Huston, James W. -2003- Secret Justice (com v4.0)(html) by Secret Justice (com v4.0) Read Free Book Online Page B

do that.”
    “I can see that you don’t want political torture, death squads, people out of control, but it seems to me that professional interrogators ought to have some more tools in their box to find out what people like Duar are planning.” He paused and was acutely aware of the silence. “Am I way off base here?”
    St. James was uncomfortable. “Sir, it’s one of the things that sets us apart. We don’t execute prisoners, we don’t torture people to get information from them. It makes us
different
. If we stoop to that level, we’ve taken the first step of becoming like them, where human life doesn’t matter. They may not value our lives, but we value theirs. I think we need to resist the temptation. What else would make us different?”
    “A
lot
,” Kendrick said, growing more annoyed. “What
can
we do? Can we take away his food? Can we yell at him? Can we threaten him?”
    Woods spoke. “We have some things we can do, but they’re very limited. Some sleep deprivation, some harassment, those sorts of things, but if you actually read the Geneva Convention, even those things are probably across the line.”
    “Do what you can. We need to know what he knows,” Kendrick said. He sat back and thought. “But then what? A tribunal, right? Where?”
    St. James interjected, “Couldn’t we bring him back and try him here? Why go through the difficulty of a tribunal?”
    Stuntz almost laughed. “And give him one of our patented American circus trials? You can’t be serious.”
    “I am very serious. The tribunal sounds like a short cut. Like a Kangaroo court. Why not just do it the usual way? I mean we tried Ramsey Yousef for trying to blow up the World Trade Center. I didn’t hear any complaints about a circus trial.”
    “I sure did,” the Attorney General said.
    “Well, in any case, he wasn’t successful, and we were. He was convicted and sits in prison forever. Why can’t we do that again?”
    Stuntz leaned forward. “Because we don’t
have
to. We captured this guy outside of the United States. He doesn’t get the protections of the Constitution. He can’t get some wise-ass lawyer to stand up and start making a bunch of noise on his behalf at the expense of the U.S. taxpayers. And if we use the tribunal, more evidence is admissible. Some hearsay comes in. We don’t have to get a unanimous verdict. We don’t have to expose the case, the result, the vote, whatever, to much of an appeal. Hell, when they did a tribunal back in World War II they even did it here on U.S. soil when they captured those six German spies—two of whom were
U.S. citizens
. And they were
executed
. Like this guy ought to be.”
    President Kendrick spoke. “It seems to me the tribunal is the path of least resistance and most likely success. Mr. Attorney General, am I right?”
    “That’s all true, sir. That’s how the DOD wrote the rules. I’m sure those rules will be tested someday, but that’s how they stand—”
    Stuntz interrupted. “Your question, Mr. President, was what do we do now? Notwithstanding what the Director has said about the value of interrogation, I see great value in trying this terrorist, and, if the evidence supports it, executing him—”
    “We don’t have the balls to execute him,” the Attorney General said, then catching himself and wishing he hadn’t said it.
    The President looked at him bemusedly.
    “Whether we have the—courage—is certainly something that we want to consider,” the Attorney General continued. “But the real issue, Mr. President, is whether to keep this tribunal secret. We have rules on the conduct of these tribunals, and we’ve had test runs with low-level terrorists. But this one is the big one. So do we tell people we’re doing it? Or do we keep it completely secret?”
    “We can’t keep it secret,” Stuntz said with the great authority he always thought his statements carried. “The rules have been published for months—we told everyone they