Washington's meaningless debate on terror trials.

9/11 "Mastermind" suspect, Khalid Sheik Mohammed

The Miami Herald had a story yesterday on the debate within the White House and in Congress on whether or not the 9/11 "masterminds" held in Guantanamo Bay should be tried in civilian or military courts.

This is a perfect illustration of how "debate" in this country is controlled and a parameter of "acceptable" opinion strictly enforced.  It is yet another example of how the two party fraud reigns in Washington.

For the "debate" on whether or not to conduct trials of these men in civilian or military court is utterly empty.  The "liberal" opinion is that these men should be tried in civilian courts while the "conservative" opinion is that they should be given perfunctory military trials and simply executed if not executed outright without even the formality of a trial - military or otherwise.

Of course, as with so many other national issues, both of these "acceptable" opinions are utterly moot as they cover up what should be obvious to anyone halfway steeped in basic history or even marginally familiar with western legal jurisprudence- that ANY trial of these men now would automatically be illegitimate. 

Let's play a little mind game here.  Let's imagine that the country of, oh- I don't know, China, suffered a major terrorist attack back in 2001.  Let's pretend that the attack was perpetrated by mostly Sudanese men- from a country all but allied with and in the pocket of Beijing.  So naturally, in response to this attack, China then invades Saudi Arabia . . .  OK, I am getting off track here.  Let's then pretend that China apprehends most of these suspects in 2002 and 2003 and then - holds them for years without a trial, without even charges, without contact with the outside world for six or seven years.  Let's then say that it emerges that China has tortured these men.  Of course their media and government refuse to call it torture even though the "techniques" they used have long been called such in numerous international agreements and treaties and even their own laws.

Let's then imagine that China announces- going on 8 years after the terrorist attack- that they are agonizing on whether or not to conduct trials of these men in civilian or military courts and their entire media class is abuzz over this "debate".

What would be our reaction to this?  The West's reaction?  We would rightly call it a farce and the "debate" a pathetic fraud and we would not even assume the guilt of the men being held as a given.  We would rightly consider that any government that so conducts itself in the handling of "suspects" for such a crime has something to hide.  We would denounce any trial of men- held for years in mind altering isolation and tortured- to be without a shred of legitimacy whatsoever.

And yet that, is precisely what the Federal government wants us, and the world to accept at face value- that their trials of men they have held for years in brutal isolation, that they have tortured, would somehow be legitimate.  They think conjuring up some phony baloney "debate" on process is going to make these facts magically disappear and bestow a legal veneer over trials that NEVER can be legitimate.

We are even told that only "voluntary" statements would be accepted by the courts!  Oh?  Really?  Men who have been reduced to putty- who probably have been mentally damaged during their captivity- who more than likely have tenuous grasps on reality- are now going to give "voluntary" statements as to their guilt?  Oh.  OK.  Sure.  I believe that.

They would be "voluntary" the same way Moscow Show Trial confessions were "voluntary"- after the signers were reduced to spineless goo, obedient and loyal as dogs to their interrogators from a couple months of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and they were finally given a hot meal and a shower and bed to sleep in.

I'm a student of Communist crimes in the 20th century.  I am very well read on Stalin's show trials of the Old Bolsheviks in the 1930's.  These were men who confessed in a matter of only months of being held in prison to elaborate and often absurd conspiracies and crimes after being subjected to the exact same "techniques" used on the 9/11 suspects.  Indeed, "techniques", deliberately copied from the NKVD of the Soviet Union by our own "intelligence community" and military.  And they were not held for 7 years in a black box, hooded and goggled and in a straight jacket like the 9/11 suspects were for days at a time for months on end- year after year.  They were not water boarded 83 times in one month.  These were hardened revolutionaries who after only a few months were completely broken down to the point that they confessed to being British spies even before the revolution of 1917- and these were the men who carried it out!

But yet I am supposed to get all wrapped up in Washington's fraud "debate" on just what part of the federal government should try the 9/11 suspects when the elephant in the room is that any trial of these men, regardless of their guilt or innocence, regardless of venue, would be, without question, wholly illegitimate?

At this point, there is quite literally no way a trial of these men can ever be considered fair.  It is simply not possible after 7 years of the sort of treatment these men have suffered.  But yet if I were a good little "political junkie" I would be all into the nuances of the "debate" on whether or not to try these men in a civilian or military court.  Nope. Sorry.  I'm not playing.  Washington might just as well shoot them now,and forgo this trial nonsense, for they are not fooling anyone with this absurd procedural debate except for the dwindling ranks of the DC run Democratic and Republican party true believers.