Winning the War on Terror
I have just finished reading a blog post on the "Confirm Them" website (www.confirmthem.com) regarding the new book by John Yoo called "War By Other Means: An Insider's Account of the War on Terror". It is a fascinating post to read, and it mirrors by own thinking regarding the debate on whether or not to extend "criminal rights" to blood-thirsty terrorists who want me and my family dead by any means necessary. (Full Disclosure: I come from the "old school" on this issue...) The full blog post is located here: Click Here.
The blog post on "Confirm Them" quotes this passage from the Yoo book, which I agree with 100%:
"[Criminal justice] involves the fundamental relationship between the people and its government, and so ought to be regulated by clear, strict rules defining the power given by the principal to its agent. [War], however, involves a foreign enemy who is not part of the American political community, and so should not benefit from the regular peacetime rules that define it."
The "Confirm Them" website was set up by law students fed up with the fact that Democratic Senators in the U.S. Senate have been blocking/obstructing President Bush's judges to the federal district and appellate courts from being confirmed through use (misuse?) of the filibuster. I have always thought that blocking President Bush's judicial selections was a bad idea for the Democrats, because someday in the future there will be a Democratic President and this Democratic President will want to have his/her judicial nominations confirmed to the federal bench. And unfortunately, Senate Republicans are going to look at the disgraceful precedent established by Senate Democrats in the 2001-2008 period in terms of blocking Bush's appointees to the courts, and the Senate Republicans are going to exact their revenge through misuse of the filibuster to block the Democratic nominees. It won't be right for the Senate Republicans to do this, but turnabout is indeed fair play in politics. Democrats will rue the day they have ever unleashed this awful Pandora's Box on our political culture.
The "Confirm Them" website also played a pivotal role in torpedoing President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court in October of 2005. Harrier Miers had no business being confirmed to the Supreme Court. She was an unqualified crony with none of the legal qualifications of a John Roberts or an Antonin Scalia or a Stephen Breyer. "Confirm Them" did a great service to the country by going long and strong against the Harriet Miers nomination, forcing her to withdraw her nomination. "Confirm Them" is one of my favorite blogs because it is an influential blog that is read by White House staffers, and if you know what you are writing about you can have real influence over politics.
I am still waiting, by the way, for Hollywood - or even Bollywood - to make a great movie about the War on Terror. That movie has not yet been made. I think an enterprising screenwriter could make a princely sum concocting just such a movie script. There is so much fertile material to be mined, and there are so many innovative ways to address this topic. But, alas, that movie has not emerged as of the writing of this blog post.
posted by John the Movie Man! at 5:56 AM
2 Comments:
I did not read the "Confirm them" full post. I am going to respond to the quote which you posted -
""[Criminal justice] involves the fundamental relationship between the people and its government, and so ought to be regulated by clear, strict rules defining the power given by the principal to its agent. [War], however, involves a foreign enemy who is not part of the American political community, and so should not benefit from the regular peacetime rules that define it.""
I think the question we have to ask ourselves is what about human right? And what about the relationship of the highest of high principles to its agents? That being the principles of human nature and morality and how we as humans should respect that code? If you feel that there is a higher code of ethics that we must adhere to, then the argument that terrorists are not part of the "American Political Community" can not hold true.
Just because terrorists do not adhere to any system of ethics(except their own warped system) that can be upheld as reasonable, does not mean that gives us, as defenders of those principles, a free pass to disregard the code of conduct in which we believe. Therefore, if we believe in rights of the convicted, jurisprudence, and justice, then shouldn't we make that system universally available, even if other actors don't believe in the primacy of that system?
Jason -
The following comments represent my own opinions:
I do not believe that foreign terrorists are part of the American political community. I do believe in human rights - the right of me and my family and my neighbors to live in peace and not have their throats slit by terrorists or rammed into a building on an airplane by terrorists. Terrorists are actively working to undermine our way of life, kill and murder our citizens, and topple our government. They are outside the boundary of the American political community. They deserve nothing but the heat and hell of war that the American military can unleash on them, killing and maiming and hurting every one of them until they surrender, relent, and cease their actions.
This is why I vigorously support Patriot Act I and II, NSA wiretapping of international phone calls to suspected al-Qaeda terrorists, the detentions at Guantanamo and other "undisclosed location", and other actions that vigorously take the fight to our terrorist enemy. I agree with the position to deny terrorists captured on foreign battlefields the right to petition at will in the American legal system and instead try them with a military tribunal. I believe in these policies because quite frankly, I don't want my family killed by these barbarians who will stop at nothing to see me and my family murdered through any means possible. I do not believe in human rights for terrorists like the 9/11 hijackers. They have removed themselves from the civilized world (in my opinion) and should be treated with extreme prejudice.
This debate is central to the current political debates that are occurring in the halls of Congress and around the world. I take the extreme position against the most extreme foreign terrorist elements. It is the same view I have in terms of how the U.S. prosecuted World War II against Nazi Germany and Tojo's Japan. We didn't include Hitler or Tojo in the American Political Community - we hunted and persecuted both to extinction. - John M.
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