Gitmo Go-Ahead

Wall Street Journal
Saturday, July 19, 2008

It has taken nearly seven years, but the men who planned the murder of 3,000 Americans on 9/11 are finally going to face justice in a court of law.

The last of numerous political and legal hurdles were cleared this week to put the enemy combatants held at Guantanamo on trial. Federal District Court Judge James Robertson ruled Thursday that the military commissions -- established by Congress in 2006 and applying guidelines laid out by the Supreme Court -- can move forward. A military judge in Guantanamo reached a similar decision. So the first case against Osama bin Laden's former driver and al Qaeda terrorist -- Salim Hamdan -- will start Monday.

Judge Robertson's ruling makes obvious legal sense. So, in the current environment, it comes as a pleasant surprise. "Courts should respect the balance that Congress has struck," said the judge, a Bill Clinton appointee. Such judicial modesty contrasts with the Supreme Court's recent Boumediene decision that granted foreign terrorists captured abroad the right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts.

The Hamdan trial will be scrutinized by a world media eager to indict the U.S. -- and that's for the good. The commissions accord numerous protections such as legal representation and the right to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The main difference is that classified evidence can be introduced more easily than in a civil court. The combatants can also appeal their verdict up to the Supreme Court.

The trials should prove therapeutic and educational. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and friends, whose trials will follow Hamdan's, can be expected to remind America about the nature of the threat posed by al Qaeda and its offshoots. That's one reason Hamdan's lawyers and various politicians worked so hard to prevent the trials from going forward in an election year. Kudos to Judge Robertson for putting the law above politics.