On Sun, 2 Dec 2001 19:47:18 -0500, Erik Reuter wrote: >Then you agree that we shouldn't hold non-Americans without just cause >and should not try them in secret military tribunals? We shouldn't deny >human rights to non-Americans simply because they aren't American? >
Please please please please PLEASE go to the following URL and read the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/30/opinion/30GONZ.html?searchpv=past7days. The military tribunals are NOT SECRET! Repeating, NOT SECRET! >From the article listed above: >Military commission trials are not secret. The president's order >authorizes the secretary of defense to close proceedings to protect >classified information.... Trials before military commissions will >be as open as possible.... The specter of mass secret trials, as >depicted by critics, is not an accurate reflection of the order.... Again, the tribunals are NOT SECRET! They allow for a procedure to present secret evidence without the general public finding out about it, but they do not allow for the entire trial to be held in secret. As the article listed above suggests, the trials will most likely be not only public, but very public, if only for public relations reasons. Here's how it will probably work. In the course of a public trial, a piece of evidence which poses a security risk needs to be presented. The proceedings are closed, the evidence presented, and then the proceedings are re-opened to resume the PUBLIC trial. For those of you who haven't gotten it by this point, the military tribunal trials are NOT SECRET! By the way, for those who might be interested, I'm most decidedly NOT a supporter of Bush. I dislike his politics, his personality, his ethics (or lack thereof)... I could probably rant for hours about all the things I don't like about him. But he is NOT setting up secret trials. Please, everyone, call a thing what it is, and don't call it what it isn't. This is a basic tenet of rational discourse. Thank you. Re-lurking now. Reggie Bautista [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
