Criminals & Terrorists

Is a terrorist a criminal or is he an enemy of the state. The answer to that question depends. Timothy McVeigh, William Ayers and Ted Kaczynski were and are criminals. They committed acts of terrorism, but they either acted alone or as a part of a small, domestic group. We may want the world to see the American spirit of fair play and civility, but there are other issues at play when we deal with Islamic terrorists.

Osama bin Laden has declared war on the United States. It is a bit absurd that a religious fanatic in the wastelands of Afghanistan and Pakistan (apparently depending on the day) can declare war on the world’s only superpower and be taken seriously. He doesn’t represent a government, so on whose behalf is he declaring war? It helps to understand that you and I think in terms of national identity. I am American. My grandparents came to this country from Italy, so it appears that Italy considers me to be Italian (it’s complicated). That is how I think of myself, as an American who is proud of his Italian heritage. My religion, family and political beliefs describe some of my characteristics; but I identify myself as an American.

Not all cultures think in those same terms, and we are ill served by insisting that they do. For Muslims in the Middle East, that identity is reversed. Their primary identification is with their religion or tribe first and their country is the modifier. So for us to say that radical Muslims can’t legitimately declare war on us is to insist that they see themselves as we see ourselves. But national boundaries in the Middle East are largely arbitrary, it is tribe &/or religion that is primary. As long as radical Islam has leaders who are willing to wage war on us, and followers and resources enough to carry out that threat, we are at war. At a time when the only entities capable of waging war were nations, it made sense to brush aside such a self-important claim. But when the world changes, if you don’t change with it, you get run over.

What about the rule of law and the justifiable U.S. pride in protecting civil liberties? Both President Obama and Eric Holder have made comments that sounded an awful lot like the conviction and execution of terrorists was a certainty. Those comments themselves go a long way toward harming the image we want to present to the world. Governments that know the outcome of trials before they take place are generally described as totalitarian. Apart from the P.R. harm that kind of rhetoric causes, it is inaccurate. Our system of justice is based on the theory expressed in the 1760s by William Blackstone, that, “it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”. Hence our judicial mandate that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty (does that negate my earlier inclusion of Bill Ayers as a terrorist?). That principle frustrates justice and us at times, but there is a reason so much effort is made in our judicial system to protect the rights of the innocent, even if that means some guilty are protected as well. Government, by nature, will tend to be abusive. It was such abuse that motivated 13 colonies to reluctantly declare their independence from Great Britain. Most of us know of examples of people who have committed crimes but were never convicted. Our law enforcement officials are even required to warn people upon their arrest not to say anything that would incriminate themselves. In matters of criminal behavior, those safeguards are important. Criminals typically harm individuals or finite groups of people. War is focused on the submission of the enemy. As such the international community recognizes that different rules apply to war.

In war the need is not to get a conviction in a court of law, but to gather intelligence about the enemy’s plans and strategies. Miranda rights don’t apply here. In war the point is to keep enemy combatants out of the fray so they can’t continue to fight you. Bail, and potential acquittal, don’t apply here. The rules are different. We are not dealing with citizens that may or may not be guilty. We are dealing with an enemy caught in the act of waging war.

There are, admittedly problems with treating the war on terror as a true war. Because of the nature of the enemy, this war can go on for decades. That is a long time to maintain a state of war. Particularly when enemy attacks are intermittent and often comparatively small in scope. We need to figure out a way to be the best of what America is and still protect ourselves from organized attack by religious zealots. We need to be vigilant that we only apply warlike standards to those who are actually waging war on us. But we need to make sure that we take them seriously enough to put an end to their grandiose visions of toppling us. If we don’t, as ridiculous as it may seem, they may succeed.