The War on the Rule of Law
Journal of National Security Forum, Vol. 36, p. 101, 2010
17 Pages Posted: 13 Jun 2010
Date Written: June 11, 2010
Abstract
Each year, the Journal of the National Security Forum asks a set of ten questions to various authors and observers and publishes their views on some or all of the questions. I have chosen to address several, but not all, of the questions for this forum because I want to talk about the role of lawyers and national security. I believe that the policies of the U.S. Government following 9/11 were shaped by panic, that several of those policies constituted an attempt to repudiate centuries of developing legal principles, and that the principles so repudiated represented both hu an values and pragmatic realities in the face of serious threats to national security. In short, I believe that the Bush Administration, acting through various lawyers, mounted not so much a “War on Terror” as an assault on the Rule of Law, and in the process added fuel to the recruiting efforts of the jihadists. Rather than making us safer, they increased the threat to our national security.
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