"A major element of our strategy has been to delegitimize terrorists, to get society to see them for what they are - criminals - and to use democracy's most potent tool, the rule of law, against them."
This from Paul Bremer, aide to Ronald Reagan, in 1987 regarding the administration's anti-terrorism strategy (from a brief but revealing WaPo piece on the five--of several--myths of the Reagan legacy). This strategy of "downgrading" terrorists from foreign warriors to the thugs and murderers they truly are is precisely what the Obama administration has sought to accomplish by pursuing the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center (and the subsequent transfer of prisoners to U.S. soil, covered by SR here and here and here) as well as the trying of enemy combatants in Article III courts. Of course, to ask today's GOP how they feel regarding the above quote would lead only to unpleasant frothing and incoherent mumbles about creeping sharia in public schools.
Step into the rain: secondrain.blogspot.com
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