I Have a Few Candidates I’d Like to Recommend

The British are up in arms. According to yesterday’s London Times, Alun Jones, an American government lawyer, told a London Court of Appeal in a hearing last month that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the U.S. Supreme Court has sanctioned it. Jones told the court of appeal that it was acceptable for the Americans to kidnap people anywhere in the world if they were wanted for offenses in the United States. He explains in impeccable American logic: “If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him back there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse–it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860’s.”

More than bounty hunting in the 1860’s, this smells like the creative application of the the more-recent American policy of “extraordinary renditioning,” which we naively thought was reserved for terrorists. In any case, very well, Mr. Jones, if you say so. So Britons would be well advised to walk around carrying bags with a toothbrush, clean socks, and a change of knickers, just in case.

Be aware, however, that the Americans’ pretension to arrogate to themselves the right to kidnap people from Britain (and anywhere else) has its down side. Logically, the British enjoy the reciprocal right to snatch American criminals and put them on trial in Britain. If they decide to implement that right, I have a few candidates I’d like to recommend.