That's the bullshit part. There's a presumption of innocence under our law. Until some legitimate authority has determined otherwise, you don't know that they're "actively and violently seeking to destroy the system which protects them." All you know about them is that they've been violently removed from their homes and incarcerated by heavily armed men who may or may not have done so with good reason.

Also, the Supreme Court has ruled before that non-citizens are entitled to the full protection of our laws when they run afoul of our legal system. That's another bullshit part.

It's no moral quagmire at all, not in this case. If it was a rising tide of violent fascism or bolshevism or something, that might be different. In this case, though, we're the ones going into their countries and wrecking them.

A) If we spent our time worrying about everyone who "actively and violently sought the destroy the system", we'd never leave the goddamn house. And you'll bring up 9/11, but the only reason 9/11 happened was because of the absolute incompetence of this administration. Not any other people. This administration. "Osama bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside United States" for god's sake. And they ignored it. So now they're retroactively going after every tiny irrelevant threat to try to make up for their monumental failure - which, by the way, they never will, and along the way will successfully do nothing except impeach on the human rights of people everywhere. Including habeus corpus.

B) It's not the law's moral quandary, it's the terrorist's moral quandary. They're actively seeking to destroy the system that protects them...jesus christ that's fucking stupid. And it would never work. The best thing we can do is to show them that the system is not worth destroying by showing mercy with that very same system and those very same laws. Guilt is the most powerful motivator - just ask any Conservative Christian.

Besides, these "terrorists" or "enemy combatants" will never succeed at their goals. They'll only do minor damage which will create stronger barriers in the future. However, if we continue to erode United States Constitutional Law in response to this terrorist futility, we will have succeeded in causing more damage to our nation than some guy with a bomb in his water ever could.

Which doesn't even take into account the fact that we can't even put together cases against most of these people, and in the case of one of them, we've been ordered by the Court to either bring a case or release him. That seems to suggest that the vast majority of "enemy combatants" have done no wrong to begin with, which is a far bigger "moral quagmire" than anything else in this argument, and is something you have not even taken into consideration.

If you are actively involved in creation of policy, and you squash your own opinion to make room for your superior's, then yes, you are a puppet. Jesus christ. But the average Joe, to agree with you, is not. Unfortunately, I never said he was.

and they wonder why i glare at them and occasionally bark at them on the streets of dc ...........damn dirty republicans

It's not about "thinking differently" It's simply about right and wrong and what our country has alwasy stood for. I'm sorry you don't understand the difference between a civil war and "terrorism"

This I actually agree with, somewhat. However, it's a complaint you'd best direct at reality. The fact that we face an ongoing, indefinite threat is upsetting, but I don't think it's something we can ignore. I don't think setting a date ends the conflict in any way; it just ends the measures being taken against it. Of course, this is predicated on the idea that you actually think there's some sort of threat. If you don't, well, duh, of course none of it will make sense to you.

This is exactly my point, though: even Lincoln, widely regarded as our greatest president, induced this kind of rage with his actions. He went much, much further than Dubya has, but you wouldn't know it from listening to some of the people here.

Basically, I'm trying to lend the discussion some historical perspective. People are screaming hysterically as if we're violating all precedent and turning into Soviet Russia, for crying out loud, when in reality our nation's most heralded leader went a great deal further down this particular path. Is Dubya right? I'm not sure. History will have to be the judge of it. My stance is that the people who think this is clear-cut are full of it.

"Existence" is your word. I don't see why the United States needs to face complete anihiliation before these sorts of legal actions are justified.

Thousands of our citizens have been killed, and they made a concentrated effort to meet us in Iraq. It's an untraditional war, to be sure, but it's certainly a war. I'm not really sure what they'd have to do to convince you of this.

War is not simply defined by whether or not your country's existence is threatened; it also applies when your citizenry is threatened. That's the whole "public safety" part, which is admittedly vague (though perhaps for good reason).

I got to paragraph three before the overwhelming urge to vomit and leave this country took over.

And bin Laden issued fatwa's with specific demands in 1998, which were ignored by the previous administration. It's an ongoing problem that spans multiple administrations, period. It is a failing of America, and no one President, Secretary, or Congressman.

Yes, it is stupid. But it happens. It's naive to think that giving them due process would end the conflict; it's about a lot more than that.

Yes, that's the definition of a puppet. Now, if you can produce any sort of evidence that the generals of Iraq fit this description, then your smear on their integrity will make sense.

Jesus Christ, are you naturally stupid, or are you actively exerting effort? It's been discussed. Lincoln's actions were protected by Constitutional Law. In no stretch of the imagination is Bush protected by said law. None. And that's what we're discussing - the legality of Bush's actions.

I do. But I don't think you understand that our current situation shares some similarities with that one. They both raise legal questions about the lengths we should go to to protect people who may be trying to harm us. It was a sticky question then, and it's a sticky question now.

But if there's one thing I've learned about these sorts of discussions, it's that you can't compare two things on any level without someone flipping out and pretending that you're equivocating them.

Wait, what? "War" is now defined as any time any citizen is threatened?

Does that mean the Congress can suspend the habeas corpus rights of homophobes because American citizens are threatened with violence due to their (actual or perceived) sexual orientation?

Some white dude blew up a federal building on Oklahoma City. Does that mean we're at war with white men?

Also, the writ of habeas corpus can only be suspended during times of rebellion or invasion. Not times of war, or times of "Oh mommy, the evil Islamofascists are going to hurt me!"

What on earth are you talking about? The freaking Supreme Court overruled Lincoln, and he completely ignored Justice Taney. It wasn't a perfectly legal suspension; it had far more serious challenges and overrulings than what's happening today. That's what I've been saying, and it's not that complicated.

....I'm sorry, I had to clean out my ears. You're saying Clinton is as much responsible for 9/11 as Bush? Clinton never had concrete evidence of not only bin Laden's determination to attack the United States but the means as well. No shit we knew bin Laden wanted to destroy us. No fucking shit. But that memo explicitly stated that bin Laden would use airplanes. Bush ignored it, and lo and behold, bin Laden used airplanes to attack us. That is a monumental failure that practically makes all others irrelevant. You cannot possibly say that Clinton knew bin Laden would use airplanes as weapons, because he didn't. Bush did.

Historical president, by whichever president (har) is not grounds on which to argue that such action is legitimate. I see it rather as an emotional argument rather than a rational one. Just because most of us have an overall favorable view of Lincoln, an appeal to his name is assumed to be an effective way to make a point. It is not. I have a very favorable view of FDR, but I don't think anybody today would defend his internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry.

As to your other points, I ask you this: What are we fighting for? We fight because we believe the way we live is right. If we sacrifice what separates us from the islamo-fascists, we've stopped being the good guys, the heroes, the moral. To borrow a line from Battlestar Galactica (although I am ashamed to do so): "It's not enough to survive; we have to be worthy of surviving"

I'm certainly not advocating ignoring terrorist activity, particularly when it's conducted by people who have announced our destruction as one of their principal goals - even when they have no realistic chance of actually doing so.

I do object, though, to calling it a war. War is an existential threat. Anything less than that is something else, requiring more intelligent, agile, and measured responses.

As for the damage they've done to us, I don't believe in ignoring that, either, but neither do I think it should be overstated. Attacking our enemies where they have bases is sound policy in principal, but when you're dealing with an enemy that can form cells anywhere in the world, it's not a policy that will actually make you any safer. Port, border, and airline security will.

Moreover, again because enemy cells can be formed anywhere in the world, sending in a hundred thousand troops to attack them is like trying to kill a yellowjacket with a sledgehammer. Sometimes military actions may be called for, but by and large investigative action would be a hell of a lot more effective.

Finally, I really don't see why terrorism should be treated any differently than any other kind of mass murders. We do alright with the laws we have, and with the protections that maintain our civil society. Abandoning them just because some whackjob psychokiller suddenly has a manifesto makes no sense to me, and strikes me doing a lot more damage to our nation than that whackjob psychokiller ever will.