For shame, Slate.

Not you, Dahlia. Your point, while not precisely new ground, is a useful and worthy comment on how the Administration has abused the definitions on both sides of this question. I (mostly) agree - the true abuse in the Padilla case is the abuse of the categories, the deliberate use of inaccurate designation to game out the effect desired.

But the point is badly ruined by the inept titling of the article - Dahlia is denouncing abuse of language and classification, not demonstrating that both "criminal" and "soldier" are inaccurate choices which should be discarded in favor of some other term. In fact, it is nearly the same sort of abuse of language as what the article denounces - classifying the subject as a [argument / legal entity] for the transient purpose of decieving an outside observer. Dahlia's point is not one that works well when the perception of hypocracy is in play.

Come ON, guys. Either the editorial board is asleep at the switch or your marketers are titling everything. Slate has pretentions/intentions of being serious journalism and criticism (not to mention making a profit), and this sort of sloppiness is only going to piss off readers and invite professional ridicule.

-Ked

I understood her a lot better than I do your post.

To this simple citizen all terrorism is crime.War is a concept that must include nations, not movements.There is no difference between Tim McVeigh and Osama in terms of culpability.

There is a difference only because we don't have criminal jurisdiction over Osama yet, but to have his skinny ass tried in the USA if and when he is caught would be a just and correct thing.

I think you are trying to impose a degree of political correctness on Slate and its editors.I just wish I could figure out how to find my recent posts.

At first blush, I took the false choice as referencing the idea of a false dichotomy, that we had to either treat terrorists as enemy combatants, or as criminals, with no possible middle ground.

On further review, however, I think the "false choice" actually refers to the fac that the government isn't really making a choice in these cases - initially they say they're going to treat the detainee as an enemy combatant, then when that becomes inconvenient they bounce him over to a civil criminal classification. In essence, they're playing a shell game where the defense is constantly guessing which cup their pea/client will be under, while the government reserves the right not to place the pea on the board at all. That's a false choice indeed.

1. Go to Google.

2. Enter "yourusername + Fray" in the search bar.

3. Select the "repeat the search with the omitted results included" option.

4. Enjoy!

To be honest, I really don't have a preference which choice is made when it comes to figuring out how to treat terrorists. There are rules for dealing with criminals - there are also rules for dealing with prisoners of war. Both of them afford adequate protections to the prisoner.

And, hell, there are even circumstances where other categories would be justified - as long as you legislate them ahead of time and don't go changing the rules to suit momentary expediency.

I have little interest in political correctness - I see some merit in the Bob Wright suggestion that there do need to be some boundaries for the sake of civility in dialogue, but that boils down to avoiding namecalling or the perception thereof. If anything, I'm forcing myself into politically correct speach in my posting by pulling my rhetorical punches and not using the term "liars" to describe Slate's editorial staff.

I'm disappointed if you don't understand my objection here. It's not with the article text, or even really this article specifically - it's with the quality of Slate's site in general. To be blunt, I feel like Slate is frequently misrepresenting the content of articles by use of misleading, inaccurate, and/or unrelated titles and subtitles. Most of the time this clearly seems to be an attempt to"hot" up the title in order to generate clicks rather than some nefarious scheme to warp our minds... but that's almost even more appalling since it means that they don't CARE about accuracy.

I like Slate. I didn't sign up to comment before recently because Microsoft's "Passport" scheme annoyed me, but I've been reading almost daily for better than five years. It's the editorial and human-interest pages of the newspaper I don't buy. I find it somewhat frustrating and humiliating to click on a link and feel that I've been duped, and I've been getting that feeling more often recently.

Dunno. Maybe my expectations are too high, and perhaps this article isn't the best example of the problem. Or maybe I have an ongoing issue in my worklife where this sort of casual misrepresentation causes me and my company ongoing issues. But it struck a nerve and I blasted off.

-Ked

What you say about Slate is,unfortunately true, about almost all of the establishment journalism.It is a shame and it is unprofessional.

Of course we as a society, and I believe a lot of the industrialized democracies, want the salad bar style of news delivery, lots of stuff, not much substance.