9/11 "Mastermind" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Set For Kangaroo Court

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, and four alleged conspirators would be tried in criminal court in New York.

Blogger Burkeman1 turned up a revealing quote from an AP reporter, who asked President Obama this question, which speaks volumes:

Q. President Obama, how can you assure the American people that a trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now that your administration has now decided will take place in a civilian court in New York, will be safe and secure, but also not result in an innocent verdict for him?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Here's the thing that I will say. I am absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people will insist on it and my administration will insist on it.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured on March 1, 2003, held in a black prison until being transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006. He was waterboarded 183 times. KSH confessed to planning the 9/11 attacks and several other actual or attempted terrorist acts in March 2007.

In any court in America, let alone the rest of the Western industrialized world, any other defendant whose confession was obtained through the coercion of unremitting torture would have been released years ago, such a confession being inadmissable. The case would never go to trial if the defendant had competent counsel. But this is the post-G. W. Bush era, now being smoothly continued by Obama.