As part of the pre-election terrorism sabre-rattling — and for fear of having still not made any progress on dealing with the indefinitely detained prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the Bush Administration continues to argue essentially, that since we know they’re terrorists, we don’t need to try them fairly, and we certainly don’t want to try them in a way that lets them get their terroristic hands on anti-terrorism intelligence.
President Bush pushed a hard line Wednesday on trying terror suspects through military tribunals, exhorting Congress to allow evidence to be withheld from a defendant if necessary to protect classified information. “One of the most important tasks is for Congress to recognize that we need the tools necessary to win this war on terror and we’ll continue to discuss with Congress ways to make sure that this nation is capable of defending herself,” Bush said after a Cabinet meeting.
Making classified evidence available to defense counsel is a tricky thing. And I agree that it has national security impact.
But there are processes in place already — in civilian and military courts — to deal with that. And, honestly, if you’re not willing to give someone a fair opportunity to face their accuser or the evidence against them, why have trials at all?
We have (so far) Constitutional guarantees for such things for citizens. But the reason for that is not some sort of Magical Attribute to Being an American. It’s because the Founders realized that without that opportunity, defendants cannot protect themselves or answer charges, and the opportunity for abuse is too great. It’s not a matter of what’s constitutional — it’s a matter of what’s right.
If the evidence against someone is so weak without protected intelligence assets being possibly compromised, then hard decisions need to be made by the prosecutors, just as they are in criminal trials in “normal” courts. Trying to legislate a short-cut just to make it easy doesn’t make it right.
Another potential point of conflict is whether coerced testimony should be admissible. Administration officials have said allowing coerced testimony in some cases may be necessary, but McCain said the committee bill would ban it entirely.
Again, we don’t allow coerced testimony in “normal” civilian and military courts, not (fundamentally) because of Magical Constitution Fairies that Make It So, but, underlying that, because such testimony is unreliable and subject to (demonstrated) abuse. Legislating a shortcut just to make guilty verdicts easier isn’t just and it is right and it doesn’t really make any of us any safer.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is expected to side with the administration, possibly bypassing Warner’s bill entirely and putting only Bush’s proposal on the floor. Frist “believes it is a dangerous idea that terrorists and those around them automatically receive classified information about the means and methods used in the war on terror,” said a senior Frist aide.
Isn’t the point of trials to actually determine if someone is a terrorist — not just to assume they are and rig the procedure to make sure they are so found?
The president has said he eventually wants to close the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba as critics and allies around the world have urged. But White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush wasn’t announcing any such plan Wednesday. “We want to bring to justice those who are detained there,” Snow said.
Bringing them to justice means finding the truth and then acting accordingly. Determining the truth by administrative fiat is not justice — it is, frankly, tyranny. Stacking the deck to make it easier to come up with a desired verdict is not justice — it is the diametric opposite, and any short-term “safety” it purports to provide us is far outweighed by the long-term dangers.