The Obama administration is apparently set to cave in to critics and bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before a military tribunal rather than have him tried in federal criminal court, as U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has wanted.

The Washington Post reported today that the change is the result of criticism that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed doesn’t deserve the rights accorded defendants in criminal trials, and that a trial could pose safety issues.

A detailed article by Jane Mayer (a former Vermont journalist) in the Feb. 15 & 22 New Yorker describes the fall-out Holder has faced after he announced plans to try the alleged 9/11 mastermind in federal court in New York.

Holder’s insistence that other alleged terrorist defendants also be tried in U.S. courts brought charges the Obama was soft on terrorists and didn’t understand how to protect the country.

The facts on the disposition of “terrorist” cases have been ignored. The vast majority of cases involving national security have been prosecuted in federal criminal courts. Sentences following convictions in these courts have generally been longer than those given out in military tribunals.

This was true during the Bush administration years, Mayer notes.

Justice, in other words, is better served through  judicial rather than military processes.

Mayer says, “There is no evidence suggesting that military commissions would be tougher on suspected terrorists than criminal courts would.”