Try them at Guantanamo

The attorney general has declared that dangerous terrorists captured in Asia by the U.S. military be tried in New York as common criminals while enjoying the same constitutional rights guaranteed U.S. citizens, although the terrorists were not given Miranda warnings.

The chairman of the Senate Judicial Committee enthusiastically supported this decision and declared that the terrorists were guilty of murder in New York, which justified their trial in a U.S. court. The senator is wrong. None of these terrorists murdered any of the 3,000 innocent Americans killed in New York. All those who committed murders died when planes crashed into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon or into the ground in Pennsylvania. None of these terrorists personally committed murder in New York and none was captured within the U.S.

One appropriate word comes to mind of this layperson: “jurisdiction.”

Certainly the terrorists should be tried for their conspiracy in arranging the murders and for war crimes against humanity. However, such trials should be conducted by military tribunals at Guantanamo, where elaborate courts were constructed for this specific purpose and evidence heard without revealing national secrets or exposing potential mistrials or not guilty verdicts by civilian juries.

Al Oliver

Coeur d’Alene