PrintNovember 24, 2009
The KSM Show Trial
AG Eric Holder's statement that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will remain in custody no matter the verdict in his upcoming Manhattan trial coupled with Obama's instructions to the jury that KSM be "convicted and executed" reveals the entire exercise as a show trial -- a ritual effort intended not to achieve justice, but to make a public political point. The question is, what could that point possibly be? Show trials have had a long and ignoble history in the last century. Pioneered in the USSR by the Stalin regime, they were used as method of instilling terror into the vozhd's enemies, ensuring party discipline, and creating propaganda spectacles for overseas consumption. During the purges of the 1930s, the show trial became one of the Soviet state's most potent instruments for breaking and humiliating prominent figures in the party, the military, and industrial and academic circles. As a rule, the victim would be arrested by the security organs (at the time known by the acronym...(Read Full Article)
