Noisy Dove, help me think through my bewilderment that this foreign-birthed, al-Qaeda-commissioned Kamikaze passenger is not being tried as a POW? Why was it a better idea to read this lost kid his rights?
You would think we would learn our lesson, since that is how we treated the first World Trade Center bomber.
I think the new approach comes out of the overall idea that we’re not at war with anyone – and that terrorists are criminals. This idea came out of the opposition to the Bush administration. In an effort to cripple his agenda, they pushed the idea that his ‘war’ was simply a scare tactic to pass legislation, with the hope that they’d stop his passage of any legislation.
Now this is a normal thing that happens on both sides. But with regard to the Iraq and Afghan war, and war on terror, this phenomenon has reached truly unhealthy proportions.
Allow me to explain with an analogy: There is a certain portion of the electorate that will watch Obama stand behind
a horse with a shovel until it fills with shit then watch him dump that shovel into a cake pan and call it a chocolate cake. Then that percentage will argue virulently that Obama’s ‘cake’ is in fact a chocolate cake.
Likewise there is a percentage on the other side who will argue that a chocolate cake Obama spent many house backing is not a chocolate cake, but a shovel full of horse shit.
Most of this is rational politicing. They’re just trying to slow an agenda they disagree with. But amount these there are certain irrational party-line idealists who – through these semi-rational efforts – start to become true believers. They actually start to believe that this pile of actual horse shit is chocolate cake. They’re even willing to eat it and smile, urging others to enjoy a large slice of this tasty chocolate cake.
Napolitano might be one of these partisan shit-eaters. So might Eric holder. They might actually believe that terrorists 
are just criminals and that we aren’t at war with a global network of Pan Islamists. So they’re willing to actually treat the war like law enforcement.
This is a totally illogical approach though. Criminals aren’t trying to literally destroy American. Criminals are just trying to make an easy living, or indulging a weird impulse. The ‘terrorists’ are in fact able and willing to destroy our society and are currently in that process – that’s what wars do.
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Raging Kitty