On 05 Sep 2004 15:58:27 GMT, (BUFDRVR) wrote:

Not being extradited "on request" does not mean you were protected and
sheltered by the U.S. government,

I'd agree that none of this is directly equivalent, as the US
government does not control the American legal system. Nonetheless,
the history of US actions and attitudes towards terrorism changed
significantly after terrorism was perceived to be a threat to the US
and no longer "somebody else's problem". The same could be said,
historically, with equal validity for the British, who regarded the
issue refugee continental terrorists with a bizarre kind of
supercilious distain until political terrorism became a domestic
problem with the Fenian dynamite bombings.

Meanwhile, I think it's perfectly valid to bring up issues such as the
difference in treatment between convicted Irish republican terrorists
and suspected British islamic terrorists in US detention.

Well, lets see, there was a convicted U.S. murder living in France. He worked
the French legal system and managed to avoid extradition for nearly 20 years.
Like the H Block 4, he spent most of that time in French judicial custody, but
the only outspoken critic was the American family of his victim and no one
accused France of harboring a murderer.

That depends on the actions the French government might take to
expedite, facilitate, obstruct or ignore US government efforts to
extradite the criminal in question. I'd certainly have no objection
to any American raising his case when examining the issue of French
efforts in "the War Against Terrorism". Even if I didn't think there
was a completely proportional or symmetrical equivalence, I wouldn't
be dismissing such concerns as "ridiculous".

Gavin Bailey
--

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