[mike777]

I just keep wondering why put on trial any or most of these guys....



War is not a crime. Killing or blowing up stuff is not a crime in a war.

[hotShot]

Calling it "war on terrorism" was a very bad choice of words.

War is "A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states." In a civil war it can be between parties.
Ideally only facilities and infrastructure used for military purposes and personal are targets, harming civilians should be avoided.

The only reason terrorists are not treated like common criminals is because the claim to have altruistic and honorable motives. If for example the French resistance sabotages military infrastructure during the German occupation, that is clearly the case.

I find it unacceptable, that terrorism should be necessary in democratic constitutional states like Great Britain (IRA), Spain (ETA) or Germany(RAF).

I suspect that a lot of dishonest motives (an urge for power or money, a cruel streak) hide behind the "terrorist" label.

[Mbodell]

hotShot, on Jan 9 2010, 01:50 AM, said:

Calling it "war on terrorism" was a very bad choice of words.

Depends on what you want with your terms. If you want to scare people to distract them from other issues (like economic devastation and rabid cronyism) then a war is a great metaphor. "We've always been at war with Eastasia". And if you think of terrorism as a war then you probably naturally think in terms of killing your enemy. And while that may be part of the way you'd deal with terrorism, it clearly isn't the only thing that one needs to do.

If you want to actually describe it with a metaphor that is probably more appropriate to dealing with the issue, a disease metaphor might be appropriate. Terrorism is like an infection or scourge that we are not immune from. But in addition to treating the infected area, we'd need to concentrate on making sure the disease doesn't spread.

[Hanoi5]

Isn't there a 'war on drugs' also?

[Al_U_Card]

The presence of an enemy (real or imagined) means you must conform, sacrifice and be vigilant (spy on your neighbors) to ensure your "security" and eventually defeat the threat to your existence.

This has been used from the beginning to stifle debate and dissent as well as to consolidate control over available resources.

Individual rights and liberties are the only way to ensure that you can decide whether or not you want to go along with someone else's ideals and demands. When you are no longer free, individually, you have lost everything.

[luke warm]

mike777, on Jan 9 2010, 02:10 AM, said:

I just keep wondering why put on trial any or most of these guys....

War is not a crime. Killing or blowing up stuff is not a crime in a war.

i agree... the only problem i have here is in where to pursue such a war against this type of nebulous opponent

Al_U_Card, on Jan 9 2010, 08:18 AM, said:

Individual rights and liberties are the only way to ensure that you can decide whether or not you want to go along with someone else's ideals and demands. When you are no longer free, individually, you have lost everything.

well stated

[hotShot]

Hanoi5, on Jan 9 2010, 01:06 PM, said:

Isn't there a 'war on drugs' also?

Maybe, but that is different.

The dug "business", don't say they are on a holy war against the USA.

The term "war on terrorism" can be abused the to support the propaganda that the USA are in fact on a crusade against the Muslims and to gain new fighter for their holy war. It also suggests that the mighty USA are accepting the tiny al-Qaida on equal terms as serious threat.

Choosing a campaign name you should pick one, that does not help your opponents more than yourself.

[Aberlour10]

who will judge, is the attack on CIA station in Afghanistan an act of terror or act of resistance?

Here in Germany already 3 goverments have hard deliberated since 2002: to use the word "war" for what the german troops doing in Afghanistan or not. After 8 years they are going to use it for the very first time.

Robert

[kenberg]

First, a side note of my own: A woman wrote in to the Post suggesting that instead of investing in nody scanners we could all just lie down on conveyor belt for the luggage as it goes through the x-ray machine. She points out that she could get her mammogram done at the same time that way.

A little humor is badly needed.


Anyway, back to the topic. Terrorist activity does not resemble standard war, and we have to think through what it is. Despite our romanticizing of minutemen during our own revolution, most battles were between armies in uniform. Our experience with this "asymmetric warfare" is limited, although we do seem to be getting a crash course, no pun intended. A terrorist is not like your basic criminal either. Your basic criminal hopes to not go to jail, and this can at least sometimes be used as a deterrent. Suicide bombers intend to die. Yes it is true that in war a soldier might go on a mission with very little chance that he will return alive. But this happens rarely, only when necessary. Soldiers expect and intend to come back alive.

Timothy McVeigh, a home-grown terrorist, expected to get away. Bombers of abortion clinics expect to get away. These guys that blow up planes do not expect to get away, and this makes them a good deal more difficult to thwart.

We have not been all that successful in controlling crime, even with standard criminals, although the homicide rate locally has dropped significantly lately. Standard criminal prosecution may not be our best route.

What I make of all this: Terrorists are neither standard soldiers nor standard criminals, they are terrorists, and we need an approach that recognizes this. If I had the answer I would call Obama and tell him, but I think recognizing the distinction is a good start.

[hotShot]

So you would call those amok runs, terrorism, because usually they kill themselves in the end. Seems to me they don't expect to get away.

"A flight passenger on his way to Denver tried to commit suicide, if he had succeeded he would have caused the dead of 300 other passengers. What caused his desperation is yet unknown. Rumors say he was misguided by fundamentalist."

I think that kind of reporting would make being a suicide bomber much less attractive than:

"Terrorist scared Amerika, now billions of passengers are searched, expensive equipment is installed, freedom and privacy are restricted to prevent another act of terrorism."

[Winstonm]

The great threat of a Muslim world caliphate is being led by a bunch of skinny guys in smoking skivvies?.

Maybe instead of using x-rays at airports we could simply hose down the crotch of each boarding passenger?

[Al_U_Card]

The US's greatest strength is it's claim to liberty. As it loses that enshrined doctrine, and replaces it with restrictions and caveats, it loses it's greatest power.

Ingenuity and endeavor are the foundations upon which creativity becomes successful. When you must conform and kowtow to fear and anxiety, you can no longer embark on the adventure of exploration. You must stay safely behind locked doors and high fences.

The melting pot is quickly becoming a sticky mess.

[kenberg]

hotShot, on Jan 9 2010, 09:13 AM, said:

So you would call those amok runs, terrorism, because usually they kill themselves in the end. Seems to me they don't expect to get away.

Not always, no. The guy at Virginia Tech was, as far as I know, a psycho.

At times, we do put such a person in a category that is different from the common criminal. We mark him down as nuts rather than criminal, and we handle the case differently.

Terrorists are not necessarily nuts, although they could be. But they are different from standard criminals.

All I am claiming is that neither criminal law nor standard military classifications make a very good fit with terrorists. Most military rules were set up to deal with standard warfare, most criminal codes were set up to deal with miscreants who would be concerned about punishment. Involuntary commitment to psych wards is, obviously, designed for the mentally ill.

We cannot entirely keep violence from happening. There are thugs, there are psychos, there are terrorists. And there are random acts of violence when decent people lose their heads. We do what we reasonably can. Saying that terrorists are a different breed from other threats is simply acknowledging the obvious, it seems to me. Given this difference, perhaps the response should be different.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on Jan 9 2010, 10:53 AM, said:

hotShot, on Jan 9 2010, 09:13 AM, said:

So you would call those amok runs, terrorism, because usually they kill themselves in the end. Seems to me they don't expect to get away.

Not always, no. The guy at Virginia Tech was, as far as I know, a psycho.

At times, we do put such a person in a category that is different from the common criminal. We mark him down as nuts rather than criminal, and we handle the case differently.

Terrorists are not necessarily nuts, although they could be. But they are different from standard criminals.

All I am claiming is that neither criminal law nor standard military classifications make a very good fit with terrorists. Most military rules were set up to deal with standard warfare, most criminal codes were set up to deal with miscreants who would be concerned about punishment. Involuntary commitment to psych wards is, obviously, designed for the mentally ill.

We cannot entirely keep violence from happening. There are thugs, there are psychos, there are terrorists. And there are random acts of violence when decent people lose their heads. We do what we reasonably can. Saying that terrorists are a different breed from other threats is simply acknowledging the obvious, it seems to me. Given this difference, perhaps the response should be different.

I would argue that only those who try to get away with their crime are terrorists. Terrorism is a tactic used to achieve a political end. A suicide bomber is therefore not a terrorist but the weapon of terror. He or she is an inexpensive weapon (compared to planes, tanks, missiles, and drones) that can cause a great deal of physical and emotional toil not only to direct victims but to the social structure of the targeted victim. And unlike many weapons, the terrorist weapon can be selective in its targets.

For example, the Jordanian bomber chose to explode his bomb not in the midst of innocent civilians but in the midst of CIA officers. Did that become an act of war instead of terror because the targeted victims were CIA rather than civilians? Or was it still terrorism because of the choice of weapon used?

We try to make this argument way too simple by labeling with the word terror. We have to engage those who use this tactic against us - either by eliminating them totally or negotiating a truce.

The question we need to grasp is why does the enemy fight us - and we need to understand the real reasons he does in order to determine if our interests are valid enough to justify the conflict. One thing is definite, though: they aren't fighting us because they hate our freedom.

They mainly hate our foreign policy.

[hotShot]

If there is a war going on, than the terrorists are heros, and should be treated like prisoners of war.

If the terrorists are criminals they should be treated like criminals. Which includes investigations, a lawyer and a fair trial.

It's unacceptable for a constitutional state that terrorists should have no legal status or rights. Not only because it's wrong, but also because these terrorists fight for a kind of state that is not up to our standards f.e. separation of state an church, human rights, free speech ...

Our response to a threat from them should not be that we lower our standards, reintroduce torture, ignore "habeas corpus" ....
because if we do, we make the terrorists successful.

[Al_U_Card]

This is precisely the issue. You fight (a war) to protect your rights and freedoms, not to have them sequestered and meted out according to someone's idea of what is "required".

Foreign policy? More like interventionist genocide.

The greed to acquire should be limited to rights and freedoms, the rest is only important to those that would remove yours.

[Winstonm]

Glenn Greenwald once again has been way ahead on this:

Quote

...we have come to believe that any forms of violence we perpetrate on them over there is justifiable and natural, but the Laws of Humanity are instantly breached in the most egregious ways whenever they bring violence back to the U.S., aimed at Americans.  It's just impossible to listen to discussions grounded in this warped mentality without being astounded at how irrational it is.  What do Americans think is going to happen if we continue to engage in this conduct, in this always-widening "war"?

The principal problem is that by pretending that we do nothing to fuel Islamic radicalism, we stay unaware -- blissfully ignorant -- of the staggering costs of our actions.

The American Conservative:

Quote

When former CIA terror expert Michael Scheuer was asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” this week whether U.S. efforts had succeeded in diminishing the terrorist threat, he said bluntly “I think it’s stronger than it was before 9/11, certainly because the support and opposition across the Muslim world to American foreign policy is far greater today than it was on 9/11.”

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on Jan 9 2010, 12:24 PM, said:

A suicide bomber is therefore not a terrorist but the weapon of terror.

This will certainly make things easier. When we capture weapons we may dispose of them as we choose.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on Jan 10 2010, 10:33 AM, said:

Winstonm, on Jan 9 2010, 12:24 PM, said:

A suicide bomber is therefore not a terrorist but the weapon of terror.

This will certainly make things easier. When we capture weapons we may dispose of them as we choose.

You will have to remind me - how many kamikaze suicide planes did we capture from the Japanese after they were in the air?

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on Jan 10 2010, 10:48 AM, said:

kenberg, on Jan 10 2010, 10:33 AM, said:

Winstonm, on Jan 9 2010, 12:24 PM, said:

A suicide bomber is therefore not a terrorist but the weapon of terror.

This will certainly make things easier. When we capture weapons we may dispose of them as we choose.

You will have to remind me - how many kamikaze suicide planes did we capture from the Japanese after they were in the air?

We did just capture a person (or a weapon if you prefer to cal him that) intending to blow up a plane, I think.

At any rate, redefining a person to be a weapon for the purpose of an argument doesn't appeal to me. He is a person, an adversary, we have him. The OP asked what we should do with him. Expanding, how should we deal with captured adversaries in the future? This will be going on for a while no doubt, so it will come up again. We have various approaches with various adversaries

Organized crime: RICO
Young offenders: Juvenile detention
Thugs: Prison, parole etc
Nut jobs: Commitment
CEOs: Give them money
Soldiers in uniform: POW
Combatants on our soil, not in uniform: Not POW. We get to shoot them, I think.

etc etc

Different challenges may require different responses. I don't see this observation as controversial. What the response should be, yes, that can be controversial. But I see no clear reason for treating them exactly as if they were your basic thug who just wants to take your money.