Meanwhile, in Guatanamo . . .

I don't pretend to be a legal expert, so won't expound at length on the beginning of the military tribunal trying Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and other 9/11 conspirators.  (I found today's Wall Street Journal editorial on the trial to be fairly persuasive, however).

But one tidbit from this MSNBC report jumped out at me:

Human rights groups and defense lawyers say the secrecy of Guantanamo and the military tribunals will make it impossible for the defense. They argued the U.S. kept the case out of civilian court to prevent disclosure of the treatment of prisoners like Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times.

Really, weren't the issues of waterboarding and the conditions at Guantanamo (which are generally viewed as a model for military detention, but consistently decried by al-Qa'ida for propaganda purposes) disclosed a hundred times over during the Bush administration? 

I think it is safe to say the defense will do everything in its power to ensure the trial is a fiasco (i.e. requesting that female prosecutors wear hijabs so as not to offend the defendants) as a strategy to obscure the magnitude of the crimes committed on 9/11 and planned beyond that date.