Quote:
Originally Posted by loquitur
Unfortunately our legal concepts have two spheres of activity for state-sanctioned violence -- war and law enforcement -- and the legal system requires that violence has to be classified as one or the other. Terrorism by non-state actors is somewhere in the middle, and how you think it should be treated under the current system will reveal probably more about your view of the world than about the nature of the act. Because terrorism doesn't fit neatly into either category, the flat assertion that wer'e a nation of laws and this vindicates the rule of law sort of assumes its conclusion.
We need to rethink this whole area, taking account of the realities of how to deal with, suppress, prevent and punish terrorists. To take one example: it's silly to impose on the military, operating abroad, the broad panoply of, say 4th and 5th amendment rights; it just can't be done. On the other hand, treating terror willy-nilly as equivalent to war means imposing a lot of destruction in pursuit of relatively small targets.
I don't have an answer. I just think some of what gets posted here is way too glib and ultimtely circular.
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I agree it is not that simple and I plead guilty to glibness of the first degree.
The definition of terrorism under US law is muddled.
I worry when some consider the US to be the "battlefield" providing cover to exclude basic Constitutional rights and providing justification for a military legal response rather than responding through the federal judiciary....or, even more disconcerting, to use the "US is the battleground" to take away from the Constitutional balance between individual rights and national security...and not just of the accused, but the rest of us as well.
And, more recently, I worry when some consider a lone gunman with emotional or psychological issues to be a terrorist when there is no compelling evidence to-date that he acted as an "agent" of any group or with a strategy to use the shooting to further any political goals, either personally or those of an organization.