Body Count

Luke Weiger lweiger at umich.edu
Sun Dec 8 14:14:22 PST 2002


Justin wrote:


> What planeta re you living on? That's a really bad example.

There are no good examples because no state, large or small, is likely to attack the US any time soon.


> But yes, it makes a difference whether you are at war or dealing with a crime. The
> laws of war of significantly looser than those governing criminal investigations. One
> raeson is that states have resources criminal gangs don't.

Al Qaeda has resources many small states don't.


> As far as I know you are proposing a novel amendment of the laws of war. The
> main thing is this, which you do not seem to recognize. War is a very serious
> business. In war, the govt claims the right to kill lots of people, destroy their
> property, incur innocent casualties, set aside normal due process restraints, and so
> forth. It was for that reason that the Constitution embodiesa forgoten cloause stating > that only Congress has the power to declare war. A criminal act, even a very serious > one, ought not trigger the power oif the state to make war.

Scale matters. A Declaration of War would be in order if a terrorist group committed the "crime" of killing everyone on Long Island, right?


> This war is mainly an excuse for those things. It's not about al Qaida. And, frankly, > as a supporter of the war aaginst the Nazis, I suppose I think that anyone who
> knows the horrors wars unlease has to accept the responsibility for having unleashed > them, even in a just cause.

Knowing that any war is bound to unleash some horrors doesn't entail that we excuse all the horrors of a given war.

jks

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