> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > Behalf Of Gautam Mukunda
[snip] > Well, the Geneva Conventions, for starters. Cheney is, legally, exactly > correct. Legally, yes, I can see the argument, although they beg the question whether or not we are legally at war as in the precedents. And I'm not dogmatically opposed to expediency. But I was seeking arguments for moral justification. I'm wondering more about calling this by its right name than whether or not we're doing the right thing. Whether or not we are legally at war, we're in a dangerous situation, which calls for expediency. But just as much as I'm dismayed by the "packaging" of George Harrison's death, for example, I'm troubled by the elevation of this argument to something higher than the expediency that is called for in times of danger. If one takes as a general principle the notion that it is okay to have different standards, especially when no war has been legally declared, then when is the double standard not okay? It's the deliberate vagueness that is disturbing, I think. Me: But of course it's okay for the US government to have different standards for foreign nationals than it does for US citizens - and still more different ones for foreign nationals outside of US sovereignty than it does for those living in the United States. It's not morally relative to argue that - moral relativism and treating people who are different differently are not the same thing. There's no double standard here. The Constitution proscribes certain things and the general moral principle is - we stay within Constitutional strictures. > 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. Those are legal arguments, again. And they are morally relative; justice *at the hands of the United States* in acts of war is different for U.S. citizens and foreigners. Your example of Nuremberg is not apropos. The Nuremberg trials were at the hands of a federation of nations, not the United States acting alone. Certainly when we carry out justice in collaboration with our allies, we have to compromise with them. But in this case, we seem to want to do it ourselves, with a different standard, for which the underlying argument should be, I think, nothing more than the expediency of circumstances, not a general principle that might extend far beyond present circumstances. Me: When did I say anything about Nuremberg? Nuremberg was, to a great extent, a _civilian_ court constituted especially for the purpose trying the Nazi high command. The American prosecutor was, for example, a civilian. Anyone interested in Nuremberg, btw, should watch the absolutely superb TNT movie of that name starring Alec Baldwin. A large number of lower-ranking German soldiers were tried by military tribunals, however. Even that, however, was not at all what I was referring to - I'm sorry I didn't make it more clear. In 1942 a group of Nazi soldiers (one of whom may have been a citizen of the United States) were captured in the United States itself attempting to commit acts of sabotage - terrorism, in other words. Franklin Roosevelt decided to try them using a military tribunal. They petitioned for writs of habeas corpus charging that they were not subject to the jurisdiction of military tribunals. The Supreme Court denied their petition in _Ex parte Quirin_, holding that they were fully subject to trial by military tribunal. A friend of mine actually wrote a book about the incident. This is actually the exact opposite of moral relativism. That would hold that the complaints of the terrorists against the United States had some sort of moral weight - who are we to judge? and similar nonsense. This says, instead, that the moral code that we have adopted as a society, enshrined in the Constitution, is superior to that of our enemies, and we have the right to try them according to our standards. That the specific _procedures_ we adopt are different in war and peace, and different for our citizens and non-citizens who have taken up arms against us, is not morally relative - it's nothing more than common sense. The procedures of justice might be different from time to time and place to place - _but civilian courts do not have a monopoly on justice_. If a cruise missile sends Bin Laden to hell tomorrow - _that would be justice_. But the idea that military enemies should, if they are captured, face justice in military tribunals - a principle enshrined in both international and domestic law for centuries - isn't morally relative in the least. Gautam
