When fear attempts to take a shortcut

Washington Times ^ | Friday, June 14, 2002 | Wesley Pruden

[JohnHuang2]

Fear, though not necessarily good, can be legitimately useful. You could ask George W. Bush. He harnessed fear in the wake of September 11 to unite the nation in the way it had not been united in decades, perhaps not since that other date that will live in infamy.

[JohnHuang2]

Friday, June 14, 2002

Quote of the Day by spetznaz

[dawn53]

Hi John, Thanks for this post.

. There's no reason to doubt President Bush's assertion that Jose Padilla aka Abdullah al-Muhajir is "a bad guy," and what a Justice Department official calls "a very hard case." But so far there's nothing in the statutes against being "a bad guy." The assertion by his lawyer that "my client is a citizen" so far seems unanswerable, and that he has constitutional rights, the right to a lawyer and the right to know what the charge is against him.

IMHO, this is why we never could have stopped 9/11. Assumption of guilt or bad deeds that will be carried out would not have allowed us to stop the hijackers. They entered legally, they carried box cutters (not against the rules at the time), so even if we had connected the dots, what good would that have done us. Could we have held them or charged them based on what they "MIGHT" be going to do?

Now even post 9/11 we are confronted with the problems of a "fair" legal system dealing with people who don't "play by the rules."

[JohnHuang2]

You're welcome, and good morning to ya.

Your comments are right on the money, btw.

[tonycavanagh]

re : Now even post 9/11 we are confronted with the problems of a "fair" legal system dealing with people who don't "play by the rules.".

This is a very old problem, a problem I faced many times in North Ireland.

The other side is ruthless, they dont play by the rules, how can we beatt them using .

The old saying the road to hell is paved with good intensions is very apt in this sitatation, Too many times operations, or methods that started out with good intensions took a life of there own and ended up bodering or becoming ilegal.

It is too easy ending up with the end justifies the means frame of mind where winning becomes everything and very bad calls were made.

In fact one such bad call is breaking in my country at the moment.

When we ask the people to trust us we must make sure that we keep that trust, and sometimes to keep that trust we must trust the people and be open with them.

Cheers Tony

[LarryM]

Pruden is full of it. If the US Govt captures an enemy combatant trying to enter the country (US citizen or not), they have a right to try him before a tribunal and if found guilty, execute him. This is the upshot of the Ex Parte Quirin case upheld by the Supreme Court in 1942.