Sen. Lindsey Graham on Terrorists, Criminals, and Warriors Posted by David Shorr

Some of the things Sen. Lindsey Graham said Monday on Morning Edition about the habeas corpus debate are worth parsing. Here is my own transcription:

Everybody will have their day in court, but I am not going to sit on the sidelines and watch this war be criminalized. These are not common criminals; they’re accused of being warriors, involved in a global war And I think our military is best equipped to determine who is part of the enemy force, and the judges in our courts will be able to review military decisions in terms of whether it’s [inaudible].

Hearing the phrase "accused of being warriors" from a reserve officer and military lawyer struck me as very odd, and it's a good illustration of the war on terror's distorting politics. Let's set aside the questions of when the accused will get their day in court and the proper relationship between the military and civilian justice systems. The question of whether terrorists should be considered criminals or warriors is itself very important.

Sen. Graham stresses that terrorists are worse than merely criminals, they're warriors (which has it backwards, from my reading of military tradition). Why is he so intent on this?

Our own uniformed servicemen and women are warriors. That's what we train them, pay them, and count on them to be. They are as determined, violent, and lethal as they have to be -- no less, and no more. The sense of limits on violence, remaining humane and compassionate, are essential to the warrior's honor. It distinguishes him or her from the savage and the sadist. It is lies at the core of the laws of war.

It is often overlooked in the political debate that recognition of combatant status is something any prisoner wants, a legal protection, actually, that's very much in his interests. Unlike a criminal defendant, a prisoner of war is not liable for the violence he has committed, because it is assumed to have been within the bounds of the laws of war and military necessity.

Terrorists are the opposite of warriors. They camouflage themselves in civilian dress, rather than wear uniforms (even rebel groups often wear uniforms). They reject standards of human decency and see their ends as justifying almost any means. If you look at it in terms of the laws of war, they are war criminals.

So why does Senator Graham treat the label "warrior" as an accusation, rather than a term of honor? Because the framework of war is used as a domestic political test. In this framework, 'we're at war' is the only way to take our adversaries seriously. Speaking for myself, I'm interested in stopping terrorists. I want to find them, stop them, dry up their support, and keep from boosting their recruiting efforts. Whatever works to do that, that's what I want to do. Throwing around words like "warrior" as political wedges doesn't really help with any of those aims, and it hardly does a service to the courage and sacrifice of our own brave fighting men and women.

Comments

[Caitlyn]

You ask a very good question - why is Senator Graham using the word "warrior" - does he mean warfighter, which is increasingly being used to describe our own military, or does he mean someone acting outside the bounds of national military forces? Rather than talk about it simply from a news report, why not ask him (or his staff)?

[David Shorr]

Caitlyn--
I'm generally someone who likes to give the benefit of the doubt. But from my reading of the debate, his statement tracks with a prominent strand that stakes out the serious-about-terrorists high ground with the argument that the adversary is making war on us, so we have to look at it as war. If I have missed a substantive legal argument, I'd be very interested in hearing it, but Graham is pretty clearly saying that a warrior is worse than a criminal. At the very least, he seems uncareful in stigmatizing a word that is associated with the proudest traditions of the military, including our own.

[zak822]

"so we have to look at it as war".

Ok. Let President Bush ask Congress for a declaration of war. All of them, President and Congress, should try the novel experience of actually adhering to the Constitution that they all took an oath to uphold.

Any of them who can't bring themselves to do so should try the equally novel experience of doing the honorable thing--and resign.

[David Shorr]

I was in a discussion recently that made an unusual connection between national security politics today and the framers' vision of the separation of powers. As the framers built a system of checks and balances to hedge against human nature's hunger for power, they never imagined that a political body would eagerly defer to another.

[Don Bacon]

Donald Rumsfeld sometimes talked sensibly.

"I guess I don't think I would have called it the war on terror. I don't mean to be critical of those who have or did or -- and certainly I've used the phrase frequently. Why do I say that? I say it because the word "war" conjures up World War II more than it does the Cold War, and it creates a level of expectation of victory and an ending within the 30 or 60 minutes of a soap opera. And it isn't going to happen that way.

"Furthermore, it's not a war on terror. Terror is a weapon of choice for extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and impose their -- in the hands of a small group of clerics, their dark vision on all the people that they can control.

"So 'war on terror' has a problem for me, and I've worked to try to reduce the extent to which that's used, and increase the extent to which we understand it more as a long war or a struggle or a conflict, not against terrorism but against a relatively small number, but terribly dangerous and lethal, violent extremists."

http://www.defenselink.mil/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=3824

[cheap rf gold]

RF online is a very good game. Through buying rf gold, I find fun in it. I am so glad that I can earn a lot of rf online gold. RF online cater to the taste of young people. With rf money, you can get everything you want in this game. So I like to buy rf cp.

[Louis Vuitton replica watches]

we don't think it is reasonable to spend hundreds thousands dollars to buy a decorating watch. you can use those money to invest in other industry which will return you good profit.
here you just need to spend 100-200 dollars to buy a replica rolex watches.
Louis Vuitton replica watches are made by the rating 1:1 according to the original watches, and you can't distinguish the original and the fake watches when you look at the surface of the watches.

[buy Tales Of Pirates Gold]

Therefore, I should buy Tales Of Pirates Gold with the spare money.

[Perfect World Gold]

I hope i can get Perfect World Silver in low price.
I buy Perfect World money for you.

[12sky gold]

Once I played 12sky, I did not know how to get strong, someone told me that you must have twelve sky Gold. He gave me some 12sky gold.

[cabal money]

I have 2 years playing earthshaking has a lot of cabal money.Now I not buy cabal alz any more.

[cheap requiem lant]

you must borrow requiem money from friends, or you can not go on this game without cheap requiem lant.

[cheap coach handbags]

Thank you for your sharing! I like i very much!