[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.'