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WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Congressional Debate on Military Tribunals Escalates Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com Saturday, Dec. 1, 2001 With more than 300 members of al-Qaeda already corralled by the U.S. and its allies, and a beleaguered Attorney General John Ashcroft due on Capitol Hill next week, the debate on the extraordinary wartime tribunals that provide no trial by jury and can result in the death penalty has ramped up with lawsuits looming. In testimony Wednesday before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff noted that in the domestic roundup there were an additional 548 individuals in federal custody on INS charges and 55 individuals in custody on federal criminal charges. Chernoff strongly defended the tribunal option as an extraordinary measure needed in extraordinary times: "In a February 1998 directive, bin Laden ordered his followers ‘to kill Americans and plunder their money whenever and wherever they find it.’ Just last month, bin Laden made a video declaring to his supporters in the al-Qaeda network, ‘Bush and Blair ... don’t understand any language but the language of force. Every time they kill us, we will kill them, so the balance of terror can be achieved.’ He went on, ‘The battle has been moved inside America, and we shall continue until we win this battle, or die in the cause and meet our maker.’” But bin Laden held no monopoly on fighting words at the Hill hearings. Kate Martin, director of Center for National Security Studies, said her organization would file suit to force Ashcroft to disclose particulars on all detainees. On the other side of the debate, former Attorney General Griffin Bell argued, "It is absurd to suggest that the U.S. military must observe the same civil liberties in its interaction with foreign soldiers that our law enforcement agents must observe in their interactions with common criminal defendants.” Neal Katyal, a visiting professor at Yale Law School, compared the language of the congressional resolution that legally launched the war to the language of Bush’s executive order that authorized the establishment and outlined the powers of the controversial military tribunals. >From the resolution: "That the president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.” Katyal argued that the resolution restricted its reach only to "force,” applied only to persons involved in some way in the Sept. 11 attacks, and permitted such activity "in order to” avert prospective damage to the United States. However, he opined, the Bush executive order creating the tribunals went well beyond any conceivable definition of "force,” did not confine its reach to persons involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, was entirely retrospective – meting out sentences for past acts – and extended its jurisdiction to places that are not localities of armed conflict. Tribunal proponent Sen, Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, quoted from another Ivy League legal scholar: "Harvard professor Laurence Tribe, whom no one would accuse of being a member of the 'vast right-wing conspiracy,' acknowledged: ‘Civil liberties is not only about protecting us from our government. It is also about protecting our lives from terrorism.’” Hatch argued, "Most Americans were worried that we are not doing enough to thwart potential terrorist attacks, not that we are doing too much.” "We might be better served if next week’s hearing with the attorney general focused on whether we have done all we can to address the threat of terrorism and to help our president obtain all the tools he needs to fight Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization,” Hatch added. Hatch also defended the tactics used by the administration in handling the domestic detainees, saying that those in custody were there on criminal charges, immigration violations, or pursuant to material witness complaints. "Those people have committed crimes, violated our nation’s immigration laws, or have information critical to the terrorism investigation. And to the extent they are not being released on bond, it is because a judge has determined that they are likely to flee, will likely pose a danger to the community, or, in the case of immigration detainees, are alleged to be deportable from the United States on the basis of criminal-including terrorist activity.” Professor Katya warned that broadness of Bush’s order did not compare with President Franklin Roosevelt’s World War II order that strictly circumscribed his military tribunal’s jurisdiction to cases involving "sabotage, espionage, hostile or warlike acts, or violations of the law of war.” The recent military order, by contrast, brings millions of green-card holders and others into its jurisdiction, Katya said, extending jurisdiction to "the laws of war and other applicable laws.” Although leaving all options open, Vice President Dick Cheney has hinted that Bush may be saving the disputed tribunals for high-ranking al-Qaeda members, going so far as to identify one recently captured bin Laden senior lieutenant as a prime candidate to be tried before the military court that rules by two-thirds majority. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. 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