California Western Law Review Volume 38 Number 2 Article 6 2002 ESSAY: A Putrid Pedigree: The Bush Administration's Military Tribunals in Historical Perspective Michal R. Belknap California Western School of Law,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.cwsl.edu/cwlr Recommended Citation Belknap, Michal R. (2002) "ESSAY: A Putrid Pedigree: The Bush Administration's Military Tribunals in Historical Perspective," California Western Law Review: Vol. 38 : No. 2 , Article 6. Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.cwsl.edu/cwlr/vol38/iss2/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by CWSL Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in California Western Law Review by an authorized editor of CWSL Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Belknap: ESSAY: A Putrid Pedigree: The Bush Administration's Military Trib ESSAY A PUTRID PEDIGREE: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S MILITARY TRIBUNALS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE MICHAL R. BELKNAP' On September 11, 2001, terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center and badly damaged the Pentagon in the first large-scale attack on American territory in nearly sixty years.' A week later, the House and Senate adopted a joint resolution authorizing the President to "[u]se all necessary and appro- priate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided" these attacks or "harbored such organizations or persons."2 On October 7, 2001, the United States commenced aerial bombardment of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization and its Taliban supporters in Afghanistan, and less than two weeks later, on the night of October 19-20, American special operations troops initiated ground operations against the terrorist organization and its Afghan protectors! Today, for the first time since it withdrew from Vietnam a generation ago, the United States finds it- self involved in a protracted war abroad.