From Pine View Farm

Rule of Law 0

In a display of meaningless machismo theatre, some members of Congress want to turn more terrorism suspects over the military tribunals.

In the Detroit Free-Press, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (U.S. Army Ret.) argues against this. He cites not only the obvious Constitutional grounds,* but also practical ones. A nugget (emphasis added):

Congress’ purported reason for funneling more suspects into the military system is, of course, to be tougher on terrorism. Terrorist attacks are acts of war, the thinking goes, and therefore should be handled solely by the U.S. military. But the respective records of federal courts and military tribunals undermine this rationale. Through domestic law enforcement, most notably the FBI and Department of Justice, the U.S. has successfully prosecuted more than 400 terrorism cases. Military tribunals have convicted only six people in 10 years.

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*The rights in the Bill of Rights are accorded to “persons,” not to “persons we like this week”

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