It would seem that the U.S. Government found itself in a conundrum when they allowed prisoners, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), to be tortured in secret prisons around the world. Once tortured, any confession or testimony from KSM, or others, could not be deemed reliable. Furthermore, the focus of the eventual proceedings would become a trial about the practice of torture, instead of being a trial about alleged terrorist crimes. That would have been untenable for the U.S. Government, which wants to avoid any and all accountability for their own crimes of torture.
In order to bypass potential discussion of torture, the latest Chief Prosecutor for the Military Commissions, Brig. General Mark Martins, found a willing witness in Majid Khan, a fellow GITMO inmate to KSM. Khan himself was not involved in the 9/11 plot. He supposedly got his information from time spent behind bars at GITMO with KSM. Kahn will be allowed to give this hearsay evidence against KSM in return for a reduced sentence. However, Khan’s sentencing won’t take place for four years. It seems the Prosecution is pinning their hopes and dreams on Khan’s upcoming performance. None of this lends credibility to an already suspect system.
Additionally, with campaigning for the upcoming Presidential elections heating up, the timing of this latest attempt at justice for 9/11 is exploitive at best.
The video above is from this weekends CBS airing of Face The Nation with Bob Schieffer.
Eric Holder cites ”funding” as a hold up and concern in the reasoning for the delays in the 9/11 suspect trials.
There is however, no concern expressed for funding and continuing the War of Terror in the Middle East, nor any other military operation around the GLOBE that procures land or development rights for Congress’ constituent’s sponsers.
The simple, hard fact is that anyone held at Guantanamo did not ever have the ability to do this:
Below we have a letter written by the ACLU, I found it on the Common Dreams website:
In February, as the Justice Department’s plan for civilian terrorism trials in Manhattan was collapsing, Obama administration officials said they soon would choose an alternative venue for the case that promised to secure justice for the Sept. 11 attacks.
In March, officials said that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, probably would be tried before a military tribunal and that a decision appeared to be imminent.
In April, Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress that the White House-led review of the case would be completed in “a number of weeks.”
Obama said everything he needed to say to have millions of people vote for his Presidency, none of it, absolutely none of it ever meant anything. I hope those who voted for him start taking their bumber stickers off soon, it makes me sick to see all of this false hope; it is as bad as seeing John McCain stickers or the occasional W’ 04 stickers.
The appointment of a well-respected ex-Navy lawyer to oversee war-crime trials is being seen in military legal circles as a sign the Obama administration might reverse its decision to bring Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to New York for a civilian trial.
At the same time, a pending speedy-trial ruling in a second terror case in New York could give Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. an escape route through which he could switch the trial of Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) from federal court back to a military system set up by former President George W. Bush and Congress.
In February, the White House and Mr. Holder left open the possibility of a war-crimes trial for Shaikh Mohammed, the admitted 9/11 attack mastermind. This would reverse Mr. Holder’s much-criticized decision in November to bring the al Qaeda heavyweight to the federal court system, where he would enjoy more rights and perhaps a media forum for anti-American propaganda.
A month after the administration signaled a reversal, the Pentagon, with significant White House input, named retired Navy Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald as the war-crimes convening authority. In that post, the Navy’s former top lawyer is the official who brings criminal charges, selects jury pools, approves defense- lawyer expenses and makes other rulings.
US Republicans, in an effort to avoid a public civilian trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind, are turning up the heat on Attorney General Eric Holder. Why?
First, for those who need a primer on their “War on Terror” ancient history, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is “the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks,” according to the 9/11 Commission Report sanctioned by the Bush administration.
Mohammed, accused of orchestrating a number of high-profile attacks, including the grisly decapitation murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, was charged in February 2008 with war crimes by a US military tribunal and will be summarily executed if found guilty. But there is just one problem with all of this: not even the CIA is unanimous in the belief that KSM is their man.
Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, and the author of “See No Evil”, told Time magazine back in 2007 that “the Administration [of George W. Bush] is trying to blame KSM for Al-Qaeda terrorism, leading us to believe we’ve caught the master terrorist and that Al-Qaeda, and especially the ever-elusive bin Laden, is no longer a threat to the US.”
Baer went on to say that “there is a major flaw in that marketing strategy.”
“On the face of it, KSM – as he is known inside the government – comes across as boasting, at times mentally unstable. It’s also clear he is making things up. I’m told by people involved in the investigation that KSM was present during Wall Street Journal correspondent Danny Pearl’s execution but was in fact not the person who killed him,” Baer writes.
A group of more than 200 family members of 9/11 victims has released an emotional new web video imploring the Obama administration to remain true to its plans to try terrorist suspects in civilian court.
A summary of news relating to 9/11/01 - For the week of March 22 through March 28, 2010. (Last week is here)
To many the week’s biggest news might have been the documents obtained by the ACLU, detailing many things including the words of John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, and George Tenent to the 9/11 Commission Chairmen to “not cross” a certain line of investigation. According to the specific document (or page 26 in the original PDF of documents at ACLU) :
There is, however, a line that the Commission should not cross — the line separating the Commission’s proper inquiry into the September 11, 2001 attacks from interference with the Government’s ability to safeguard the national security, including protection of Americans from future terrorist attacks. The Commission staffs proposed participation in questioning of detainees would cross that line.
Of course that is only a small piece of the withholdings by officials regarding 9/11, but many can use this in specific discussions of the whitewash known as the 9/11 Commission Report and its improper investigation to skeptics.
Another tape allegedly from Bin Laden made headlines across the U.S.. However none of the headlines from the mainstream “corp-press” mentioned the fact that Bin Laden has been reported dead by many media outlets:
Bullshit. I want to “call” out all their cards. I want to see who is locked up, where they are locked up, and for how long. How much of this is real, and how much of it comes from the mouths of senior intelligence officials declining to be named, spouting talking points to a severly mono-controlled media? KSM for example was declared dead in 2002, apparently even the FBI was there. Yet we hear about KSM in Guantanamo for the last 6 years, being tortured numerous times daily. To what extent is psychological warfare waged, and on whom? – NorCalTruth
by Stephen Webster source: Raw Story March 23, 2010
A (alledged) terror war prisoner, once considered of such high value by the Bush administration that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered he be tortured, has taken his first step toward freedom thanks to a federal district court judge, who ordered the government to free him after nearly 10 years of imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay.
Though 39-year-old Mohamedou Slahi, an alleged 9/11 conspirator, won his habeas corpus appeal before U.S. District Judge James Robertson on Monday, he likely does not know it yet. That’s because the judge’s decision was classified, according to published reports.
“After the [9/11] attacks, he was fingered by a senior al Qaeda operative for helping assemble the so-called Hamburg cell, which included the hijacker who piloted United 175 into the South Tower,” The Wall Street Journal reported in 2007.
After being captured and imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, he was repeatedly subjected to torture by his American captors, with Rumsfeld himself ordering “special” interrogation tactics be set aside for Slahi.
Robert Gibbs was on MSNBC recently and spoke about alleged 9/11 hijacker Kalid Sheikh Mohammed. No matter where the trial is held, “he is likely to be executed” Gibbs said. Unfortunately, legal concepts like ”innocent until proven guilty” are a far cry from even our highest officials minds.
Gibbs was echoing comments from many on both sides of the political aisle. From Glenn Beck to Bill O’Reilly, President Obama and President Bush, everyone wants to “rid the world of the evil-doers’.” Kalid Sheikh Mohammed was allegedly arrested in Pakistan on March 1st, 2003.
The 2005 Bradbury memo revealed the waterboarding routine for KSM in 2003; he was waterboarded 183 times in one month alone. Whatever happened in the four years between his alleged arrest in Pakistan and alleged confession at Guantanamo, the information he did or did not provide has not:
Over at Daily Kos, Barbara Morrill complains that The Washington Post‘s Richard Cohen “is Karl Rove dressed up in pseudo-sadness” because — according to her — Cohen today “whines that the Attorney General announced that the United States follows the rule of law” by giving trials to 5 Guantanamo detainees. I don’t disagree with Morrill’s general assessment of Cohen, but his point today is actually the exact opposite of what she describes. Cohen wasn’t accusing Obama of lacking moral clarity because he’s giving trials to a few of the 9/11 defendants; rather, Cohen argues that the lack of moral clarity comes from denying trials to many, perhaps most, of the detainees, who will receive only military commissions or be subjected to indefinite detention with no trials:
Republican members of Congress and what masquerades as a “conservative” media are outraged that the Obama administration intends to try in federal court Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11, and four alleged co-conspirators.
The Republican and right-wing rant that a trial is too good for these people proves what I have written for a number of years: Republicans and many Americans who think of themselves as conservatives have no regard for the US Constitution or for civil liberties.
As Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other alleged 9/11 conspirators go to trial, the corporate media’s embargo on the truth about the Bush years will be under great strain.
Media commentary on the upcoming 9/11 trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has raised concern that state secrets may be divulged, including details about how the Bush administration used torture to extract evidence about al-Qaeda. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Brian 
