Notwithstanding media headlines and President Clinton, who called the bombing of USS Cole an act of terror, what happened on Thursday in Aden to a U.S. Navy destroyer was not a terrorist act; it was an act of war. Terrorism is the killing of innocent civilians for a host of possible reasons. Soldiers and sailors going about their business and following lawful orders are innocent as individuals, but this is no guarantor, legally or morally, of safety.
Insofar as they are an instrument of a nation's defenses, they are vulnerable to enemy attack, and the vulnerability goes with the job. Most of the men and women in the U.S. military understand this fact.
The difference between an act of terror and an act of war is important. Over the past three decades the United States and other democratic states where the rule of law reigns, have developed legal, evidentiary and procedural standards for defining and responding to terrorism. They swing into effect reflexively now. FBI......
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Approximate Pages: 3 (260 words per double-spaced page) |