Politics & Government

Capt. Glenn Sulmasy Speaks In Groton About Sept. 11

National Security Expert Outlines Bold Policy Prescription in Lecture At Groton Public Library

It has been nearly a decade since the twin towers at the World Trade Center fell. Yet in the wake of this benchmark year, the movers and shakers in Washington are more mired in political red tape than ever.

This was the topic of discussion Wednesday night at the Groton Public Library, in an address by Captain Glenn Sulmasy, Chairman of the Humanities Department at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and author of The National Security Court System: A Natural Evolution of Justice in an Age of Terror.

The focus of Sulmasy’s discussion was the challenges faced today in prosecuting known terrorists.

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“It has been a decade and in many ways we’ve updated ourselves strategically and tactically,” he said. “Ironically, legally, we haven’t updated ourselves. We’re stuck in rigid paradigms.”

Sulmasy cited Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11th attacks, as an example of judicial log-jamming.

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“He’s been in Gitmo [Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp], not in Gitmo. He’s been to New York, back in Guantanamo Bay...He’s been indicted in Guantanamo, then we withdrew those charges. Now, we’re back to indicting him and we’re prosecuting him this fall in a military commission,” Sulmasy said.

He said the delay in the system is rooted in confusion over the War on Terror and whether its combatants should be processed in military commissions that typically deal with armed conflicts or in civilian courts.

Sulmasy explained arguments for using military commissions and civil courts, then discussed the problems with each.

He said, for example, that President George W. Bush authorized the prosecution of anyone affiliated with al-Qaeda, which overwhelmed the system. Over the last ten years, five prosecutions have gone to trial, with five slated in the future. As of February 2011, there were 274 detainees at Guantanamo, Sulmasy said. 

He also said that in the eyes of the international community, the U.S. has broken terms outlined in the Geneva Convention by water boarding suspects who, if tried under the laws of war regime, would be prisoners-of-war.

“The war itself is an armed conflict of some sort, but it’s a mixture,” said Sulmasy. “We have more New York City police officers, CIA, and FBI overseas in Baghdad and Afghanistan than in any other armed conflict ever before. It is truly a mixture of law enforcement and warfare.”

But he added that to prosecute combatants in a civilian court would mean systematic changes on the battlefield. Soldiers would be expected to Mirandize suspects in highly volatile situations—simply unrealistic. He also said civilian courts lack judges who specialize in matters of national security, and in our current climate, the expectation of impartial juries in matters over terrorist attacks is idealistic.

“If I reject both systems,” said Sulmasy, “we have to have a way for them to evolve and mature them into something different. Perhaps the best way to approach this problem is to have a mixture of military law and civilian law and have a terrorist court—a mixture of military commission and civilian process.”

Sulmasy’s hybrid system of justice, and the crux of The National Court System, relies on congressional approval of a system for detention, interrogation, and trial of non-citizen, al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists only. (The system would not apply to terrorists like Timothy McVeigh or, arguably, Julian Assange.)

In Sulmasy’s hybrid court of national security:

  • The Department of Justice would oversee coordination.
  • A juryless, three-judge panel would rule over matters related to detainees.
  • Judges would have expertise in national security and would be appointed with life tenure by the president.
  • Combatants would be detained, interrogated, and tried at a preexisting military detention centers. The entire process would take place under a year.
  • A defense of insanity for combatants would be impermissible.
  • Congress would evaluate the new court system every five years.

Sulmasy’s argument assumes that the U.S. will continue its effort in ‘bringing the fight’ to members of al-Qaeda.

"I think what I'm offering for you is an alternative. To say, 'just think about a way to make this work,'" said Sulmasy. “The devil is in the details."


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