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Comment by mpyne | Hacker News Reader

It was 'declared' by Congress in 2001 (see the AUMF), but either way it's not as if there's a DD Form which is issued daily to all servicemembers listing the enemies of the day. If they're flying jumbo jets into the nation's skyscrapers it's a pretty safe bet that they fall in the 'enemy' bin.

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What about if they're driving cars into the nation's banks? Why does the scale of something magically invoke military power, rather than police?

Nevermind, of course, that the World Trade Center was owned by the joint port authorities of the States of NY and NJ, not the "Nation".

I could be the idiot here, but I'm pretty sure that New York and New Jersey are 2 of the 50 United States which the Federal government is obligated to defend from foreign aggression.

The answer to your first question can be illuminated a bit by considering a different question: Why do seagoing nations use Naval assets (instead of a coast guard auxiliary) to interdict and defeat pirates on the high seas?

The high seas? Do you mean international waters, such as those off the coast of Somalia?

I'm just trying to make a point about warlike actions without formal declarations, in any case.

The U.S. made a formal declaration (the 2001 AUMF).

But I don't even have qualms comparing international waters to Afghanistan, because you have to consider that if a given piece of land is completely ungoverned, does it belong to a specific nation at all?

If you say that the lands in Afghanistan from which AQ organized their terrorism was effectively governed by the Taliban and not a failed state, then it's even easier legally, as you have an actual causus belli for military action in response.

So.... the US is at war with Saudi Arabia? [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_a...

No, the U.S. is at war with the non-state actors who committed the 9/11 attacks.

If an Englishman became a pirate on the high seas and was killed by a Spanish warship, would Spain have been at war with England?

I was under the impression that Obama had ended the war in Iraq. How can Manning aid an enemy if there's no war going on?

The same way Soviet spies aided the USSR even when we weren't engaged in 'kinetic warfare' with them? You keep pushing the idea that the only enemies you have are the ones you've declared war on, but that simply isn't the case in actual geopolitics.

The only enemies I have are those that actually infringe upon my rights using force and fraud.

Well when they make you the reigning monarch then I'm sure the military will bow to your personal definition of enemies. Until then the people have spoken by ballot.

My point is that I don't need politicians and professional warriors to tell me who my enemies are.

> Until then the people have spoken by ballot.

Are you so sure of that?

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

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