Terrorists, by their very nature, accept no rules. Regardless of cause, they will do whatever it takes to wreak death and destruction on targeted societies. There are no bounds to their depraved behavior. Victim societies are however bound by the rule of law. Though confronting a terrorist menace with the utmost determination, they cannot abandon the law and put aside of the very strength differentiating them from terrorists.
The temptation for law-abiding peoples under ruthless terror attack to abandon the law and answer with equal ruthlessness is always there. Popular opinion often clamors for insurgent savagery to be matched by a brutal official response. This is what the terrorists want. They themselves are elusive. The official anger falls upon the section of the community whose interests they pretend to champion. Official toughness toward such people inevitably outrages and polarizes opinion and thus produces a flow of new recruits and supporters for the terrorist cause.
America regards itself as a society based unwaveringly upon the rule of law. Yet unfortunately its response to international terror since Sept. 11 has been to blur legal edges. The ambiguous status and harsh treatment of the Guantanamo captives has rightly given cause for considerable concern, not simply around the world but in America itself. The majority of Americans think the terror suspects held in this allegedly offshore judicial location deserve everything that is coming to them. More thoughtful citizens, however, are concerned that the watering down here of the US judicial process is having a corrosive effect upon the whole justice system. US Special Forces operating in southeastern Afghanistan are fighting a nasty and ruthless war with a well-concealed and tough enemy. Though such elite troops enjoy a fearsome reputation for doing whatever is necessary “to get the job done”, they too are subject to the rule of law. Despite alleged changes to interrogation rules, these men too are answerable in a court of law for their conduct.
It is now being alleged in Afghanistan that the US military has circumvented legal restrictions on its own behavior by hiring civilian bounty hunters to do the dirty work for them. Three such Americans are currently on trial in a Kabul court accused of hostage-taking, torture, running a private jail and illegal entry. Their leader claims he was working under Pentagon orders and that he and his fellow bounty hunters had captured and handed over a top wanted Taleban leader to US forces earlier this year. The US admits receiving the man but vigorously denies any connection with the activities of these desperadoes. The case is already proving embarrassing for Washington because many observers will suspect that this was indeed a totally “deniable” operation run with Pentagon approval.
Perhaps what is most important about situations like Guantanamo and allegedly unofficial Pentagon bounty hunters in Afghanistan is not so much that deplorably they have occurred but how a country like the US, which is wedded to the rule of law, reacts when its behavior is challenged. Many will be dissatisfied with the speed and scope of the legal process on Guantanamo as well as on the prosecutions over the enormities inflicted on prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Nevertheless, to their credit once the issues have been identified, the Americans are applying the law.
