The United States of America was formerly a serious country run by serious people.
Here’s an example. The Second World War against Germany ended on May 7, 1945. The Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals began on November 20, 1945 and all verdicts were issued by October 1, 1946. The guilty mass murderers were all hanged on October 16, 1946.
From the conclusion of the war until the conclusion of the lives of the guilty, the judicial process took a bit over 17 months.
Keep that number in mind.
Today, we are an unserious country run by frivolous people who are paralyzed by a focus on minutia and the opinion of other dilettantes. Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., the co-architect of the attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), has not only not been executed, but he also hasn’t even gone to trial.
That is an indictment of the United States justice system, the people who run the system and the political leadership of the nation.
The U.S. judicial system is focused on procedure, delay and winning. Justice is an afterthought.
You don’t read much about this in the news but white-shoe, Wall Street law firms volunteer to represent terrorist murderers.
These legal moral exhibitionists aren’t defending KSM to guarantee a fair trial. Their goal is to either get the charges dismissed or KSM to be found not guilty.
The pinnacle of their career would be seeing a man responsible for the deaths of almost 3,000 Americans set free. These despicable people should be ashamed, but instead they are lionized by our decadent system.
NBC News explains that rather than using the template of the Nuremberg Trials, “The military commissions system set up for this trial was created from scratch in the Obama administration, so every rule can be a point of contention — and hours of litigation. There has been frequent turnover of judges and lawyers.”
Each new judge and each new lawyer results in more delays as the newbies come up to speed.
KSM was waterboarded after capture to force him to disclose details of other terror plots. His lawyers want details in an effort to undermine the evidence against him.
In addition, his defense team purposely asks for intelligence information they know the security state will not turn over. In fact, “defense lawyers have filed motion after motion challenging huge swaths of evidence.” At best, it’s more delay and at worst they might be able to taint the trial.
“Experts say at the rate the case is proceeding, there could be another decade of procedural hearings.”
And while the rest of the U.S. was able to conduct trials — just ask Derek Chauvin — the Guantanamo ‘justice system’ ground to a halt due to COVID.
Now it’s starting again and it looks like this: “To get here Saturday, more than a hundred people boarded a military charter at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland at the crack of dawn — prosecutors, defense attorneys, FBI agents, military officials, relatives of victims and journalists — after taking a rapid COVID test. It was a full day of travel, underscoring the logistical difficulty of getting in and out.”
Even then “a senior lawyer on one of the legal teams is absent for unspecified personal reasons, and it's not clear that substantive arguments can proceed.”
If the tribunal cared about justice and felt any responsibility at all to the families of the 9/11 dead and the Americans who are still seeking a penalty for the guilty, all the lawyers, judges and assorted NGO hangers on would have been required to stay in Gitmo until the trial was over.
Then justice would have been swift and sure.
Instead, we have this pathetic circus organized by the clowns in the Obama administration.
As Byron York wrote this week: “KSM, as he became known, worked with Osama bin Laden in planning the attacks, financing them, choosing the targets, and recruiting and training the terrorists who would carry out the mission. The evidence of this is irrefutable. There is simply no doubt that he is guilty.”
Instead, we are told there may be another decade of procedural hearings before the trial can begin.
KSM, 30 years later, will still be breathing while his victims are still dead and justice is still unserved.
As York concludes, “So if you ask when there will be justice for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the most realistic answer is: Never.”
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere Speaker's Bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.