In re the Somali pirates’ seizing a U.S.-flagged ship: while this puts more of an onus on us to act, it’s still a universal problem. If there were one thing that the UN, the “international community,” and all the enthusiasts of global courts and the like could do it would be to do resurrect and enforce the old international-law concept of hostis humani generis, which is to say, “enemy of the human race,” and declare pirates, terrorists, etc., at all literal outlaws who, by their actions, have denied themselves the protections of law, and are therefore subject to summary execution. Some distinctions would have to be made between, say, the Taliban, who are basically a military, and al-Qâ’ida, who are a Murder, Incorporated. What about grey areas like the old PLO? Good question, but perhaps uniformed members bearing arms under a command structure would be exempted, and terrorists attacking civilian populations would not.

Of course, this is all academic, as the groups above are all moving in the opposite direction, as is the American left in pushing for legal protections under the U.S. Constitution for the Guantanamo detainees, most of whom are non-citizens who have never set foot on U.S. soil, making terrorism, piracy, etc., simple felonies, however grave.

Confucius, Œc. Vol.

Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.