Justice Done?

Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he would seek the trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others through the military tribunal system, at the Guantanamo Bay detention center - and not, as Holder wanted, in a civilian court on the American mainland.

America had a chance to demonstrate the beauty of its imperfect but superior judicial system by giving Mohammed a fair and impartial trial, in New York, through due process of law, and with confidence from Holder that the government could get a conviction with its evidence against Mohammed and his own guilty plea. But so many members of Congress from both parties - as well as many New Yorkers - were afraid of the need for extra security and the costs to provide it, as well as the inconvenience involved, that Holder was forced to retrench and retreat.

I don't understand what Americans are afraid of. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would have stood an excellent chance of conviction after all of the liberties afforded to him as a defendant under the American legal system. Holder has what is easily an airtight case against him. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and his police commissioner, Ray Kelly, were for the plan to try Mohammed in New York before they were against it. So were several other politicians who later proved to be less than profiles in courage. If logistics in holding the trial in Lower Manhattan - which is a narrow tip of an island - were a problem - why not hold the trial in upstate New York, in Newburgh, for example, as had been suggested? And is Mohammed really as much of a threat to people's security while in custody as he was as a free man plotting 9/11?

Holder made it clear that he was moving the trial to a military tribunal - the differences between which and a civilian trial are still unclear to many people - under protest, citing Congress's refusal to provide funds to close Guantanamo Bay facility and move its prisoners to a detention center in rural Illinois, as well as its refusal to provide money to transfer Mohammed to New York for trial. He apparently hoped to assuage civil libertarians with this comment, adding that Congress demonstrated its lack of familiarity with this case. Hmm, it seems the Holder himself didn't make the argument for his civilian trial proposal strongly enough over the past few months, nor did the White House make it forcefully either.

Politics ultimately doomed the hope of trying Mohammed in a public arena and allowing the judicial system to work fairly before the eyes of the world. Politics led to the secretive tribunal now being planned. It's a big shame.