Here is the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Today is the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The acknowledged mastermind of the attack was Khalid Shaikh Muhammad.

Essex County 9/11 Memorial, Eagle Rock Reservation, West Orange, New Jersey, looking toward lower Manhattan

In twenty-five years–a quarter of a century–the United States has so far tortured KSM to its heart’s content, interrogated him ad nauseam, and kept him locked in a concentration camp in a foreign country, too afraid of a broken, manacled man to imprison him here. What it so far has not done is put KSM on trial, convict him, sentence him, or properly speaking punish him for the crime of the century. Here’s the story, from Responsible Statecraft. It’s not a laughing matter, and yet it’s a sick, sad joke.

What’s the hold up? The prosecution needs more time? They don’t think they can convict? They’re hunting down witnesses? Or is the issue, rather, that we’re dealing with a country whose commitment to justice is so weak that it no longer registers its own moral failures? A perfect exemplification of Aristotle’s conception of vice: first take wrongdoing for granted, then take pleasure in it, then re-describe it as virtue.

At what point do you give up on a country as too far gone, fundamentally unworthy of loyalty or respect? That, it seems to me, is the question most worth asking on “Patriot Day,” September 11, 2026. Worth asking, anyway, if you haven’t reached it yet.