WASHINGTON — This time of year especially, Carole O’Hare gets stuck in a sad reverie at her California home, wondering about the last moments of her mother’s life, alone, aboard the hijacked Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001.

“I think of my mom sitting on that plane by herself,â€Â she said of Hilda Marcin, 79, listed as victim No. 2,964 on the Pentagon’s Sept. 11 war crimes charge sheet. “I can’t imagine what those 40 minutes were like. It must have been a lifetime.â€Â

Seven years ago today, the horrific hijackings united this nation in grief and determination. Now, despite four years of on-again, off-again Guantanamo war crimes tribunals designed to get Sept. 11 justice, there is little evidence that the trials resonate with victims̢۪ families and the American public.

“The Guantanamo trials are much more secretive,â€Â said O’Hare, 56. “If Khalid Sheik Mohammed was the mastermind of the attack, and these attacks took place in the United States, that’s where the trials should occur.â€Â

Some blame the tribunals’ location — a military outpost in southeast Cuba — and focus so far on foot soldiers. Attendance at the no-broadcast trials is by Pentagon invitation only. Others say accounts and allegations of detainee abuse tarnish the tribunals.

Moreover, ever since the world watched O.J. Simpson try on that black glove — live on television in 1995 — Americans have wanted high-profile trials be a shared, national experience.

And that may be how Guantanamo disappoints.

“It all feels so remote,â€Â said Marcia Clark, the former Los Angeles prosecutor and legal analyst at Entertainment Tonight. “Few people even seem to be aware of the trials going on, and fewer still seem to care.â€Â

She blames a blend of indifference and ignorance.

“Partly because 9/11 is long past and people want it to stay that way. Partly because they can’t see it, and partly because it’s confusing: What is a military jury? Who are these defendants? What did they do, and what are we prosecuting them for?

“The sense I get from people is that it’s all a black hole they know nothing about and the lack of TV coverage makes it all completely inaccessible,â€Â Clark told The Miami Herald.

Defenders of the system say it̢۪s not their fault.

Detractors have for years hamstrung the trials through challenges to the post-Sept. 11 rules that created them. So much so that in 2006 the U.S. Supreme Court found the first format unconstitutional, sending the White House to Congress to tweak and ratify it.

Now, 23 men have been charged with two convictions — one by pleading guilty. Hearings Wednesday at Guantanamo focused on Canadian Omar Khadr, who is accused in the 2002 grenade-killing of a U.S. commando, when Khadr was 15.

Add that the CIA had clandestine custody of the Sept. 11 accused for years. President Bush ordered their transfer to Guantanamo in September 2006; their trials are unlikely to start this year.

“There will come a point, I believe, in time when the American public in general will focus on the accountability for 9/11,â€Â said Charles “Cullyâ€Â Stimson, a Heritage Foundation scholar who until last year was the Pentagon’s Detainee Affairs czar. “I can’t predict when that’s going to be. But it will happen.â€Â

By Carol Rosenberg, McClatchy Tribune