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Allowing Prisoners of Gitmo To Have Fair Trials.

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No. So called "emergency ethics" apply to metaphysical emergencies. War is man-made.

In terms of 9/11 the principles are a bit mixed.

I. There is no need for a Declaration of War if we are attacked, or, rather the declaration of war is presumed or is a mere formality.

2. Our primary target was Al Qaeda. the Taliban who ruled Afghanistan were merely accessories to the fact. Hoever, like Hamas and Hezb-Allah, Al Qeada is not a recognized nation so there is nobody upon whom to serve such a declaration of war

In fact Clinton was right to believe that this was primarily a problem in law enforcement. The hand of every nation ought be turned against these kinds of criminals. Fictionally it was against these kinds of threats that Space Patrol (specifically formed to attack the hi-tech "super-criminals" of the thirtieth century as well as military targets and space disasters), the Soloar Guard and UNCLE (primarily THRUSH) were set up to act. Even Hawaii Five-O did counter terririst and counter-sepionage work. I don't think that at the time of these TV shows, it was imagined that there would be private groups capable of attacking nations. This was a case where world law enforcement, especially the UN dropped the ball, so it fell to anyone who could to do this by whatever means necessary.

I think the ethics of emergencies does apply if one is attacked since it is not a situation of one's choice and is therefore a metaphysically givin as far as the attacked is concerned. Rand did say "The agressor is responsible for the consequences of his action" which implies some metaphysically given aspects with respect to the victim. Also she said "The only thing you can do with a criminal is crack his skull before he cracks yours" and "There are two ways men have to deal with each other; logic or a gun: That is reason or force". So I'm 75% certain that she had it in mind that onces the gun is on, the gloves are off. I can tell you stories about that, too.

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