Comments on: Bad signs

By: Will

Will — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 20:13:39 +0000

Hear hear. This “kind of war” is precisely the issue. The German analogy breaks down because Congress had actually declared war with Germany. And even in those very different circumstances, the President still personally authorized those actions, and then even he was held accountable to the Judiciary.

I’m even willing to give the policymakers the benefit of the doubt at let them propose that the nature of these attacks requires a new way of thinking and new courses of action. If that’s so, what are those actions, and when are they permissible and against whom? Matters of such gravitas should not be played by ear, and until new guidelines are discerned and made public, the old rules should still apply. If we are “at war” with Al Qaeda, then we need to state that we consider it a sufficiently sovereign group against which to declare war, and that operatives of that group will then be treated in accordance with policies of war: deaths of those individuals may be justified if they are armed and engaged in acts of aggression/war (e.g. had there been an Air Marshall on board with the flight of the underwear bomber, he likely would have been found justified had he shot to kill). If these operatives are then rendered defenseless, then they are entitled to the same treatment as hostiles captured in legitimate war.

If these policies are no longer satisfactory, then a new set of rules needs to be established, publicized, and subjected to public and international scrutiny. That’s one of the many prices of living in a free society.

By: pjk

pjk — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:56:38 +0000

I see being “in a kind of war” and actually being IN a war as two significantly different things.

By: John

John — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:47:46 +0000

My point is that we have not always given saboteurs and terrorists constitutional protection. During WWII, 6 of 8 German saboteurs were executed after their capture by the FBI. FDR approved the executions and the Supreme Court upheld them. Should there be a marked difference in our response to captured Al Qaeda agents in 2010 versus our response to German saboteurs in 1942? And if so, why? Every serious person can agree that the term “War of Terror” is a joke (such language began with the “War on Poverty,” 50 years ago, btw). But the truth is that we are, in fact, in a kind of war. Not against “terror,” but against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups actively trying to attack us. Kind of seems like you’re setting up straw men here…

By: pjk

pjk — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:22:18 +0000

Yep, he tried to blow up the plane just outside Detroit. A basic tenet of the Constitution is that it applies to everyone within U.S. borders/territories.

By: John

John — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:18:18 +0000

“It appears people believe we are at war, and that therefore our enemies in the War on Terror (even suspected enemies) do not have rights under the U.S. Constitution.”

Nigerian suicide bombers have protected civil rights (“our most fundamental civil rights” was the phrase you used) under the U.S. Constitution? I didn’t realize that.

By: pjk

pjk — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:34:53 +0000

Will: great points.

Bjorn: Thanks, I won’t

By: bjorn

bjorn — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:58:08 +0000

Glad to see you blogging again krupa. Posts like this are what makes this one of my favorite blogs. Keep up the good work. Don’t disappear again.

By: Will

Will — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:53:00 +0000

Re: your 10:04 comment, Krupa, bear in mind that many of these same people play the lottery; the odds are probably about the same, and I would imagine that even a number of people who can be rational about the fact that playing the numbers is a waste of money are willing to bear the costs, if they perceive any at all, if they believe they could die otherwise.

This doesn’t even take into account the fact that many of these folks are arguing that if torture of a known or suspected terrorist results in intelligence that saves even one American life, that the torture, though reprehensible, is justified. This is an argument that I’ve heard a number of times, and it leaves the probability of terrorist acts completely out of the discussion.

As for the kind of intelligence you get from torturing, I really have my doubts that the same guys who defend tooth and nail their practices of wiretapping or reading the mail of whomever they darn well please, regardless of whether or not it turns up anything useful, care much at all about whether the information ends up being reliable.

By: pjk

pjk — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:14:48 +0000

In addition, I seem to recall that veteran FBI interrogators were horrified at the CIA newbies’ “enhanced” tactics, mostly because they’re a terrible way to get reliable information out of someone (though they’re a great way to extract false confessions).

By: gauche

gauche — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:09:27 +0000

I thought this was a good illustration of how torture is not only strategically but tactically unproductive:

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2010/01/how-to-squander-dropped-dimes.html