Where law reigns, terror withers

In the US, a court ruling in favor of Ali al-Marri bolsters both the rule of law and national security.

from the June 22, 2007 edition

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At the same time, US policies provide endless occasion for recruiting jihadists via the Web, the medium least amenable to our influence. "You who shirk jihad...." one Saudi sheik implored on a radical Islamist website, "How can you enjoy life and comfort while your noble sisters are being raped and their is honor defiled in the Abu Ghraib prison.... ...[W]hat excuse can you give Allah while your brethren in the prisons of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo ... are stripped naked?"

Nor is this merely anecdotal. According to the State Department, in 2003, the first year of the Iraq war, the number of "significant" terrorist attacks around the world soared to 175, the highest total in 21 years. Thus began a deadly progression. The number of significant attacks more than tripled in 2004 to 655. In 2005, there were more than 11,000 total attacks. And 2006 was another banner year with about 14,000 attacks. That's nearly 40 attacks every day. And that does not include attacks against US soldiers in Iraq.

Meanwhile, increasing evidence shows the terror is migrating beyond Iraq. Suicide bombings in Afghanistan, once unheard of, are increasingly common. And states throughout the Middle East report the worrisome presence of jihadists who honed their deadly skills on the killing fields of Iraq.

Some well intended but misguided politicians insist that the balance between law and security must always favor security. But they miss the mark, for there is no balance to be struck. Terror thrives at law's demise, reveling in its impotence. Law is security; lawlessness invites terror.

The court's ruling in favor of Marri and refusal to accept a claim of executive power that would have disastrous consequences for the integrity of the Constitution and the country is a remarkable step toward restoring the rule of law and, more important, a necessary effort to ensure the national security.

• Joseph Margulies is an associate clinical professor at Northwestern University Law School and deputy director of the MacArthur Justice Center in Chicago. He served as lead counsel in Rasul v. Bush and is author of "Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power."

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