I’ve been meaning to address a common complaint from readers and a few bloggers over my column last week. I took issue with Wesley Clark’s and Kal Raustiala incredibly sub-par op-ed in the New York Times in which they argued that we should just treat terrorists from al Qaeda and the like as criminals. Quite a few folks complained that I didn’t address the second half of their op-ed which addressed the problem of treating domestic terrorists (i.e. terrorists captured within America or terrorists of American citizenship). The criticism is fair. The explanation is simple. At the last minute I cut a paragraph dealing with the concern for space reasons. I probably should have found a different cut. So let me say, I think the criminal justice system should probably take the lead when dealing with domestic terrorists, at least with American citizens who join al Qaeda. I don’t take this view because I have great sympathy for the rights of the terrorists but I have great concern for the fragility of the criminal justice system.

But the point of my column was aimed at the primary argument offered by Clark and Raustiala, that all terrorists wherever we find them, should be treated like ordinary criminals. I continue to think not only that this is idiotic, but that Clark and Raustiala didn’t even try to make the smart case for this bad position (many liberal readers did a much better job). They made a lame, unserious, effort at defending a weak case. For example, they say that we should view terrorists like pirates. I’m sympathetic to this view, but it undermines their position. For example, the most analogous pirates of all — the Barbary Corsairs – were not treated as criminals. We declared war on them and dispatched the Marines to the “shores of Tripoli.”