ruthless

Glennzilla strikes again. And helps clarify what was not already unbelievably clear.

To begin with, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is not "being tried by the UCMJ." And that's not a ancillary or technical issue. That's the whole point of the military commissions controversy. They could have tried Guantanamo detainees in civilian courts or in standard courts-martial proceedings governed by the UCMJ. Instead, they created an entirely new process of "military commissions" that were explicitly not governed by the rules and safeguards of the UCMJ.

In fact, the Military Commissions Act (.pdf), pursuant to which Guantanamo military commissions are conducted after the Supreme Court's 2006 Hamdan ruling, explicitly states in numerous provisions that various critical safeguards and procedural rights afforded by the UCMJ do not apply to detainees tried at Guantanamo (see e.g., 948b (c) and (d)). The most notable (though far from only) example is that the Military Commissions Act expressly allows the use of evidence obtained through coercion (see 948r), whereas the UCMJ explicitly bars the use of such evidence (830 Art. 30(d)):

No statement obtained from any person in violation of this article, or through the use of coercion, unlawful influence, or unlawful inducement may be received in evidence against him in a trial by court-martial.

In critical respects, the Guantanamo military commissions and proceedings under the UCMJ are opposites. That's the whole point of the controversy and always has been.