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 t's
been a season of frustration for liberals accustomed to flaying
Republican administrations. To criticize President Bush or his conduct
of the war might be seen as unpatriotic. Colin Powell is too ideologically
congenial to be a target. Condoleezza Rice, while less congenial,
is a black woman. Attorney General John Ashcroft, on the other hand,
is a white man; better still, a conservative Christian; and he is
not commanding American troops. So he can be, and has been, attacked
gaily and without restraint.
Generally without
much logic either. Thus Richard Cohen writes that Ashcroft has "played
the heavy" in the administration's alleged assault on civil
liberties. Among the examples of its assault is its announcement
that it may use military tribunals to try suspected terrorists.
Never mind that Ashcroft does not have jurisdiction over this matter.
In any case,
there is ample legal basis and historical precedent for military
tribunals. Stuart Taylor Jr., the respected legal journalist, ably
summarizes the policy case for using them: "[T]he government
needs a process for incapacitating and punishing presidentially
accused war criminals without publicly disclosing intelligence sources
and methods, without risking suppression of relevant evidence, and
without inviting further terrorist attacks upon prosecutors, judges,
juries, witnesses, courthouses, and U.S. citizens abroad."
An example of what to avoid is the civilian trial following the
1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, in which classified information
was released.
Taylor objects,
on the other hand, to two measures that Ashcroft has taken: detaining
foreigners without releasing their names, and authorizing the monitoring
of detainees' conversations with their lawyers. But here, too, Ashcroft's
actions are defensible, even prudent. Detainees who have committed
no crime are released after seven days. If they have committed some
crime — by entering the country illegally, for example —
they may be held longer, which seems reasonable under the current
circumstances. Attorney-client privilege, meanwhile, cannot take
precedence over national security. Detained terrorists cannot be
allowed to use their lawyers as conduits of information or instructions
to their colleagues. Conversations between lawyers and their clients
would not be admissible in court under Ashcroft's rules.
Finally, many
liberals have objected to the Justice Department's plans to interview
more than 5,000 young men who have come to the United States from
certain countries. This, they say, is discriminatory. Would it be
better for Justice to prolong its investigations by interviewing
people whom we have no reason to suspect? Guests of our country
should be treated with respect, but expected to cooperate with our
law enforcement agencies. Liberals used to take pride in the motto
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can
do for your country." If they now consider interviews an intolerable
imposition, perhaps they should adopt a shorter slogan: "Ask
not."
Reasonable
questions can be raised about the details of these policies. But
it is logically and morally obtuse to warn, as some have done, that
they in some way compromise the moral legitimacy of our cause. This
war is not being fought to vindicate the American criminal-justice
system in all its faded glory; nor to protect liberal shibboleths.
Those who pretend otherwise — including Europeans who are saying
they will not extradite suspected terrorists to us for fear they
will face military tribunals — are being dangerously short-sighted.
Their short-sightedness consists of forgetting that we are at war.
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