President Bush decided to allow secret military tribunals to try foreigners suspected of terrorism. Rather than subjecting suspects to the traditional channels of American justice – right to an attorney, jury of peers, and various other provisions made by the Bill of Rights – the military tribunals would be secret proceedings that would not require a unanimous jury verdict and would allow hearsay as admissible in the trial.

Those convicted would have less recourse, including diminished appeal rights. Despite his promise last January to uphold and protect the Constitution, President Bush is anxious to divert terrorist trials away from the U.S. courts and into the hands of the American military.

Citing concerns for potential jurors as well as a distaste for a large media circus surrounding the trial and giving terrorists a venue for expressing their ideology, Attorney General John Ashcroft supports the move to the military tribunals.

While most Americans can resonate with despising long, on-going trial coverage, our bad memories of O.J. Simpson are no justification for shielding ourselves from the judicial process.

Whether Bush and Ashcroft have examined the past several years’ criminal trials for suspected terrorists is a matter of speculation. However, the fact remains that four terrorists involved in plotting the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were extradited, tried and sentenced to life in a New York penitentiary.

The fact remains that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were both tried and sentenced for their role in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

That our justice system reached convictions in both cases ought to assuage any doubts that military tribunal proponents may harbor regarding the power of twelve ordinary citizens to deliberate the arguments presented them and mete out justice. Sept. 11 did not change the ability of a pool of registered voters to listen to a case and make a unanimous decision, even one connected to an emotional, highly publicized case.

If the precedent set by the criminal justice system in its ability to handle terrorism has been buttressed in the last several years, military tribunals are an unproven alternative. Those anxious to liken terrorist trials to the Nuremberg tribunals after World War II seem to disregard the differences.

The Nuremberg tribunals were to establish war crimes in a world war, not to prosecute suspects implicated in a domestic attack within the jurisdiction of the United States.

In addition to the lack of historical precedent and shady constitutionality of military tribunals as the venue of choice for terrorism suspects, nations that have apprehended terrorism suspects may not comply with U.S. extradition requests, thus never bringing the suspects to trial in America at all.

Spain holds eight al-Qaida suspects, taken into custody for their suspected roles in the Sept. 11 attacks on America. While the United States has not yet lodged an extradition request – a petition to the Spanish government to bring the suspects to the United States for trial – legal experts and Spanish officials believe that extradition would not be automatically granted. Because Spain is a member of the European Union, it is bound by the judicial standards of the EU, standards which include not extraditing suspects to military courts.

Additionally, Spain and other European nations require an assurance that if convicted, the suspects would not be sentenced to the death penalty.

Such stipulations in extradition are not popular with the former governor of Texas, and puts the United States in an uncomfortable position. The president is receiving criticism for his military tribunal policy both from U.S. citizens and from European allies.

Critique of the government in these uncertain days is hardly un-American. Most of the concerns regarding the military tribunals stem from a wider concern to uphold the rights protected by the Constitution.

The Constitution has been described as an invitation to struggle, and in the case of military tribunals, the parties in the struggle extend beyond our borders, both as suspects and as advocates for normal judicial procedure.

Rachel Faber Machacha is a graduate in international development studies from Emmetsburg.