AMERICA has told Britain that it can "kidnap" British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.
A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.
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Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the "extraordinary rendition" of terrorist suspects.
The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington.
Legal experts confirmed this weekend that America viewed extradition as just one way of getting foreign suspects back to face trial. Rendition, or kidnapping, dates back to 19th-century bounty hunting and Washington believes it is still legitimate.
The US government's view emerged during a hearing involving Stanley Tollman, a former director of Chelsea football club and a friend of Baroness Thatcher, and his wife Beatrice.
If anything this case proves without a doubt that George Bush's cowboy diplomacy days are not yet over. With a highly improbable, yet still technically possible Mideast peace accord being negotiated in Annapolis, the last thing our nation needs is to thumb our collective noses at the rest of the world and continue our illegal rendition activities. To advocate such an argument now, after all the bad press Bush's idiotic foreign policy has gained us, is just another in a tragic string of blunders administrations for the next decade will struggle to undo.
