We’ve convicted a war criminal. A military tribunal in Guantanamo has found Osama Ben Laden’s driver guilty of war crimes. At the expense of Salim Ahmed Hamdan’s fate, I’m thrilled at this development. Look at the reach of what we consider war crime! This was Osama’s driver. Did the Nuremberg prosecutors go after the Nazi drivers? Were Göring’s or Goebbels’ drivers put on trial? The implications are going to be broad. For one, both Iraq and Afghanistan are illegal wars. Will anyone who’s carted a weapon for those engagements be considered guilty of killing over a million civilians?

Second, putting a Hamdan before a military tribunal is itself a war crime. Those conducting the trial are guilty. And what’s come up as evidence in the trial, is proof of further US crimes: rendition, illegal detention, torture. Fantastically, by asking the judge to consider confessions made under torture, the military prosecutors concede that they used torture. Documented. Admitted. This trial provides the discovery for the next.

You might feel sympathy for our soldiers who may decry they are only following orders. That defense may have gotten Commandant Klink and Sergeant Shultz off the hook, I can’t remember. But it didn’t cut amnesty for the Nuremberg defendants. In fact it defined the degree to which human beings are personally responsible for carrying out the immoral instructions of their leaders.

The split decision by the jury of military officers may reflect that they can see the same judgment might apply to their service, but their partial consideration is not going to save them.