Show trial for alleged 9/11 planner

In the face of mounting pressure to shut down Guantanamo Bay from both within and without US borders , its administration seems to be getting all the more desperate to ‘produce the goods’ and justify its existence.

This is the place notorious for holding prisoners in breach of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention, yet no one seems to know who’s in charge; top generals supposedly in charge of the facilities blame the Bush Adminstration for the use of torture, and vice versa.

So the Gitmo administration are getting hot under the collar to justify their use of taxpayers’ money; enter show trial of the century - that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged brains behind the 9/11 terror attacks.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed apparently confessed to the CIA of plotting ‘from A to Z’ the 9/11 attacks, yet he since has accused translators of ‘putting words in his mouth’, as well as claiming that the confession was extracted via torture.

If the fact that torture is well documented to be employed on Guantanamo inmates (think waterboarding, sensory deprivation, and Enhanced Interrogation Techniques)  is not enough for you to come to the same conclusion as I have regarding the credibility of these trials, read on.

I don’t claim to know Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but when a chief prosecutor (that’s the guy that’s accusing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) in the trial resigns after accusing the Pentagon of ‘manipulating the process to serve the Bush Administration’s political goals,’ it makes one wonder what’s actually going on. Thus leading me to agree with David Nevin of the American Civil Liberties Union: ‘If the government’s evidence is as strong as it claims, you have to wonder why it lacks the confidence to prove its case in a real court with constitutional protections.’

The Guantanamo trials are military tribunals, with no international recognition. And if torture and putting words in defendants’ mouths are as good as it gets for Guantanamo inmates, it becomes all too clear that any constitutional court would laugh itself silly before hearing such a trial.