The alleged "mastermind" of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was in US hands for almost five years (he was arrested in Rawalpindi on 1 March 2003), and Ramzi Binalshibh even longer (arrested in Karachi, 11 September 2002 — the first anniversary — another pure coincidence, need it be said), before in February 2008 it was announced, not by the US Attorney General, but a legal spokesman for the Pentagon, that they and four others were finally to be charged and put on trial, at Guantánamo Bay, before a military court, with their rights still to be determined by the Supreme Court, and with massive international criticism of what had already been done to them in custody, before and after being brought to Cuba in September 2006 from the CIA's safekeeping. On 12 June 2008, just one week after Mohammed, Binalshibh and three others appeared at an arraignment hearing at Guantánamo, the Supreme Court declared the Military Commissions Act unconstitutional and upheld habeas corpus rights for all foreign detainees, allowing them to challenge their status in normal civilian courts in the USA. It took until November 2009, after a change of government and the closing of — or stated intention to close — "Gitmo," before Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder announced that KSM and his associates would be tried at the Southern District Court in Manhattan, just a few blocks away from Ground Zero, presumably some time in 2010.

On the one hand, we are told that in 2007 Mohammed confessed — to military interrogators — to responsibility for 9/11 "from A to Z"; on the other, that he plans to plead not guilty at his trial. Why would someone proud, in private, of his part in mass murder turn round and deny it in public court ? Official explanation : he plans to turn the trial into a "platform" for a diatribe against the USA. But this is ridiculous : anything not relevant to the question of his innocence or guilt could easily be ruled out of order, and he could be physically removed from the court, if necessary. Secondly, if he was proud of what he did, why on earth would it have been necessary to — as we are assured happened — torture his confession out of him ? The whole thing is illogical, contradictory nonsense, designed for an audience of idiots who think that justice and revenge are synonymous. If he genuinely was proud, he would plead guilty, he would let 3,000 deaths be a more effective statement against the USA than any speech he could make in a courtroom, and the "trial" would consist, like Moussaoui's, of his sentencing : not if Obama can help it, like Bush before him.

We know what happened to Moussaoui when he started trying to use the court as a platform : the same could be done with these defendants. The propaganda at their trial will be coming entirely from the US Government, as has been the case ever since the original propaganda event was carried out — by the US Government. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants are as guilty of 9/11 as Lee Oswald was of the murder of John Kennedy : quite possibly involved in it, but basically convenient scapegoats. When Oswald famously claimed to be a "patsy," most folk took that to mean he was a victim : nobody wondered why he didn't specify who was framing him, when he must have had some idea. Even fewer considered the possibility that his victimhood was voluntary — like KSM's and like Moussaoui's. Oswald was a suicide pilot in 1963 — a voluntary martyr for the cause — and Mohammed and company are going to serve the same function for 9/11. These folk are working for the USA, and the trials and convictions will bring none of us one inch closer to the truth.

If, that is, there ever are any trials, and the choice of Manhattan would seem to be deliberately designed to sabotage the process. Frank Siller, brother of Stephen, one of 9/11's firefighter victims : "They killed 3,000 people that day." Richard Mason, computer technician : "They committed the crime here." I do hope neither of these is ever accepted for jury service in this case — or anyone else with the same concept of objectivity. How the prosecution hope to find anyone in Manhattan who has no views whatever on these defendants, God only knows, after the amount of coverage they have had, and the things said about them and, allegedly — the magic word — by them. "Those allegedly responsible for the 9/11 attacks" : well, at least the Attorney General of the United States remembered to use the word, so maybe the farce won't be complete and absolute.

The Pentagon's legal spokesman at the June 2008 arraignment, Brigadier-General Thomas Hartmann, had the effrontery to remind the press that "At Nuremberg, there was no right of appeal." At Nuremberg, in front of civilian judges, and without being tortured, some of the defendants had been tried and executed — for far worse crimes than 9/11 — within 18 months of VE Day; even the Tokyo Tribunal "only" lasted 30 months. The 9/11 defendants may end up having to wait five times as long for their trials to even start as the length of the entire proceedings at Nuremberg, for killing 3,000 — the capacity of just one of the "bathhouses" at Auschwitz, re-used hundreds upon hundreds of times. If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's history had matched Hermann Göring's, he would have poisoned himself 526 days after being arrested, on 8 August 2004, three months before Bush had even been re-elected. US Constitution, Bill of Rights, Amendment VI : "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial." Presumption of guilt by public and government alike, seven years of delay before charges are even brought, accusations of mistreatment, etc etc : is it possible the US Government has never had any serious intention, under this President or the last one, of ever allowing these trials to go ahead ?

As for Bin Laden — that other "mastermind" — Donald Rumsfeld long ago frankly admitted he couldn't care less where he is; I dare say the feelings are mutual, and Bin Ladin is probably slightly easier to track down these days than "Rummy." I'd guess he might possibly be safe in the "lawless" north-west of Pakistan — The Wild North-West, home of the notorious Gunfight at the Peshawar Corral and Abdullah the Kid — the only place on Planet Earth too dangerous for the Pentagon to even think of going near. How could they possibly face those suicidal Pashtun gunslingers, totally different from the ones they dealt with over the border in Afghanistan eight years ago ? If Pakistan is such a "safe haven," one wonders why Bin Ladin ever needed to find sanctuary with the Taleban in the first place; and if the USA cares so deeply and sincerely about the niceties of international law that they can't just barge into Pakistan — how uncivilised — one wonders why that fastidiousness was never much in evidence in the cases of Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, Grenada, etc etc. You might almost think they know perfectly well where he is, and their apparent reluctance is to make sure no-one else gets to him — someone, for example, who has figured out his true allegiances. We can fairly swiftly discount the guilt by innuendo of the hundreds held in Guantánamo for years on end without charge, over 9/11 or anything else — for no better reason than to give the lynch mobs somebody identifiable, and in custody, to direct their hatred and stupidity at — and the repeatedly implied guilt of the late Saddam Hussein, CIA asset and US stooge for 40 years, against whom there never was any 9/11 case — but tell that to the more brainless sectors of the US public, who make up something like half of it.

Two convictions to date, and a possibility of five more, after eight years (or nine, or ten ...) : is this the justice promised to the American people by a Commander-in-Chief who, at the absolute minimum, failed to prevent the attacks in the first place ? Instead of the official version of events being proved in a court, we have had the Kean Report, just as 40 years ago we had the Warren Report — as a substitute for judicial process. The rest of the official 9/11 story, to date, amounts to hot air. The US government has no 9/11 case: not a single shred of evidence, put to a jury in a trial — which excludes Moussaoui — leading to the conviction of someone directly responsible — which excludes Moussaoui, Motassadeq and Yarkas — for committing 3,000 murders. Given this abject failure — or, as I and millions of others believe, worse — far worse — perhaps my contribution might achieve something: it can hardly achieve less. If the real guilty parties have not yet been convicted, the whole question of their identity is wide open. The minor players convicted so far — or even any major ones convicted in the future — could very well be the victims of manipulation by others still in the shadows. If the people who have been convicted so far didn't do it, who did ? Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ? Evidence — his alleged confession ?

No-one who thinks the US government itself organised 9/11 need offer the slightest apology for believing it — Bush failed to prove his case, by producing trials and convictions, and Obama has yet to prove his — and we have Northwoods as a specific precedent, to prove that those at the very top of the US military establishment are capable of that level of cynicism — not just thinking it, but planning it, putting it in print and expecting it to be endorsed by a Defense Secretary and an Attorney General. Robert McNamara and Robert Kennedy may have had their reasons for rejecting Northwoods — perhaps not moral compunctions so much as the risks involved in something that, if exposed, would make the U-2 shootdown and the Bay of Pigs fiasco look like minor problems. By 2001, what made them major — the existence of the Soviet Union — was past history, the USA now had no serious enemies or competitors, and Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft were in office.

When would there ever be a better opportunity ? Does anyone with a brain and any sense of honesty seriously believe Osama Bin Laden brought that situation about, or that a government like Bush's would sit around, staring into space, waiting for him to do it ? They made the opportunity happen. Why would a real enemy — if they had any capable of inflicting serious harm — give them a gift like that ? The onus is on those who claim Bush did no more than capitalise on an accident to justify this fatuous image of the USA as a passive spectator, or a defenseless victim, when the historical record tells us the opposite. Were all the USA's meddlings and invasions carried out by a passive, peace-loving state that believed in just minding its own business ? How can anyone who knows about the rapacity and the lying hypocrisy of US governments possibly see them as poor little innocents, wide open to attack by a gang of terrorists living in a cave in Afghanistan ? If Tom Lehrer was still writing — if Kissinger winning the Peace Prize hadn't made him give up — this lunacy would.