Three interesting articles for consideration:

The first is an article from Atlantic Monthly by Stuart Taylor, proposing a legal framework for "preventive detention." The point of the article is that preventive detention may not be strictly constitutional, but nevertheless necessary in situations where a sleeper agent has not committed any crime (yet), but is part of a terrorist organization or engaged in a conspiracy to commit terrorist acts. Taylor suggests that if we have to have preventive detention (and there is an argument to be made that we do), we should couple it with at least some amount of due process. [Read the article]

The second is an article from Foreign Affairs by Grenville Byford. There is an adage that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Byford turns this into a question, and asks, how do you define "terrorism"? Ultimately, he concludes that it is a balancing act that looks at the justness of the combatants' causes, the morality of the tactics, and the availability of other means to achieve the same ends. To paraphrase Potter Stewart, Byford doesn't define terrorism, but gives us a framework that lets us know it when we see it. [Read the article]

The third is an article on Reason.com by Jonathan Rauch. In it, Rauch examines Bin Laden's ideological vision (a form of Muslim fundamentalism) and finds many similarities to Marxism. Ultimately, Rauch concludes that the battle of ideologies between Muslim fundamentalists and Western secularists will be a war of attrition similar to the intellectual (and later, cold) war between capitalism and Marxism. [Read the article]