While I believe the acts much more a "crime" than an act of war, I believe that states should exercise extra-judicial authorities in responding to such crimes. Any trial would be either a travesty or a farce. We know AQ did it, so go out and punish AQ. That does not mean "declare a war" on them, or issue warrants for their arrest, trial and possible punishment if proven guilty. There is a middle ground, more like how Israel relentlessly, and without fanfare, hunted down and terminated certain Nazi war criminals.
We need to be pragmatic. Anytime a state adopts a program of punishment that is as hard on the taxpaying citizens as it is on the criminals it seeks to punish; and equally, is of a design that really does little to resolve a problem and in many ways makes it worse (think "war on drugs", "war on terror", and probably a few of the other pseudo-wars as well) it is bad policy.
AQ is the symptom. Put a death warrant on the symptom. That done, now stop and think about what the roots of the problem are that gave rise to those symptoms, that allow an organization such as AQ to have influence, that fuel the widespread revolutions sweeping the Middle East, that have so damaged US reputation in the same region in increasing degree since a peak of positiveness at the end of WWII and design new policies for more appropriately engaging that important region of the world. Waging a war instead only serves to distract from the critical tasks, and to overly focus on military actions over civil actions.
Being a nation that operates under the rule of law does not mean that we are a slave to the laws that are currently on the books. We could have written new laws to support what we needed to do that would have met much broader approval than our decision to employ existing laws in the context of war. The current laws we operate under are wholly inappropriate and illogical to the problem we apply them against. They guide us into programs of actions that make the problem worse as often as they help.
Its like we needed to play a game of soccer, but the only rule books avilable were for Chess and American Football, and we resigned ourselves to having to pick one to follow. We should have just written rules for soccer that fit the game and go play.
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