Terror Has No Rights: Time To End Legal Limbo For Violent Extremists
Keith Naughton
Two things are certain in this world: 1) most
people have to learn the hard way and 2) some people never learn. The
tragedy comes when innocent people lose their lives because the fools
who never learn are in charge.
Just a scant few weeks ago America was convulsed in debate
over torture. In the background, President Obama continued his policy of
closing Guantanamo Bay by stealth, slowly leaking away detainees,
irrespective of how dangerous they are.
The terrorist attack in Paris (one perpetrator had been
convicted of recruiting terrorists and was stupidly let free) should
shake Obama from his inaction. Unfortunately, I think this president is
one of those people who never learn.
Before we can deal with terrorism, it is necessary to
establish a clear and coherent policy. Lost in the debate over enhanced
interrogation or torture and Guantanamo Bay is the fact that terrorists
are in legal limbo. They are not soldiers, they are not mafia-style
gangsters, and they are not “freedom fighters.” Until the U.S. and its
allies settle on their legal status and rights, it is not only
impossible to develop a coherent policy, it is impossible to gain
international cooperation – which is pretty important when fighting
trans-national terrorists.
Our Declaration of Independence declares that all men are
created equal and possess a set of inalienable rights. If the Founding
Fathers were to update that credo to the present day, I think they would
carve out an exception for al-Qaeda (and, if not, they should). That’s
not just my opinion, the Geneva Conventions on warfare do not include
protections for terrorists – be they guerrillas, irregulars or lunatics
who fly planes into buildings. Terrorists are in a legal limbo and it’s
time to end that limbo. Terrorists (and their abettors) should be
considered utterly without rights of any kind.
Terrorism is a unique threat. Organized and dedicated to
indiscriminate mass slaughter, terrorists are like an army of
sociopaths. Beyond physical destruction, the fear caused by terrorism
degrades the rights of all people in society every day – that is part of
the terrorist strategy. There is not even the remotest parallel to any
domestic criminal act. To accord terrorists the same protections of the
U.S. Constitution as domestic criminals is incomprehensibly foolish.
Nor do terrorists compare with any nation’s armed forces.
Militaries are subject to chains of command and rules of engagement that
have at least some rational basis. The vast majority of militaries in
the world are subject to some civilian control. Additionally,
nation-states are subject to pressures of sanction, blockade and precise
military operations that can force real political change.
Terrorist organizations are not subject to such pressure
and have much more fluid command and control. Terrorists only stop when
dead or facing annihilation. Terrorists don’t believe in negotiation,
except to release hostages in exchange for money to finance more
violence. These facts are not just true for Al-Qaida or ISIS, consider
the history of FARC in Colombia. For decades FARC massacred, car bombed,
kidnapped and looted Colombia. Only a determined campaign by former
President Uribe to utterly eradicate FARC convinced the organization to
finally agree to talks about disarming (which are predictably stalled).
These material differences logically demand that terrorists
be classified very differently from either domestic criminals or
military forces. Terrorists have more in common with fatal viruses than
with human beings. Simply put, when you decide to join or aid a
terrorist organization, you should lose your human rights.
