Quote Originally Posted by SWJED View Post
One assumption here is that world opinion really does not matter much, as it is inevitable that lines are being drawn and there is nothing we can do in the information operations arena that can change Islamist ideology and its increasing acceptance in the Muslim world.
I strongly disagree with that last bit. In effect, that mindset condones incompetence and accepts failure. By continuing along such a path the worst case scenario becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The only variable is when each Western country will realize they are in a fight for survival of their way of life.
As others have stated and explained in great detail, it is not the terrorism that truly threatens our way of life, it is the reaction to that terrorism.

The terrorists are not soldiers - they are criminals, and should be prosecuted as such. But even a scumbag that has raped a number of pre-teen girls under his responsibility in a day-care center has to be interviewed, investigated and prosecuted under the rule of law. Terrorists are also criminal scum - and they should be treated no different.

Despite our emotional feelings about the rightness of summary justice for either the terrorist or the child-rapist, following the rules ensures that the rights of innocent people aren't violated (it isn't about protecting the rights of the bad guy - its about ensuring that he is the bad guy). It also demonstrates to the world that we are truly a free country, unafraid to display to the world the bad guys we've captured, the evidence clearly linking them to terrorism, and then try them openly as common criminals. This diminishes the status of the terrorist and enhances our moral standing.

On the other hand, indefinite detention in the absence of evidence, secret evidence, secret tribunals, prosecutions hidden from view are things for which we used to vilify the Soviets and the Eastern Bloc (I'm sure there's a few of you on here that remember those days...). Such methods enhance the status of the bad guys we hold, clearly display a disturbing mix of national arrogance and fear, and then those that are inevitably eventually released spread tales of that system which have a significant negative impact upon our already virtually non-existent IO campaign.

Let's just do this the right way. And I mean that in both aspects: being morally right as well as operationally effective. Believe it or not, we can do it.