On the Right

THE categorical opponents of the detainee bill should spend an unhappy hour reading the new book by Mary Habeck. She is a scholar at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins whose book, Knowing the Enemy, is subtitled Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror. It undertakes to tell the reader things about the jihadist offensive which we should know about and take into account when weighing legislative initiatives.

The scene in Washington was as follows. The president, commander in chief of our army, navy, and air force and, as such, principal agent of the national security, took to Congress an impasse. It had been created by the Supreme Court. Exercising its authority to opine on deviations from past constitutional practice having to do with human rights, the Court ruled that we could not legitimately proceed, as we have been doing in Guantanamo, to detain foreigners for interrogation and other purposes without reference to such constitutional narrative as is implicit under habeas corpus. That doctrine specifies that the American citizen is the master of his own movements-putting the burden of respecting that sovereignty on the government.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

THE categorical opponents of the detainee bill should spend an unhappy hour reading the new book by Mary Habeck. She is a scholar at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins whose book, Knowing the Enemy, is subtitled Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror. It undertakes to tell the reader things about the jihadist offensive which we should know about and take into account when weighing legislative initiatives.

The scene in Washington was as follows. The president, commander in chief of our army, navy, and air force and, as such, principal agent of the national security, took to Congress an impasse. It had been created by the Supreme Court. Exercising its authority to opine on deviations from past constitutional practice having to do with human rights, the Court ruled that we could not legitimately proceed, as we have been doing in Guantanamo, to detain foreigners for interrogation and other purposes without reference to such constitutional narrative as is implicit under habeas corpus. That doctrine specifies that the American citizen is the master of his own movements-putting the burden of respecting that sovereignty on the government.