Why America reads terrorists their Miranda rights

There’s a gruesome anomaly here, to be sure: the United States government will blow you to smithereens and consider it a good day’s work if you’re a Qaeda member dreaming of jihadist glory while residing somewhere outside the United States, but will pay for your lawyer if you get caught in the act within our borders. But this anomaly didn’t arise with the Obama administration. It is built into our dual role as a liberal democracy and as a legitimately aggrieved superpower…

Members of Al Qaeda are not the only ones affected by this double standard. The most repulsive and obviously guilty child molester — or drug kingpin who may also have information that the government could use — gets American justice, while an innocent child killed accidentally in our pursuit of terrorists gets no justice at all. (This second part of the equation doesn’t seem to bother the Cheneys and the Gingriches.) Any place you draw the line, it will be possible to come up with what lawyers call “a parade of horribles.” Any line you draw can be made to seem absurd, because it is absurd. But the line must be drawn somewhere.

So why not draw the line to put an Abdulmutallab or a Shaikh Mohammed on the “war” side and treat him as an enemy combatant? Well, first, recognize that this has become a judgment call so the answer is no longer obvious or mandated by logic. Second, recognize that the national border is a “bright line,” and if people captured within the United States are going to be treated as if they were somewhere else — provided that they are certified terrorists — things are going to get complicated quickly.