Bush League U.S.A.

There'll be fires on the road
and the white man dancing
You'll see a woman
hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
--The Future, Leonard Cohen
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More on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, though not the last word.

The beginning of the KSM trial marks the start of a new era in United States jurisprudence, the certification that we have truly become a banana republic -- full-on Bush League. Since we have more people incarcerated than did the Stalin era Soviet system, an organic growth issuing from that is we would have fantasy trials lacking legal precedent that abandon the concept of the right to be proven guilty, which would imply the right to defend oneself against charges.

One cannot defend oneself when hamstrung. KSM may not challenge the validity of evidence collected during his torture. He will not confront a presumption of innocence and a standard of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Ergo, he is guilty before presumed innocent.

These bedrock defining elements of the U.S. trial system will be missing from the KSM trial because both of the U.S.'s warlord presidents have indicated that some men are too dangerous to ever be freed from Guantanamo Bay. As KSM is one of those men, the initial presumption of his guilty status makes a mockery of the entire judicial process.

Worldwide and historically-speaking, military tribunals seldom if ever meet the standards of civilized concepts of justice. When KSM is convicted by his tribunal it is we, the American people, who will bear the guilt of this sad chapter in the tale of misguided American actions.