AP Photo

Last week Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 conspirators may still be tried in a federal court in New York City. Why try these men in a major American city where they would require extraordinary security precautions and have a platform from which to spread their message? For that matter why should they but not other detainees be accorded the rights to a civilian trial at all?

The Geneva Conventions that comprise a substantial part of the law of armed conflict were debated and drafted in the aftermath of World War II, which left Europe and much of Asia in ruins and as many as 80 million people dead. Tragically, most of the dead were civilians and much of the damage was done to civilian property. The Convention drafters were clearly...