Today, a verdict was reached in the war crimes trial of Salim Hamdan. If you don’t know, Hamdan was the former driver of Osama Bin Ladin. He was captured in 2001 in Afghanistan. The prosecution says he was part of Bin Ladin’s inner circle. The defense said he was a wage worker, low level, and without influence on terrorist attacks. The soldier who was a witness when Hamdan was captured said, during the trial, that he was not sure if this man was the driver of a vehicle carrying missles. Hamdan’s plea at the beginning of the trial was not guilty.

Those are just some bare facts. I do not pretend to know the verdict. It is not my concern for the purposes of this article either. My issue is with the White House’s deputy press secretary Tony Fratto’s comment: "We’re pleased that Salim Hamdan received a fair trial. We look forward to other cases moving forward to trial."

This is not surprising. If the possibly low level detainees at guantanemo will be found guilty, than even the ethicsless Bush Administration will finally let them have a trial.

And why do I say there is an ethical issue with these trials? Well, like how these men have been held, their trials are a sham and affront to any normative sense of justice or fairness. Not that an administration who hides its energy policy while remaining speechless during record breaking oil prices cares about fairness for anyone but itself and it’s friends, but justice still should matter in this country.

The trial was the first conducted under the Military Commissions Act. That act was passed after the US Supreme Court ruled that it was not acceptable for the Bush Administration to try Guantanamo Bay detainees under military rules.

Yet Hamdan, as will be the others, was still tried under a panel of six U.S. Military officials. The trial was at Guantanamo. The trial happened while we are still at war. Is this reasonable? Is this just?

I’m going to pull the Nazi card. Would we have found it sensible or just for the Nazi’s to try the French they captured when they invaded and occupied France while WWII was still going on? Would that have been a fair way to determine whether or not the French had performed war crimes?

The Nuremberg Trials weren’t held in the secrecy of military tribunals during wartime on the grounds of an illegal prison camp. And that’s why they are respected. Even if I disapprove of the hangings that they lead to, I can at least say that they tried to be objective, as justice is supposed to be. She wears a blindfold for a reason Mr. Bush.

(Here’s an article for more information) - http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/06/america/07g...