Michel's Commentary

11/30/2001  888WebToday   William Safire is definitely a force to be reckoned with.  Speech writer for Richard Nixon, advisor to Ronald Reagan, long time TV "talking head" and columnist for the New York Times, there is no more respected political commentator in America.

Safire is a long time wheel horse for the Republican Party and an outspoken defender of President Bush.  Many readers were therefore startled to open their Monday edition of the New York Times, turn to the opinion and editorial page, and read a blistering column by Safire denouncing the President's new military tribunals.

Although a stout conservative, Safire has always had a reputation as a civil libertarian. So perhaps it is not surprising that he should have reservations about the tribunals, which allow terrorists to be tried by military courts that would not be obliged to extend to them the full rights accorded American citizens under our Constitution.

Mr. Safire mentions the famous case of ex parte Milligan, which he thinks should be the controlling precedent.

Mr. Milligan was arrested and tried before a military tribunal in Indiana during the Civil War. His crime was conspiring to release and to arm Confederate prisoners-of-war.  The Lincoln Administration had created just such tribunals to handle just such crimes as that in the extraordinary crisis caused by a rebellion against the lawful authority of the federal government.

It wasn't until after the Civil War, in April of 1866, that the Supreme Court got around to ruling on the constitutionality of Mr. Lincoln's tribunals. A five to four majority ruled that such tribunals were unconstitutional when the normal, established civil courts were open and doing business.  Ironically, the famous majority opinion was written by Judge David Davis, Lincoln's former campaign manager who had been rewarded by honest Abe with a Supreme Court appointment.  In striking down the military tribunal, Davis wrote the famous words: "The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people equally in war and in peace..."

But when Judge Davis wrote of "rulers and people", he undoubtedly meant the rulers and people of the United States.  The Constitution is for citizens of this country, not for illegal aliens, and certainly not for foreign terrorists!

Mr. Milligan, although a Southern sympathizer, was still a citizen of the United States and the argument can be made, as indeed Judge Davis did make it, that he, Mr. Milligan, was entitled to the full protection of our laws.  Folks like Mohammed Atta, Ahmed Ibraham and Newaf Alhamzi are not.  These are just three of the fifteen illegal aliens who were among the original nineteen terrorists on September 11th.

America is not a "universal nation."  Human beings do not become entitled to the rights and privileges of American citizenship simply by virtue of the fact that they breathe air on this planet.

We need to serve notice on terrorists that killing our citizens and blowing up our buildings will not be rewarded by their being provided with Alan Derschowitz as their attorney and a premier performance on Court TV.
 

Those are my thoughts .....

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