Hamdan.

Editor,

An "alternative system of justice" is the legal equivalent of a "special case" handled clumsily by a software program. The problem here is the Bush administration's insistence that the "war on terror" be a "war". This advances their agenda to dominate the world militarily and turn the US into a police state, but it shines a spotlight on how much more sensible -- and constructive internationally -- it would have been to approach al Qaeda like the Mob and treat terrorists like the outlaws that they are instead of mythic personages as fearsome as the US war machine.