KSM Trial Will Be a Perverse Farce

Everybody knows that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is never going to walk free, and that makes the logic behind Eric Holder's decision to give him a civilian trial in New York all the more puzzling, writes Charles Krauthammer. With the 9/11 not just the most destructive terrorist attack, "but the most spectacular and telegenic," Holder is essentially giving it a second life. The upcoming "farcical show trial" will give KSM a huge propaganda platform and endanger the security of New Yorkers and all Americans, Krauthammer writes in the Washington Post.

It's not as if the attorney general is opposed to military tribunals on principle, writes Krauthammer. Holder, he notes, ordered the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing be tried by a military tribunal the same day he made the KSM decision, and his explanation for the difference is "utterly incoherent." Holder has said this will be "the trial of the century," Krauthammer writes. "The last such was the trial of OJ Simpson" (More Charles Krauthammer stories.)