Or as Alexander Hamilton put it succinctly in the Federalist Papers, "It is impossible to foresee or define the extent and variety of national exigencies, or the correspondent extent and variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them."

But that was before we had all these diviners who know the United States of America is so secure that such means will never be necessary to protect it. Call it a September 10th cast of mind. It was widespread before December 7, 1941, too.

As for Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who did fall into American hands, he is now to be tried by a military commission. But military trials for illegal combatants, even if they go back to George Washington's continental army, have come under fire, too, and by the time all the lawyering is done, the accused my have died peacefully of old age in some Club Fed.

Times have changed since Franklin Roosevelt used military commissions to try a group of German saboteurs, including one U.S. citizen, who'd been apprehended on these shores. Their trial took all of three weeks and promptly led to a number of summary executions. But of course that war was different; we intended to win it.

This country has many arrows in its quiver, and some need never be used, but why forswear a single one? The answer is obvious in this case: So that a prospective Khalid Sheik Mohammed can be assured that he need never fear being led to the edge of a watery grave, then returned to life only in order to reveal the names and whereabouts of his co-conspirators, and finally be executed without honor by order of a military court, as befits a mass murderer who has broken all the laws of war and humanity. Surely that kind of justice, and deterrence, belongs to a less enlightened era. Just as does the summary execution of Imad Mughniyeh last week just because he deserved it.

This latest, shocking disregard for the rights of a long-sought suspect finally tracked down in Damascus bears all the marks of a CIA operation, except of course that it was effective. Congress needs to round up the usual suspects at once, issue subpoenas all around, roundly condemn the Bush administration for its disregard for civil liberties, and begin a full-fledged investigation in that order. Sentence First, Verdict Afterwards!

But suspicion already has shifted to the Israelis, as it always does. To quote Yossi Alpher, a former Mossad agent, "No matter who did it, they're going to blame us." Why not? It's tradition!

Jerusalem, of course, has denied responsibility/credit for Mr. Mughniyeh's untimely end. Just as Israel used to officially explain that a suspicious structure on its territory - in the little town of Dimona in the Negev - was just a little ol' textile plant. Even if it did bear an uncanny resemblance to a nuclear reactor. Now the world is told that the Mossad had nothing to do with this latest little operation in Damascus. Uh huh.

Clearly an emergency session of the UN Security Council needs to be called at once and still another solemn resolution passed condemning Israel for another heinous act of self-defense. Once again it seems to have assassinated a terrorist leader for no better reason than his dedication to its destruction and to violence in general.

Surely no one can claim that justice was done in the murderous Mr. Mughniyeh's case. Considering the almost instantaneous effect of a well-placed car bomb, he scarcely suffered.