Military tribunal proceedings began for five Guantanamo detainees on June 5. Among other charges that they face, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Walid bin Attash, Ali Aziz Ali and Mustafa al-Hawsawi are each accused of terrorism and 2,973 counts of murder. Because, according to the Defense Department's own analysis, the level of torture he has undergone renders him "unprosecutable," a sixth defendant, Mohamed Mani Ahmad al-Kahtani, will not be charged. What level of torture that is both demands and defies imagination: after all, these tribunals have been specifically designed to accept as admissible "evidence" gained through "coercion"--an American euphemism for torture. The tribunals also permit the use of secret evidence against the defendants. Indeed, the government reserves the right, which it no doubt will exercise, to classify as secret any information revealed in the so-called trials, including anything said by the accused in their defense. Nor do the accused stand any hope of exoneration: if found guilty, they will be put to death; if not found guilty, they will be returned to indefinite confinement in the cages of Guantanamo. Death by hanging, firing squad, poison or electrocution, on the one hand; death by immuration on the other. Mohamed al-Kahtani, tortured to the point of madness and for that reason spared the even hand of American justice, can look forward to the latter--an anticipation no doubt sweetened by the sentence of death itself never being passed. Perhaps he will even be freed someday--when terror has at last been vanquished from the face of the Earth.

Fortunately, American journalism is there to paint this evisceration of justice and humanity in respectful terms of polite ambiguity. Torture is dressed up in the becoming garb of "coercive techniques" that "some people" consider "controversial." For example, when Neal Conan of National Public Radio (NPR) interviewed Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, legal adviser to the convening authority of the Department of Defense, Office of Military Commissions, he raised the specter of torture only with the greatest timidity: "And another question that many people will have," [but not me, Sir, not me!] "is presenting evidence of confessions that were extracted what the defense attorneys, indeed, the defendants, will say was torture?"

To which Hartmann replied, "And the president of the United States has confirmed and reconfirmed that the United States does not engage in torture. Any statements obtained by torture are simply inadmissible in these tribunals."

Did Neal challenge this bizarre and brazen claim that, simply because the president declares that the U.S. does not engage in torture, then it doesn't--notwithstanding massive evidence to the contrary? Did he ask what the devil happened, then, to Mohamed al-Kahtani? Did he point out the implicit contradiction between the first and the second sentences in Hartmann's reply?

No, Neal bravely went to a short break.

Earlier in the interview--this was the June 2 edition of NPR's "Talk of the Nation"--Neal asked why the Brigadier General considered the tribunals fair. Hartmann replied, "These proceedings will be extraordinarily fair. They are literally unprecedented in the history of warfare. The types of protections we're making available to these accused, in so many ways, mirror the very rights we provide to our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, Coast Guard. It's just tremendous… They virtually mirror what we have in the military justice system. It's quite extraordinary."

Again, Neal didn't ask any of the obvious questions. He could have been coy and disingenuous:

"So you're saying, Brig. Gen. Hartmann, that our service men and women are subjected to 'coercive techniques' to obtain evidence against them? And that it's standard to use secret evidence against our military personnel? And that if they're cleared of charges, the military reserves the right to hold them indefinitely?"

Or he could have pursued analytical clarity:

"Sir, why then has the United States not simply used the provisions of the Geneva Conventions and of international law to try these men?"

Or he could have simply sought more information:

"What types of protections specifically are available to the accused? How are these protections different from the rights afforded our soldiers?"

Nope, not Neal. With great piety, he instead politely waited for Hartmann's sermon to reach its climactic conclusion: "It's a tremendous reflection on the American people," raved the Brigadier General. "It's a tremendous reflection on the American justice system."

("That it is," Neal didn't say, thus not letting the cruel irony do the work for him. Nor did he follow up by asking, "So, Brig. Gen. Hartmann, do I understand correctly from all your references to mirrors and reflections that you think this is the justice system that Americans should have for themselves as well? Or is it your view that this is the justice system that we already have?")

NPR's correspondent Jackie Northam was also interviewed by Conan, and her comments were no less revealing than the questions that Neal didn't ask. The pretense of journalistic neutrality that, for example, "impartially" dignifies torture as so-called "coercive techniques," was set aside when it came to the presumed guilt or innocence of the accused:

"It really is going to be historic," Northam gushed. "I mean, because these are the big fish. Everybody up until now that they've tried, the dozen or so, you know, there's like a driver for bin Laden maybe, or somebody who, you know, trained at a camp in Afghanistan and that [sic]. But these guys were key. These guys helped plan and organize the 9/11 attacks. These guys are important."

Neal didn't ask, and Jackie didn't offer, how she knew this, who told her, or what evidence had been presented that convinced her not only of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's guilt, but also of the guilt of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Walid bin Attash, Ali Aziz Ali and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. Instead, she made an interesting Freudian slip that said it all: after outlining the charges against the five men, she concluded, "And they face the death penalty if they are prosecuted."

In this case, prosecution and conviction are, as the Brigadier General might say, reflections of each other, mirror images. As are the states of American justice and journalism. In each, a façade of neutrality has become justification for laziness, deference to authority and moral abstention. Neither is neutral, despite its pretensions. Each is complicit. Each provides a veneer of respectability, or at least of debate, that serves as a ready-made and continuing alibi for atrocity. A condition of such a veneer is an appalling lack of imagination.

Thus, against the backdrop of Guantanamo, with its caged men in orange jumpsuits facing indefinite detention, torture, capital punishment and farcical justice, Neal Conan and Jackie Northam had the gall to end their conversation by joking that poor Jackie would have to sleep on a cot while covering the story.

The things a journalist has to do, in pursuit of truth and justice.