Tuesday, November 24, 2009

KSM Trial Helps Restore US Principles

By Ivan Eland
November 24, 2009

The Obama administration’s decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and four alleged co-conspirators in civilian court is a laudable return to the rule of law from the Bush administration’s kangaroo military commissions, which convened offshore in Guantanamo to avoid giving defendants full legal rights under domestic or international law.

Read on.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

One of the first mistakes after the 9/11 attacks was to label the mass murders an act of war.

Sadly, I do not agree that this was a mistake. It was quite deliberate and intentional.

It accomplished exactly what the Bush administration wanted to do, and that was to start a war with Iraq. They were looking for any excuse to invade Iraq to have regime change and labeling the 9/11 attack as an act of war provided just such an opportunity.

Sadly, this seems to be the most conservative criticism one can make of this. There are harsher charges that are still considered tin-foil hat material but which really should be given proper independent consideration.

Wed Nov 25, 09:17:00 AM 2009
BARB said...

If I had been waterboarded as many times as KSM, I'd probably confess to the assignation of Lincoln and Kennedy and the attempted assignation of RR,and shooting Jesse James

http://www.time.com


Thursday, Mar. 15, 2007

Why KSM's Confession Rings False
By Robert Baer

It's hard to tell what the Pentagon's objective really is in releasing the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession. It certainly suggests the Administration 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 U.S.

But 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. There exists videotape footage of the execution that minimizes KSM's role. And if KSM did indeed exaggerate his role in the Pearl murder, it raises the question of just what else he has exaggerated, or outright fabricated.

(snip)

Although he claims to have been al-Qaeda's foreign operations chief, he has offered no information about European networks. Today, dozens of investigations are going on in Great Britain surrounding the London tube bombings on July 7, 2005. Yet KSM apparently knew nothing about these networks or has not told his interrogators about them.

Wed Dec 02, 05:14:00 PM 2009

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