----------
From: Paul Kneisel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 21:48:16 -0500
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [pttp] The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tue, 13 November 2001 -- 5:91
(#618)
_________________________________________________________________________
The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 13 November 2001
Vol. 5, Number 91 (#618)
[mailed Friday, 16 November 2001]
__________________________________________________________________________
Articles from the New York Times On U.S. Attrocities & Military Tribunals
01) David Rohde (New York Times), "Executions of P.O.W.'s Cast Doubts on
Alliance," 13 Nov 01
02) William Safire (New York Times), "Seizing Dictatorial Power," 15 Nov
01
03) Elisabeth Bumiller and Steven Lee Myers (New York Times), "Senior
Administration Officials Defend Military Tribunals for Terrorist
Suspects," 15 Nov 01
04) Robin Toner and Neil A. Lewis (New York Times), "White House Push on
Security Steps Bypasses Congress," 15 Nov 01 05) William Glaberson
(New York Times), "Closer Look at New Plan for Trying Terrorists,"
14 Nov 01
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ARTICLES FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES ON U.S. ATTROCITIES & MILITARY TRIBUNALS
01) Executions of P.O.W.'s Cast Doubts on Alliance
David Rohde (New York Times)
13 Nov 01
ALA-I-NASRO, Afghanistan -- Near an abandoned Taliban bunker, Northern
Alliance soldiers dragged a wounded Taliban soldier out of a ditch today.
As the terrified man begged for his life, the alliance soldiers pulled him
to his feet.
They searched him and emptied his pockets. Then, one soldier fired two
bursts from his rifle into the man's chest. A second soldier beat the
lifeless body with his rifle butt. A third repeatedly smashed a rocket-
propelled-grenade launcher into the man's head.
The killing occurred minutes after Northern Alliance soldiers, advancing
toward Kabul, surged deep into Taliban territory. They chose to celebrate
with executions.
Ten yards away lay the body of a younger man who alliance soldiers said was
a Pakistani. He was on his side with his arms extended. In the side of his
head was a bullet hole.
Two hundred yards away, the soldiers who had minutes earlier shot the older
man searched the possessions of a motionless Taliban soldier on the ground.
After emptying the man's pockets, a soldier fired a burst from his rifle
into the man. The soldiers moved on quickly, showing no emotion. A few
minutes later, someone laid an unused mortar round across the man's throat.
A fourth body a mile away had a bullet wound in the side of the head. The
Taliban soldier, flat on his back, had his hands up, as if he had been
surprised or surrendering when shot.
Looting was widespread. Alliance soldiers, who have received extensive
backing from the United States, plundered Taliban bodies and bunkers,
stealing shoes, bags of sugar, flashlights and anything else that they
could find. "I got 700,000 afghani!" a soldier who was leaving an abandoned
Taliban bunker shouted, flashing a wad of bills worth $20. "I got 700,000!"
The killings here suggested that alliance soldiers might prove difficult to
control as their victories build.
The looting and executions were an ugly ending to what began as a well-
executed tank and infantry assault. Alliance forces broached Taliban lines
near the Bagram Air Base and Khalazai on the western edge of the line.
Taliban lines broke after a two-hour bombardment and an hourlong tank and
infantry attack. The alliance reported few casualties, with one soldier
killed and eight wounded near Bagram.
Alliance soldiers reacted to the corpses in different ways. Nearly all
stopped and gazed at the dead. Some searched for valuables. One, in a more
dignified gesture, placed a cloth over a corpse.
Attitudes on looting varied. One soldier bragged about his take, showing
off a bag of sugar and a pair of sneakers that he had found in a bunker.
Another showed off the identification card of a Pakistani, Ahmad Bakhtiar,
22.
Some told other soldiers about their take, particularly when it involved
weapons. Others were more discreet. At one point, an officer screamed at
his soldiers to stop and rejoin the fight. "Let's go!" he shouted. "Let's
go!" Carrying sacks of loot, the soldiers followed.
Taliban soldiers appeared to have left their posts quickly. In one
compound, the freshly cooked head of a goat sat on a piece of wood waiting
to be carved.
At other sites, bags of clothing and transistor radios were left. The
defenses appeared crude but formidable, with a six- foot-deep trench along
the front line and machine-gun nests and mortar positions behind it. The
Taliban soldiers lived in simple mud huts and cooked food in large vats
over open fires.
Three Afghan refugees who left Kabul on Sunday and arrived in Peshawar,
Pakistan, on Monday said they were met at three separate highway
checkpoints east of Kabul by tense Taliban soldiers. They described the
Taliban they saw as disorganized, rattled, cowed by passengers who refused
to be searched, and hungry for news from the capital. "They were terribly
nervous," said Muhammad Azim, a pediatrician who fled Kabul with his
family.
Why the Taliban lines broke so quickly was unclear. American planes carried
out their heaviest bombing before the attack in the afternoon. Six B-52's
conducted broad-scale bombardment while fighter-bombers hit individual
targets.
As Taliban forces fled later in the day, American jets bombed their
vehicles. Low morale after the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif in the north may have
been a factor in the hasty retreat, alliance officers said. Some defections
were also reported.
The American raids appeared to have destroyed enough Taliban tanks and
artillery to swing the battle in favor of the alliance.
Alliance tactics were simple. Two groups of assault troops, called Zarbati,
attacked with tanks across plains in Bagram, in the center of the line, and
in Khalazai, on the western edge. The units were created by Ahmed Shah
Massoud, the alliance commander who was assassinated in early September, to
give his force more offensive punch.
In Bagram, the Taliban fired scores of mortars at the armored vehicles, but
appeared to lack the tanks and heavy weapons to destroy them. The tanks,
backed by infantry, attacked along asphalt roads that cannot be mined.
Officers on nearby roofs coordinated tank, artillery and infantry units in
the attack. At 3:05, a voice shouted over the radio: "We're past the house!
We're past the house!"
That was a signal that alliance forces had broached Taliban lines.
An armored personnel carrier rushed to the line to help out arrived at a
chaotic scene. Alliance soldiers shouted at one another as shells and
bullets whizzed overhead, and the troops struggled to find pockets of
resistance.
Twelve Taliban soldiers were seen running across a field. A soldier fired
his machine gun.
Slowly, order was restored, and pockets of resistance were identified and
attacked by tanks.
As night fell, alliance officials said a large group of Taliban soldiers,
many of them Arab and Pakistani volunteers, had been surrounded on the
northern part of the Shamali Plain. Alliance forces on the western side of
the plain advanced 10 miles south, to Qara Bagh, which is 15 miles north of
Kabul.
Alliance forces that were attacking from the center of the line advanced
six miles, to Poluborikau, which is 25 miles from Kabul.
Throughout the night, rockets and artillery from the two sides
intermittently fired on each other. Alliance commanders said they would
continue advancing toward Kabul in the morning.
The commander of 300 soldiers in the special Zarbati units, "Captain
Habib," who took part in the attack, seemed unconcerned when told of the
killings. "The soldiers must have been very angry," he said, and he
shrugged.
- - - - -
02) Seizing Dictatorial Power
William Safire (New York Times)
15 Nov 01
WASHINGTON D.C. -- Misadvised by a frustrated and panic-stricken attorney
general, a president of the United States has just assumed what amounts to
dictatorial power to jail or execute aliens. Intimidated by terrorists and
inflamed by a passion for rough justice, we are letting George W. Bush get
away with the replacement of the American rule of law with military
kangaroo courts.
In his infamous emergency order, Bush admits to dismissing "the principles
of law and the rules of evidence" that undergird America's system of
justice. He seizes the power to circumvent the courts and set up his own
drumhead tribunals -- panels of officers who will sit in judgment of non-
citizens who the president need only claim "reason to believe" are members
of terrorist organizations.
Not content with his previous decision to permit police to eavesdrop on a
suspect's conversations with an attorney, Bush now strips the alien accused
of even the limited rights afforded by a court-martial.
His kangaroo court can conceal evidence by citing national security, make
up its own rules, find a defendant guilty even if a third of the officers
disagree, and execute the alien with no review by any civilian court.
No longer does the judicial branch and an independent jury stand between
the government and the accused. In lieu of those checks and balances
central to our legal system, non-citizens face an executive that is now
investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and jailer or executioner. In an
Orwellian twist, Bush's order calls this Soviet-style abomination "a full
and fair trial."
On what legal meat does this our Caesar feed? One precedent the White House
cites is a military court after Lincoln's assassination. (During the Civil
War, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus; does our war on terror require
illegal imprisonment next?) Another is a military court's hanging, approved
by the Supreme Court, of German saboteurs landed by submarine in World War
II.
Proponents of Bush's kangaroo court say: Don't you soft-on-terror, due-
process types know there's a war on? Have you forgotten our 5,000 civilian
dead? In an emergency like this, aren't extraordinary security measures
needed to save citizens' lives? If we step on a few toes, we can apologize
to the civil libertarians later.
Those are the arguments of the phony-tough. At a time when even liberals
are debating the ethics of torture of suspects -- weighing the distaste for
barbarism against the need to save innocent lives -- it's time for
conservative iconoclasts and card-carrying hard-liners to stand up for
American values.
To meet a terrorist emergency, of course some rules should be stretched and
new laws passed. An ethnic dragnet rounding up visa-skippers or questioning
foreign students, if short-term, is borderline tolerable. Congress's new
law permitting warranted roving wiretaps is understandable.
But let's get to the target that this blunderbuss order is intended to hit.
Here's the big worry in Washington now: What do we do if Osama bin Laden
gives himself up? A proper trial like that Israel afforded Adolf Eichmann,
it is feared, would give the terrorist a global propaganda platform. Worse,
it would be likely to result in widespread hostage-taking by his followers
to protect him from the punishment he deserves.
The solution is not to corrupt our judicial tradition by making bin Laden
the star of a new Star Chamber. The solution is to turn his cave into his
crypt. When fleeing Taliban reveal his whereabouts, our bombers should
promptly bid him farewell with 15,000-pound daisy-cutters and 5,000-pound
rock-penetrators.
But what if he broadcasts his intent to surrender, and walks toward us
under a white flag? It is not in our tradition to shoot prisoners. Rather,
President Bush should now set forth a policy of "universal surrender": all
of Al Qaeda or none. Selective surrender of one or a dozen leaders -- which
would leave cells in Afghanistan and elsewhere free to fight on -- is
unacceptable. We should continue our bombardment of bin Laden's hideouts
until he agrees to identify and surrender his entire terrorist force.
If he does, our criminal courts can handle them expeditiously. If, as more
likely, the primary terrorist prefers what he thinks of as martyrdom, that
suicidal choice would be his -- and Americans would have no need of
kangaroo courts to betray our principles of justice.
- - - - -
03) Senior Administration Officials Defend Military Tribunals for Terrorist
Suspects
Elisabeth Bumiller and Steven Lee Myers (New York Times)
15 Nov 01
WASHINGTON D.C. -- Top administration officials today defended a
presidential order allowing military tribunals to try foreigners charged
with terrorism as the Pentagon prepared for the potential transfer of
immigrants detained by the Justice Department into military custody.
A senior administration official said that it was possible that immigrants
held in the United States by the Justice Department in connection with the
Sept. 11 attacks would be tried by military tribunal. Those trials could
take place outside the United States or even on ships, the official said.
The order, signed by President Bush on Tuesday, gives the government
sweeping powers to secretly and aggressively prosecute suspected foreign
terrorists both here and abroad.
Justice Department officials have repeatedly refused to disclose the
identities of those immigrants held or the charges against them. Justice
officials said late last month that the total number of people detained --
including many who have since been released -- had surpassed 1,000, but
this month officials said that they would no longer release a running
tally.
"I had no idea they were going to try to use it for domestically detained
people," said Kevin Ernst, a Detroit lawyer representing Farouk Ali-Hamoud,
who was arrested for fraudulent immigration documents and held for 25 days
in the Wayne County Jail before his case was dismissed last month. "It
scares the hell out of me, I'll tell you that."
Vice President Dick Cheney defended Mr. Bush's order today, saying that
terrorists were not lawful combatants and did not deserve the safeguards of
traditional American jurisprudence.
"The basic proposition here is that somebody who comes into the United
States of America illegally, who conducts a terrorist operation killing
thousands of innocent Americans -- men, women and children -- is not a
lawful combatant," Mr. Cheney said.
"They don't deserve to be treated as a prisoner of war," he added. "They
don't deserve the same guarantees and safeguards that would be used for an
American citizen going through the normal judicial process."
While the vice president assured his audience that the terrorist suspects
would have "a fair trial," he suggested that they did not deserve one with
the same protections afforded American citizens. A military tribunal, he
said, "guarantees that we'll have the kind of treatment of these
individuals that we believe they deserve."
He spoke favorably of World War II saboteurs being "executed in relatively
rapid order" under military tribunals set up by President Franklin D.
Roosevelt. And he cited an earlier precedent, noting, "This is the way we
dealt with the people who assassinated Abraham Lincoln and tried to
assassinate part of the Cabinet back in 1865." Mr. Cheney, who was
responding to a question after a speech at the United States Chamber of
Commerce, was the most senior White House official to explain the rationale
behind the president's order. Mr. Bush, who was at his ranch in Crawford,
Tex., with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, has not spoken publicly
about it.
The order continued to prompt an outcry from civil libertarians, who noted
that military tribunals have not been used in this country since World War
II. Laura W. Murphy, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's
National Office, said that the organization was "deeply disturbed" by the
order and called on Congress to exercise oversight powers before the "Bill
of Rights in America is distorted beyond recognition."
Bush administration officials said today that they first considered the
idea of military tribunals about a week after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Officials said that a debate then ensued between the Pentagon and Justice
Department over who should determine who is a suspected terrorist and
therefore subject to trial by tribunal.
Finally, officials said, it was Mr. Bush who insisted that he, not
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld or Attorney General John Ashcroft,
be given that power.
Administration officials said that the Pentagon and Justice Department were
preparing today for the possibility of moving some detainees to military
custody, examining such details as where the detainees might be held and
how many judges would sit on any tribunal.
"They are researching, preparing and looking at the administrative
procedures that would have to be followed to take into custody a suspected
terrorist held by justice," an administration official said.
The idea of military tribunals came to the attention of the White House via
William P. Barr, a former attorney general in the first Bush
administration, who first conceived of them as a way to try the two men
charged with blowing up a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in
1988.
In the preparations for that trial, Mr. Barr was the chief of the Justice
Department's office of legal counsel. In an odd twist, that office also
happened to occupy the same suite where the World War II saboteurs were
secretly tried under Roosevelt -- memorialized today by a plaque on the
wall.
"It's part of the lore of that office," Mr. Barr said.
Scotland, which does not have the death penalty, was not interested in
joining with the United States in military tribunals, Mr. Barr said, so the
idea was dropped. But shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Barr
contacted senior officials at both the White House and the Justice
Department, suggesting they might take a look at the old files.
"All I did was remind them about it," Mr. Barr said. "The idea sells
itself."
This time people were very interested, particularly as they faced the
prospect of what to do should Osama bin Laden or his associates in Al Qaeda
be captured. Administration officials have said they did not want a long,
public American trial of Mr. bin Laden that could turn him into a martyr or
cause further terrorism in his name.
In the weeks after Sept. 11, officials at the Pentagon and Justice and
State Departments worked on a draft of the president's order. Late last
week, officials said, the draft began circulating. On Tuesday, the
president signed it.
Experts in military law say the tribunals would severely limit the rights
of a defendant even beyond those in military trials, and said that the
tribunals did not provide for proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
But White House officials said the tribunals were necessary to protect
potential American jurors from the danger of passing judgment on
terrorists. They also said the tribunals would prevent the disclosure of
government intelligence methods, which normally would be public in civilian
courts.
- - - - -
04) White House Push on Security Steps Bypasses Congress
Robin Toner and Neil A. Lewis (New York Times)
15 Nov 01
WASHINGTON D.C. -- The Bush administration has moved swiftly in the last
few weeks to expand its national security authority and law enforcement
powers in ways that are intended to bypass Congress and the courts,
officials and outside analysts say.
Administration officials say the recent executive branch orders -- which
allow the government to use military tribunals to try foreigners charged
with terrorism, permit the questioning of thousands of mostly Middle
Eastern men who have recently entered the United States, slow down the
process for granting visas to Muslim men and monitor communications between
some people in federal custody and their lawyers -- are necessary legal
weapons in the war against terrorism.
"Foreign terrorists who commit war crimes against the United States, in my
judgment, are not entitled to and do not deserve the protections of the
American Constitution, particularly when there could be very serious and
important reasons related to not bringing them back to the United States
for justice," Attorney General John Ashcroft said at a news conference
today, alluding to the use of military tribunals. "I think it's important
to understand that we are at war now."
And speed is of the essence, administration officials say, arguing that
even a wartime Congress would not move fast enough to help the authorities
counter new terrorism threats.
But some lawmakers say they are increasingly concerned about such a
unilateral approach to issues fraught with constitutional implications.
They note that Congress has offered little resistance to most of the
administration's security-related requests since the attacks, producing an
antiterrorism law that Mr. Ashcroft demanded in the unusually short period
of six weeks.
Now, said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is the
chairman of the Judiciary Committee, lawmakers are learning about major
policy shifts in the newspapers. "We're really not being consulted at all,"
he said, "and it's hard to understand why."
It is not only Democrats who have qualms about the administration's
approach. Representative Bob Barr, Republican of Georgia and a member of
the Judiciary Committee, said, "I'm not aware that they're consulting at
all."
Mr. Leahy added in an interview tonight: "We have tried to bend over
backwards to give bipartisan support, because most of us have been here for
some period of time, and we know that kind of unity gives credibility to
what we're doing, and also makes a very concerned American population less
concerned. They've got to realize that simply going it alone like this
isn't making people feel more secure, it's making them feel more
concerned."
Mr. Leahy expressed particular concerns about setting up a military
tribunal to try suspected terrorists, suggesting that it could send "a
message to the world that it is acceptable to hold secret trials and
summary executions without the possibility of judicial review, at least
when the defendant is a foreign national."
Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader, also said today
that he had constitutional concerns over the administration's decision to
allow special military tribunals to try foreigners charged with terrorism.
Mr. Daschle said he supported the goal of swift justice for terrorists, but
wanted to ensure that it was done without undermining constitutional
protections.
But the administration is clearly convinced that it has public opinion on
its side. And even the six weeks Congress took to produce the antiterrorism
bill was too protracted in the view of White House officials and
administration lawyers.
One senior Justice Department official, referring to the Sept. 11 attacks
in explaining why the administration is reluctant to expose new policies to
time-consuming Congressional debate, said, "People here are imbued with the
idea that this shouldn't be allowed to happen again, and that has made us
impatient."
Another Justice Department official said the approach was to strengthen as
many policies as possible that did not require Congressional approval.
"We have a top-to-bottom review going on right now on our policies, all our
guidelines and directives," this official said. "We're moving full speed
ahead to effect the formal shift in direction of the department and the
executive branch to be aimed at prevention of future terrorist acts."
Justice Department lawyers are reviewing and recommending changes in
directives on how to deal with undercover operations, foreign intelligence
and confidential informants, the official said.
Administration officials today insisted that all of the changes they had
instituted over the last few weeks were not only constitutional but merely
a revival of powers that had been used in past times of crisis.
The policy changes, like the creation of military tribunals for terrorist
offenses also reflected immediate, pragmatic concerns over how to prosecute
the fight against terrorism, the officials said.
One administration official said today that people in the government were
keenly aware of the deeply unsatisfying outcome in the trial this year of
two Libyans charged in the bombing of Pan American Flight 103 over
Lockerbie, Scotland, in which one low-level operative was convicted and
another acquitted. "This was not an outcome we would want here," one of the
Justice Department officials said.
George J. Terwilliger III, a former deputy attorney general in the first
Bush administration, said today that he believed the government was not
expanding its legal authority as much as dusting off little-used powers.
"All of these actions are well within the boundaries of the Constitution,
but it's just officials acting more aggressively," Mr. Terwilliger said.
"There is a range of permissible activities, and we're using more of that
range than we do in times of peace."
Prof. Phillip B. Heymann of Harvard Law School, a former deputy attorney
general under President Bill Clinton, said he believed that the government
wanted the military tribunal because of a fear that it might not be able to
convict Osama bin Laden or other suspected terrorists in civilian courts.
Administration officials said military tribunals would be better able to
protect confidential information.
But Mr. Heymann said that some terrorists, notably those charged in the
1993 World Trade Center bombing, had been successfully prosecuted in
civilian courts with a law that allows classified information to be used in
a trial without being disclosed to the public. Similarly, the
administration said the tribunals would allow for the protection of
witnesses and jurors, but Mr. Heymann said that countless Mafia and drug
cartel trials had been conducted where both witnesses and jurors were
protected.
"I understand that if we got bin Laden and he were acquitted it would be a
staggering event," Mr. Heymann said. "But the tribunal idea looks to me
like a way of dealing with a fear that we lack the evidence to convict
these people."
- - - - -
05) Closer Look at New Plan for Trying Terrorists
William Glaberson (New York Times)
14 Nov 01
A day after President Bush signed an order allowing special military
tribunals to try foreigners charged with terrorism, a more detailed picture
of what government planners envision began to emerge.
Witnesses would be sworn to tell the truth, just as they are in American
courtrooms. But they might testify behind closed doors, a Bush
administration official said yesterday.
A defendant would not necessarily get his choice of a lawyer. Instead of
jurors, military officers -- perhaps five of them on a panel -- would
render verdicts in places far from home, like Afghanistan or Pakistan.
It was an unfamiliar picture of American justice, with unusual shortcuts
and limited appeal rights. Supporters said the war required that the
country not allow legal fine points to stand in its way. "The idea is, you
need swift justice," said Jack Goldsmith, a law professor at the University
of Chicago.
Critics said the trials could seem unfair because they would not provide
the protections of American courts and might further inflame Muslim critics
here and abroad.
"If we do it through a military trial, people around the world will view
the outcome as a foregone conclusion," said David Wippman, a law professor
at Cornell University.
A trial before a military tribunal would resemble a traditional trial in
that prosecutors would file formal charges against a person for terrorist
activities -- an Al Qaeda leader captured in Afghanistan, for example.
But the similarities would end there. Commission tribunals will accept
evidence that is typically barred from court, like hearsay, which would
make it easier for prosecutors to prove their cases. Even a death penalty
could be imposed without the unanimity required of civilian juries. A two-
thirds vote of the panel of officers would be sufficient.
Legal experts predicted court challenges to the plan. Some said it was
unclear whether courts would agree that the current circumstances justified
military commissions.
Such tribunals have a long international history. They have been used in
this country at least since 1780, when George Washington appointed a board
of officers to try Maj. John Andre, a British spy who slipped behind
American lines to gather information from Benedict Arnold.
"There certainly are precedents through history for military commissions,
but that doesn't mean the president has the constitutional authority to use
them whenever he says there's an emergency," said Christopher L. Eisgruber,
director of the program in law and public affairs at Princeton University.
But American courts have often been reluctant to second-guess the president
about when commissions are justified. After a secret 18-day trial by a
military commission in 1942, the Supreme Court approved the conviction of a
group of Germans who landed by submarine on the beaches of Florida and Long
Island with plans to use explosives for sabotage.
In 1946, the justices approved a commission conviction of the commanding
general of the Japanese army in the Philippines, Tomoyuki Yamashita. Both
of the World War II trials ended in executions.
Historians say military commissions began as traveling courts when there
was a need to impose quick punishments that appeared fair in wartime.
Commissions do not enforce any single country's law, but a body of
international law that has developed through centuries known as the law of
war.
One of the fundamental principles of that body of law is that combatants
cannot target civilians.
In its 1946 ruling, the Supreme Court said American commanders had the
power "to seize and subject to disciplinary measures those enemies who, in
their attempt to thwart or impede our military effort, have violated the
law of war."
A Bush administration official with knowledge of the planning said
officials had been studying the World War II cases. But the official said
the decision to authorize the tribunals had been influenced by factors like
the ability of the tribunals to move quickly and to limit intelligence
information that might become public.
In civilian trials, a defendant has broad access to prosecution
information. But the military tribunals could sharply limit a defendant's
access to intelligence reports and could close entire proceedings if
classified information were to be discussed.
The trials would shortcut many of the rules that slow trials. Extensive
rules, for instance, generally bar the use in civilian trials of illegally
seized evidence. But under the president's order, all evidence that would
"have probative value to a reasonable person" is to be considered by the
tribunals.
The Bush official who described the creation of the tribunals said such
choices were made to assure that the process did not get bogged down. But
he said many people inside the government were working to assure that the
trials remained fair. For example, he said, officials generally favor
insisting that prosecutors prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Mr. Bush's order left open the possibility that commission trials could be
held in the United States. But the official said the procedure was intended
largely for use elsewhere in the world for the trial of Al Qaeda members
and other terrorists.
"I would find it very unlikely," the official said, "that we are going to
do these trials on the territory of the United States."
* * * * *
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only.
__________________________________________________________________________
FASCISM:
We have no ethical right to forgive, no historical right to forget.
(No permission required for noncommercial reproduction)
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