Marvin Long, Jr. wrote: > >> I imagine that there was no *reasonable* doubt that those >> guys that Mossad hunted and killed were terrorists. Or >> do you require a formal judgement before they can be >> declared terrorists by the Law? > >The requirement of formal judgments, public trials, rules of law and >evidence and so on, are sort of necessary if you don't want to suffer the >whims of a police state. > But the flexibilitity of the police force is sort of necessary if you don't want to live in a total anarchy, in a state where each one can kill the other knowing that the law will suffice to create a "reasonable doubt" that he is innocent.
>> But how much sure you must be before you can classify >> someone as a criminal? In the hypothetical example I >> made, of the guy shooting other people, well, you >> might say he was temporarily insane, or he might be >> *himself* under a gun, or... there can always be room >> for any doubt. > >There's a difference between shooting someone in self-defense, and hunting >someone down and murdering him because your network of informers tells you >he was connected to an act of terrorism. I wonder how many known >terrorists are "known" with sufficient evidence to convict an ordinary >person of stealing a car, say, in a public court of law. > Yes, you are right; however, the damage that a car thief causes to the society is much smaller than the damage caused by a terrorist. >> But *before* a court of law declares him guilty, you >> can�t even call him a terrorist; he was, at most, a >> suspect of terrorism. So, when you say that a terrorist >> is innocent until proven guilty, you are 100% wrong. > >I think Jeroen is saying that in a society that calls itself free and >democratic, "everyone" must assumed to be innocent until proven guilty, >including those accused of terrorism. > But this was not what he said, so I jumped on his throat <evil grin> >Those individuals might be in fact guilty, true. But the question is >about the standards to which we hold ourselves before we allow ourselves >to say we *know* someone is guilty. Is Mr. Mustafah guilty just because >a government official tells me he is? No. > Is Mr Mustafah guilty just because he was filmed in the company of other (known) terrorists, while he was holding a machine gun and pointing it at the head of a 5-year-old children? Yes >> So, you have declared that there are two non-empty >> sets of people, one of those that can be killed >> without a court of law declaring that they are guilty, > >...in an act of self defense! > Bah. If the above mentioned shooter escaped the police siege, stole a car (by killing its driver; why not?) and started fleeing with this car, do you think it would be reasonable to blow up his car? This wouldn't be self defense. >> and another that can only be killed after a court >> of law declares that they are guilty. > >...a set which includes everybody not actively firing a weapon or the >equivalent at you. > No, it includes those that *may* have commited a crime and that are escaping, if this crime is horrible enough that the "lesser of the two evils" [killing an innocent against letting a criminal escape] is killing. > >The question is, how did you get from "suspected of being a terrorist" to >"undoubtedly identified as a terrorist," > You have to analyse it case by case, of course. And "undoubtedly identified as a terrorist" is impossible. You can always poke holes in every story, no matter how obvious it was. Just watch any Hollywood movie and see cases of innocent people who have all proofs against them. >and whether or not that process >follows rules of law and evidence, and whether or not that process is open >to review. In some societies, that process is a public trial in which the >accused have the benefit of counsel and the benefit of the doubt. >Societies which don't grant these benefits are usually called police >states. > Ok, so I am a Fascist or a Communist. I have to refrain from making any racial comment otherwise those of dutch or english ancestry - which makes them prone to racism - will accuse me of being a Nazi. My point is that *sometimes* the urge to stop the terrorists outweight all the finesse that a democratic state requires in normal times. Heck. don't you think it was right to bomb the Nazis of the Japanese in WW2? Lots of innocent people were killed, and they didn't even get a trial! [[ oh - oh... Using the Nazis as an example... I must be running out of time... 19:48 GMT and I have to leave at 20:00...]] Alberto Monteiro
