Dealing with terrorism under a warfare paradigm is a threat to democracy.

[redgreenandblue]

It was clear that it was so from the beginning, but the last decade has reaffirmed what has been common knowledge during the last century: A country cannot claim to be in a state of war with an enemy that does not have any national ties and does not wear uniform and at the same time expect that civil liberties will remain intact.

The reasons for this are pretty simple: The warfare paradigm implies that the enemy can be attacked and killed without consulting a judicial system. The warfare paradigm implies that the use of force must not necessarily be defensive in nature, but that offensive strikes are legitimate.

Since the enemy is not a regular army however, there is no obvious way of distinguishing between enemy combatants and uninvolved people. To engage such an enemy under a warfare paradigm it is necessary to grant the executive branch supreme power in making this distinction accoring to its own discretion.

This effectively makes the leader of the executive branch a dictator, since there is no longer any accountability and no way to challenge the decisions made by the executive branch. There is in principle nothing that prevents the leader from declaring political opponents enemy combatants. No "checks and balances". Declaring a "war on terror" is the same as "declaring martial law" or "declaring a state of national emergency". The bottom line of it is that constitutional rights are no longer guaranteed for anyone, as long as such a state is in effect.

There was a time where Democrats argued that the response to 9/11 should have come in the form of a police operation, within the frameworks of civilian laws. This was the correct stance. It is pretty obvious actually. Anyone who gives a damn about democracy should be opposed to the "war on terror".

[libodem]

1. Agree

100%.

[Life Long Dem]

2. That's a little jump from terrorists targets to political opponents.

But then again there is Romney. Kidding.

[redgreenandblue]

3. Don't you think that in Afghanistan

the lumping of political opponents of the Kharzai regime (which the United Nations has accused of election fraud) with terrorists has already happened?

The powers granted to the executive branch of the United States after 9/11 and re-affirmed and extended through things such as the NDAA guarantee that in principle a sitting president can take such actions domestically. That doesn't mean any particular president will do so. The Obama administration will not, but then as you say, there's Romney. I wouldn't put it past any future Republican president to "disappear" US citizens when there is civil unrest.

[annabanana]

5. no jump at all, structurally, or in terms of

protections..

[Egalitarian Thug]

6. Not if you look at history. Insert favorite bogeyman, terrorists, Jews, hippies, Communists, etc.

and scare the comfortable with the threat of losing their comfort and you get tyranny. It's an old strategy and it still works beautifully.

[redgreenandblue]

8. Indeed. The mechanism of "wartime powers" is the standard instrument to subvert freedom.

[leveymg]

4. 5th rec. You're right, it should be obvious to all. But war serves other agendas: commodification

of policing and national security allows the same contractors a larger potential market for government sales. It's an economic imperative that goes back to the immediate World War Two era, if not to the Civil War.

The privatization and commodification of the GWOT is a process that's become so odious and globally threatening that it generates its own demand for and supply of terrorist targets. It's a global process that is bigger than any particular company, government agency or Administration.

During the Clinton era when the shape of the universal surveillance and humanitarian intervention state was becoming obvious, the U.S. was laughingly referred to by some wag at the Davos meeting as, "The Last Rogue Superpower." Despite efforts to cut it down to size, while others tried to exploit it for gain and yet another group manipulated it in a campaign to overextend the Empire and kill the golden goose, indeed, that remains an apt description of what America became in the last couple decades. A permanent warfare state.

The GWOT (like the Cold War before it) has come home, and it is now an entrenched institution and commodity market-maker; it will inevitably destroy more of what's left of traditional American liberties.

[bhikkhu]

7. I'm not sure that I agree, but you have nailed the argument pretty well

I was in the "police operation" camp back in 2001, but it clearly wasn't going to go that way. Too many people talk like Obama just decided this last year, while the decision was made in the AUMF of Sept 14, 2001, and carried out pretty ineptly for 7 years by the other guy.

Its hard to see how to undo what's been done now, and perhaps the best we can hope for is to keep the narrative factual in the hope of gaining some lessons going forward.

[Robb]

9. Eh.

Since the enemy is not a regular army however, there is no obvious way of distinguishing between enemy combatants and uninvolved people.

This has been the case since guerrilla warfare was first tried, or indeed the invention of camouflage.

To engage such an enemy under a warfare paradigm it is necessary to grant the executive branch supreme power in making this distinction accoring to its own discretion.

That doesn't follow. Soldiers have been hiding among civilian populations during wartime since the invention of the club. Why is this a given in your mind?

[sad sally]

10. By declaring a war on terrorism - a noun, not a country - no formal declaration nor

written approval was or is ever needed. This type of war leaves so many unanswered questions. Who will eventually surrender? How will you know when your objectives are met? When will you know when you've won? When will it end?

Since our government has given us the Patriot Act (remember what a patriot used to be?) and the NDAA, and we've readily accepted them because we've been threatened and brainwashed into thinking patriotism means giving up justice, liberty and freedom in order to be safe, they must keep this war on terrorism going. Armed drones help make it possible to extend it well into the unknown future.