you are trolling. Turkey is not going to send drones to Pennsylvania.
Amanda in the South Bay
Giving Greenwald the time of day gives too much credit to various people I think should go fuck themselves. Then again I’m not a prominent progressive blog owner who corresponds with him.
Chip Daniels
A better comparison would be China.
Canada and Mexico we would have no trouble bullying, but when China blows up some building with Falun Gong or Tibetan separatists, we will find out what its like to be on the receiving end.
Brachiator
Is the US harboring Fethullah Gulen?
Also, what if the US asks a foreign government to turn over a suspected terrorist and that nation says no? Is it then just “bygones?”
Would Saint Greenwald prefer a formal declaration of war, so that the US could use missiles, bombs and troops instead of drones?
Also, what is Saint Greenwald’s position on the use of the poor man’s drone: a team on a motorcycle driving up to a target and pulling the trigger. Note that innocents have been killed by this method.
Cacti
@schrodinger’s cat:
Cole and his brain Greenwald are deeply concerned about the imaginary problem of an aerial Dr0ne! strike in Pennsylvania.
Stone silent about a land-based robot being used to blow up the shooting suspect in Dallas.
patroclus
Glenn doesn’t really have a point here. Extradition between the U.S. and Turkey is governed by a treaty and the rule of law should apply. If Turkey has actual evidence that Gulen has been droning Turkey, then they should use legal and diplomatic channels to make that evidence available to the U.S., which can then consider that in accordance with due process concerns. Until they make that evidence available, it’s just blather. At Cameron’s last PMQT, he made a lot about finally getting the U.S. to release a GITMO prisoner, which was accomplished by a multi-year effort to comply with evidentiary concerns and due process. Turkey, like the U.K., can make a similar effort and the evidence can be considered. Alternatively, Turkey can reach an executive agreement with the U.S. concerning mutual exchanges of detainees. Of course, Gulen isn’t even a detainee, so there would first have to be some sort of evidence that he should be.
If Canada or Mexico were bombing the U.S., then we’d be at war and we’d probably bomb them. I’m not sure if I see the parallel there. What Glenn seems to be concerned about is the U.S. bombing Yemen and Afghanistan (and other countries) – I really don’t see how that is all that relevant to Turkey, a NATO ally. Glenn should analyze the Turkey situation in its own context. To me, the failed coup there reminds me of the failed Indonesian coup in 1965, which led to mass killings by the militaristic Suharto regime. I think there is a greater risk of something like that happening than the opposite, which is Greenwald’s take. Glenn seems to be siding with Erdogan, not Gulen, which seems odd. Where is his concern for Gulen’s rights?
Greenwaldian arguments are usually, by definition, trolling. He’s got his hobbyhorse – “droning” in the absence of a formal declaration of war, but under an AUMF – and everything, howesoever remote, always seems to relate back to that. Some times, his arguments are quite relevant. Not so much here.
Amanda in the South Bay
@patroclus: shush you’re harshing JCs cynical Greenwald fluffing buzz.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Interesting side note: Gulen runs an organization (Gulen Movement Schools/Hizmet) devoted to pushing charter schools and religiously-oriented private schools. Took a couple of days to remember who this guy was.
Cacti
@patroclus:
Alleged progressive Greenwald has always had something of a soft spot for authoritarian leaders: George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin, and know Erdogan.
Adam L Silverman
@gene108: Kidon. Means spear tip. Its a Mossad hunter-killer team. One of its last major ops a few years back went very bad, very publicly. Of course Mossad has been living off its reputation from post Munich for decades now.
Burnspbesq
OT, and I’m notgoing to comment on the merits until I have time to read the opinion, but I’m willing to bet that Greenie had a big ol’ orgasm when he saw this
Betty Cracker
@Cacti: Not true — Greenwald was on the killer robot angle, albeit with a weapons of war spin.
SgrAstar
@burnspbesq: Gulen is a US citizen. I think there’s zero chance we’d extradict him. Unfolding events strongly suggest that the “coup” attempt wasn’t as simple as originally reported.
Anonymous At Work
The United States Supreme Court has ruled that these tactics are okay, including the use of bounty hunters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Alvarez-Machain
dedc79
Might makes right.
Marc
“Erdogan is demanding the U.S. extradite Gulen, citing prior extraditions by the Turkish government of terror suspects demanded by the U.S.: “Now we’re saying deliver this guy who’s on our terrorist list to us.”
There is an important clue here: the US *has* sent terrorism suspects back to Turkey when evidence has been provided that they are actually, you know, terrorists. Yemen doesn’t have a functioning government that has control over the places where their terrorists are based. The US isn’t extraditing Gulen because the request is politically based bullshit and they have no evidence at all that he is behind it.
So, other than the fact that there are working channels for Turkey to extradite people from the US, there aren’t for Yemen, and that Turkey has no evidence at all linking a political opponent to their crime, the two cases are exactly the same….
Gin & Tonic
Erdogan can get his new/old friend Vladimir Vladimirovich to send some people to prepare a cup of tea for Gulen.
Mnemosyne
@Bitter Scribe:
Also, the US and Turkey have had an extradition treaty since 1979. We do not have an extradition treaty with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya, or any other country where we’re using drones.
It would be a really, really big deal if a country we had an extradition treaty with decided to drone us, or if we decided to drone them rather than follow the established legal process. You would think an actual lawyer like Greenwald would know that.
Gin & Tonic
@SgrAstar:
No, he isn’t. He’s a permanent resident alien, but a Trukish citizen.
Matt McIrvin
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Yeah, a friend of mine was joking that if the accusations were true, it might be the first-ever coup d’état associated with the charter school movement.
Adam L Silverman
@aimai: Always better when delivered with an English accent!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNzHOqjMHwY
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
OT: Iowa and Colorado delegations have walked out. The RNC is having trouble even getting the rules adopted.
Corner Stone
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim: This is amazeballs.
Cacti
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim:
The RNC has an honest to FSM floor revolt on its hands.
Ian
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim:
Why you gotta report on a thing that makes me proud of the Colorado GOP???
MomSense
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim:
Lots of booing about a roll call vote and it looks like they were denied.
Corner Stone
The Cooch is furious!
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
Yeah, it was just those two. Now Gov Fallin of Oklahoma is blatherng about the platform. No mention of grouse or giving away public land yet.
Cat48
Erdogan blames this guy for everything that happens in Turkey and has for years. Kerry & Obama want solid proof he was involved, not Erdogan’s hallucinations. If he wants to stay in NATO, he won’t send any drones.
Iowa Old Lady
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim: Confusion to our enemies!
Douglas
@Adam L Silverman:
Which one? I remember way back the Mossad got into trouble because they were using fake passports from allied countries for cover for their activities (which I guess is a relatively common tactic for covert ops).
patroclus
@Mnemosyne: Indeed. And the existence of the established legal norm – treaties – is the key here. If Glenn wanted to make a serious point, he would posit whether Turkey would be justified in going after Gulen if he were hiding in Yemen, or across the border in Syria or in some other place where lawlessness prevails and there aren’t any treaties. But then, he would be dealing with “Turkish exceptionalism” rather than his hobbyhorse of “American exceptionalism.” And then, he couldn’t criticize American exceptionalism and he would have to deal with the issue itself – to what extent can countries act to target suspected terrorists in countries where lawlessness prevails and there are no treaties or established legal norms. That’s a difficult question and good arguments can be made on either side. But even then, it would be highly reliant upon the evidence involved and the extent of the lawlessness.
But here, there is a treaty and an alliance and established legal norms should prevail. Maybe Turkey will find some evidence in their interrogations of the coup-plotters. Maybe it’s all political b.s. The established legal norms will determine that. Greenwald should know this. I’m with Kerry here – let’s await the evidence, if any. Meanwhile, Greenwald can continue turning every single international issue into a criticism of American exceptionalism, Gulen’s rights be damned.
Major Major Major Major
@Bitter Scribe: they’re also not really “nations”.
Suffragete City elftx
@Mary G Instead of doing Bowie’s “Station to Station”..they should have done “5:15 Angels Have Gone”. Doubt they could have handled it though and I wonder what Earl Slick thinks of it.
Amir Khalid
@Major Major Major Major:
Eh? What do you mean by that?
dedc79
Hmmm, isn’t there this guy Snowden sitting in Russia right now? Haven’t we requested extradition and haven’t the Russians declined it? And we’ve done what about it, exactly?
It’s almost as if we have different approaches depending on the relationship with the other country and the country’s stability, comparative military strength, economic importance, etc… Would think that Greenwald, as familiar as he is with the Snowden situation, would recognize that this is all just a teeny bit more complicated.
Amir Khalid
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim:
Can you recommend a good live-blog to follow the convention on?
Adam L Silverman
@aimai: I think your identification of this as an evolution/extension of asymmetric power projection is correct. It is even more focused than that. Drone strikes are simply the next technological advance in over the horizon strike capability. This fits within the longstanding discussion of applications of force between domains – Air, Sea, and/or Land – to deal with specific types of threats.
I think the bigger question, related to your lawfare/international law/norms point and your quoting the Melian Dialogue, is what are the practical effects of allowing the most powerful member of your alliance to, for lack of a better term, police the planet? Turkey has ceded this to the US, as has the rest of NATO. Its not that they don’t participate, they do, but the US is in the driver seat. So what happens when Turkey, or another NATO or coalition partner, feels the need to take back some of this ceded authority for its own interests?
This is even a question for near peer competitors like China. China has allowed the US, because it is in China’s interest, to police the Ground and Sea Lines of Commerce and Communication (GLOCCs and SLOCCs) throughout the Asian-Pacific region. At first it was because China wasn’t powerful enough to challenge or to do so. Then it was because it was cheaper for China to unofficially pay for it by purchasing some of the foreign held US debt than to try to rapidly advance to do it itself. Now the question China has to ask is can it balance allowing the US to do this so it doesn’t have to make massive outlays in its own abilities to do so (basically perfecting its carriers and the ability to land and take off from them) at an accelerated rate against its desire to make claims, for energy and territorial claims purposes, to areas in the South China Sea?
And I’m not putting you on the spot here. I don’t have any good answers to these questions either. And, to be honest, I’m not sure anyone else does. And I’m quite worried that far too few people are even thinking about it.
bmoak
An Islamist cleric ordering a coup by the famously secular Turkish military? Erdogan might have more credibility if he hadn’t long ago turned Gulen into his own version of 1984’s Emmanuel Goldstein. Military chafing at attempts to Islamicize the government? It’s Gulen! Judges not ruling the way you want them to? It’s Gulen! Opposition pols making noise about seizing vastly expanded presidential powers? It’s Gulen! Prosecutors and investigators looking at corruption in Erdogan’s inner circle? It’s Gulen! Your children and dogs disobey you? It’s Gulen!
The U.S. has an extradition treaty with Turkey, but Erdogan would have present a pretty compelling case to have Gulen handed over. Especially since it seems like Erodogan is using the coup as a pretext to sweep any opposition out of government.
Cat48
Never Trump is acting up, they’re not voting Trump’s VP, seem to want someone else.
Origuy
@gene108:
Others have referenced Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London of polonium poisoning in 2006, presumably on Putin’s orders. Earlier, there was Georgi Markov, who was killed by Communist Bulgarian secret agents that fired a pellet containing ricin into his leg, again in London.
Quinerly
@Amir Khalid:
The Guardian is liveblogging the convention
Adam
@Mary G:
GE Smith, didn’t he used to be the leader of the house band on SNL in the 90’s? Fallen quite a bit.
Adam L Silverman
@Douglas: That was the one. All these folks from Britain and Ireland had their IDs stolen and then used in an attempt to kill someone in one of the Arab gulf states. The next things these poor folks in Britain and Ireland knew there were Interpol alerts out for them, their bank accounts were frozen, etc. And it all went public. Absolutely terrible tradecraft!
geg6
Well, I suppose that I would completely understand if Mexico or Canada sent drone strikes into the US if they are embroiled in a war with us or were asked by our government to help take out some terrorists threatening to take over the country or if they were a part of a UN action in the US, say when President Trump decides to round up all the undesirables and leaves them to die by the millions in the Mojave or something. Otherwise, I don’t see the comparison.
Chyron HR
Okay, go for it, guys. Swing down to Texas and grab W while you’re here.
sharl
Zeynep is still being cryptic, or to state it in a (probably) more accurate way, a cautious academic:
~
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: I have my doubts about the Chinese economy. I don’t think its all that. Their stock market, for example is not transparent at all. What we know is what the Chinese government tells us.
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@Adam:
And with Hall & Oates before that.
raven
@Adam: “In ’12, frmr SNL band leader GE Smith both toured w/ Roger Waters/’The Wall’ & played the RNC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._E._Smith#Career … #comfortablynumb”
aimai
@Adam L Silverman: Well, to stick to the Turkish example, I doubt very much that it would serve Erdogan’s goals to drone anyone, least of all Gulen. Obviously the demand for us to send him over is for Erdogan to be able to have a show trial, but for public appearance’s sake having him stay in the US as a convenient poster child for evil works as well, or better–there’s no requirement at all for any evidence if the suspect is never brought to trial. And Erdogan doesn’t need to drone him, or have him assassinated by, say, icepick or bomb, because Gulen really isn’t a threat and really isn’t capable of plotting against the Turkish state/erdogan’s rule.
Are we to believe that Gulen is a threat to the state as great as Khomeini was to the Shah? Or as big a threat to life and limb as Al Awaki or Bin Laden? So I presume that all the memo-rattlign that is going on right now is largely for show and neither Turkey nor NATO nor anyone else needs to rethink their cession of power to the US for now.
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
@Amir Khalid: No. I’m connected to c-span.
http://www.c-span.org
raven
@Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again): And he was married to Gilda.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Adam: Yes, married to Gilda Radner as well.
raven
In ’12, frmr SNL band leader GE Smith both toured w/ Roger Waters/’The Wall’ & played the RNC
Burnspbesq
@dedc79:
Greenie, if he is getting and following the advice of competent counsel, will stay far, far away from saying anything about Snowden that could come back to haunt him in a potential future prosecution for conspiring with, or aiding and abetting, Snowden.
Immanentize
@aimai: @Adam L Silverman:
This is and has been true for some time. I occasionally teach International Criminal Law (a how-to course!!) and the idea suggested above that the US is some great treaty-abiding, rule-of-law heaven is nonsense. When the Supreme Court decided the US vs Alvarez-Machain case in 1992 — it was quite clear that we believed that treaty regimens were nothing compared to the awesomeness of US exceptionalism. We then claimed the right to kidnap anyone from foreign soil we wished to prosecute regardless of extradition treaties. So even though Glenn is upping the ante with a drone strike scenario, why not just ask the very reasonable question — could Turkey send agents to the US to abduct Gulen and then smuggle him back to Turkey for a perfectly legal terrorism trial. The answer, from our constitutional perspective, is “absofuckinlutely.”
Jacel
@Mary G: “Station To Station” is on the surface a song about being thin and white. Bound to be popular with this audience.
sharl
OT, here’s a worthwhile candidate for one of Anne Laurie’s next political posts. This comes from the RNC shindig in Cleveland, compliments of British journalist Laurie Penny, on the Women Vote Trump “fringe event.” An account found both on twitter and a relatively short post at Medium.
Attendance was, shall we say, not a room-filler; the photo speaks volumes. But for me the best stuff was the total denial of reality on the part of the Trumpkin dead-enders in response to her tweeted photo, which Ms. Penny chronicled in her Medium post.
I hope Fox and other wingnut media enterprises hire some of these people as pollsters.
aimai
@Adam L Silverman: The first athenian representative is played by Stephen Moore, a rather fugitive actor who I recognized from his voice which was Marvin the Robot in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: They have a huge shadow economic sector that is going to take the whole shebang out eventually.
heckblazer
@catclub: There was already an outstanding arrest warrant for bin Laden for the USS Cole and embassy attacks.
Just One More Canuck
@Mary G: They should be playing “White Punks on Dope”
aimai
@sharl: Wow. Its a cliche to say that something is “Alice in Wonderland” meaning nuts but that little “medium” story brings the expression full circle and makes it live again!
Miss Bianca
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim: eh? How’s that? Walked out, why? Details, plz!
sharl
@aimai:
~
Haha, it really does!
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Adam: Fallen? Fallen, my ass. Try to book him for a session. At any price. You’ll be waiting, and unless you’ve got some hit power of your own to bring to the party, you’ll be waiting forever. He’s like Will Lee, the guy could work 24/7/365 if he wanted and he picks his gigs and names the price, not the other way around.
As a former working musician myself, you can’t get to a higher place than that. And he’s been in that position for almost 40 years now.
cokane
I’m not quite sure the equivalence is exact here. I dont support a widespread drone program overall as it seems to have worse costs than benefits. But the thing is, it’s not impossible that the US would extradite Gulen. And frankly, you can’t just extradite guys because a government says they want them. There needs to be some protections, even for foreigners who obtain legal residence here. Otherwise you have people like Venezuelan asylum refugees getting extradited. AFAIK, US drone strikes were against targets that were NEVER going to be captured, as they were in places without legitimate rule of law — Afghanistan, war torn Yemen, distant locales in Pakistan.
Douglas
@Adam L Silverman:
I see, thanks.
Adam L Silverman
@aimai: Is that the guy with the beard?
Adam L Silverman
@Douglas: I think its this one:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/an-eye-for-an-eye-the-anatomy-of-mossad-s-dubai-operation-a-739908.html
Miss Bianca
@Just One More Canuck:
“Young Gifted,and White” would also be a good choice, altho’ I think the Leisure Class would puke if they heard it at the RNC!
ruemara
@Cat48: wow, there’s details missing from the conclusions? How surprising.
Villago Delenda Est
You can be sure that if any country tried that sort of thing (drone strike on an enemy of their state) in the US, Teh Donald would probably have a coronary.
Douglas
@Adam L Silverman:
Yeah,I remember reading the original version ( http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-76397409.html ). Quite frankly, the use of stolen IDs was the least troubling part for me – they could’ve gotten him out of the country and put him in front of a court. Maybe I’m naive, but I still think that a constitutional democracy should only directly kill if there’s no other alternative.
Anyway, time to hit the sack.
Villago Delenda Est
@patroclus: That’s the way Glenn works. He needs to push the conclusion even if the details don’t support it. He’s fully in the bang your shoe on the table mode of persuasion.
I'll be Frank
@bmoak: I have been fascinated by the “Turkish Islamic Charter school billionaire in PA” for several years now started by the military trial of officers that included documents created on versions of Word that were newer than the documents themselves. That “secular military” thing is not nearly as true as it once was, particularly among the NCO’s (many of whom attended the aforementioned charter schools.) Given that our Air Force Academy has come under the control of religious extremists, how hard is it to imagine Turkey’s is any different?
PST
Not a good point, a cynical scrap of lawyerly sophistry. Drones aren’t a substitute for extradition from functioning states, even when those states deny our requests. We haven’t blown up Roman Polanski. Non-state actors have blurred the line between war and police work, opening the door to arguments like Greenwald’s, but some situations justify adopting the means of war, and drones are reasonable weapons for war-ish operations in zones where legal systems don’t operate. They make me queasy too. We have used them inappropriately on occasion and need to guard against doing so, but they are a better choice than sending live Americans. A legitimate question can be raised about ends in some cases. Would we be better off not interfering? Maybe, sometimes. But as a means of waging war drones offer advantages when we decide action is necessary. Talk of “we are at war” lends itself to demagoguery, but fighting ISIS on its own turf is far more like war than law enforcement. If we don’t use adequate means there to suppress such movements, allowing them to extend their reach, we may end up with a public that wants a Trump or a Gingrich to use the tools of war at home. Imagine what some of our countrymen would demand if we were to suffer a couple more 9/11s here.
liberal
@patroclus: That’s nonsense.
It’s pretty clear (IMHO) that a drone strike against a country is an act of war, regardless of what the target is. I.e., that’s what the norm is.
What’s going on is whether the country receiving the strike desires to construe it as such, or even if they would so desire whether they can afford to, from a strategic perspective.
When we conduct drone strikes on Afghanistan, there’s pretty much no sovereign state there anyway.
Pakistan, there’s nominally a sovereign state, but it’s deeply screwed up—a large fraction of the population in Pakistan gets pissed at the US and might even want to declare war against us, but elements of the state “side” with the US, or don’t care as long as we don’t go too far in pushing against their own strategic interests. But is a drone strike against someone in Pakistan who otherwise themselves not directly attacking the US, here and now, an act of war? Certainly.
Or take Syria. AFAICT, there are numerous countries that have committed acts of war against Syria: Turkey (by aiding insurgents, for example), the US, probably several Gulf states, Israel. Syria (meaning, the government) is barely hanging on as it is, and even if it wasn’t would be hard-pressed in a fight against e.g. Turkey. But that doesn’t mean those aren’t acts of war; rather, the Syrian government doesn’t have the luxury of declaring war on any of those actors.
Similarly, while I’m not certain, I think it’s very plausible that the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty (discounting laughable Israeli claims about it being a mistake) was an act of war, but the US decided not to construe it as such.
liberal
@PST:
LOL. If we had any sincere interest in fighting ISIS, we’d stop the charade we’re engaged in and side with Assad in the Syrian civil war (except perhaps as regards to any animosity he might harbor against the Kurds). We’d also assassinate all the KSA financiers of AQ, ISIS, etc.
But we don’t really care about all that, despite 9/11 having become part of the state religion here.
Amanda in the South Bay
@liberal: more plausibly Israeli incompetence. There’s no reason short of wacky conspiracy theories why Israel would deliberately attack the US, or that it’d lead to war. That’s like saying WW2 started when the Panay was sunk.
liberal
@Betty Cracker:
Actually, there is a simple solution. GTFO of the middle east.
liberal
@Amanda in the South Bay: Huh? It’s well understood why Israel would attack the Liberty: they didn’t want us gathering the intelligence.
As far as it leading to war, my point is simply that, assuming the Israelis were lying about it being a mistake, which I think they were, the attack on the Liberty could legitimately be construed as a casus belli.
If you want to argue that states pull this kind of shit all the time without going to war, that’s fine, and it’s largely true. But if we’re talking about what the actual norms are, then AFAICT attacking the attack on the Liberty could fairly be construed as an act of war, as could drone strikes on e.g. Pakistan.
That doesn’t mean, ipso facto, that the Israelis shouldn’t have attacked the Liberty, or that we shouldn’t drone certain targets in Pakistan. I’m simply saying that both of those acts can fairly be construed as acts of war.
liberal
@burnspbesq: The funny thing is you acting like some kind of expert on law and government, when you don’t even understand that the TPP doesn’t require a 2/3 vote of the Senate for approval.
NotoriousJRT
the question naturally arises whether Turkey would be entitled to abduct or kill someone it regards as a terrorist when the U.S. is harboring him and refuses to turn him over.
I suppose Turkey is entitled to try.
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Even more plausibly, a combination of Israeli and US screwups.
terben
@Chip Daniels: Or a random wedding party!
burnspbesq
@liberal:
Suck this, clown. i forget more law every day than you will ever know.
Raven on the Hill
So far, deploying armed drones requires the cooperation of the local government; Turkey isn’t likely to get that from the USA. But drones are just a means to an end. A foreign power has assassinated a political opponent on US soil: Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean ambassador to the USA. This was apparently done with the tacit approval of the then Secretary of State and the support of the CIA. Read all about it in Daily Kos.
It is hard to find the bottom of the Nixon administration’s awfulness.
As for more on drones, I did a short piece on them two years back.
Dmbeaster
Glen’s points is bogus. The true analogy would be that Gulen was holed up in the lawless tribal areas of Appalachia, and the US consented to Turkish drones to try to take him out. His bias is on full display.