Actually, one of the favorite RW paranoid memes about the trials is that some group will decide to threaten NYC with an attack unless the suspects are released (apparently AQ has been watching old Dukes of Hazzard reruns or something).

I’ve got a similar concern – that if the trial starts to go badly for the government (eg, on the torture angle) that some of the ‘baggers would decide to have a “lynching”.

Ding ding ding – you have identified the problem.

You can’t.

Unless we’re going to toss the entire Constitution out the window in federal district court. Points to Hopey Unicorn for this dice toss. I hope they have something independently credible to use against KSM.

Pass the popcorn.

If They had treated this properly as a criminal act from the very beginning, instead of declaring War on some vague definition of Terror, and not used that as an excuse to inflict Their psychosexual and non-consensual sadistic inclinations upon their helpless “enemy combatants” line the pockets of their friends at Halliburton and Blackwater and such nefarious ilk, perhaps we’d all be treated to a more realistic airing of the dirty laundry behind the 9-11 attacks.

But obviously, that would be a laughable expectation from the likes of the Bush/Cheney/Ashcroft/Gonzalez administration of justice.

They must have evidence that is not a “fruit of the poisonous tree,” they cannot introduce any admissions or confessions resulting from their illegal incarceration and torture, that much seems clear.

Is there a way to hold that their status has changed, that their prior incarceration was as military prisoners, not POWs, but as illegal combatants nevertheless subject to military law, and that with their indictment, their status changed, and as long as they are afforded their rights as criminal defendants after this status change, all is OK?

I could almost buy into that, if no evidence resulting from torture is introduced, and they have all the rights of criminal defendants from this point on, I could swallow that.

The worst thing about the Bush administrations decision to go rogue with these guantanamo prisoners, was that from the beginning it was plain that it would make legitimate criminal prosecution problematic, and as an American, I certainly did and do want to see them subjected to legal, proper, lawful prosecution.

These people are simply lawless.