Welcome to our Nightmare

The Hamdan Supreme Court decision has come and gone, and Bush-cum-Gonzales is still requesting Congress pass legislation allowing for military tribunals to adjudicate the fate of the "worst of the worst" being held by the U.S. military. (Hamdan was a driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.)

But while we're busying ourselves with drivers, I wonder where a guy like Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) is? According to the 9-11 Commission, he was one of the prime movers in planning and executing the 9-11 attack. Also, he executed U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl, according to news and intelligence reports. Supposedly, Sheik Mohammed had(s) ties to Pakistan's ISI, their equivalent of the CIA.

In my own humble computer search, I found ABC news reported the arrest of KSM on December 12, 2002, in Pakistan, and as of March 3, 2003, he was a "guest" of the CIA and being held at an undisclosed location. Read this as a secret prison legally unauthorized and of illegitimate jurisdiction. On March 6, 2003, The Guardian cryptically reported that KSM is "unlikely to see a public trial in any country". It's sounding more Kafkaesque all the time, as the CIA welcomes "K" to their Castle.

Less than one week later--March 9--KSM was supposedly flown to Bagram and George Tenet was reported to have coincidentally made a trip there the same week.

So these are the status reports I could find. Here is a bona fide "worst of the worst" in our custody, someone whose actions have caused the death of Americans. And why are we not clamoring for his trial under U.S. Code in a Federal Court to have him answer for his crimes? Why isn't democracy in action here?

I can think of only four reasons KSM hasn't been indicted in a U.S. Federal Court:
(1) He is no longer is U.S. custody, either via CIA release or escape;
(2) He has been illegally executed;
(3) He has been tortured and the U.S. is unwilling to have this inconvenient fact aired in court; or
(4) He has ties to the CIA.
But none of these reasons trump his right to fair trial. Endless incarceration without trial is not the hallmark of the U.S. judicial system.

The American public should demand his trial to provide psychic closure to 9-11. Why have we thrown legality to the wind in this War on Terror? To prevail in any endeavor, one has to be for something, rather than merely against something. And if we are not for democracy and the rule of law, then what? Perhaps Justice Stevens was prophetic in his dissent in the recent Presidential voting recount decision when he said, "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law."