Terrorists are the new commies. In order to create a whole new class of enemy where they didn't exist before in people's minds, one must call them by the new name, and treat them differently than everyone else does.

That is the purpose of the military tribunals. The rationale for military tribunals is that suspects who have been labelled, though not even formally charged, with committing illegal terrorist acts, are not deserving of justice, fairness, or any of the rights and protections given to prisoners of war under the Geneva conventions.

What the Bush administration is getting away with is really, really frightening in terms of true security. Indiscriminate bombing, sending troops in where they have no business being, like the Phillipines, violating and/or unilaterally abrogating all the major peace and security treaties the world community has negotiated in the past 50 years since the last world war, and antagonizing the international Arab community by it's arrogant policies regarding Israel, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq, etc.

The Bush administration is guilty of the worst acts of naked imperialist aggression in over half a century. And no one in the business of shaping, influencing, and creating public policy is trying to stop it. These are the most frightening times I've seen in my lifetime.