Certain To Be Convicted?

Paul Craig Roberts, former conservative Reaganite economist turned radical, plays devil's advocate with regards to the forthcoming NY trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of Sept. 11:

Republicans and American conservatives regard civil liberties as coddling devices for criminals and terrorists. They assume that police and prosecutors are morally pure and, in addition, never make mistakes. An accused person is guilty, or government wouldn’t have accused him. All of my life, I have heard self-described conservatives disparage lawyers who defend criminals. Such “conservatives” live in an ideal, not real, world. They desperately need to read “The Tyranny of Good Intentions.”

Even some of those, such as Stuart Taylor in the National Journal, who defend giving Mohammed a court trial do so on the grounds that there are no risks, as Mohammed is certain to be convicted and that “a civilian trial will show Americans and the rest of the world that our government is sure it can prove the 9/11 defendants guilty in the fairest of all courts.”

Taylor agrees that Mohammed deserves “summary execution,” but that it is a good Machiavellian ploy to try Mohammed in civilian court, while dealing with cases that have “trickier evidentiary problems” in “more flexible military commissions, away from the brightest spotlights.”

In other words, Taylor and the National Journal endorse Mohammed’s trial as a show trial that will prove both America’s honorable respect for fair trials and Muslim guilt for Sept. 11.

If, as Taylor writes, “the government’s evidence is so strong,” why wasn’t Mohammed tried years ago? Why was he held for years and tortured—apparently water-boarded 183 times—in violation of U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions? How can the U.S. government put a defendant on trial when its treatment of him violates U.S. statutory law, international law and every precept of the U.S. legal code? Mohammed has been treated as if he were a captive of Adolf Hitler’s Gestapo or Joseph Stalin’s KGB. And now we are going to finish him off in a show trial.

If the barbaric treatment Mohammed has received during his captivity hasn’t driven him insane, how do we know he hasn’t decided to confess in order to obtain for himself for evermore the glory of the deed? How many people can claim to have outwitted the CIA, the National Security Agency and all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, NORAD, the Pentagon, the National Security Council, airport security (four times on one morning), U.S. air traffic control, the U.S. Air Force, the military joint chiefs of staff, all the neocons, Mossad and even the formidable Dick Cheney?

The price that Mohammed will pay will be small compared to the price we Americans will pay. The outcome of Mohammed’s trial will complete the transformation of the U.S. legal system from a shield of the people into a weapon in the hands of the state. Feige [David Feige in Slate.com on Nov. 19] writes that Mohammed’s statements obtained by torture will not be suppressed, that witnesses against him will not be produced (”national security”), that documents that compromise the prosecution will be redacted.

At each stage of Mohammed’s appeals process, higher courts will enshrine into legal precedents the denial of the constitutional right to a speedy trial, thus enshrining indefinite detention; the denial of the right against damning pretrial publicity, thus allowing demonization prior to trial; and the denial of the right to have witnesses and documents produced, thus eviscerating a defendant’s rights to exculpatory evidence and to confront adverse witnesses.

The twisted logic necessary to disentangle Mohammed’s torture from his confession will also be upheld and will “provide a blueprint for the government, giving them the prize they’ve been after all this time—a legal way both to torture and to prosecute.”