[pyre]

  > Considering that it's considered okay to fly
  > across the world to and assault someone's house
  > in an armed chopper because they may have been
  > accessory to copyright infringement.

Kim Dotcom was arrested by NZ authorities at the request of the US government so far as I understand it. Do you have something to point to US government agents flying an assault helicopter to NZ to participate in the arrest of Kim Dotcom?

[lsh]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMas0tWc0sg

[pyre]

"FBI members were present" at an operation undertaken by NZ officials, using NZ-owned equipment. I'm failing to see where the US performed a tactical strike on Kim Dotcom.

The parent post to mine implies that the arrest of Kim Dotcom was akin to the assassination of Osama bin Laden (i.e. the US flew a US-owned helicopter manned by US Navy Seals into a foreign country to assault the compound of a foreign national).

[moe]

So when the US hires someone to do grunt work for them then it's not an US operation anymore?

[pyre]

If the US says "please arrest this man, and send him to us" and the New Zealand government says, "sure we'll do that." How does the arrest of the person by the NZ government become a "US operation?"

Are you claiming that the US led the assault and had full operational command? Are you claiming that the US made the decision for the NZ government? Are you claiming that money changed hands somewhere?

Do you have proof of anything beyond, "This is a shocking turn of events, and I don't like it?"

Here are a number of other posibilities:

1. The NZ authorities don't have a lot of experience with assaulting a multi-million dollar compound to make an arrest.

2. The NZ authorities saw this as an excuse to perform a paramilitary operation.

3. The NZ authorities saw this as an excuse to justify the budget for their 'toys.'

4. The NZ government did this favor expecting to be able to ask the US for a favor later.

...etc...

[moe]

Paramilitary operations imply quite a bit of paperwork. That doesn't just happen at a whim. Especially not on a multi-million dollar compound at the risk of legal backlash.

If NZ wanted an excuse to walk their toys then there's never a shortage of drug dealers and other obvious targets with better publicity.

Why would they go ballistic over bagging an overweight computer-fraudster?

There is no plausible explanation other than somebody demanding special effects.

[pyre]

Who cares if someone is demanding special effects? They had the option to say no, and run the arrest in a normal way. The US making demands/requests was probably a convenient excuse for them, IMO.

[greyboy]

They could have said 'no.'

[yardie]

Native english speaker here:

1. The FBI flew across the world to NZ. 2. They performed an assault on the Dotcom house with an armed chopper.

Not saying that you are wrong, but the posters sentence was textually correct.

[pyre]

  > 1. The FBI flew across the world to NZ. 2. They
  > performed an assault on the Dotcom house with an
  > armed chopper.

I find these statements disingenuous though. This makes it sound like the FBI led an FBI assault on the Dotcom property using FBI property. The reality is:

1. The FBI (+ other US government offices) convinced the NZ government to arrest Kim Dotcom.

2. It's unclear if the decision to make this arrest so over-the-top was made independently by the NZ officials or influenced by the US.

3. The FBI were there at the assault, but everything that I've read states that the assault team were NZ authorities. The reality is that the FBI were probably there as observers (seeing as this arrest was being made to extradite Kim Dotcom to the US).

It amounts to "Hey, can you arrest this guy for us and can we be there to watch the arrest?"

This may or may not be excusable depending on your persuasion, but attempting to say that the "US assaulted Kim Dotcom with an armed helicopter" is horribly misleading. It draws up images of some US cowboy operation where a bunch of FBI agents piled into an assault chopper, flew to NZ, and just started attacking the Dotcom compound out of nowhere (possibly unloading heavy machine guns and missiles on the compound... it is an 'assault helicopter' after all).