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Would Turkey Be Justified in Kidnapping or Drone-Killing the Turkish Cleric in Pennsylvania?

 
 
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 10:16 am
Would Turkey Be Justified in Kidnapping or Drone-Killing the Turkish Cleric in Pennsylvania?
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.

The only viable objection to Turkey’s assertion of this authority would be to claim that the U.S. limits its operations to places where lawlessness prevails, something that is not true of Pennsylvania. But this is an inaccurate description of the U.S.’s asserted entitlement. In fact, after 9/11, the U.S. threatened Afghanistan with bombing and invasion unless the Taliban government immediately turned over Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban’s answer was strikingly similar to what the U.S. just told Turkey about Gulen:

https://theintercept.com/2016/07/18/would-turkey-be-justified-in-kidnapping-or-drone-killing-the-turkish-cleric-in-pennsylvania/
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Type: Discussion • Score: 5 • Views: 2,570 • Replies: 24

 
Sturgis
 
  3  
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 10:24 am
The answer, the only answer, is no.
0 Replies
 
ehBeth
 
  2  
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 10:34 am
@bobsal u1553115,
Superb question.

Given how the US treats people in other countries, I'd say it's fair game.
RABEL222
 
  4  
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 02:56 pm
We still dont know if the elected dictator instigated this whole thing to eleminate his opponents. I read he already had a list of people to arrest before the coup was over.
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  2  
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 03:01 pm
@ehBeth,
An eye for an eye just leaves both people blind. Personally I don't believe in spite-based morality. If I disapprove of the US's drone justice, why would I applaud another country engaging in the same? You see it as "fair game"; I see it as a bad example spreading.

When the article says:

Quote:
The only viable objection to Turkey’s assertion of this authority would be ..


I feel like I'm missing something. The author objects to the US asserting this authority too, doesn't he? So why would the same objection he makes to the US doing so not simply also apply to Turkey doing so, and be enough of an objection?
ossobucotemp
 
  2  
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 03:13 pm
@nimh,
I'm borderline anti drone and have been since I knew about them, whenever that was. I suppose they are better than nuclear blasts, but day to day, I generally don't like them. Oh, look, look, look, a drone over my city...

I can see pinpointed attacks, should I agree with an attack in the first place, but I don't completely trust them either.

On drones delivering books to my door, I think this is enlarged stupidity stage 4.
bobsal u1553115
 
  3  
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 03:21 pm
@nimh,
Why do we get to poke someones eye and then get put up our hands?

Try and get a native born American extradited to another country from the US. Its rare.

Why couldn't Canada or Mexico "render" American citizens from US soil and drop them off in each other's or even North Korean hands?
bobsal u1553115
 
  3  
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 03:24 pm
@ossobucotemp,
I'm 100% against droning by anyone anytime.

We live in a nation of a gazillion drones in the hands of anybody with a couple of hundred bucks.

Seriously, drones are a major threat to nations and individuals.
ossobucotemp
 
  2  
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 03:33 pm
@bobsal u1553115,
agreed, and I'm not usually a paranoid type.

I have read that they are useful in the event of forest fires, which happen in my home state, Ca; I think I am for all that. Not sure, don't know enough.
edgarblythe
 
  3  
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 03:35 pm
This sort of question is usually resolved by power, rather than ethics. If they could get away with it, likely they would try.
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  3  
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 03:39 pm
@ossobucotemp,
Its not that they're bad, its the jerk flying it with an I-phone trying to get a topless shot of someone's wife or daughter poolside.

And whats not to make it worse. There's been hundreds of reports of drones near power plants and jet liners.
ossobucotemp
 
  1  
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 06:35 pm
@bobsal u1553115,
Listening- I have no idea.

I finally do not get how places work now. Am wary.
0 Replies
 
ehBeth
 
  2  
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 08:02 pm
@bobsal u1553115,
Canadian citizens have already been rendered by the US and dropped off in all sorts of hideous spots. I lost my sympathy for the US when I heard about the fourth or fifth example.
oralloy
 
  -2  
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 09:03 pm
@bobsal u1553115,
Quote:
former chief prosecutor of Guantánamo’s military commissions who resigned in protest

That says it all. Only a liberal would see equivalence between "a democracy conducting wartime strikes against military targets" and "a ruthless dictator conducting strikes against people who disagree with him".
cicerone imposter
 
  2  
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 09:06 pm
@bobsal u1553115,
One of these days, there's going to be a drone at the wrong place at the wrong time, and bring down a plane near an airport.
ossobucotemp
 
  2  
Reply Mon 18 Jul, 2016 09:22 pm
@ossobucotemp,
replying to self - I tend not to agree with attacks, this just to clarify my earlier post.
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  2  
Reply Tue 19 Jul, 2016 02:41 am
@bobsal u1553115,
bobsal u1553115 wrote:

Why couldn't Canada or Mexico "render" American citizens from US soil and drop them off in each other's or even North Korean hands?

I thought the question wasn't why they could(n't), but why they should(n't). Answer to that seems pretty simple to me. If we disapprove when the US does it, why should we be OK with others doing it? "Because turnabour's only fair". Yay, so now both sides get to do evil things. Such fairness!

Logic reminds me of what you'd get from apologists in the Cold War. You'd criticize Soviet repression, fellow travellers would say "but look at what America is doing in X". You'd criticize US involvement in coups, anti-communists would say, "but look at what the Soviets would do". How convenient.
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  2  
Reply Tue 19 Jul, 2016 02:44 am
@ossobucotemp,
Drones have myriad uses in all kinds of fields, quite a few of them good. But this thread is about "drone-killing".
nimh
 
  3  
Reply Tue 19 Jul, 2016 02:50 am
@oralloy,
Not to defend Erdogan and his authoritarian rule in any way, but your dichotomy between the US as democracy and Turkey as ruthless dictatorship is complicated somewhat by the fact that Erdogan was democratically elected. Not once but a series of time, against a field of (mostly) freely operating opposition parties. His rule veers a lot more towards the dictatorial than, say, Orban's in Hungary (which is bad enough), but at the same time it isn't (so far) anywhere as far down the road as Putin's Russia.
oralloy
 
  -2  
Reply Tue 19 Jul, 2016 06:10 am
@nimh,
I don't see any difference with Putin's Russia. People who disagree with Erdogan get put in prison on false charges or murdered. The main opposition guy (the Turkish cleric that this thread is about) has to live in the US, because if he were in Turkey he would be murdered. As such, I don't consider internal Turkish opposition to be free at all.
0 Replies
 
 

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