How Obama Has Mishandled the War on Terror. Michael Bernard Mukasey

uniforms, carrying arms openly, following a recognized chain of command, not targeting civilians - they could not reasonably invoke the protection of those conventions.

      Despite its recourse to euphemism (“religion of peace,” etc.), the Bush administration responded to 9 /11 with a clear-eyed recognition that going to war was a difficult choice, fraught with difficult consequences, including difficult legal consequences. As long as the Bush administration remained in office, the legal norms of a struggle called “war” would prevail. For a good part of the period between September 2001 and January 2009, when the Obama administration assumed control of the executive branch, Congress gave at least grudging assent. The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force was followed by the USA Patriot Act. This authorized, for the investigation of terrorism, surveillance techniques and other measures that had been used before in conventional criminal investigations.