No, this isn’t 25-year-old news.
No, this isn’t 25-year-old news.
W hen I glanced at a headline about 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s trial, I thought “oh, news from this date 25 years ago.” But no. He hasn’t been to trial yet. He’s now scheduled to go to trial in 2028. This is like Hermann Goering waddling up to the Nuremberg bench in 1972. He’d probably hire F. Lee Bailey and get off with time served, spending the rest of his days on the talk-show circuit and hawking SlimFast.
It’s astonishing that he wasn’t given that speedy trial we hear so much about, since he had his filthy fingers in plots galore:
Mohammed is widely regarded as the chief planner of the September 11 attacks. He also participated in planning Richard Reid’s shoe bombing attempt to attack an airliner; the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia; the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; the murder of Daniel Pearl and various foiled attacks as well as numerous other crimes.
As you might expect, at some point he waltzed into the United States and took advantage of our genial gullibility.
After graduating from high school in 1983, Mohammed travelled to the United States and enrolled at Chowan University in Murfreesboro, North Carolina. He later transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and received a Bachelor of Science (BS) in mechanical engineering in 1986.
The Washington Post noted in 2009 that this stay helped turn him against his host:
“KSM’s limited and negative experience in the United States — which included a brief jail stay because of unpaid bills — almost certainly helped propel him on his path to becoming a terrorist,” according to this intelligence summary. “He stated that his contact with Americans, while minimal, confirmed his view that the United States was a debauched and racist country.”
Of course, there are many today who agree with him. Jail time was wrong, since it hardened him; there should have been restorative justice instead. If he’d been allowed to write a letter expressing regret for his actions and served two weeks as a front-desk clerk to gain empathy for the hotel’s side of things, the Twin Towers would still be standing. He would have softened his heart about the infidels, settled down in New Jersey, and become a florist. Some would certainly agree with the debauched part — although for a loser like this guy, “debauched” didn’t mean Drag Queen Story Hour but probably referred to women going out in public with their ears and fingers shamefully exposed. America, racist? Goes without saying! Somewhere in Bin Laden’s writings, there has to be something about the disparate impact of traffic stops for equipment violations.
There was the usual hatred of Israel as well, since it A) exists and B) is full of Jews. All in all, a miserable man who should’ve been fired from a Gitmo cannon into a shark pod. But we are not uncivilized, so there have been legal battles. His trial was postponed by Covid, because of course it was — you wouldn’t be surprised to learn he got PPP money because the Biden administration looked at the application and regarded “Gitmo detainees” as a “historically underserved community.” There was a plea bargain struck: He would say “yeah, I did those things,” and in exchange, the government would take the death penalty off the table. (The regulations, by the way, require lethal injection, so there is no chance he would be taken to the Freedom Tower on the WTC site, brought to the roof, set on fire, and Sparta-kicked over the edge.) The plea deal was nixed, reinstated, and nixed again, so now he’s finally going to trial. Eventually. Maybe. Probably.
He’s 61 now. By the time his trial is over and the appeals are exhausted, he’ll probably be 65. Expect the DSA to protest any guilty verdict. Hasan Piker will accuse the government of murdering a senior citizen.