A Link for the Legally Inclined

Poststructural Pub
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Here’s a link to an article by Laurie Mylroie (MO, one of the worst talk show guests imaginable). It deals with the problem of how best to address international terrorism, and whether treating it as a crime is the best way to handle this problem. Some of our aspiring legal beagles may wish to go toe to toe with Mylroie and Bloomfield on this one. It does, in fact raise both US constitutional as well as law of nations issues. Although the short bio doesn’t say so, as the article indicates Mylroie worked in the Clinton administration. I’m sure some of you have seen her on the talk circuit.

http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp?ref=/comment/mylroie200401230838.asp

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I will respond to this, elendil. May take me a bit longer, but I will.

Sneak preview: I disagree. :smiley:

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Bloomie wrote:

Sneak preview: I disagree.

Hmmm, wrong again. Could I be losing my grip? NAAAAAAAW!

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Aaaaannnnndd… They’re off…

It’s Bloomfield, with a full on rebuttal, quickly followed by Weekender, Nanohedron, pthouron, jim stone coming hard on the outside… followed by DCrom, TelegramSam, U2, Lorenzo, Murphy Stout, (it’s anyone’s race at this point, ladies and gentlemen). Rounding the quarter post we have elendil, Brigitte, Bloomfield shifting into another gear..

(Really guys, there’s more to life than politics.)

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antstastegood wrote:

Really guys, there’s more to life than politics.

Agreed. For example, check out the Adri r******r thread. :slight_smile:

And then, there’s mud wrestling, too!

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I’m out of this on, except to audit it, Ants.

It’s obvious at this point that, with a few exceptions, folks are debating past one another rather than to one another, and the acrimony is rising.

There’s a lot of folks on here whose opinions I value - on whistles, and Irish music. And I’d happily buy most of them a beer (or a root beer, for MurphyStout :smiley: ) But tryin’ to talk politics with them - Sheesh! (No doubt, they’re thinkin’ the same of me. And with equal right, probably.)

Threads like this are one of the reasons why I took up the whistle instead of the mandolin or guitar - it’s a lot harder to say something you’ll later regret when your mouth is full of whistle. :roll:

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It’s age, I am sure. And you aren’t losing it completely, since I don’t completely disagree with the article.

This is the crux of argument:

Yet there was a Catch-22: by treating terrorism as a law-enforcement issue, Clinton practically guaranteed that it would be understood as a law-enforcement issue — and the critical question of state sponsorship would receive scant attention. In many respects, the U.S. legal system was, and still is, ill-suited to dealing with major terrorist attacks.

I can see her point, to some extent, when it comes to international terrorrism, in the sense of organized international organizations. But even so, her concern boils down to not having the government and country unawares and defenseless. Of course I agree that we need defenses against terrorism, and she cites some post 9/11 amendments as an example of improvements: The FBI can now share relevant information, I take it.

The dichotomy: Law enforcement = hamstringed and defenseless, state of war = aware and ready to defend ourselves; doesn’t convince me though. Necessary reform can be made within the legal process to achieve defense alertness.

I care about this because to my mind there is a significant cost attached to not treating terrorists as regular criminals, and Mylroie doesn’t see that. I am putting this is very stark terms: Should the state treat someone differently who kills out of avarice or jealousy form someone who kills in order to overthrow the government? I believe that if you answer yes to that questions (and Mylorie wants us to), you have just created political prisoners. In some sense, you’ve descended to the level of states who supress their dissidents. It’s about right or wrong then, and that is the one conversation you don’t want to have with the terrorists. We don’t care if they have a just grievance against the state, if in the case of the IRA they’ve been surpressed by the English, or the Basques by the Spanish, and so forth. No matter how just your cause: You cannot kill, bomb, terrorize for it. If you do, you are nothing but a criminal. The message is: your cause does not grace your action, and the state takes no other account of you then of the crack-head who kills the storeowner while robbing the till.

The alternative, acknowledging this state of war, means elevating the Terrorist to someone with a Cause (yes, capital C), and we all know politics is a dirty game… If the state descends to that level, the terrorists have already won in a sense. The whole point of terrorism is to de-legitimize state authority. Declaring a War on Terrorism, ignoring due process, scattering civil liberties to the wind, and speaking in terms of us vs. them spells victory for the terrorists. Unfortunately, after initial calm and level-headedness, that is what happened in the US after 9/11. Ask around today, both in the US and in the world. The US and the US president appears much less legitimate in the exercise of power than they did before 9/11. At the same time, international institutions and the legitimacy of international law in general have been weakened. Diplomatic and political relations among the most important allies of the free world have been weakened. Remember the Romans: divide and conquer.

This is a real problem for the world, because the US is so powerful. The world depends for stability and a hopeful future on the legitimate exercise of power in the USA.

So far the terrorists are winning, and they don’t even have to bomb another building. Strangely, I believe that the only way to fight the war on terrorism is not to declare the War on Terrorism. Let us take all necessary and prudent measures to defend our safety. But let us also treat terrorist as simple criminals. It is not the terrorist, but we as a free democratic society who should decide what makes a political debate. Let’s not let the terrorists decide that murder and slaughter is a political statement.

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This is by no means an easy question. First let me specify that, like Mylroie, I’m talking about the international terrorist, especially al Quaeda, who may strike from without but may also have supporters, possibly citizens or resident aliens, who strike also from within. In a way you can see that the two–criminals and terrorists–should be treated the same: after all, in a criminal action, I mean a legal action, it’s always the State v. so-and-so the accused. The criminal strikes against the State, whose most fundamental purpose must be the physical security of the community, just as much, at least in theory, as does the terrorist. There is a difference in motivation, in that, again theoretically, the primary motive of the terrorist is precisely to destroy the State, the order of the existing community. In most cases, although admittedly not all, I think that’s a difference from the domestic terrorist, who is seeking autonomy for a region or has some fairly specific grievance. On the other hand, the common criminal’s intent is not to overthrow the existing order: in many ways he profits from it. So the question becomes, should we treat the two differently because of differences in intent?

I think Mylroie’s big concern is with State sponsorship. By treating terrorist acts as criminal acts she believes that our foreign policy is hampered, to include armed action against sponsors of attacks against us. I think perhaps she’s generalizing from a matter of fact–the Clinton administration was certainly feckless in its terrorism policy, letting bin Laden slip away on several occasions, etc. This matter of fact, however, needn’t mean that it’s impossible in principle to pursue terrorists criminally at home and militarily or diplomatically abroad.

The practical difficulty we face lies, I believe, with the vast amount of human traffic coming in and out of this country. We have traditionally relied on our geography for security–the Atlantic and the Pacific. The oceans are no longer any defense against terrorists, or certainly not what they used to be. Nevertheless, we have gotten used to very low levels of internal security. Mention national ID’s, for example, and people go ballistic–often the same people who want the government to crack down on illegal aliens. In this sense, I think many of the provisions of the Patriot Act were long overdue and that it’s unfortunate that it’s become a political football. We really do need a rationalized system for internal security. This is what distresses me most, although it’s probably inevitable in a democracy: the degree of irresponsibility among our elected representatives. Left and Right. I keep describing our public philosophy as a fuzzy libertarianism across the political board; each party deserves some blame here, IMO.

As for international opinion about the US, sad to say I think a lot of it is simple resentment of the rich and powerful. We’d be resented in any event; this war on terrorism gives a handy rallying point. We really do have enemies out there, and not just terrorists. That’s something we’ll have to live with, although Americans seem to have trouble accepting that idea.