To the Editor:
Re “What’s Our Line?” by Michael Kinsley (Op-Ed, Jan. 5):
There is another option for trying foreign terrorists besides civilian courts: military commissions. Indeed, this was the approach sought by the Bush administration and has been used successfully in the past. For example, in 1942 eight Nazi saboteurs who landed on Long Island and in Florida were tried before a specially constituted military commission appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
American citizens, even terrorism suspects like Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, should be afforded all of their constitutional rights in civilian courts (or in Major Hasan’s case, in a court-martial). But trying foreign terrorists before military commissions recognizes that their actions are not just mere crimes, but acts of war.
Daniel Tepper
Forest Hills, Queens, Jan. 5, 2010
To the Editor:
Michael Kinsley does not mention another obvious “bright line” for determining who should be entitled to constitutional protections—American citizenship. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, Timothy McVeigh and the Columbine killers were all American citizens. They deserve constitutional protections. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and any other noncitizen accused of attacking us from beyond our borders do not.
The Constitution is not an ideal blueprint that we are trying to impose on the rest of the planet. It is a pact among American citizens. Those who have sworn allegiance to its protections deserve its protections. Those who have not, do not.
William Tucker
Piermont, N.Y., Jan. 6, 2010
To the Editor:
Michael Kinsley did not address the most relevant consideration in designating a terrorist captured within the United States as an enemy combatant—the need for real-time actionable intelligence. In the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, what he may know about other terrorists on their way to the United States or how they were trained is more than of academic interest.
“Well, first, recognize that this has become a judgment call so the answer is no longer obvious or mandated by logic,” Mr. Kinsley says of the question of whom to designate an enemy combatant. But it is both obvious and logical that our national security services need as much real-time intelligence as possible to protect us.
Mr. Abdulmutallab might have provided it had he been treated as an enemy combatant, but certainly not now after he has been “lawyered up.”
Perhaps months or a year from now his lawyers will allow Mr. Abdulmutallab to reveal some information in exchange for a lighter sentence.
By then his information will be largely dated and of little value to the C.I.A.
George Smith
Pacific Palisades, Calif., Jan. 5, 2010
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 