@Mad Mike
>>"It is amazing how you are willing to defend organisations that have acted illegally so many times before."
I'm not saying that they're *right* in this case, or defending them as an organisation in general.
I am saying that concluding that the FBI *are* wrong or even *probably wrong* in this case because of some past wrong activity would be deeply retarded if someone is focussing on a cherry-picked fraction of their past activity and ignoring the rest.
FFS, the UK police break the law on occasion, some of which we hear about, and a dela of which we likely don't, but if someone claims that that means they must be or probably are breaking the law on some specific occasion when they're doing something the person doesn't approve of, that person would be being an idiot.
All it would mean is that they can't *automatically* be trusted, something which people who have grown up past black/white with-us-or-against-us reasoning would already know.
>>"So, now we've established that the FBI cares nothing of the law (except when it suits them),..."
You haven't established that at all, though given your apparent limited grasp of logic, and the way you seem to mix it with hyperbole, I can see why you might *think* you have.
What you've established is that at some points in time, some people in the FBI ignored some laws, and you're trying to conclude that that means that it as a body, (and/or the people within it as individuals) don't feel obliged to obey the law in general, except where obeying it is no real inconvenience.
I think you're conveniently forgetting what organisations *really* look like when they pay no real regard to the law.
For a start, they seem to generally end up with a death rate among people who don't agree with them rather higher than the FBI seems to achieve.
>>"I can pretty much guess your next attempt to justify Americas laughable action will be to claim the communist witchhunts were years ago and everything is different now etc.etc. "
Then you guess wrong.
McCarthyism was a shameful episode in history for a country which likes to claim 'freedom' as a founding principle, just as the various interventions in South America were the height of hypocrisy for a country claiming to be a bastion of democracy.
But just as it's not at all obvious what those behaviours would have had to do with an extradition case at the time they were happening if that case wasn't meaningfully related to Communist or similar politics, it's not immediately obvious what they, or any of the other things mentioned (or not yet mentioned) necessarily have to do with the merits of a specific current extradition case, where the legal arguments will be put forward in court, and people will have the opportunity to see if they agree with the eventual decision or not,having learned more than they probably currently know about the relevant laws
Though it seems highly likely that many people would be likely to agree or disagree not really based on any legal case, but on what they wish the law was in one or both countries, rather than what the law actually is.
If faced with 20 US extradition requests they personally didn't want to happen, if 10 were approved and 10 refused, there are *some* people who would conclude that the 10 refusals were down to a country having a 'brave independent legal system', and the 10 approvals down to 'corruption or undue influence'.
That'd basically be the arrogance of the conspiracy nut - "I'm such a bleeding genius and so obviously in the Right that anyone who disagrees with me must be being *paid* to disagree with me!"
>>"Whether a company is paying them to do it directly or through politicians is irrelevant. Many politicians and companies have made a fortune out of the Iraq and Afghan wars...."
So, you're backtracking on your previous claims about 'political masters being paid' to order things like the kidnapping of [rightly or wrongly suspected] terrorism suspects, or torture, and trying to change it to a far weaker (and blindingly obvious) argument about companies making money out of the Iraq war, while not having the decency to admit your previous claim was one you couldn't really defend as it was?
>>"If you really believe they aren't making money out of everything politicians do, the same applies."
So who's making money out of the CIA waterboarding innocent (*or* guilty) people?
A conspiracy of bucket and towel manufacturers?
Please don't try the pathetic tactic of making a stupid point, and then trying to pretend while failing to defend it that I claimed something I never claimed.
I never even came close to suggesting that companies don't make money as a result of *some* political decisions, or that they don't try to influence decisions.
I merely asked who would pay for the decisions in the cases which you chose and suggested (rendition, torture, etc).
The fact that *you* chose a crap set of examples is your problem, not mine.
>>"This action is a great over reaction to a problem they will never defeat (which makes it pointless, whether morally right or wrong) "
So you think it would *necessarily* be pointless to do something even if it was morally justified, if it was thought unlikely to make a great practical difference?
>>"Why don't we simply enact a law in this country making it illegal to have ginger hair. Pop over to America, find a ginger and try to extradite them. Any luck? Thought not. I'm sure Iran has laws against people defaming Mohammed and Islam. I'm sure they could find plenty of people in America (and elsewhere) to extradite. "
So by that attempt at making an analogy, you're making the assumption that in this case:
a) there's no NZ law equivalent to the US ones which are alleged to have been broken
and
b) none of the alleged offences took place meaningfully in the USA despite that being where a lot of the business mentioned in the indictment actually happened?
Or are you just no chuffing good at making up relevant analogies?
>>"Americans (and I assume you are one) need to grow up."
Then you guess wrong (again), and I guess you probably haven't meaningfully read much of what I have written.