Waging a war on terror in a liberal democracy
President Obama’s future in elective politics may well depend on how well he can make his countrymen understand and accept his view that terrorists prior to their capture are the legitimate objects of all the deadly forces (in particular the Predator Missiles that have been so effective in killing their leaders) that we can muster against them, but that following their capture and imprisonment in this country terrorists should be accorded, no less legitimately, all the benefits of this country’s liberal criminal justice system.
When we read that President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder plan to bring Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, and four Al Qaeda co-conspiritors to New York for trial in civil court, and when we hear that the Christmas underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, will be accorded Miranda rights and a defense attorney, and perhaps even be allowed to plea bargain and gain thereby a lesser sentence, we ask ourselves between being a deadly enemy combatant and a prisoner, between the then and the now, the before and the after, what has happened to the so-called war on terror?
Are we at war with terrorists or not? Or are those, mostly Muslim jihadi, who oppose our way of life no different from run of the mill criminals, not unlike thieves, rapists, murderers, and drug kingpins, and if caught subject only to civil trial and, if found guilty only then sentenced to incarceration or death? That is, are the acts of terrorists only criminal acts subject to our justice system rather than acts of war subject to the most effective opposing and deadly forces?
In a recent N Y Times op-ed piece Michael Kinsley highlights the seeming absurdity of our unhesitatingly killing our terrorist enemies in far away places such as Yemen and Afghanistan, but then, when these same enemies somehow make it to our country, perhaps brought here as prisoners as those at Guantanamo, giving them all the rights accorded all the accused in our own country’s civil justice system.
The prison facility at Guantanamo is now destined, by the way, for relocation in Illinois. Why is this? Because, we’re told, the facility in Cuba has become a prime source for Al Qaeda recruitment and therefore should be closed. Why the prison in Illinois would be any different in this regard we’re not told.
Michael Kinsley solves the problem of waging a war on terrorism and terrorists while simultaneously adhering to our own liberal and democratic values in this way. He says we need only to draw a line between our being a liberal democracy, a protector of individual rights, and our defense of that democracy’s values when we’re faced with enemies clearly trying to destroy us. We have to wear two hats.
And if we would win the war on terror we have no choice but to be no less out to destroy our enemies than they us. We have to wear that hat. But when our enemies have somehow made it into our country we have to wear the other hat and defend our liberal values and justice system by the way we treat them —this means, even in the case of enemy combatants, giving them a fair trial in civil court and thereby providing them ample opportunity to defend themselves.
Here is what Kinsley says: “The charms of liberal democracy sometimes need to be defended by war, and Mr. Obama’s critics are right that war can’t be conducted with a high level of concern for individual justice. A liberal democracy aspires to punish only the guilty. But war is inherently unfair — it distributes suffering arbitrarily among enemy combatants, civilians and one’s own soldiers. A line has to be drawn somewhere to determine which of these utterly different standards of government behavior is applied where — and the nation’s border is as good a line as any.”
Now that does seem to be the position of our president. Obama would agree, with Kinsley I think, that one can apply different behavioral standards while waging war on terror. In Somalia and Yemen we unhesitatingly assassinate those who would destroy us. We may even, I suppose, torture them while holding them at some secret location somewhere in the world beyond our borders. (If we’re not we probably should be in order to learn what they are plotting against us.) Also, while waging war against terror in Pakistan and Afghanistan and elsewhere we are certainly not overly concerned by the inevitable civilian casualties.
Obama seems to have bought into wearing the two hats. His future in politics will depend on whether or not he can bring the American people along with him. He does probably occupy a position in the center, and this will help him. His position is central to those on the right who criticize him for protecting the civil rights of terrorists when brought here to the United States. His position is also central to those on the left who would probably criticize him no less (if he weren’t their elected president) for waging war by any means when the fields of battle are well beyond our borders.
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