The Real Meaning of Allowing Guilty Pleas and Death Penalty Without Trial for Alleged 9/11 Plotters

Source: GW's Blog

The tin-pot dictator will not let the media talk to the American prisoner captured when his plane crashed.

The dictator says that the prisoner confessed to a horrible murder, and has pleaded guilty.

And so - the dictator announces - there will be no trial, just a death sentence. Indeed, the prisoner is Christian, and the dictator says that the prisoner has asked for martyrdom according to his religious beliefs.

Would the rest of the world believe this is fair?

Of course not. Moreover, world opinion would assume that the prisoner might very well be innocent of the murder charges.

This is exactly the situation we have currently with the prisoners at Guantanamo.

As the New York Times reports:

The Obama administration is considering a change in the law for the military commissions at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that would clear the way for detainees facing the death penalty to plead guilty without a full trial.

The provision could permit military prosecutors to avoid airing the details of brutal interrogation techniques. It could also allow the five detainees who have been charged with the Sept. 11 attacks to achieve their stated goal of pleading guilty to gain what they have called martyrdom.

This is not simply a ploy to skirt the fact that these prisoners were brutally tortured.

It is also a way to silence them forever, so that they can never tell what their real role was in the 9/11 attacks, and who they received assistance from, and how they were able to convince the mightiest military the world has ever known to stand down from standard air defense protocols on 9/11.