Chicago Sun Times Editorial - Military tribunal plan fails U.S. standards of justice

Chicago Sun Times Editorial - Military tribunal plan fails U.S. standards of justice
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
September 11, 2006


One by one, top military lawyers from the Marines, the Army and the Navy stood before the House Armed Services Committee and said the same thing: The Bush administration's latest proposal to try captured terrorists before military tribunals contains provisions that aren't legal and will further erode the United States' reputation -- already besmirched by controversy over detentions at Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo -- as a just and democratic country.

The administration's new plan would allow Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to set up military tribunals to prosecute terrorist suspects, but abrogate certain rights common in military and civilian courts, such as allowing the accused to see all the evidence gathered against him. It also would allow coerced testimony to be introduced into the trial.

Brig. Gen. James Walker of the Marines said a civilized country cannot deny a defendant -- even if that defendant may very well be a terrorist -- the right to see all the evidence against him. Maj. Gen. Scott Black of the Army reiterated that view, as did Rear Adm. Bruce MacDonald of the Navy.

Their arguments were bolstered by leading Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Sen. John McCain of Arizona. "It would be unacceptable, legally in my opinion, to give someone the death penalty in a trial where they never heard the evidence against them," said Graham, according to a report in the New York Times. Graham, who is also a military judge, added it is legally irresponsible to tell an accused: "'Trust us, you're guilty, we're going to execute you, but we can't tell you why.'"

And allowing coerced testimony continues to fly in the face of the Geneva Conventions, which is what got the Bush administration into trouble in the first place. It was the Supreme Court decision in the Hamdan case earlier this year -- that the militants captured in Afghanistan be given justice "recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples" -- that forced President Bush to scrap military tribunals for them. The Supreme Court decision said these military tribunals were illegal.

Granted, finding a judicious way to try terrorists who are not fighting under the banner of a particular country but rather for an amorphous organization such as al-Qaida, is tough. But trying to ram important legislation on military tribunals through Congress before an election may not be possible. It will require more input from the military lawyers who are now questioning the wisdom of the legislation; it will require balancing the accused's rights against national security. But that is the way democracies work, practicing fairness and guaranteeing the right to a just trial.