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S.E. Wood Ashcroft 2, Leahy 0 Been a lot of talk in the news lately about
how President Bush's heavy-handed treatment of suspected terrorists
is detrimental to our Constitutional liberties. Even former President Jimmy Carter got into
the act, saying he felt Bush's actions were hurting the nation's
"earned reputation as a champion of human rights."
U.S. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-VT, called U.S. Attorney General
John Ashcroft before his Senate Judiciary Committee to give an
accounting of the administration's actions in pursuing terrorists,
specifically the president's Executive Order which directs suspected
terrorists to be tried before a military tribunal, rather than
in federal courts. Leahy and his liberal cohorts on the Judiciary
Committee contend that Bush's order violates individual liberties
set forth in the United States Bill of Rights, and that our federal
courts are capable of handling such cases. To get to the bottom
of the controversy, I looked up the Executive Order. (You can
too, at www.whitehouse.gov.) First of all, the president's order deprives
no citizen of the United States of anything! It only applies
to "any individual who is not a United States citizen."
Section 2 (a); "is, or was, a member of the organization
al-Queda," Section 2 (a) (I); and, "has engaged in,
aided or abetted, ... acts of international terrorism..."
Section 2 (a) (II). Secondly, if these foreign terrorist suspects
were to be tried under the U.S. court system, how could you ever
seat the required jury of their "peers"? A "peer,"
in the judicial sense, is a "person of the same quality,
ability, etc. as the defendant; an equal before the law."
One would hope we don't have many of those in our county. But
since none of us can identify these peers, or "sleeper terrorists"
as they are called by the FBI, just who would be willing to serve
on juries or participate in such public trials, knowing the peril
such action might create for themselves and their families? Would
you? Vice President Cheney revealed on national TV this past
weekend that the federal judge who presided over the trial of
the Muslim terrorists convicted for bombing the World Trade Centers
in 1993, is still, eight years later, under 24-hour Secret Service
protection! Then of course, there is the matter of the
trials becoming propaganda circuses, lasting for years as the
Johnny Cochrans and the Alan Dershowitzs go through their motions
and appeals in their quest for national and international TV
exposure. It's not as if President Bush is doing something
new and different. The use of military tribunals to try war criminals
finds more than 200 years of historical and legal precedent,
having been previously invoked by such stalwart defenders of
personal liberty as Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D.
Roosevelt. Attorney General Ashcroft defused Sen. Leahy's
committee accusations with his opening statement. "We are
at war with an enemy who abuses individual rights as it abuses
jet airliners as weapons with which to kill Americans. We have
responded by redefining the mission of the Department of Justice.
Defending our nation and its citizens against terrorist attacks
is now our first and overriding priority." I trust Congress
will respect this president's authority... with all the power
vested in him by the Constitution and entrusted to him by the
American people." (Round One: Ashcroft.) Caught with no sound argument on that issue,
Sens. Leahy, Durbin, D-IL, and Schumer, D-NY, changed course,
fell back on their old tried-and-true gun control diatribe, and
demanded to know why the Attorney General had not directed the
FBI to use the background records of gun purchasers to determine
if any of the currently detained terrorist suspects had purchased
guns in the US. Mr. Ashcroft then reminded the senators of the
Brady law that Congress passed requiring background checks for
gun purchasers, "specifically outlaws and bans its use for
weapons checks"! (Round Two: Ashcroft.) The Judiciary Committee's inquisition of the
Attorney General had nothing to do with the protection of individual
liberties, and everything to do with a partisan attempt to publicly
embarrass the administration. Attorney General Ashcroft took
Mr. Leahy and his cronies out behind the woodshed, and taught
them a thing or two about sizing up your opponent before engaging
in battle. The best that Leahy could do in response was to beg
of the Attorney General that he, "Please take a look at
some of the ideas I've sent ... because ultimately we work better
when we work together." No kidding? Wonder where Sens. Leahy, Durbin and Schumer, who now so strongly advocate extending American rights and liberties to foreign terrorists, were when the most basic of these civil liberties, the right to vote, was being denied to our own military service men and women in last fall's presidential election? · · · |