false 3462745 1 <B>Benjamin Wittes offers the first nonpartisan critique of a crucial front in America’s war on terror—the legal battles fought by and among the Bush administration, the U.S. Congress, and the Supreme Court</B><BR><BR>Six years after the September 11 attacks, America is losing a crucial front in the ongoing war on terror. It is losing not to Al Qaeda but to its own failure to construct a set of laws that will protect the American people—its military and executive branch, as well as its citizens—in the midst of a conflict unlike any it has faced in the past. Now, in the twilight of President Bush’s administration, Brookings Institution fellow Benjamin Wittes offers a vigorous analysis of the troubling legal legacy of the Bush administration as well as that of the U.S. Congress and the Supreme Court. <I>Law and the Long War</I> tells as no book has before the story of how America came to its current impasse in the debate over liberty, human rights, and counterterrorism and draws a road map for how the country and the next president might move forward.<BR><BR> Moving beyond the stale debate between those fixated on the executive branch as the key architect of counterterrorism policy and those who see the judiciary as the essential guarantor of liberty against governmental abuses, Wittes argues that the essential problem is that the Bush administration did not seek—and Congress did not write—new laws to authorize and regulate the tough presidential actions this war would require. In a line of argument that is sure to spark controversy, Wittes reveals an administration whose most significant failure was not that it was too aggressive in the substance of its action, but rather that it tried to shoulder the burden of aggressiveness on its own without seeking the support of other branches of government. Using startling new empirical research on the detainee population at Guantánamo Bay, Wittes avers that many of the administration’s actions were far more defensible than its many critics believed and actually warranted congressional support. Yet by resisting both congressional and judicial involvement in its controversial decisions, the executive branch ironically prevented both of those branches from sharing in the political accountability for necessary actions that challenged traditional American notions of due process and humane treatment.<BR><BR> Boldly offering a new way forward, Wittes concludes that the path toward fairer, more accountable rules for a conflict without end lies in the development of new bodies of law covering detention, interrogation, trial, and surveillance. Sure to discomfort and ignite debate, <I>Law and the Long War</I> is the first nonideological argument about a controversial issue of vital importance to all Americans. 3504026 19 6 2008 Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror total:8|4:5|3:2|2:1| 8 28 43 5 4 0 false false Sun Nov 02 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Sep 18 20:57:18 -0700 2008 Fri Feb 06 11:11:07 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Apr 12 18:02:29 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 12 18:04:35 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Jul 26 20:20:53 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 26 20:24:18 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Thu Dec 11 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 21 11:02:07 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 11 11:39:03 -0800 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Sun Aug 03 09:26:18 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 03 09:28:02 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Mon Oct 12 17:16:57 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 12 17:16:57 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Jul 17 16:52:57 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 17 16:52:57 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Jul 15 16:18:38 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 15 16:20:41 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat May 16 12:55:44 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 21 09:16:37 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Apr 29 17:07:56 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 29 17:07:56 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Apr 17 09:25:40 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 17 09:25:40 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Apr 02 07:03:06 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 02 07:03:06 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon Mar 30 16:24:14 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 30 16:24:14 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Mar 05 11:37:48 -0800 2009 Thu Mar 05 11:37:48 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Thu Feb 26 11:39:53 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 26 11:39:53 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Mon Feb 23 12:18:49 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 23 12:18:49 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Fri Feb 06 14:28:34 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 06 14:28:34 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sat Jan 03 12:44:22 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 03 12:44:25 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Mon Dec 29 11:11:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 29 11:11:17 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Mon Dec 22 07:29:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 22 07:29:00 -0800 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=3462745