Secret
Military Tribunals, An Un-American Idea
by James Hall
November 21, 2001
"Leaning Left"
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President Bush erred last week when he signed an executive order creating secret
military tribunals to be the prosecutor, judge, and jury to convict foreign
terrorists and those who shelter them. Shoot them, Mr. President, or turn them
over to their own nations' legal system, but no trumped-up trials to sully the
name of American justice, please. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights offers
the right approach to deal with the trial and judgment of suspected terrorists,
be they American citizens or not.
Mr. Bush's executive order gives wide-ranging control to the military to secretly try, judge and imprison, even execute foreigners accused of terrorism--and foreigners suspected of simply of housing or supporting terrorists. Terrorists can be sentenced to death without an unanimous verdict, and the state can listen in on lawyers talking to their clients while preparing a defense. Worse, there's no oversight and no review of these trials, and no one outside of the process will ever know that they even occurred. This is a system of justice out of control, and sure to make our allies wary about turning over suspects to receive this sort of American justice.
Someone obviously gave the President bad advice, or perhaps some of the KGB in Mr. Bush's new soul-mate, Vladimir Putin, has rubbed off on him. This executive order is little but a ham-handed attempt by the executive branch to seize the power and prerogatives of the judicial branch in the name of national security. One can understand our government's desire to extend a net that no terrorist can escape, but the price of this net, our nation's reputation and its national honor, is simply too great to pay for security.
In approving these sorts of trials, not only are we doing away with the notion of habeas corpus, an essential part of our judicial system since the 17th century, but we're also denying the accused the right to confront their accusers, in the name of national security, a practice that went out with the English star chambers. Will the Shining City on the Hill now dig subterranean dungeons in a fruitless attempt to maintain its luster?
If we are going to invoke the notion of military tribunals, then let's at least declare war, a necessary precondition for them in past. In the middle of a declared war, certain issues of justice and national security can be compounded, and the nation can act to prevent harm to its people and property. Such was the case when military tribunals were invoked during the Civil War to try and execute Confederate saboteurs, and later in World War II to do the same to German saboteurs.
In those cases, however, the military tribunals were limited to a few identified individuals--soldiers or agents from the other side caught in civilian clothes, attempting acts of sabotage. The Justice Department wants to interview 5,000 immigrants who've entered the country since 2000, whether it has cause to suspect them or not. The Bush tribunals could end up trying hundreds of suspected terrorists, and also those who may have wittingly or unwittingly sheltered them. It could also end up trying aliens arrested in the United States, even though the legal system here is quite capable of handling them and has done so in the past.
We shouldn't forget that we've already had a great deal of success bringing Al Qaeda members to justice under the current system. We have already caught, tried, and convicted the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center in 1993 and the East African Embassies in 1998 using our traditional justice system. If we invoke secret military tribunals, we may have more success in putting suspects away, but we are likely to lose the cooperation of many nations who will balk at sending suspects to the United States for this sort of trial. Many nations are already leery of sending suspects to the US because of our use of the death penalty here--secret tribunals are likely to be the last straw for many others.
The president did a wonderful job of telling Americans not to take justice into their own hands after September 11, and not to judge all Arab immigrants or Arab-Americans for the crimes of 19 Al Qaeda members. Now, however, the administration appears to be the one taking justice into its own hands, doing the suspecting, trying, and judging without the checks and balances of our traditional justice system. This is a mistaken approach to an important problem, and one can hope that the president realizes this soon, before the damage to America's values and reputation become permanent. ***
© 2001 James Hall
COPYRIGHT © 2001 BY THE AMERICAN PARTISAN. All writers retain rights to their work.