Dear Friend and Reader:

Slipping under the radar during the memorials for the Fort Hood shootings was Attorney General Eric Holder’s November 13 announcement that the U.S. Department of Justice was bringing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi to civilian trial in New York City.

Perhaps you may have heard of them. They’re accused of conspiring to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.  With the Attorney-General’s announcement, last Friday’s Planet Waves edition arrived presciently and was aptly named “Beyond the Reactionary Floorshow,” about the Saturn-Pluto square.

Holder’s announcement feels like we’ve walked into another world. We’ve been told what to think about the attackers for so long and relinquished our civil liberties in the face of the 9-11 incident that the mere thought of actually bringing the 9-11 conspirators to trial is a reality shift. That the men are even getting a trial in any court in the US is in itself stunning. It’s taking a while to adjust to following the rule of law again.

A civilian trial will hopefully shed some light if not find the truth in this chapter of our history, starting that summer of 2001. The question now: Are we ready for it?

The arguments for and against moving with a civilian trial and instead of a military tribunal for these men boil down to this: Was theirs an act of war or a crime?  The opinion divide between these two choices defines the political contours of the left and the right for the last eight years, one side fighting for transparency and the other for utter control of information. It feels good just having an open argument about the relative merits of both court systems for this trial. It feels good to have an open argument, period. It beats being branded a traitor for questioning the government’s motivations for going to war.

It means we have re-established a living, breathing, functioning democracy again, where people can agree to disagree and debate. So arguing about politics and the War on Terror at the Thanksgiving dinner table may not be anything new, but this year, but we’re also talking about the way our government is adhering to actual laws while doing so. And laws based on the very principles and ideals the country is based on and admired for across the globe. Pinch me. Am I really writing this?

The 9-11 story in America, which began with Saturn-Pluto in opposition 2001-02, is a story with an effect that no doubt will outlast most of us here. Saturn and Pluto are not interested in doing things that don’t count. As we transition forward while Saturn and Pluto are at a right angle, what is it that we will record for posterity in our history books while weighing the guilt or innocence of these five men as they go to trial?

How will what comes out at the trial ’square’ against so much credible evidence that has come out the past eight years, indicating an inside conspiracy?

Holder’s announcement hasn’t diminished the intensity of the collective memory of the events of 9-11.  An eight-year stupor of fear takes some time to get over.  The trial is an opportunity to take a good close look at what’s been hiding under our national bed, and see what all the fuss has been about without spin. There was a Boogeyman that unleashed our darkest instincts and relinquished our democratic principles while forcing a cartoon of democracy down the throats of other countries in the name of fear.

As the new Attorney General said:  “I’m not scared of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has to say at trial, and no one else needs to be afraid either.”

This is a change signalling that maybe (a big maybe) we can start closing the wound that was 9-11-2001. We know what we became after being attacked and know at least in part what we’ve allowed in its wake.  A price paid in blood, money and a piece of our collective soul.  Can we begin to put this chapter of our history to rest? That is what I pray for, because all of us could use the closure. This is the next step. Are we courageous enough to take it?

Yours & truly,

Fe Bongolan
San Francisco

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