How Do You Solve a Problem Like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?

Just after midnight, exactly two years ago today, U.S. Navy SEALs stormed a small private compound outside of Abbottabad, Pakistan and ended the world’s most expensive manhunt with a couple of well-aimed bullets. After nearly 10 years of relentless intelligence work, many Americans felt that they could finally come to terms with the events of September 11 2001, and rest easier at night with the knowledge of Osama Bin Laden’s death. I remember going to the city park in Bellevue, Wash., and screaming Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” while families stood on picnic tables waving American flags and policemen abandoned the task of monitoring public alcohol consumption. But for many Americans, the Obama administration’s decision to “follow the SOB [Osama Bin Laden] to the gates of hell,” as Vice President Biden choicely phrased it in 2012, inspired more frustration than patriotism. “I’m sorry, but I can’t celebrate anyone’s death,” one of my classmates posted on Facebook that May. “We’re all human beings.” While this remains scientifically true, the argument that the death of a terrorist capable of such atrocities against humanity should be entitled to the same rights and respect as one of his or her victims is ludicrous.

Liberal media sources currently remain in an uproar over Boston Law Enforcement’s decision not to read Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev his Miranda Rights, advising him of the right to remain silent, until after 16 hours of questioning. More absurdly, many liberal news agencies are reporting heavily — one might even say obsessively — on Tsarnaev’s parents’ claims that their sons were innocent victims of American governmental conspiracy, seemingly encouraging viewers to question Tsarnaev’s guilt and whether due process of law was served. “When the law gets bent out of shape for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, it’s easier to bend out of shape for the rest of us,” one New Yorker editorial warns.

This claim mistakenly assumes that Tsarnaev should be subject to the same treatment in our legal system as you or I. Tsarnaev is an enemy combatant in the same group as Osama Bin Laden; he is not merely another citizen of he United States of America. Tsarnaev forfeited his rights when he decided to plant explosives at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, kill three innocent young Americans, injure almost 300 civilian bystanders, evade arrest for several days, murder a police officer and hurl homemade explosives at the SWAT team pursuing him. The American legal system is designed to protect the American people, and while Tsarnaev remains an American citizen, his entitlement to American legal rights is negated by his efforts to destroy the social fabric of this nation. The Boston Marathon bombing was neither an attack on the specific bystanders affected by the blasts nor on the city of Boston itself — it was an attack on the American people, and our government has no legal responsibility to offer compassion and “fairness” to enemies of the state.

Our legal code is designed to dole out justice both to victims and criminals where it is due, but it also has a duty to protect the American public from harm. In Tsarnaev’s case, the FBI saw fit to exercise the “public safety exception” to the Miranda Rights, which allows the criminal to be interrogated before his rights are read. If Tsarnaev had planted other bombs, or if he had been networking with other terrorists, his immediate questioning could have prevented further civilian losses; the fact that the brothers appear to have acted alone and only vaguely discussed future attacks is merely fortunate.

Many Americans found it absurd that the entire city of Boston was shut down as law enforcement sought out the Tsarnaev brothers. Some are infuriated that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was not subjected to “due process of law” and informed of his rights before questioning. But I am proud of how Tsarnaev’s arrest was handled, just as I remain proud of our government for tracking down and killing Osama Bin Laden at the cost of billions of taxpayer dollars and thousands of American combatants’ lives. To quote President Obama, “as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies.”

Politics is not merely about maintaining hardline principles; it’s about making exceptions for the public good. It is worth putting an unprecedented amount of time and effort into killing Osama Bin Laden, just as it is worth refusing Tsarnaev immediate access to rights offered by the very country he attacked. The American government’s duty to its citizens goes beyond simple principles of what is “fair” — it must ensure that threats to our nation are immediately and forcibly removed, no matter the cost. There is nothing more honorable.