The Military Commissions–Worse than Just Procedures

Pentagon sets rules for terrorism suspect trials
WASHINGTON (Reuters), 1/18/07 – The Pentagon on Thursday gave broad discretion to judges to decide what evidence may be presented against suspected…Taliban members facing trial in the new military commissions court system.
DKo: So, suspected terrorists and suspected Taliban members may be regarded interchangeably. And, indeed, that is consistent with the basic setup of these commissions–even though the Taliban were the government of Afghanistan; their army was the army of Afghanistan; they were fighting a war against the American army within Afghanistan; and no claim is made that the Taliban even had knowledge of the terrorist attacks to be launched in the United States.
It is laudable that the commissions are being criticized on the basis of their egregious procedures, including the use of testimony-by-torture. Still, it reminds me of something I read long ago from Bertrand Russell (from memory here), that if the government announced plans to sterilize all deviants, the liberals would demand due process.