Trial and error: Tribunal plan would weaken our cause

[pberq]

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_4122888

Article Last Updated: 08/01/2006 07:57:37 PM MDT

Trial and error: Tribunal plan would weaken our cause
Tribune Editorial
Salt Lake Tribune

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The goal of the terrorists who brought down the World Trade Center was to frighten Americans enough that we would lose our way and no longer seem to the rest of the world a culture worth emulating - or even tolerating.
It is a sad measure of how much they have succeeded that a proposal for a new breed of military tribunal to deal with suspected terrorists is even being seriously considered by the Bush administration.
In the nearly five years since the attacks of 9/11, no credible case has been made that the threat to American civilization and security is so grave that we need to abandon more than 200 years of astonishingly high-minded legal principles just to save our skins.
Yet the behavior of the administration, particularly as expressed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, has been a litany of legal fear-mongering that renounces every advance in the evolution of justice since Mag-na Carta.
(more. . .)