by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

About the author: The following viewpoint is an editorial from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a daily newspaper. It represents the opinion of the Post- Dispatch’s editorial staff.

President George W. Bush’s plan to use military tribunals to try terrorist suspects is founded on three flawed assumptions: that military trials can be fair in the United States even if they aren’t fair in other countries; that U.S. military tribunals provide the same kind of legal protections as courts-martial; and that historical precedents justify transplanting 19th century notions of fairness into the 21st century.

The claim that U.S. military tribunals will be fair is too self-serving to be credible. For years, the United States has excoriated...