Sen. Joe Lieberman has come up with a proposal that would certainly help clarify how we respond to incidents like the Times Square bombing attempt (subscription required):

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) is pursuing legislation that would strip the “citizenship rights” of Americans who commit acts of terrorism. Although there are already laws allowing the government to strip the citizenship of Americans caught fighting in the army of another nation the U.S. is at war with, Lieberman’s legislation would create new authority to address individuals like Faisal Shahzad, the naturalized American accused of attempting to detonate a car bomb in Times Square on Saturday. The bill would amend the existing law “to include any individual apprehended, American citizen, who is found to be involved with a foreign terrorist organization as designated by the department of state would be deprived of their citizenship rights,” Lieberman told reporters Tuesday. Although Lieberman’s proposal would apply to foreign terrorist organizations, it would not appear to apply to domestic organizations like the Hutaree militia in Michigan.

Lieberman refuses to buy into the notion that these individuals are common criminals; they are combatants in war. It makes perfect sense to treat them identically to those who take up arms against the U.S. on behalf of another country. We’ll see if the administration has the nerve to oppose it.