by Jacob G. Hornberger

September 1, 2026

It’s important to remind ourselves that the Pentagon’s new socialist and imperialist deal to extract oil from Venezuela isn’t the only unconstitutional overseas endeavor of the U.S. national-security state. Nor are the Pentagon’s assassinations of drug-war suspects on the high seas. Nor are the Pentagon’s undeclared wars of aggression in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and other countries.

There is also Guantanamo Bay, the imperialist U.S. military base that was acquired strikingly in much the same way that the Pentagon is acquiring its socialist interest in Venezuelan oil — by using a puppet foreign regime to extract whatever U.S. officials want.

But then there is also the blatantly unconstitutional “judicial” system that the Pentagon established at Gitmo nearly 25 years ago in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Seizing on the deep fear of terrorists and Muslims that those attacks induced within the American people, the Pentagon established a military “judicial” system to try suspected terrorists. It was a judicial system designed to run parallel to the federal-court judicial system that was established in the U.S. Constitution.

The Pentagon’s idea of a parallel judicial system might well have been inspired by the Hitler regime. After the German judicial system acquitted some of the defendants in the criminal prosecutions arising from the terrorist attack on the Reichstag, Hitler and his minions established the People’s Court to try cases of terrorism and “treason.” In that way, Hitler could ensure that there would be no more acquittals. It was the People’s Court that ultimately tried Hans and Sophie Scholl and other members of the White Rose and sentenced them to death or long prison sentences.

That was the idea behind the Pentagon’s decision to establish its own judicial system in Cuba after the 9/11 attacks — to ensure that no accused terrorist would ever be acquitted and instead would experience the full wrath of the U.S. national-security state.

Take a close look at the U.S. Constitution. See if the Constitution gives the federal government, including the all-powerful national-security branch, the power to set up a parallel judicial system to try terrorism cases or any other criminal case. You’ll see that the Constitution does not delegate the power to do that.

But in the fear-filled aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, when most everyone was convinced that the terrorists and the Muslims were coming to get us, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA got away with everything, including their parallel “judicial” system, their USA PATRIOT Act, their secret surveillance schemes, their war-on-terrorism racket, their TSA airport takeover, their invasions and undeclared wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq, their sanctions and embargoes, and much more.

It was said, even by some libertarians, that the 9/11 attacks were an act of war. But that was false. Terrorism is a federal criminal offense. That’s why it’s listed in the U.S. Code as a criminal offense. That’s why terrorism cases have long been prosecuted in U.S. district courts in New York, Washington, D.C., and Virginia. In fact, the Pentagon’s criminal prosecution of accused terrorists in its parallel “judicial” system at Gitmo confirms that terrorism is a criminal offense and is not an act of war.

What the Pentagon simply did was establish a parallel criminal-justice system that would give the Pentagon (and the CIA) an alternative way to handle terrorism cases. One option would be the regular judicial system established by the Constitution. The other would be the alternative “judicial” system at Gitmo. The Pentagon would have the final say regarding which system would be employed.

As with other matters relating to the all-powerful national-security branch, the Supreme Court would stand aside in deference, not daring to enforce the Constitution by declaring this alternative “judicial” system unconstitutional.

Not surprisingly, the difference between the two systems is the difference between night and day.

For example, consider the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has been held in custody for more than 23 years and at Gitmo for more than 20 years. He’s scheduled for trial before a military tribunal at Gitmo in June 2028.

Why a military tribunal rather than trial by jury, which is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights? Because the Constitution and the Bill of Rights don’t apply to the Pentagon’s alternative “judicial” system in Cuba.

Now, you probably thought that June 2028 above was a typo. You probably thought that I meant to write 2027 — i.e., next year. No, it’s not a typo. The military judge in the case has set the trial for 2028. He indicated that there are still pretrial matters that remain unresolved.

In other words, 23 years of pretrial incarceration have still not been enough time in which to resolve all the pretrial matters. The military judge still needs another couple of years to resolve them. That would be pretty funny if it weren’t so horrific.

Read this part of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.”

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, a trial that begins some 25 years after the accused is taken into custody is not a speedy trial. That’s the very epitome of a non-speedy trial.

But the Pentagon knows that the Constitution doesn’t apply to its system in Cuba. That’s why they set it up in Cuba rather than here in the United States. After all, if the Constitution did apply, there wouldn’t even be an alternative military “judicial” system for trying terrorism cases or any other criminal case. All cases involving terrorism or any other federal crime would be in the only judicial system established by the Constitution — the federal court system that exists here in the United States and that has existed ever since the federal government came into existence.