09-17-06 Reader Comments:

Mike-
In response to your comments on the Chapman situation yesterday, I have mixed feelings about this; on the one hand, Mexico certainly drags her feet when it comes to honoring our requests; on the other hand, the guy IS wanted for a crime (yes, it's a crime for Dog to have kidnapped someone for return to the US--he isn't a law enforcement agent in the US and do we want bounty hunters to do the same thing in the US). Other countries use our adherence to the law against us without honoring laws themselves, and it's not fair, but DO WE WANT TO PLAY THEIR GAME AND LET OUR IDEALS GO? Hard call. -SZ

Mike's Response:

As far as the law goes... It used to be against the law to work overseas as a mercenary. No one pays any attention to that law now that we are engaged in a global war on terror and very short-handed. Interesting. What if I decided to go to Pakistan and capture Bin Laden and managed to turn him over to US Authorities for the reward? Would our country turn me over to Pakistan after they had Bin Laden in custody? They would have an American revolution on their hands if our government pulled something like that. This situation is not much different. Our government gladly took custody of Luster from Chapman and the apprehension was not considered to be a violation of his rights because of the way it happened. I once turned down a contract to travel to a foreign country to capture a US Army deserter in Peru and return him to the US. (not enough money for the risk involved) Laws are bent all the time in our society, despite what the average citizen would like to believe. Part of our response to this problem may be to change our laws and we can start with this one. Bounty hunters legally perform valuable services for law enforcement and the courts all over America and there is no logical reason why we should not at least look the other way if they want to risk their lives overseas to capture American criminals. We CAN choose to look the other way on this Chapman incident for the time being.

Of course I agree that America stands for higher standards than other countries. Laws are written (and often altered or discarded) to preserve those high standards. But when we discover the law is compelling us to do something inappropriate or wrong we need to fix the problem instead of walking blindly down the dark alley of self-mutilation toward our own destruction.

As far as us "playing their game", we are caught in yet another conundrum here. You are right, this is a hard call. However, the game they are playing is the same old game they have been playing for years... using our law against us. When are we going to wake up and stop playing into their hands?

It may be time for us to provide Mexico with a list of violations that THEY have committed against US and tell them we will start playing fair again once the list is in balance. They could start by handing over that doctor who tortured our DEA agent to death (several times) for a solid week.