The Thorn of The Dilemma

To be civilized is to be courteous, caring and fully aware of justice which must be seen to be honoured.  Civilized people do not react with haste to return brutality when they become the subject on the receiving end of it, however horrific in nature.  Or so the legend goes.  Say, an atrocity of inconceivable mass dimensions is brought to bear against an unsuspecting nation by a creeping, malevolent force.

That nation, held in high regard, whose system of justice and civilized demeanour is held to be a template for the rest of the world, is held to a particularly exceptional standard.  While it is expected to react and to defend itself and its citizens, it must do with with a disciplined rigour, conveying an attitude and prosecuting its case resulting in a punishment against the offender that is seen as just.

In the particular instance of the United States of America having sustained a compellingly violent and vicious blow against the security and life of its citizens, there is also the fact that through the ulterior plans of those who carried out that attack, further future such attacks were promised.  Further, future attacks were in addition carried out against other Western countries, allied with the United States.

And, alert to the prospects of ongoing attacks, the United States security establishment become painfully aware that it had not been fully engaged in best practises, either in following up on cautions already available to them, or interacting with one another in an establishment of co-operative functionality.  When the American executive administration finally responded to the deadly provocation that 9/11 had proven to be, much of the international community stood solidly with it.

In the decade that passed, fault was found by those countries who feel they value the rules of law and justice in greater measure than the United States, in contemplating the details of the U.S. actions in pursuing aggressive action, apprehension of the dedicated jihadists who celebrated their actions as constituting honourable martyrdom in sublime fealty to Islam, and holding them accountable for their deadly attacks.

The prisons where these jihadists and mujahadeen were incarcerated were purportedly brutal and inhumane, as was their treatment hostile and demeaning to their dignity.  Because of the irregularity of the situation where a state-to-state war had not been declared, the prisoners, held to be members of al-Qaeda and affiliates were said to have been ill-treated.  Some of them claiming to be innocent and in the end no charges laid, no evidence of wrong-doing brought forward.

The famous 'fog of war' that clouds decision-making and actions most certainly would apply here as it inevitably does wherever war occurs.  Onlookers, both international and internal to the United States, continue to be critical of the past administration for its handling of this volatile situation, and have transferred their criticism to the current administration which undertook to ameliorate prison conditions and the administration of justice.

Many question whether the man who exuberantly and joyously proclaimed himself to have been the mastermind behind the clockwork organization that resulted in simultaneous attacks from the skies on innocent Americans can ever get a 'fair trial' in the United States.  The United States, dedicated to justice is, nonetheless, suspect for its obvious bias as representing a recognized subjective victim of terror.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who underwent unusual and severe interrogation procedures in an effort to extract from him information that could be used to arm his adversaries with knowledge to defend itself from further, future attacks, faces the charge of killing 2,976 people.  He shares that charge with four others, representing his trusted confreres in the terror war they prosecuted against the U.S.

He is charged as having been a meticulous controller of all that was planned and executed on that fateful day.  It was he who carefully mentored and instructed the hijackers and who inured them against a shared human distaste for slaughter.  The most egregiously-charged technique of interrogation was lodged against those who introduced him to the technique of waterboarding; the administration held complicit.

Walid bin Attash, considered a former al-Qaeda training camp instructor had himself selected the hijackers after witnessing their training prowess, introducing them to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.  Ramzi bin al-Shibh who applied four times for a U.S. visa well in advance of the planned attacks, transferred funds to the hijackers, and attempted to enroll in the Florida-based flight schools.

And the computer engineer, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who moved funding and made travel arrangements for the other hijackers, having failed in his strenuous attempts to join them.  Finally, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, another mover of funding and credit cards to the hijackers.  They are all to stand trial and to enter pleas before a military war crimes tribunal.

Previously, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had bragged at trial about his splendid work in beheading Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.  This is the man who elicits great sympathy from those claiming to be hugely invested in justice, insisting that it be seen to be done as well as done unequivocally, without the damning effect of torture to extract evidence.

Chief prosecutor Brig.-Gen. Mark Martins, a lawyer and military man, formerly chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, and protege of now-director of the CIA, Gen. David Petraeus, who holds a degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Balliol College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, intends to see justice carried out.

He dismisses claims that a U.S. army officer whose experience has been war with al-Qaeda cannot be an impartial member of a jury.  "An officer who served in Wardak province and had to deal with chaos and uncertainty and armed conflict is someone who I see is capable of doing justice, who will try to do what is fair and not convict someone unfairly", he explains.

In fact, there is a well-earned and -respected and -documented history of just this type of thing in American moral values.  One need go no further for an example than the violent interface that took place in Afghanistan between a Taliban group that included 'child-soldier' Canadian-Arab Omar Khadr in a battle with American soldiers.  Despite that Omar Khadr had killed an U.S. medic, American medical treatment was immediately given Khadr, saving his life.

He was held incarcerated at Guantanamo, just as many others were.  His position as a 'child soldier' exploited by his al-Qaeda father also elicited great sympathy.  The five now preparing to stand trial for their part in the 9/11 attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania will be tried fairly.  Brig.-Gen. Martins speaks of his "sense of honour", and insists that "I've been assigned this: it's a duty", which he will carry through to fruition.

Of course, the five charged with Islamist terror were involved with 'honour' and saw it as their 'duty' to scheme and plot and discharge themselves as honourable martyrs for Islam.  Their purpose was mass slaughter.  For the greater glory of incomparable and holy Islam.

Their disposition at trial will be to produce justice, blinded from bias or favour.