9/11 Trial: Don't Expect Another Nuremberg

CBS' Andrew Cohen Says Military Trials Likely Won't Shed New Light On 9/11 Attacks

(CBS)  Attorney Andrew Cohen analyzes legal issues for CBS News and CBSNews.com.

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The Pentagon announced Monday - 2,345 days after September 11, 2001 -that it would finally seek to bring to military trial six men accused of aiding the terror attacks that day. Considering that one of the six men is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, long acknowledged as the 9/11 operational chief, the announcement surely is big news and perhaps even a watershed in the long and frustrating struggle to fit the new rules of warfare into the old paradigms of military justice.

It’s a big deal, however, only if we have just witnessed a shift in Pentagon priorities when it comes to the rules by which the men will be tried. Military officials said all the right things Monday - that there would be very little classified evidence introduced against the men and that they would be afforded most of the same rights as accused U.S. soldiers - but it is unclear as I write this whether in fact the procedures ballyhooed now are materially different from the procedures that have been challenged before and that remain legally dubious even today.

If the Pentagon finally is serious about prosecuting the men more fairly - if the ticking clock on the Bush Administration’s days in office has generated the sort of reasonable breakthrough that dozens of judges and hundreds of lawyers could not - 2008 really could be the year we finally see progress in the form of legal process. If we’ve just heard more empty rhetoric from the government and the rules really haven’t changed then we are doomed to endure another year or two of legal limbo before we see our first military trial.

It won’t be a grand spectacle like the world saw in Nuremberg. The war that preceded that trial was finished. Our current war on terror rumbles on, perhaps endlessly, requiring military officials to be mindful of security and operational details that would emerge during the presentation of evidence. The government will now allow the world’s tribunes to converge upon Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to chronicle the proceedings.

Moreover, it’s hard to fathom how either our government or the rest of us will learn something about the 9/11 plot that we can believe, and don’t already know.

The odds of Mohammed suddenly snapping his fingers during the trial and then sharing with us some relevant detail is about as likely as the trial is to be televised with Nancy Grace as the courtroom announcer. This is about steak, not sizzle; about putting these guys away, in this world or the next, once and for all.

Let’s get real and stop talking about legal theory. The Mohammed Six are dead men walking and have been so ever since they were captured. They will be judged by military officers. The trials, if they ever take place, are likely to be far less controversial than advertised. And the episode will end up the way all capital cases end up in this country: with a final pronouncement of some sort by the United States Supreme Court.

Given the amount of poor reporting and faulty analysis on these topics Monday you would have thought that Hammurabi himself came back from the dead to deliver the news in Akkadian.

All everyone wanted to talk about Monday was “waterboarding” and how torture allegations would play into the trial. Apparently, “terror trials” and “waterboarding” go hand-in-hand now like “O.J. Simpson” and “preliminary hearing” - you hear the first and you start asking about the second. But it ain’t necessarily so. I don’t think this trial is going to be the Torture Referenda that detainee attorneys want it to be. For example, prosecutors could go a long way toward avoiding the topic altogether if they simply present their case against the men without relying upon anything the men said following their capture.

Let’s play that out with Mohammed. Obviously, the government knew about his role in the 9/11 plot before he was rousted out of his bed, photographed and sent off to be “interrogated” lord knows where. The evidence and information that led federal authorities to tag him with the 9/11 Leader label and then hunt him down in a safe house in Pakistan can be used against him without triggering a defense motion that it came from torturing the man. You can’t use torture as a defense to a confession if the government doesn’t use the confession.

But that’s not going to stop the folks from the Center for Constitutional Rights - an organization that has done amazingly important work on behalf of the detainees since 9/11 - from arguing that the government’s allegations against their client, Mohammed al-Qahtani, are “inherently tainted by the stench of torture.” I just don’t see a jury of Donald Rumsfeld’s peers buying that argument. And I don’t buy the Supreme Court Justices doing so, either.

The defense will have a closer call if the government tries to use information gleaned from the men during newly-revealed “soft” interrogation tactics. And if someone hasn’t copyrighted it yet I’ll be the first to lay claim: the phrase “The Starbucks Defense” is going to be applied in this case if the government tries to sell the idea that its new anti-waterboarding tactics - would you like a latte, Mohammed? - don’t constitute coercion. The more prosecutors can stay away from using anything the men have said the better and strongly the government’s case will be.

Now let’s look at the capital punishment component to Monday’s news. Who in the world is surprised that our government would choose to push ahead for the death penalty in these cases? If not now, when? Yes, I understand that many countries of the world do not agree with America’s willingness to continue to employ the death penalty. But if and when Mohammed is convicted of this crime, which leader of which country is going to stand up in this case and say that he deserves mercy?

Sometimes, the enormity of the crime overwhelms the life history of its alleged perpetrators. It happened with Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing trial. And it’s going to happen again if - not when - Mohammed and Company finally get their day in court.

[inventagod]

I sure do miss those Ashcroft Fake Color Warnings the Republicons used in the run-up to the last elections...

Those were a hoot!

[rowdytexan2]

that there would be very little classified evidence introduced against the men...

You can bet there won''t be any evidence nor will they be allowed to testify. And then these men will be dead and can never speak out again.

And the Neocons and their supporters who commited 9/11 go free. May they rot in hell.

[inventagod]

These six are walking dead men.
Bu$hCo will kill them to further the myth of 9/11. For the rest of us, there is enough reasonable doubt as to who really demolished WTC7 and the other buildings that there should be an independant investigation of the players, including Cheney and Bu$h.
The Justice Department is complicit for not suspecting everyone, instead of just doing what Bu$h and the CIA tell them to.
For Bu$h to have held up any investigation of 9/11 for 444 days was a crime itself!

[nm_gold]

The Bush administration has once again proved that either: young George''s drug and alcohol abuse killed all of the brain cells used for reason and logic, or his father bought his degree and payed off the professors who graded his exams. His inability to form an arguement without falacies proves he has been lying to America since he began his political career. This, of course, reminds me of the old joke, "How can you tell when a politician is lying? His mouth is moving." What is sad and pitiful isn''t that our leaders use logical falacies to lead us into positions that we later regret - it''s that so few of Americans recognize it when we hear it. OK, the Talliban was a form of government, so maybe any of it''s leaders in custody might be eligible for a death penalty - if they participated. The highjackers responsible for the 9/11 attacks are already dead, and anyone who assisted in the planning or implimentation could be charged with conspiracy, but war crimes? A designation of war crimes for the acts of individuals who were working outside of government sponsorship would mean that George Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumpsfeld should also be charged with war crimes. Can we please turn them over to the UN to be tried for the thousands they have killed?

[irliberal]

Nuremburg could only happen again if/when Bush/Cheney are brought to trial.

[andrew_693]

It''s all a show so the idiots out there can scream their typical naive cliches about apple pie, freedom, the flag, the bible etc..... never mind that the ones that came up with all the false evidence in order to invade iraq and killed hundreds of thousands in irak will never face any justice whatsoever. It goes to show you that there are no good guys like they want us to believe. Traitors like the conservative street rapper, the obese karl rove get to betray their country and give the names of our cia assets and no punishment will be given. 9-11 is clearly a staged thing.

[inventagod]

You would think the Pentagoons could update that silly picture they publish of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed... they have had the guy six years, I bet he has changed his shirt...
Of course, they are doing propaganda, rewriting history, and they need an ugly guy for everyone to hate...
Most of America just wants to believe everything the military tells them and not ever think for themselves...

[noloyalisti]

I think all free thinking intelligent people now recognize that the 911 attacks were set up by the bush neocons. The buildings were clearly collapsed by controled demolition and the People for the New American Century (PNAC) document provided the motive.

The neo con men had the means, motive and opportunity. They also mad a LOT of money on this.

[inventagod]

should anyone forget...

''On the morning of September 11th, 2001, DickCheney was running several war games in the north eastern portion of the United States. These drills included many hijacking scenarios, where commercial jets were hijacked and flown into buildings. At the same time Cheney had arranged for a drill involving a bio attack on NY. This resulted in FEMA setting up a command post on pier 29 in New York on September 10th.

Some of these drills were scheduled for later in the year but *** Cheney rescheduled them and made sure that they all took place on the same day. This was unprecedented.''
http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/9_11_facts.html

[inventagod]

''inventagod - You might as well try to convince these people that the world is round and not the center of the universe.
Good Luck.
Posted by lochlan''

I only post here to remind others that a lying fascist may still be brought down, and the apologists will crawl back into the dark...
From the fascist:

''Russert: The night you took the country to war, March 17th, you said this: %u201CIntelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.%u201D

President Bush: Right.

Russert: That apparently is not the case.

President Bush: Correct.