Should the United States Government Try Suspected “Terrorists” Or An “Enemy Combatant” Within Special Military Tribunals?

Should the United States Government Try Suspected “Terrorists” Or An “Enemy Combatant” Within Special Military Tribunals?

Introduction

Ongoing United States-led international campaign aimed at apprehending or destroying individuals and groups judged to have been involved in the planning or the execution of acts of terrorism. The war on terrorism was declared by President George W. Bush soon after the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. The campaign has so far included a wide range of aggressive measures, from military action against Afghanistan and Iraq, to financial restrictions against countries or groups thought to harbor terrorists, to legal initiatives and enhanced intelligence-gathering operations.

On November 13, 2001, President George W. Bush issued an executive order authorizing the use of military tribunals to try foreigners suspected of terrorism. This was initiated due to the response the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The United States is at war with terrorist and in times of war the terrorist or enemy combatant should not be afforded the protections and rights under the United States Constitution. The United States is not carrying out a law enforcement operation, but a military one. Therefore, terrorist or enemy combatants should be tried under military tribunals. I am in the favor that the United States government should try suspected “terrorists” or an “enemy combatant” within special military tribunals and it is justified.

Research Question

Should the United States government try suspected “terrorists” or an “enemy combatant” within special military tribunals?

Discussion

The United States is at war and, in these extraordinary times, the law must be wielded not as a shield but as a sword. The legal response to the terrorist attacks must be an integral part of, not distinct from, America's war effort. Tribunals will be swift, certain and fair. They will provide basic due process and will vindicate an aggrieved nation. Above all, the tribunals will render justice quickly: Justice delayed is most assuredly justice denied.

Unaccustomed as we are to hearing a president speak as a wartime commander in chief, ours has done so, declaring that a national emergency warrants activation of military tribunals to hear the prosecutions of those persons who wrought our latest day of infamy. Those noncitizen terror warriors who will stand before the tribunals are not entitled to the full protections of a system they most certainly would have destroyed.

The United States assuredly is at war in the factual sense but not precisely in the legal sense. That uncertainty poses a dilemma: What to do with a terror warrior once he is run to ground, for he is neither a lawful combatant nor a criminal in the classic sense. Military tribunals seem a highly appropriate forum in which to resolve the interwoven legal, factual and political issues raised in this new war by and against terrorism.

Legally speaking, the definition of terrorism lies somewhere in the murky half-light between war and crime. Either appellation fits, but neither ...