John Cornyn: “tonight the Senate will vote on an amendment offered by the senior Senator from California that affects the lawful…”

“tonight the Senate will vote on an amendment offered by the senior Senator from California that affects the lawful authority of the U.S. military to detain enemy belligerents during wartime. This issue is necessarily complicated and difficult because the universe of detainees at issue includes U.S. citizens who are captured on American soil while taking up arms against their fellow citizens in the name of a foreign power or global terrorist organization. This is not an abstract issue. The U.S. homeland remains a target for al Qaida terrorists, who hide among civilian populations and have successfully recruited our fellow citizens to carry out acts of terrorism. Some of my colleagues contend that U.S. citizens forfeit their citizenship when they commit terrorist acts or acts of war against their fellow citizens but that they nevertheless should be tried and treated as common criminals with all of the attendant constitutional rights. Others believe that U.S. citizen-enemy combatants forfeit their constitutional rights altogether and can be detained indefinitely by the military without any judicial review. I respectfully reject both of these positions. It is entirely consistent with both the Constitution and laws of war for the U.S. military to detain such individuals pursuant to a force authorization or war resolution until the cessation of hostilities. To be sure, there is historical precedent for this proposition.…”