So then, what should one do when an enemy attacks but doesn't declare a formal war? Or what should we do if they attack us AND declare war on us? Because like it or not that is what has happened. A war has been declared on America by Islamist extremists. Just because they don't have a standing army in the traditional sense doesn't mean that they are any less dangerous. Hell, our own founding fathers didn't have a traditional army for the times and part of the reason the British lost the war was because they failed to adapt to their new enemy and instead tried to use the same tactics that they would for a "traditional" army. So a government needs to have the ability to adapt to it's enemy, but I also recognize that part of the issue is that our government has lost the trust of it's people and it has abused its power.
So again, how a country handles enemy combatants is a different issue from how a country defines an enemy. This is especially true when dealing with an enemy that doesn't have an allegiance to a specific country that one can wage war against.
Who says Al-Queda declared war on the US? Meaning, who accepts Al-Queda's say-so? They seem to be a stateless bunch of cut-throats, not a nation. If they declared "war", its self-aggrandizing. They're puffing themselves up, making themselves into far more than they really are.
Yes, they've pulled off some spectacular successes. Mainly because of the technology used to jack up the body count. But, that doesn't make it "war." Lets not credit these people more than they deserve. Our own government does enough of that already in order to justify occupations in two countries, 100's of thousands of deaths, and ratcheting the national debt to Saturn.
Terrorism is a criminal act; not an act of war.
What is a government to do? Well, lets explore that for a moment. Require the host country to arrest and turn him over? Try him in abstentia?--at least present the evidence for judicial review
if he simply must be killed because the price of not killing him is far worse than giving government the power to kill citizens without trial.
You see, I think this is the point that people are not weighing out: the damage the individual subject terrorist can do weighed against the damage the government can do by abusing that power. Never forgetting that one element of the government's damage is using the consent as the first inch from which to expand abuses and justifications.
What and how the government should handle such a situation is only a part of the picture. The answers are limited by imagination. Just because someone asks tells us right away the asker may be so short on imagination he can't think up any answers. All of us should suffer under a government that kills citizens without trial because an asker is too dumb to think up alternatives? We don't need imagination to know what governments do with the power to kill without trial. The history on that question is long and bloody.
Trust me on this. Please. If you can't think up a good alternative, just listen. Or, look around to see what other people, smarter, might be saying. Like historians. Or, government professors. The question is far too important to hold a half-thought-out opinion. Much less promote it, possibly giving support to an abusive government. We cannot afford to relearn the lessons of history the hard way. Especially on this question.