How might Guantanamo legal proceedings set precedents affecting all Americans?
My concern is that we’re developing a parallel system of lesser rights. We think they’re justified because we have this group of people we label terrorists. I’m concerned about the next war, or the next phase of this war, whether we decide that there’s a new group of people that we label as entitled to lesser rights. There is precedent for military commissions. The weight of that precedent has been overstated. There were commissions during the Civil War and World War II, where Nazi saboteurs were caught trying to penetrate the United States. In Vietnam, we also used them. The precedent was to use it in the theater of war. The idea is it’s expedient justice — it’s not supposed to be a lack of justice — in a time of war, when it’s difficult to assemble a full jury and independent judiciary. Commissions are intended to take place in the midst of conflict, and Guantanamo is not the locus of a conflict. It’s a pretty peaceable place in the Caribbean. Some argue that military tribunals can b
