The Tomb of the Unknown Lawyer

During the War of Independence, Gen. Nathaniel Greene conducted military operations in the Carolinas. During those battles, he directed his Continentals to fire at Americans who were taking orders from their British superiors. Some of those Americans were, most regrettably, killed. None of them was Mirandized.

During the Civil War, Generals Grant and Sherman conducted combat operations throughout the Southeast. They ordered their men to fire on Confederate soldiers, all of whom were American citizens. The horror of that fratricidal conflict lingers with us today, but no one on either side ever suggested that you cannot shoot at fellow U.S. citizens.

The New York Times waves all such examples away. Those were battlefield commands. These predator strikes take place “far from the field of combat.”

Where, exactly, is the field of combat in today’s war on terror? You’re having your morning cup of coffee at Top of the World restaurant in Lower Manhattan. A civilian jet, hijacked by persons not in uniform and not under the command of a recognized government, plows into the building in which you are sitting, twenty stories below you. Are you in the field of combat as the World Trade Center collapses around you?

It is because of the bravery and skill of our armed forces that the United States of America has survived in a hostile world. It is not because of pettifogging lawyers like the ACLU, like those prosecutor Andy McCarthy calls “the al Qaeda bar.” It is not because of generals like Eric Holder who cannot even be dragged into admitting that radical Islam might just possibly be one of the “variety of reasons” we are being murderously attacked.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is one of the most honored, hallowed places in America. It commemorates those who laid down there lives that we might live in freedom. As of yet, we have no Tomb of the Unknown Lawyer. But if we keep fighting this war with legal briefs instead of effective weapons, maybe there will be. If there is, I doubt hordes of tourists will want to go there to pay their respects.