> "They don't deserve to be treated as a prisoner of war. They don't > deserve the same guarantees and safeguards that would be used for an > American citizen going through the normal judicial process," Cheney > said.
How is it morally defensible to have two standards of justice? Anyone have any pointers to moral justifications for this? Don't we believe that our judicial process exists because it is just, not because Americans deserve better than the rest of the world? Our justice system seems to have dealt with the Oklahoma City terrorists about as severely as one could expect. Seems to me that this is expediency wearing a poor disguise. I'll have his words in mind the next time I hear a complaint from the right about moral relativism... Nick Well, the Geneva Conventions, for starters. Cheney is, legally, exactly correct. They don't deserve to be treated as Prisoners of War, because Al Q'eda terrorists don't meet the legal definition of Prisoners of War. They don't wear a uniform, they don't obey the laws of war, they don't fight for a nation that has signed, or abides by, the Geneva Conventions. Being a Prisoner of War entitles you to a whole host of protections and privileges, none of which are appropriate in this case. Under both international and American law the United States is well within its rights to use military tribunals to try the terrorists. It is well precedented - with, in fact, an explicit precedent and Supreme Court ruling approving their Constitutionality during the Second World War. Our justice system dealt with the Oklahoma City bombers - they were _Americans_, captured on American soil, and they were not combatants. Nor were they members of a group fought through the use of intelligence - as such, there was no argument for secrecy at all. The situation is completely different here. So do think about this the next time the right talks about moral relativism. Note how it's not being held here. We used military tribunals for Nazis - it seems rather surreal to argue that the Constitution prohibits them from being used in a similar situation. Not morally relativist at all. Some arguments on the case. By Charles Lane, the Washington Post's writer covering the Supreme Court (no conservative he): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8363-2001Nov24.html By William P. Barr (former US Attorney General) and Andrew G. McBride (former assistand to the Attorney General and former federal prosecutor in the Eastern Disctrict): http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac3/ContentServer?articleid=A43719-2001Nov16&p agename=article And, finally, by Robert Bork, whom most of you will recognize, but if you don't - Bork was nominated for the Supreme Court by Reagan and voted down (I would not have supported him) but he is acknowledged by both left and right as one of the best Constitutional scholars in America: http://www.nationalreview.com/17dec01/bork121701.shtml The second of those articles is - imo, by far the best, and I agree with just about everything said there. The first and third are interesting, and I include them mainly to give some different perspectives. Gautam
