Toward a UN "Terrorism Court". (Insider Report).(Brief Article)

Writing in the February-March 2002 issue of Policy Review, the Heritage Foundation's flagship journal, legal scholars Abraham D. Soafer and Paul D. Williams argue that special terrorism courts of some sort are indispensable in the ongoing "war on terrorism." In the long run, wrote Soafer and Williams, "the existing Yugoslav tribunal offers substantial promise as an international terrorism court for particular types of cases. But in the meantime, the need for an effective mechanism is acute, and the [proposed] military commissions provide one."

"Unlike the executive branch departments, the judicial system cannot rapidly retool or evolve to accommodate the new needs of terror war," write Soafer and Williams, who both belong to the globalist Council on Foreign Relations. "Military commissions are a flexible tool on which the United States can rely to ascertain with relative informality which defendants are in fact responsible for criminal acts and which are not."

Another advantage of such tribunals, from the globalist perspective, of course, is that "they offer an opportunity -- not possible in the domestic context -- to create mixed tribunals involving civilian or military judges from countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, which currently exercise custody over the detainees [in Afghanistan], or from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, whose citizens are among the detainees."

U.S. miliatry tribunals would also be able to employ "international standards of justice in formulating procedures..., ...