Andre Writes:

"The US Congress never properly declared war on Al Queda, the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Hamas, the PLO, the Wahabbis, and the jihadis generally. They should have -- along with the very important public debate thereof -- but they didn't." 

I don't think the US can declare war on a terrorist group, like Hezbolla.  A nation can only declare war on other nations.  If a country cannot or will not control terrorist activities within their own borders, then it is appropriate for us to go to war with them.  Waging war on Al Queda as such is impossible.  If Al Queda is conducting millitary operations uninhibited out of a country, then in a sense they are the de facto  millitary of that country.  The idea that we must restrict the war to individual terrorists and terrorist organizations cripples our ability to defend ourselves.  I believe that a terrorist organization can only exist with the express (or implicit) sanction of the nation in which it operates.  If terrorists were using the US as a staging point for attacks on other countries and we did nothing about it, then it would be morally permissable for other countries to invade or conquer us.  Same with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, etc.

--Dan Edge

>There seems to be little or no oversight here...A good analogy might be the mafia or "organized crime," which also requires special laws, such as RICO statutes. The misnamed "war on terror" certainly seems to require fresh legal thinking, new laws, and specially-tailored procedures. The current practice is a nightmare of injustice. [Andre]

I agree that there needs to be oversight or review - probably special judges as in the case of the wiretaps.

You may be interested in this excerpt from Glenn Greenwald's book How would a Patriot Act?

The presidents letter is an invitation to Islam which, according to Islamic law, must be given before an attack.

Phillip: I don't think most of these guys are true soldiers or "enemy combatants." They're "illegal combatants" as "declared" by Bush, who almost invariably has little or no information on the subject. He evidently has to take the word of Muslim allies and troop/militia irregulars in most cases. Many may be people captured by incompetent Iraqi police and private security guards in chaotic situations, or by Northern Alliance members who have a petty personal or tribal dispute with them. There seems to be little or no oversight here, and no known procedures or laws to follow or fall back upon.

This is anarchy and tyranny. Eventually, the Supreme Court will almost certainly overturn the vast majority of these government behaviors, but this is a problem for us now. The US is failing to follow its own Constitution, Congress, and laws, as well as solemn, international agreements it has always followed before, such as Geneva Convention POW rules. The idea that Muslim captives have no status, and no rights, and no properly articulated legal situation/category is surreal. The US never treated even the worst Nazis thus.

I say, so long as morality and justice demand it: Treat them terrible and/or kill them all. But do it under law. 

Ultimately, these peple need some kind of criminal-type or POW-type status. They seem to be intermediate between criminals and enemy soldiers -- something like "ideological warriors" or "gorilla soldiers" or "irregular militia members" etc. A good analogy might be the mafia or "organized crime," which also requires special laws, such as RICO statutes. The misnamed "war on terror" certainly seems to require fresh legal thinking, new laws, and specially-tailored procedures. The current practice is a nightmare of injustice. It makes Bush the unchecked dictator of the "detainees," and is without precedent in Western law and war.   

It's also subject to infinite abuse and error, and is wildly counter-productive. If we want to give freedom a bad name worldwide, and make this fiasco of a "long war" far, far more costly in money and lives, the US should keep up these legal outrages.

Abu Graib and Guantanamo are the greatest friends Islamdom and the jihadis have. For every ONE act of terror prevented by detaining without charge and torture, ONE HUNDRED new ones are created. 

The film, that is. That film creates terrorists too, Andre. In fact, the slightest criticism of Islam whatsoever, creates terrorists. Remember those cartoons? What on earth were those cartoonists thinking? Stupid, stupid, stupid! I shudder to think how many new terrorists they created. They ought to be shot.

Andre, I won't debate further since you didn't answer my central points. I will just make very brief points and leave it there:

> The US Congress never properly declared war on Al Queda

The point is it is a war IN FACT. And wartime rules apply to "enemy combatants" for the reasons I described **and which you did not answer**.

> all our friends and allies are deserting us over this, as they should

Not all of them. And truth is not a matter of numbers or of international opinion (if it were Israel would have been driven into the sea long ago).

> Currently America is a wanton and notoriously criminal state

Too exaggerated to answer in detail. Especially the point that we should bind ourselves by "international law". Speaking of rule by criminal states!

> For every ONE act of terror prevented by detaining without charge and torture, ONE HUNDRED new ones are created.

You really are swallowing whole all the exaggerations of the left-liberal press. Both on torture as U.S. policy & on absence of civil liberties being what creates terrorists. Stop and think about who the terrorists are and why they resort to murder on that last one:

Budding Gandhis and ACLU types, do you think?

Phillip: The "war on terror" isn't really a war. The US Congress never properly declared war on Al Queda, the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Hamas, the PLO, the Wahabbis, and the jihadis generally. They should have -- along with the very important public debate thereof -- but they didn't. 

Even Hitler and non-wartime mass-murders deserve access to law, due process, and justice. Properly done, this doesn't help them -- it hurts him. It isn't done altruistically for their benefit -- it's done for ours.

Currently America is a wanton and notoriously criminal state which violates the Geneva Conventions, various other important international treaty and law commitments, and its own Uniformed Services Acts and regulations. Morally, we're terribly in the wrong.

And practically, all our friends and allies are deserting us over this, as they should. The forces of evil take heart, and the forces of good are in despair worldwide.

Abu Graib and Guantanamo are the greatest friends Islamdom and the jihadis have. For every ONE act of terror prevented by detaining without charge and torture, ONE HUNDRED new ones are created. 

> He properly takes America to task for...holding Muslim prisoners without charge, and without access to due process or virtually any type of law. He rightly asks how this conforms to American law and "liberal values?"

Andre

The rules for holding "enemy combatants" in a war apply, not civil criminal law. The charge is committing war. If you think about it for a minute, suppose we are fighting Nazis in Europe (or saboteurs are captured on our own shores). Can you give soldiers, spies, and saboteurs habeas corpus and release them on bail so they go immediately go back to rejoin their army and start shooting at you again?

Would you have abolished America's POW camps in World War II? Because that's what Guantanamo and the various similar facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq are.

Jason's point is an excellent one. The fact that Bush is a religious conservative and therefore caters to the Religious Right voting block makes him ill-equipped (in my view) to lead any sort of a direct onslaught against Islamic militancy. Since he thinks the moral essence of the best aspects of Western civilization are rooted in Christianity - a false premise - he can offer us nothing but inconsistencies and muddled principles to stand behind. In the end, Iran's President will look more consistent.

I'm so sick of the word 'democracy'. It is a very empty word that needs extensive qualification and defined context for it to have any meaningful value for advocates of individual liberty. In my view, the only value democracy per se has is in being able to transfer power in a transparent and nonviolent matter between one regime and another. Additionally, separation of powers is an effective means of preventing too much power from concentrating into one entity.

Perhaps this is as opportune a time as any to bring up this spine-chilling message from Dan Simmons. Have a look at this excerpt, to get you going:

“Let’s imagine,” said the Time Traveler, “that on December eighth, Nineteen forty-one, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke before a joint session of Congress and asked them to declare war on aviation.”

I stopped. What had he called it? Category Error. Making the problem unsolvable through your inability – or fear – of defining it correctly.

He gave an impassioned, eloquent and principled speech to the full assembly at the House of Commons. He explicitly made it about reason and freedom.

The sad thing about this letter is that President Amadinajad is far clearer then the average Western leader about what he is for, what his ideology is and what he is against. It is an absolutely nutty set of ideas, the logic is horribly flawed all throughout, and his prospective on western liberalism shows a total evasion of reality on his part.

Still, when was the last time you saw an American president or a British prime minister state what values they stand for in a direct manner and just as important -- what they are against? This kind of rhetoric could be blasted to bits very easily, but unfortunately many are too cowardly to take this step. The threat of outrage on the part of religious and nationalist mobs seems to stop prominent people from directly critiquing disgusting nonsense like this letter from the Iranian President.

- Jason

Whatever happend to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Isn't that the America that we should be spreading?

"Democracy is nothing but the Tyranny of Majorities, the most abominable tyranny of all, for it is not based on the authority of a religion, not upon the nobility of a race, not on the merits of talents and of riches. It merely rests upon numbers and hides behind the name of the people."

Were he sane, Ahmedi-Najad would be thanking W for imposing a theocratic "democracy" on infidels and heretics in Iraq. What an ingrate.