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The laws of treason are very dangerous. They were abused in England for hundreds of years, primarily because the definition of "enemy" was so elastic.

I contend that the way the People of the United States create an "enemy", in the Constitutional sense, is for Our representatives in Congress assembled to declare war on that enemy.

I suppose I would agree that the issuance of Letters of Marque and Reprisal have the same effect.

Neither of those scenarios apply to the NVA.

The problem with the more elastic definition is that enemies and friends can change with the stroke of an executive pen. To be guilty of treason, or to be barred from office in the way you suggest, there must be a bright line you cross, and that line must be drawn by the People, acting through Congress.

"The laws of treason are very dangerous. They were abused in England for hundreds of years, primarily because the definition of "enemy" was so elastic."

"I contend that the way the People of the United States create an "enemy", in the Constitutional sense, is for Our representatives in Congress assembled to declare war on that enemy."

There was an excellent thread a while back that dealt with how congress exercises it's authority to declare war. It was brought up in response to all the criticism on Bush about his "illegal" war.

The best point made was that there is no procedural definition for a declaration of war stated in the constitution. Congress approved the use of force in Korea, Vietnam and the War on terror. There is no formula or words that must be said for a declaration of war to be valid. Yet everytime we went to war there was a clear consensus for who the enemy was.

For the war on terror, Congress authorized the president to use the US Military against any entity HE deemed appropriate. That force was to be used entirely at the president's discretion.

We had a hot war in Vietnam. We were killing each other, we wanted a regime change They captured prisoners and so did we. We attempted to abide by the Geneva conventions.

That sounds to me that we were truly at war and we knew who the enemy was.

How to differentiate aid and comfort to the enemy from protected first amendment dissent is where we run into the dangers you mention. I'm pretty sure that that lying under oath about US atrocities and thereby undermining the war effort should be considered treason. It's really not that much of a gray area. The morality of the action taken is the litmus test for treason. Kerry's VVAW testimony was provably fraudulent and therefore treasonous.