If the views of the Bush administration's critics were to prevail, and we were to treat September 11 and other terror attacks as crimes, our system would grant al Qaeda terrorists better legal treatment than that afforded to our own soldiers. The mechanisms of criminal justice forbid government searches of suspects or their possessions without a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate. Police cannot arrest a criminal without probable cause and upon arrest must provide a suspect with Miranda warnings, a lawyer, and the right to remain silent. A suspect has the constitutional right to a speedy trial by jury, and in that proceeding can demand that the government turn over all of its information about the crime and the suspect. He can challenge that information and call his own witnesses in open court. The government must provide all exculpatory evidence to the defendant and access to any witnesses who have information relevant to the trial. A convicted defendant can appeal to higher courts to challenge the verdict and then file for a writ of habeas corpus seeking federal judicial review of any constitutional errors in the trial.
Because the Constitution's Bill of Rights establishes these rules, they are not very flexible. They protect the innocent, but are expensive, tilt in favor of the suspect, and impose high standards of proof on the government. While police can arrest based on "probable cause," a suspect must be released if prosecutors cannot succeed at trial. Courts can convict only if a jury finds that the government has shown "proof beyond a reasonable doubt," which often means something close to certainty. Federal courts and the Supreme Court supervise these rules, which can take years of trials and appeals. If police make a mistake, even in good faith, such as seizing evidence without a proper warrant or failing to read a Miranda warning correctly, the courts will sanction the government by releasing the suspect regardless of the threat he poses to society. As Justice Benjamin Cardozo once observed, "The criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered."
Our founding fathers established this constitutional system because of their concerns over the power of the government. It expresses a worry that the national government would use otherwise unlimited powers to engage in the suppression of political opposition. Sharing that suspicion, many legal conservatives have consistently pressed for the decentralization of power over domestic affairs. But it would be a mistake to believe that the Constitution's framework for criminal justice should apply to war. The former involves the fundamental relationship between the people and its government, and so ought to be regulated by clear, strict rules defining the power given by the principal to its agent. The latter, however, involves a foreign enemy who is not part of the American political community, and so should not benefit from the regular peacetime rules that define it. Applying criminal justice rules to al Qaeda terrorists would gravely impede the killing or capture of the enemy, as well as compromise the secrecy of the United States's military efforts.
According to the Supreme Court, a nation at war is entitled to detain as enemy combatants those "who associate themselves with the military arm of the enemy government, and with its aid, guidance and direction enter this country bent on hostile acts." A nation at war may kill members of the enemy's armed forces. But law enforcement personnel may use force only in defense of their lives or those of others. Once captured, an enemy combatant can be detained until the end of the conflict. Combatants have no right to a lawyer or a criminal trial to determine their guilt or innocence under the usual laws of war. They are simply being held to prevent them from returning to the fight.
While our soldiers are fighting under the rules of war, our enemy thumbs its nose at those rules by attacking in disguise and targeting civilians. As Osama bin Laden declared in 1998 on American television, "We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they are all targets." Yet the critics would have us give al Qaeda criminal justice protection precisely because it assumed civilian guise on U.S. soil and attacked civilian targets, effectively rewarding al Qaeda for violating every law of war ever devised.
September 11 put America on notice. Once, only nation-states had the resources to wage war. Al Qaeda is able to finance its jihad outside the traditional structure of the nation-state, and this may well extend to nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. Mere networks of individuals—affinity groups—can now tap military power. Terrorist networks should not, through this loophole, be allowed to evade the laws of armed conflict among nation-states. While we are at war, we must also recognize that it is a different kind of war, with a slippery enemy that has no territory, population, or uniformed, traditionally organized armed forces, and that can move nimbly through the West's open channels of commerce. We must take aggressive action to defeat al Qaeda, while also adapting the rules of war to provide a new framework to address the new enemies of the twenty-first century.
From War by Other Means copyright 2006 by John Yoo.
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