Hypocrisy!

The past weeks have revealed the extent of the hypocrisy of the United States of America!

The extradition of both a 65-year-old retired businessman, and a 23-year-old computer science student, to the other side of "the pond", was in order that they be tried for alleged crimes in the country against which said crimes are alleged to have been committed.  Both Mr Christopher Tappin, and Richard O'Dwyer are accused of having committed offences that did not involve their direct taking of any human life (although, in Mr Tappin's case, he is alleged to have tried to buy five industrial batteries, which he claims he thought were for use in the car industry, but that were actually a key component of the US Army's Hawk Air Defence Missile, which were being sought by Iran).

Earlier this week, a soldier of the United States of America, deployed in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, went on what appears to have been a drunken rampage in which sixteen civilians - including women and children - were murdered, in cold blood.   As he was already in Afghanistan, all that the United States of America had to do was turn him over to the local Afghan officials.  That, after all, would have been the end result of any extradition (I confess to not knowing if any formal extradition treaty between the USA and Afghanistan actually exists!).  It is certainly what the Afghanistan authorities are reported as having wanted.

So, what to the USA authourities do?  They transport him out of the country, back to Kansas, via Kuwait.  He will, it is assured, be properly tried there, in his home country, under that country's legal and penal codes.

I have no doubt that he will.  Indeed, it has already been suggested that, if found guilty (and, as he has already confessed, there would appear to be little doubt about that!), he would face the death penalty.  But if only an American trial is good enough for an American citizen, one wonders why a British trial is not considered, by the Americans, as being good enough for a subject of H.M. the Queen!

And some Americans wonder why they are not universally loved and respected!!!!