There is no provision in the United States Constitution that permits non-uniformed enemy combatants who are captured overseas to be tried in civilian courts on U.S. soil, with the full due process rights afforded to our citizens.
But not only does U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder believe that terrorist enemy combatants caught abroad should be tried here, he actually said that civilian courts are America’s “most effective terror-fighting weapon.”
Speaking at a gathering of liberal lawyers, the attorney general declared, “Victory and security will not come easily, and they won’t come at all if we adhere to a rigid ideology, adopt a narrow methodology, or abandon our most effective terror-fighting weapon: our Article III [civil] court system.”
Apart from the unconstitutionality of his statement, it is hard to see any evidence that civilian courts are even an important part of the fight against foreign terrorists – much less the biggest “weapon” in that fight.
Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States has prevented a repeat of those attacks, not by putting enemy combatants through civilian courts but by boosting domestic security, defeating the terrorists in battle overseas, disrupting their sources of funding, intercepting their communications and detaining captured terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.