Khalid Sheik Mohammed faces the U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Thursday. The Pentagon charged KSM, along with several other co-conspirators, with terrorism and one count of murder for every victim of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. If convicted, each faces the death penalty. KSM claims, among other things, he is the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 plot.
Critics of the move charge the Pentagon with politicizing the trial as the controversial presidency of George Bush draws to a close. The tribunal faced international charges of deplorable treatment of the detainees there. The overall U.S.-led effort in the so-called war on terror witnessed broader criticism for its “extraordinary” interrogation techniques (waterboarding) and secret prisons peppered throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (this will be the first time the world sees KSM since his early morning capture in 2003.)
Furthermore, the U.S. Supreme Court has weighed into the tribunal to determine its legal nature. Each time the matter appeared before the high court, the Justices chipped away at the general structure of the system. Among several issues are matters of jurisdiction (the tribunal takes place on a U.S. naval base in a foreign country) and the use of ex post facto law, or defining an act as a crime after it took place. For example, the Pentagon considered conspiracy to commit terrorism a grave violation of the laws of war after it captured what it calls unlawful enemy combatants. Finally, the Pentagon claims the detainees do not have the right to challenge their imprisonment in the court systems, or the right to habeas corpus — one of the longest standing foundations of modern civilized law.
Is the United States politicizing the issue by finally putting its highest profile targets before a court? Probably. Or is the United States pushing the issue forward before the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in on a package of cases that may finally settle the habeas issue? Most likely.
