Show trial, anyone?

Digby alerts us to the fact that that trial of bin Laden's chauffeur was nothing more than a show. The fix was in for the driver no matter what the jury decided:

The military jurors who gave Osama bin Laden’s driver a light sentence want him freed from Guantanamo once he completes it in December and were frustrated to learn that the military can hold him indefinitely, one of the panelists said Wednesday.

In a telephone interview, the juror said the panel of six U.S. military officers did not learn until the trial ended Thursday that the Pentagon retains the right to hold Salim Hamdan as an "enemy combatant" even after he completes his sentence.

"After all the effort that we put in to get somebody a fair trial . . . and then to say no matter what we did it didn’t matter — I don’t see that as a positive step," the juror said. The jurors cannot be identified because the trial judge declared their identities secret. The case was the first war-crimes trial since the end of World War II.

Yeah, this is the stuff we used to criticize the Soviets for.