Irony in ban on support for terrorism, U.S. funds reaching warlords

At the risk of stating the obvious, was anyone else struck by the gut-punching irony of the twin headlines ["Court upholds ban on terror-related aid" and "U.S. indirectly paying warlords," front page, June 22] relating to the "war on terror"? Even as the Supreme Court upholds a law passed by Congress that invites the president to prosecute individuals who "materially support" even the peaceful and legal activities of entities slapped with the terrorist label, we learn that the "Defense Department . . . is well aware that some of the money paid to contractors" in Afghanistan "winds up in the hands of warlords and insurgents."

When the latter comes up for congressional inquiry, it may be fair to ask whether, to borrow from the most recent opinion of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the protection money paid by the United States "frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends" and "helps lend legitimacy to foreign terrorist groups." Setting aside the merits of these admittedly different and complex issues, this latest example of governmental doublethink should cause us all to reflect soberly upon our amorphous war and its interwoven international and domestic tentacles.

Jeffrey A. Todd, Arlington

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In his ruling in the case of Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, a decision that bans any kind of support for foreign terrorist groups, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. made the argument that offering even the most basic material support to some of these groups would "strain the United States' relationships with its allies," such as Turkey. It is astonishing to read this language coming from a justice who once proclaimed that his job was to call "balls and strikes." The task before the Supreme Court was to rule on whether this kind of support violates the First Amendment, a simple and straightforward case involving the law and nothing more.

With this ruling, the chief justice goes into the uncharted waters of foreign policy, which is not the job of the Supreme Court. Since when does a baseball umpire switch from calling balls and strikes to ruling on touchdowns? If one ever needed to look up "activist judges," this chief justice would fit the role.

Ketan Dholakia, Arlington