Obama repeals Magna Carta, asserting powers our forefathers denied to Kings

[struggle4progress]

35. The authors evidently miss that the limited guarantees of the Magna Carta were superceded

by more modern notions in the US Constitution, in the years after the successful US revolution against the Crown. And "the law of the land," in those days, still granted enormous discretion to the feudal lords. The medieval barons certainly protected their own interests against King John; but in general, as the feudal lords of serfs, who then composed most of the population, the barons cannot be considered great and principled friends of human freedom, in any modern sense

The authors' notion -- that the government must employ due process of law, before a lethal attack against any person who, owing allegience to the government, engages in armed conflict against the same -- is entirely novel. It is most unlikely that anyone, during any of the various English civil wars, considered themselves bound by the Magna Carta to seek condemnation through judicial process of anyone against whom they might employ lethal force in combat context. Similarly, perhaps 100K Confederates were killed or mortally wounded on Civil War battlefields, without a prior judicial determination, person-by-person, that they were guilty of crimes deserving death

We can be quite sure that no one in the US worried that American WWII bombing of Germany or Japan might be prejudicial to the rights of Lord Haw Haw or Tokyo Rose as American citizens

Answering the question, whether international terrorist organizations should be regarded as nonstate agencies engaged in warfare or as criminal conspiracies, answers the related question, whether military operations or criminal prosecution is the appropriate response. There exists a political consensus in the US, that the appropriate response in some circumstances is military, and this consensus is reflected in law passed by Congress, signed by the President, and recognized by the Courts