Posted on 07/21/2008 5:12:51 PM PDT by kcvl
Some Evidence Excluded As War Trial Opens
'highly coercive' interrogations
evidence obtained from Osama bin Laden’s driver
the judge will throw out evidence if a government witness is not available to vouch for the tactics used
War trials should be war trials. They are not civilian trials and should never be confused with such.
The purpose of a war trial should be very simply to document the reasons you’re going to hang the guy. Verify that the guy in custody is the guy you think he is, document the reasons you are going to execute him, and then execute him. Shouldn’t take long.
In a war trial, legal guilt or innocence isn’t usually going to be at issue. Whatever he did might be legal where he comes from or certainly moral by his lights. You don’t care. Your military judgement is that he is a continuing danger, and can’t ever be released under any circumstances. So you hold a brief hearing to dot the i’s and cross the t’s and tomorrow you throw a rope around his neck.
You can not litigate war, and its an error to think you can. It distorts both law and war, to the detriment of both. It betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what war is. If lawyers and judges are adequate to manage the conflict, you are not yet at war.
When the conflict is such that you can no longer trust civilian institutions to manage conflict, you send armed men to settle it the old fashioned way, with fire and lead. When the dust settles, you let the judges and lawyers out of the closet and return to normal civilian rule of law. Not before.
I sure as hell hope we no longer take prisoners.
You mean the judges?
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