3) Terror state organizations pose problems for international law. A number of terrorist organizations are essentially running quasi states; this is especially true in Gaza with Hamas and in Lebanon with Hezbollah. However, even though both are fed by the Iranian trough, they are not individuals or states. They are not criminals or soldiers. They are terrorists who are neither protected by the sovereignty of states nor the laws of war. The west has yet to come to terms with this new classification and is mired in classical definitions of international relations.
T4) The most basic human right in the War on Terror is to live. We in the west have obsessed over the rights of detainees and terrorists. We have forgotten that the real destroyers of human rights were the evildoers who have killed thousands of men, women and children. They have killed them in the Twin Towers, cafes and school buses. I was once struck by an impassioned speech by Professor Asa Kasher, Chair of the Ethics and Philosophy at Tel Aviv University, at a conference on counterterrorism. At one salient point he said, "For citizens to be able to enjoy all human rights, they need to be alive.