The 9/11 hearings underway at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo have quickly turned into a circus. Defendants are defiantly mocking the court, shouting at the judge, and praying when they want to. But perhaps the most bizarre and embarrassing spectacle - one that has angered families of 9/11 victims -- is the sight of one of the civilian female defense lawyers:
As the London Daily Mail reports:
A female defense attorney, who is not Muslim, wore the traditional Islamic hijab to the military court staging the trial of five Guantanamo Bay prisoners accused of the September 11 attacks yesterday.
Cheryl Bormann, 52, who represents Walid bin Attash, said that her client had demanded she wear the clothing and insisted that other women at the hearing also wear 'appropriate' clothes out of respect for his religion.
Today she explained her decision at Guantanamo Bay, saying she always wears the hijab around her client.
She asked that other women follow her example so that the defendants do not have to avert their eyes 'for fear of committing a sin under their faith', according to Fox News.
The New York Times, for its part, had this to say of Bormann and her impact on family members attending the trial or watching it via closed circuit cameras:
Several family members could be heard muttering when the lawyer for Mr. bin Attash, Cheryl Bormann -- who wore traditional black Muslim garb, covering everything but her face -- asked women on the prosecution team to consider dressing more modestly so that the defendants would not have to avoid looking at them "for fear of committing a sin under their faith." The women were wearing military or civilian jackets and skirts.
The Obama administration, of course, originally wanted the trial of the century to be held in a court-room in New York City, near the site of the 9/11 crime scene. But thankfully, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others -- anticipating the carnival atmosphere and security issues that would attend such a trial -- convinced the Obama administration to stay out of New York.
It turned out to be a good decision. On the other hand, Kuwait's solution as to what to do with Gitmo's 9/11 detainees was perhaps an even better idea: Send them to a combat zone in Afghanistan and leave them there to die. (See an earlier American Thinker article: "Kuwait's Gitmo Solution: Kill them!)
But obviously that would have been incompatible with American and Western values. So the Gitmo theater of the absurd is the best that Americans can expect -- even if Muslim cheerleaders of the 9/11 defendants regard the chaotic hearings as a symbol of weakness, not strength.
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