Ok, twice I've tried to start threads on the unlawful combatants cases before the Supreme Court, and lost them when trying to post (ok, now I know if you try and post w/o a subject, you lose all the text, I wish I could say it didn't take two times to learn that, but I'd have to lie to do so).

So I'll save my own arguments for later, if people take up the thread (digitalprimate, you've mentioned this subject in passing on another thread, so I'm specifically inviting you, think of it as another head scarf thread ).

In short, the older laws and legal precedent were made when hundreds of thousands of POWs were taken on the battlefield, and hundreds or thousands of unlawful combatants were taken elsewhere. That's not the case now, but I'm not sure that much else is different.

But I suspect much of the battle is not just over legal theory, but whether the U.S. is actually in a time of war or not, when different standards apply. I think we are in a state of war, but it's also a different kind of war, so different standards may still be necessary. I'm just not sure what they should be.

I'll leave the specifics for later, but anyone game?

I assume this ties into the POWs kept at Guantanamo airforce base, right?

It's kind of a big issue in Sweden because swedish citizen Mehdi Gehzali is among the imprisoned. I haven't really formed an opinion on this as, on the one hand, the US keeping people prisoner without accusing them of anything is wrong according to international legislation, but on the other hand there's no proof that Gehzali wasn't a combatant when he was captured.

Of course, the whole keeping prisoners for the sake of keeping prisoners is something I'm opposed to, though.

Not sure if this really is a relevant post to the thread, though... Ah, anyway...

Well, there are three different cases pending now dealing with three different cases: 1. an US citizen arrested in the US, an US citizen arrested outside the US, and non-US citizens arrested and detained outside the US.

Also, there are the legal aspects and historical precidents of the individual cases versus the international law and moral aspects of the cases.

Although these things may all appear the same, they are actually quite different both practically and theoretically (in my view.)

So, where to begin?

And, on a personal note, I may not be around much the next couple of weeks as my in-laws will be visiting.

Ya, to my knowledge there are currently three cases under consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court relating to presidential authority to designate and hold 'unlawful enemy combatants.' and one of them involves Guantanamo.

So far, the gov't is generally treating the captives by the standards of Prisoner's of War, but also maintaining that by Geneva Convention standards, they are actually unlawful combatants, subject to different standards (fewer rights, being unlawful combatants), which makes things even murkier.

I think that precedent is on the side of the governments claim that a state of war exists, given both the facts on the ground, and the congressional resolutions authorizing the president in both Afghanistan and Iraq. But again, the kind of war is different, and so the old precedents are being challenged. I think it's good they're being challenged, but I'm not sure these cases present as much a threat to civil liberties as is being charged.

War itself is being waged (whether justly or not) by standards that at least attempt to respect the lives of innocent civilians more than just about any other time or place in history, so I think it's reasonable to re-evaluate the standards for holding prisoners, lawful combatant or not. I'm just not sure that we can make war as clean and civil as we'd like to.

digitalprimate, you're right about the cases covering a wide range of issues, but instead of starting three separate threads, I'm hoping to discuss the issues by what they have in common: what treatment, what rights (of both the president and of those held), are proper during the conduct of this kind of war?

The quote that inspired me to start this thread was:

"Remember how just a few years ago we thought no American citizen could ever be held without charge or access to a lawyer while facing the death penalty from a secret military tribunal? This is no longer an intellectual game; this is what our nation is become."

So I invite you to both specify your complaint, and suggest a set of standards that you would consider legally defensible. Be as specific or general as you like, but ya, I may have started this threat, but I'm really just inviting you to flesh out a topic you obviously feel strongly about.

Time and in-laws permitting.

Given that you want the Big Picture, in my mind there are two ways of looking at this problem: what will achieve our military/geopolitical goals and what is a reasonable sacrifice to make to achieve these goals.

As regards the first issue, I feel that detaining a large number of folks (suspects, "enemy combatants," whatever) for long periods of time without recourse to the US or traditional military legal system is probably counterproductive. It hardens the resolve of those who might waver, whether detainees or still at large, and managing such a system is not conducive to gaining actionable intelligence. The later claim is not only supported by the anecdotal evidence of history, but also by the principals of information science: the larger the number of people involved, the higher the signal to noise ratio. Unless one's (very impractical) intent is to detain indefinitely anyone who might take up arms against the US, than this strategy will not help us much in the long run. And this entire argument assumes that we can actually identify and detain those who may cause problems which is obviously a very, very flawed assumption given that we've detained patently innocent people and by our own admission released terrorists.

The second issue is both more tricky and more important. Morally speaking, I don't see the difference between an "enemy combatant" however defined and a US citizen (that said, there is a large difference in US law, and a large difference still under international law and treaty). Historically, this is not the first time we've gone down this road; in fact it was Lincoln himself who first suspended habeas corpus. Militarily, it probably didn't really make much of a difference in the Civil War, and it made no difference at all during WWII when thousands of Japanese were "detained."

But for the sake of argument, let's assume that such powers will help the current effort, perhaps not greatly, but if it prevents one bomb from going off in one suburban shopping mall, it's accomplished what it intended. The second part of the question is what are we will to give up for this safety? Forget about the, "if we give up our freedom, the terrorist win" crap, I'm thinking more about day to day life 10 years from now, and I don't like what I envision.

But, that's going to have to wait until tomorrow as my in laws are very jet lagged and I need to get clean sheets on their beds. I suppose one offhand comment I could make would be that this was the first time they were fingerprinted when entering the States from one of our staunchest allies, Holland...

"So far, the gov't is generally treating the captives by the standards of Prisoner's of War, but also maintaining that by Geneva Convention standards, they are actually unlawful combatants, subject to different standards (fewer rights, being unlawful combatants), which makes things even murkier"

//quote.

Unlawful §combatants that´s not even a legal term and has nothing to do with the GC. This is unilaterllism and should be treated as such, what you think 0f it is another question. But it is indeed the offical policy of the US.

But try as you might to connect the dots with the ICC and you see the primary rationale used by the US. Continous barring of international legislation, unless they swing "our way".

Regarding the ignorance of mister APE Who piles up atomistic generalisations to ecological missleadings and; "crap in crap out".

"But for the sake of argument, let's assume that such powers will help the current effort, perhaps not greatly, but if it prevents one bomb from going off in one suburban shopping mall, it's accomplished what it intended. The second part of the question is what are we will to give up for this safety? Forget about the, "if we give up our freedom, the terrorist win"

No sane person would think that the concept of
"unlawful §combatants" nullified in Guantanamo Bay, would deter terrorist, if you KNOW something about terrorist networks.

Top of the food chain indeed.

Johan Royen Larsson:
Ett tips från en svensk

Bekanta dig med Nils Christie.

Norsk kriminolog och sakkunnig i dessa frÃ¥gor om du är intresserad av prisonism och internationell kriminalpolitik.

From Human Rights Watch

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The protection and treatment of captured combatants during an international armed conflict is detailed in the Third Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which defines prisoners of war (POWs) and enumerates the protections of POW status. Persons not entitled to POW status, including so-called "unlawful combatants," are entitled to the protections provided under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

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And as for the 'has nothing to do with the GC':

quote:

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Captured combatants who are not entitled to POW status have been described as "unlawful combatants" or "non-privileged combatants, " although neither term is found in the Geneva Conventions. Such persons are still protected under the Geneva Conventions

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quote:

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"But for the sake of argument, let's assume that such powers will help the current effort, perhaps not greatly, but if it prevents one bomb from going off in one suburban shopping mall, it's accomplished what it intended. The second part of the question is what are we will to give up for this safety? Forget about the, "if we give up our freedom, the terrorist win"

No sane person would think that the concept of
"unlawful §combatants" nullified in Guantanamo Bay, would deter terrorist, if you KNOW something about terrorist networks.

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I think you misunderstood me there - I wasn't saying that this would help the US; in fact, in the previous paragraph I said it wouldn't. I was saying let's assume it would help in order to examine the question of what a civil society is willing to sacrifice to maintain safety.

Just to be clear on this point

More later...

n.b., This is hopefully the last political thread in which I'll be posting: I just get too personally involved and have too many issues about living in the States to keep doing it. However, JB set this up deliberately for me to comment (and partially, I think as a peace offering for some of the rough words we've exchanged lately, a gesture that is much appreciated), so it would be very bad form indeed for me to abandon it as it stands.

So, I think the legal issues to the detentions are irrelevant altogether. Not irrelevant in the sense that they won't affect the outcome of the pending SC decisions or the lives of those confined, but irrelevant from a moral and political standpoint. These two dimensions - the moral and political - I feel very much will eventually drive the legal, as historically albeit slowly, they always have. Foolishly perhaps, I like to think of history as a more or less linear progression over the eons of justice. As it stands now, we've encountered quite a big bump in the road.

Morally, then, I think the US does indeed have grounds for holding some people for a limited amount of time without council and without recourse to the normal (domestic or military) legal system. This "war" on terrorism is in fact no war legally or morally, in my opinion, but that's another story and I think we need not concern ourselves at all with whether or not we are at war. The facts on the ground are that there are some very bad guys out there who would wreck New York or Madrid or another city again, and I can speak as a professional when I say that when seeking to stop this kind of thing, nice guys finish last.

That having been said this "wide net" approach is, as I've stated before, counterproductive from a practical point of view. More importantly in the long term, it's morally decadent. I don't mean this in any "he who would give up liberty for safety deserves neither" sort of way. I do mean that a nation or culture passes a point of no return in which their values become so distorted that they lose cohesion and splinter, eventually, into other things than they once were. This process may be inevitable, but, given the choice, I think most of us would rather live in Rome ca. C.E. 50 than ca. C.E. 450.

To dehumanize the enemy is a time tested winning strategy, as is claiming the enemy is among is and sometimes may be "us." However, when these two doctrines become conflated - as they have now - there's the rub. Morally, the "enemy" may not be entitled to the same, shall we say, courtesy, as one's dear aunt Emma. However, when the enemy becomes anyone at all that persons more or less unaccountable declare them to be, than there's no way of knowing if the enemy to whom you would deny basic rights is indeed the enemy and not "us." For the sake of this argument "us" includes foreigners who are not actively "out to get 'us.'" i.e., people who have not taken up arms against us or supported those who do. Lest anyone think this is a casual distinction and that the term "support" covers a host of evils, I'd remind them that sometimes folks have no choice but to tacitly support something with which they don't agree and that just as importantly, if we're ever to win this "war" it's exactly those folks we need to sway. To get back to when I'd rather live in Rome, I think that setting aside the values that make us just is a dangerous game, one we've played before, but one that should never be "misunderestimated." That cigarette may not be the one that triggers the cancer, but the next might well be.

Which brings us to the even larger problem (and this is not to gloss over the problem of what rights should be accorded real enemies, people who would do real harm to innocents or perhaps even soldiers - that is another problem and more one of degrees, although I wouldn't want to tell that to the current inmates in an Iraqi prison.) The current cases are all, legally, speaking, very different yet have one thing in common: those declared outside the recourse of the US judicial process were declared so by appointed officials who are very difficult to hold accountable unless the executive cuts them loose, something most administrations and certainly this one are loathe to do. Now, right away, one might say, "yes, but who does have this authority, senators who know nothing of what's happening on the ground in Afghanistan?" Fair enough. Still, ultimately, a fundamental moral and legal principal that's grown up over 1000 years of western jurisprudence and constitutional tradition is that in the end someone is accountable for all the actions the state takes, and that someone is ultimately accountable to the people. While a good argument could be made here concerning so-called "imperial presidencies" such as the Nixon and the current one have been called, one need'nt resort to that. The simple fact of the matter is that there is no system of checks and balances in any system that keeps the identities of those held a secret or in a system that holds no one ultimately accountable for the conviction or release of those held. True, we could vote in a new batch of politicians, but the structural problems remain with both this system and I would say with the domestic surveillance system put in place by Ashcroft (although let it be noted first established by Clinton).

Therefore, I say that the current detentions are immoral and politically dangerous for the future of the United States.

"This "war" on terrorism is in fact no war legally or morally, in my opinion, but that's another story and I think we need not concern ourselves at all with whether or not we are at war."

Well, whether the U.S. is in a state of war is profoundly relevant to what laws and standards apply in the current cases, but I'll grant your point on the broader ethical questions. The right standards of treatment would apply without respect to whether the war in question was itself justifiable or not.

And I'm glad to see you arguing against dehumanizing the 'enemy.' I guess the thread on Jesus vs. the Republicans paid off.

But to your major point:

"The current cases are all, legally, speaking, very different yet have one thing in common: those declared outside the recourse of the US judicial process were declared so by appointed officials who are very difficult to hold accountable"

I agree that this is true, but it would be true for people held with full Prisoner of War status, as well. In WWII, some German prisoner's of war tried to have cases filed in U.S. civilian courts and it was ultimately ruled that their prisoner of war status did not entitle them to that kind of civilian legal recourse.

So the accountability question is at issue without respect to the 'unlawful combatant' designation. And since the question of prisoner status' is coming up on another thread, I won't deal with it here, and content myself with an observation or two about the accountability issue.

Now, I'm operating from the assumption that a state of war exists in the 'war on terror' that is fundamentally different from a 'war on drugs' or 'war on crime' as has been argued in at least one of the current Supreme Court cases.

But what's different is that unlike more historically 'conventional' wars it's going to be quite difficult to know with any certainty when a 'cessation of hostilities' is reached. What 'for the duration' means could be a far cry from what it has meant in the past, when the current court precedents for this kind of detention arose.

So we agree that "Morally, then, I think the US does indeed have grounds for holding some people for a limited amount of time without council and without recourse to the normal (domestic or military) legal system."

Now, I'm not sure what you mean by 'wide net' approach, since two of the three Supreme Court cases involve single individuals, and the third about 600 some-odd Guantanamo detainees, out of thousands and thousands taken prisoner in Afghanistan (and since, tho this seems a smaller number). There may have been a wide net for taking these guys into custody, but the channels for releasing them has also been fairly open.

Nor am I so sure that this fall's election won't provide an adequate choice to the American public to decide whether adequate standards of accountability have been met. And at that point, whatever the decision, the question of accountability falls to the public, as well as the elected officials. And at which point the moral accountability issue falls *on* the public, an even harder beast to keep in line than the politician, so your point certainly has some merit.

I suppose ultimately I'm less concerned with the ability to detain individuals (U.S. citizen or not) than being able to know when it's going on, and have enough information to judge whether circumstances warrant such detentions in general. Which leaves the question of time uppermost in my mind. If the war on terrorism has no clear end date, I think a periodic review, with as much public transparency as national security permits, is wise.

If we are willing to grant the power to declare individuals so dangerous to the national security (in a time of war) that they can be held without the usual legal niceties, then the length of detention should be commensurate with the danger presented, and dangers tend to pass with time.

quote:

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So we agree that "Morally, then, I think the US does indeed have grounds for holding some people for a limited amount of time without council and without recourse to the normal (domestic or military) legal system."

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If you accept that particular individuals pose a significant threat to the US, you might argue that it is reasonable to hold them for a period of time, to prevent them doing whatever evil you suspect them of planning.

But having made that decision and removed them from circulation, what is the problem with testing one's decision to ensure that it is just? If you detain someone, why should you want to prevent them from receiving legal advice and recourse to the courts?

The obvious answer is that you do so because you do not want to be proved wrong, which could be inconvenient and embarrassing. You would rather see an unjust outcome than an inconvenient one.

I don't think that's good enough.

Well, Gromit, fear of being proved wrong, preferring unjust charges to inconvenience are indeed not good enough. So how about you demonstrate you aren't afraid of being proved wrong, and aren't trying to unjustly distort my arguments for the sake of a convenient cheap shot?

From the start I've tried to make the objective of this thread a place to provide a solution to the situation. If you want to start a flame war, find another thread.

What standards are you proposing? What level of recource to the courts (civilian or military) should prisoners (what range of statuses) have? What difference does being in a state of war make, if any?

If unlawful combatants are entitled to a lawyer, it hardly seems fair to deny lawful combatant Prisoner's of War equal access to lawyers. And not just current detainees, but all the thousands, or even tens of thousands that have at one time or another come into custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, the first Gulf War, etc.

I'm not arguing for whatever standards we find convenient, I'm arguing for whatever standards are both fair and feasible. What are you arguing for, or are you content merely to argue against?

JB, I think you'll find the pronoun "you" in Gromit's post is used in the same sense as "one". If one detains someone, why should one want to prevent them from receiving legal advice and recourse to the courts? The obvious answer is that one does so because one does not want to be proved wrong. So I wouldn't take it personally, if I was you.

quote:

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But having made that decision and removed them from circulation, what is the problem with testing one's decision to ensure that it is just?

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I think what G was trying to say was that sooner or later someone must be accountable for holding or releasing these folks, not such a different argument than the one of review that JB proposed. I've little doubt that the military and our leaders are holding people who's existence is now, shall we say, problematic for those in power. Still, I think the general consensus here is that in extreme circumstances of immanent danger (such as that immediately following 9/11), the government's duty to protect its citizens trumps - very temporarily - some civil and perhaps even human rights. The question is when is this period over and who is ultimately accountable for what's done during this time.

My claim was that there are now structural problems that will be difficult if not impossible to solve. I don't share JB's optimism that a change in administrations will alter this much, for once an opaque system is established, it is by definition very difficult to identify and disband. Moreover, regardless of from which side of the political divide an administration comes, such a secret system, historically speaking, has proven it's indispensability quite quickly. It's a tough habit to quit, in other words.

(And, an aside to JB: there is a big difference between dehumanizing an enemy and demonizing them, and a larger difference still between an individual or group doing either of these things and a state doing it. Note also that I merely claimed that dehumanizing an enemy was efficacious, not that it was necessarily wrong. In short, I have not abandoned the idea that using all means necessary, up to and including demonizing and perhaps even dehumanizing an enemy is morally necessitated in some circumstances if by not doing so one allows even greater harm to befall even more people. I do not, however, feel that such actions are justified toward our currently declared enemies of state, only towards those who would undermine the state from within using the mechanisms of democracy against freedom. Just call me a Dante literalist.)

RobW, my response happens to have been based on the assumption that Gromit was using the general 'you.' I just happened to disagree with his characterization. It strikes me as neither obvious, nor correct. And so I invited him to propose a solution, in accord with the purpose of the thread.

Under the circumstances, what else should one do?

And digitalprimate, for the record elections are not the only means of holding public officials accountable when one disagrees with their actions. There is impeachment. If the public does not demand it, and the congress does not resort to it, it's possible they're failing their responsibility to hold public officials accountable. But it's also possible that they don't feel their elected representatives are misbehaving so badly as to require such measures.

And if democratic majorities are not to be trusted to ensure the proper use of political power, into the hands of what minority would you trust such powers?

My main goal in political threads is not to sit around trying to form elegant expressions for saying, 'like, you know, everything sucks and stuff.' It's far too easy to point at someone who has made a choice between the lesser of two evils (and democracy is itself often that) and shout, 'Aha! That guy's chosen an evil!'

Unless you're willing to commit yourself to a real world choice, and defend it as a realistic alternative to the bad choices you're denouncing, you're engaging in nothing but what I've before called a masturbatory political gesture.

It may feel good, but it is not productive. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it *is* a mistake to confuse it with the real thing.

An interesting kneejerk reaction, JB. Have you and Metro been swapping meds or something?

Rob's right. I originally typed my post using "one" instead of "you", but it looked pretty damn pretentious so I changed it.

Not that that was the problem, it seems. I'm not really sure what the problem was though.

"If you want to start a flame war...", say you. Who am I supposed to be flaming, and what exactly was the text of my flame?

You want me to demonstrate that I'm not unjustly twisting your arguments for the sake of a convenient cheap shot.

Hang on just a minute. I put up a post exploring a proposition put by DP8, which you did no more than quote with approval.

Not only am I supposed to have been looking to start a flame war by doing so, but the onus is on me to demonstrate to your satisfaction that I'm not "unjustly twisting" your arguments?

Go soak your head till the swelling goes down, fella.

I have always held the impression that the US did not understand what it means to be invaded by another country. Regardless of the good intentions or whatever.
I still do. The problem with this "unlawful combatant" thingy is that it makes a clear distinction: either you fight for your country with a uniform on you, in which case you will be a POW, or you don´t, in which case you will be an UC. Good, but do you realise that that makes UCs all the civilian population?
Let´s go back in history. La Resistance, or the first guerrilleros back in XIX century Spain. They were all UCs by this standard, and true, things have improved for them since back then when detained they would much more likely get a bullet in the head than prison, so I guess those in Guantanamo are not so bad off, after all. Remember Vietnam, basically you got parts of the country in which every citizen old enough to walk and activate a grenade would try to do so. Seems a little difficult to hold a five-year old as UC, though.
Whatever. The problem the US has right now is that people cannot under any excuse be held for two years without charge or lawyer, specially if those holding them prisoners are going all around the world praising the greatness of their democracy and how good they all live in the land of freedom. Makes it difficult to believe what they say, don´t you think? (Please note my tireless effort to not personalize). This is the main mistake in the US policy. I´ll leave aside the extremely dangerous concept by which Guantanamo is not part of the US. Good that Fidel does not have the nerve to go there, then, since by international laws he would be invading a territory not recognised by the US as his, thus actually not invading a thing.
I´ll go with the rather simplistic approach of stopping terrorism in less than a generation, by the simple issue of hitting them with the weapon they fear most: culture.
LEt´s face it, 90% of people dumb enough to really believe they will go to heaven by carrying a shitload of explosives and blowing themselves with them are uneducated, poor fellas who will rather face dead than leave another day of their miserable lifes (OK, I-m simplifying things a lot). Give them food, water, crops, a job, and all that gets them into firmly following the babbling of some guy that tells them they live like shit because of some people outside their forntiers crumbles down. It is certainly a much more costéffective policy, since we all know that building a million schools in Iraq costs less than mobilizing the US troops over there one day.
Simplistic, eh? I know it is, and I know it will actually not solve the problem. Not completely. But going someplace and telling the people that whooops! you are sorry, you did not intend to kill their baby, but hey, it is all for good, because they will get a better life, and human rights, and coca-cola, and stuff... well, that definetely does not work. People tend not to believe someone that says I am here to help with a machine gun in their hands. It has never happened in the last 5000 years, why should it work now?

The Romans conquered people countries by the strength of the sword, they conquered people, and their hearts, by the strength of money. Money, culture, infrastructures. The US is certainly the strongest country in the world, it can conquer all of it by the sword. But so far it has not demonstrated it knows what to do then.

Going back to Guantanamo, which I remember now is actually the issue in this thread, the problem is that of saying one thing and doing the opposite. As I said, difficult to believe in a person, a country, or whatever that says "do as I say and not as I do".

MvR

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And if democratic majorities are not to be trusted to ensure the proper use of political power, into the hands of what minority would you trust such powers? et. al.

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Well, that's one of the main problems we have now. Leaving aside the question of whether or not the Bush administration was in fact democratically elected (and hence representative of the democratic majority), this statement and the ones before it presume that the secret machinations now established will be found out and if the voters decided the abuses are too egregious, corrected at the ballot box. But when you hold people in secret and with no legal recourse indefinitely, no one will necessarily be aware of what, if anything, there is to expose and/or correct. In other words, if the government keeps things like detentions secret, there is no systematic way for the people to offer any correction unless the mere suggestion of secret detentions becomes enough to toss out at an administration.

Now, regarding your yes-that's-nice-but-what-about-the-real-world (which I find an interesting change of tack, but never mind ), I would say that realistically there's not much to be done about it. I've written several times before that I think representative democracy may be a failed experiment and that the US Federal government and the business interests it supports simply may be too powerful to challenge with votes and words.

Yes, we could vote in Kerry but aside from better manners, I'm not sure we'll be getting anything that much different (this does not negate my "remove the current crop of bastards at all costs" arguments; I'll still take my chances with the devil I don't know in this case.) I suppose he's our last hope, if there still is one at this late stage, but he's not much of one.

But since you asked about what to do given the system we have, I don't think there is now any way to fix the mechanisms of secret, ex habeas detentions without the Supremes redefining the purview of judicial review to include some sort of investigative authority or the Congress finally taking their powers of investigation and review seriously (as they did - well, kind of - during the Iran/Contra affair). Even then, all the agents and agencies responsible for these detentions ultimately report to the executive branch which has and could continue to stonewall and prevaricate about what it's doing.

More realistically (nominally) the Supremes could come out in favor of upholding the practices that support the doctrine of habeas corpus in all three cases. Such rulings would in this case force the executive to disclose what it's doing and subject it's actions to legislative and/or judicial review and even correction. This is I think highly unlikely as national security has generally trumped any other principal since WWII, and as I said before, I'm not sure it would be effective in any case.

But to put this in a larger context, the detentions are just one piece, albeit an important one, of the shattered civil and human rights left strewn about since 9/11. This is part of a complex and interlocking set of developments, and even if the court were to rule on the side of openness and liberty and even if there were some way of making certain that the rulings are enforced, we're still left with the rest of this mess.

(One other loose end... the "wide net" to which I referred in my second post in this thread includes the domestic Homeland Security ne INS detentions. Also, remember that no one knows exactly how many folks are being held in the US or various parts of the world because the administration refuses to disclose this information. If one assumes we know where all the holding facilities are and what, roughly, their capacities are, one could make a guess (as some have - if I had time I'd post a link). This method, however, piles one bad assumption on top of another, and, really, the point is we shouldn˜t have to guess.)

"You want me to demonstrate that I'm not unjustly twisting your arguments for the sake of a convenient cheap shot."

No, I'd be content if you'd just explain how you weren't unjustly twisting my arguments, regardless of the reason. But perhaps that's too onerous a burden, how about if I ask only that you refrain from making straw man arguments and claiming that they're not good enough, without even making any effort to offer an alternative? But maybe it's just me, if "exploring a post" involves nothing more than that, then the Internet is a much more serious, deliberative social outlet than I'd imagined.

digitalprimate, the reason I raise the "yes-that's-nice-but-what-about-the-real-world" point is that I have little alternative. There's not much to debate if the argument consists only of 'the other side fails to be perfect' claims. Firstly, because I agree with that in general, and secondly because that kind of criticism offers very little in the way of information about what kind of debate we're having.

Not only do I not know whether I disagree with the person making those kinds of statements, I have no idea what sort of reply to make even if I want to. Is the person arguing against the whole idea of 'just war' and that therefore no action by any military is ever justified, or only that in the current circumstances, the requirements of a just war have not been met, so otherwise legitimate actions aren't legitimate at all, or that there are grounds to declare a just war, but that established standards are not being met, or different standards should be established?

As I said above, if the only thing going on here is a more eloquent version of how 'stuff sucks' then there's no point. But if democracy is probably a failure, and you're willing to offer no alternative, why are you wasting your time complaining? There's no point, is there? And if you feel your own complaints are pointless but you still insist on complaining, then maybe we should open up that solipsism thread after all?