It would be nice if the trial and likely conviction by military tribunal of the man who proudly labels himself the mastermind of 9/11 guaranteed relatives of the victims a great deal of comfort or helped them put the tragedy behind them.
And maybe it will help some of those family members, in a way that cannot be precisely gauged.
But it may not. What verdict can genuinely comfort the person who lost a spouse, a child or a parent when hijacked planes slammed into the Pentagon and into New York skyscrapers, and when heroic passengers brought down yet another plane that might have struck some other high-profile target? What sentence, however deserved, can fill the void in thousands of hearts and lives?
No, what comfort may be had by those who lost loved ones is in God’s hands more than in the hands of officials in any courtroom.
But that does not diminish the importance of the military tribunal that will try admitted 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as well as four co-defendants. They were arraigned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, recently.