>>There's something else the government wants to keep us from knowing.<<
Like, maybe, who's giving us intelligence? Like, maybe, Saudi Arabia? Which would be vulnerable if its involvement were known? Or the Mossad? Or the Pakistan secret service, now purged of Al Qaeda and Taliban supporters?
The US has a history of doing things in wartime that would not be done in peace time. Abraham Lincoln suspended the right to a writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War. People who criticized the government were imprisoned during WWI. Japanese citizens of the US were interned during WWII.
I've always thought that the Nuremberg prosecutions were on shaky ground.
On the other hand, it is better than simply doing away with due process completely.
I see no reason whatsoever for a foreign national who is captured on foreign soil to be tried in the US according to the United States Rules of Criminal Procedure and afforded all rights granted by the United States Constitution.
Nor do I expect the United States Supreme Court to see it differently than I do. Chief Justice Rehnquist has written an interesting history about Lincoln suspending the right to a writ of habeas corpus ("All The Rights But One".) In a nutshell, Rehnquist says that in times of war, we do things differently, because we must. Yes, civil liberties were suppressed in the examples I cite - but no freedom is without limit.
What has made us a great nation, and I pray will continue to make us a great nation, is that we do not suppress civil liberties in peace time. We all want to go back to normal. |
