No, I don’t mean George Bush, Dick Cheney or their gang of thugs though lord knows they are criminals too. I’m referring to the excellent Wesley Clark Op-Ed piece in today’s NYTimes that spells out, in ways even a fifth grader can understand (at least one who attends a school where social studies hasn’t been scrapped) exactly why our current behavior concerning terrorists not only won’t work it makes things worse, not better. [emphasis mine]

If we are to defeat terrorists across the globe, we must do everything possible to deny legitimacy to their aims and means, and gain legitimacy for ourselves. As a result, terrorism should be fought first with information exchanges and law enforcement, then with more effective domestic security measures. Only as a last resort should we call on the military and label such activities “war.” The formula for defeating terrorism is well known and time-proven.

Labeling terrorists as combatants also leads to this paradox: while the deliberate killing of civilians is never permitted in war, it is legal to target a military installation or asset. Thus the attack by Al Qaeda on the destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000 would be allowed, as well as attacks on command and control centers like the Pentagon. For all these reasons, the more appropriate designation for terrorists is not “unlawful combatant” but the one long used by the United States: criminal.

They are criminals, they have always been criminals. Treating them as the second-coming of the Evil Empire is simply ludicrous and gives them an aura of power and influence they simply don’t have, even today after 6 years of bush’s bullshit. They are still criminals and if we want to truly treat them with contempt we’ll lump them in with rapists, murderers and thieves and other common criminals and we’ll track them down with the only process that works, international criminal investigations, trials and jail. Even executing them is a bad idea because that just creates martyrs. Throw them in a hole and toss down food a couple of times a day. They need to be in the dark, not having us (in the person of bush/cheney) shining bright lights on them and giving them the endless attention they crave.

As far as I can tell the only terrorists this country has ever successfully sussed out, captured, prosecuted and sent to prison are the Blind Sheik and his followers who were responsible for the first WTC bombing. Bill Clinton did that, remember? They were found out by police work, they were tracked down with international cooperation (some were caught here some were caught elsewhere) and they were tried, convicted and sentenced in this country. That’s how it’s supposed to work but from the looks of things bush is doing absolutely everything he can to ensure that we will never be able to actually deal with the people who masterminded the attack in NY and D.C. It seems to be the only thing he’s been successful at in his entire tenure as President. Everything he’s done has worked against tracking down and punishing the terrorists and by golly, it’s worked like a charm. They are still out there. Way to go Junior.