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Re: More Questions than Answers



>At 11:16 AM 12/15/2001 -0600, John S. Quarterman wrote:
>>Richard,
>>
>>You seem to be asserting a couple of equations:
>>
>>  "open public trial" equals "compromises sources of evidence"
>
>John, I don't see how portions of an "open public trial" could be closed to 
>prevent compromising the source of certain, perhaps vital, evidence without 
>us being accused of holding a secret trial.  It appears to me that many 
>people, not knowing the source of the evidence, would not believe that it 
>was a fair trial.  Perhaps you can suggest a way around this which would be 

[ Excess quotations omitted. ]


Can tell me any fact or proposition that is accepted and believed by
everyone on this planet?

But to your main point, look at trials of organized crime figures, for
example.  Another prominent example has already been cited on this list:
the Nuremberg trials.

> then I would certainly prefer such an "open public trial."

Good.

>  However, I would not want to be on the jury

An open trial doesn't necessarily have to have a jury.
The Nuremberg trials didn't have a U.S.-style jury.
The court at the Hague doesn't have such a jury.
Instead they use judges.

> since I would 
>not want to place my family in danger and would not want all of us to enter 
>a jury protection program.  No doubt we could find a sufficient number of 
>brave, principled souls to fill that role.

Indeed, probably we could.  But we don't necessarily have to.

>>  "open public trial" equals "negotiate with or appease such evil people."
>
>I did not intend to equate these two different aspects of the problem.  The 
>first deals with what we do with the terrorists after we catch them.  The 
>second,  it seemed to me, dealt with Sinclair's question of what we can do 
>in the longer run to stop the cycle of violence.  I don't know what will 
>work, I was just commenting on what I think doesn't and won't work.  I 
>could be wrong!

Indeed, they are two different issues.  I was simply puzzled by how they
so often seem to be mentioned in the same posting with little distinction
between them.

As to negotiation or appeasement, I certainly haven't heard many people
calling for either of those; I certainly wouldn't, and Sinclair didn't.

It may be useful to further divide the second issue:
 a. what to do about actual terrorists
 b. how to deal with the conditions that mae it easy for terrorists to recruit

It's in the context of b. that I keep mentioning the Marshall Plan as an
example of something that worked in the past.

Also in the context of b., I think a public trial according to
internationally recognized standards would probably do a great deal to
discourage further terrorist recruits, because the terrorists would very
likely say and do things that would discredit themselves.

Even more importantly, it would demonstrate that these particular terrorists
failed to frighten the democracies into abrogating their principles.

>Thanks for asking,

Thanks for answering.

>Richard Huseth

John S. Quarterman <jsq@quarterman.org>
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