What's Good For the Goose...

So the one pirate that was captured in the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama, a young man by the name of Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse, has been brought to New York City to stand trial. This is good. These pirates are criminals and the proper place to deal with them is in courts, when they are captured.

US authorities decided to bring Muse to New York because he was taken in international waters, allowing him to be prosecuted in any country, and because the FBI in New York has acquired a specialism in dealing with east African legal affairs following the al-Qaida embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

The billowing problem of Somali piracy was underlined today by new figures from the International Maritime Bureau that showed that incidents of piracy around the world had almost doubled in the first quarter of this year. The surge was overwhelmingly caused by Somalia's anarchic political situation spilling out into the sea.

What I don't understand is if the US federal court system is good enough for Muse, why can't the people being held at Gitmo also be tried in the federal court system? Would someone like to explain that little bit of a contradiction to me?

That was a rhetorical question, by the way. I'm merely pointing out the hypocrisy.