I think that someone who joins al Qaeda waives the right to be treated as a civilian. Those al Qaeda agents who want to waive the white flag and turn themselves over to the other side can still do so, and I’m sure the US would be happy to receive them.
Conspiracy charges would technically be possible, but I don’t think it aligns with the goals of anti-terrorism. The very point of terrorism is to inflict terror. Not to murder a specific person, but to terrorize. Anti-terrorist activities aim to prevent this, and indefinite detention until you are no longer a threat (which may be longer or shorter than a sentence under criminal law) may be the only way to accomplish this. And again, the standards for preventative measures are lower than they are for criminal matters. You don’t have to prove someone is suicidal beyond a reasonable doubt in order to detain them and put the under observation. Do we really want to have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a public court of law that an al Qaeda member was part of a specific plot in order to take action against them, even presuming we are able to capture them alive?[quote=“chenille, post:36, topic:21215”]
Either of those might be a good start - either apply some part of the procedure for actually creating a situation where you’re actually defining a war zone, or some part of the procedure for a judicial trial. I mean, it’s not ideal with no defendant, but it’s less of a mockery than claiming someone can receive due process without ever holding court at all.
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I’m not sure I agree with this. Diluting the criminal justice system seems like a bad idea, and I’m not sure why need to define a war zone per se. Surely it should be possible to define an enemy force, and proceed on that basis; I certainly don’t think WWII activities were defined geographically given the constant territorial flux of the Axis powers. As it happens, Congress did authorize military action against al Qaeda, which would seem to partially satisfy your objections.
As for Al-Awlaki, I’m not sure that the procedure behind the decision to target him was substantially different from the procedure for targeting other individuals. At some point the decision has to be made whether they are an imminent threat to the US. Once that decision has been made, they can target that person. His US citizenship certainly complicated the discussion, at least from a political perspective, and motivated higher-level review, but I’m not sure if it really affected the basis for the actual decision to target him.
