Saturday, July 14, 2007

Thoughts on Military Tribunals and Detentions

My recent post on this James Jay Carafano column brings to mind an interesting issue.

In defending the taking and holding of prisoners without a trial and in defending the attempts to prevent any judicial review of these detentions, there are two arguments that one can use.

(1) These defendants' rights are not being violated because the processes we have in place to deal with their guilt or innocence (e.g. military tribunals) constitute due process.

(2) Anyone accused or suspected of acts against the U.S. does not deserve due process.

What is interesting is that most of the arguments seem to take the second position.

Even Mr. Carafano took the second position in his column, and only defended the procedures we have in place as due process in his response on my comment board.

It seems to me that this is a curious way to argue, by eliding over the major issue until directly challanged.

That is all.

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