10 July 2006
Enemy Combatants
Defining terrorists as “enemy combatants” in a war on terror analogizes military forces in traditional nation-state conflicts. In this war on terror, Western civilization is the victim and radical Islamicists, the aggressor.
Terrorists do not choose to join this attack as a result of a rational process. They are not part of a conspiracy. They are closer to being draftees. They are impressed into service not by civic coercion, but by the emotional suasion wielded by their spiritual leaders.
This is not to say that terrorists deserve sympathy for having unwillingly taken part in a harmful act. They must be subjected to the rule of law in the civil society that they have violated. However, it is clear that that society would be less civil if it suspended its laws in order to deal with terrorists.
Defining terrorists as “enemy combatants” in a war on terror analogizes military forces in traditional nation-state conflicts. In this war on terror, Western civilization is the victim and radical Islamicists, the aggressor.
Terrorists do not choose to join this attack as a result of a rational process. They are not part of a conspiracy. They are closer to being draftees. They are impressed into service not by civic coercion, but by the emotional suasion wielded by their spiritual leaders.
This is not to say that terrorists deserve sympathy for having unwillingly taken part in a harmful act. They must be subjected to the rule of law in the civil society that they have violated. However, it is clear that that society would be less civil if it suspended its laws in order to deal with terrorists.
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