Welcome to the Amerikan justice system. If you think this can only happen "over there" i.e. safely off-shore, then you are dreaming.
Blue Ibis
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The Confession Backfired
Paul Craig Roberts
Counterpunch
Sat, 17 Mar 2007 19:07 EDT
The Confession Backfired
The first confession released by the Bush regime's Military Tribunals--that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed--has discredited the entire process. Writing in Jurist, Northwestern University law professor Anthony D'Amato likens Mohammed's confession to those that emerged in Stalin's show trials of Bolshevik leaders in the 1930s.
That was my own immediate thought. I remember speaking years ago with Soviet dissident Valdimir Bukovsky about the behavior of Soviet dissidents under torture. He replied that people pressed for names under torture would try to remember the names of war dead and people who had passed away. Those who retained enough of their wits under torture would confess to an unbelievable array of crimes in an effort to alert the public to the falsity of the entire process.
That is what Mohammed did. We know he was tortured, because his response to the obligatory question about his treatment during his years of detention is redacted. We also know that he was tortured, because otherwise there is no point for the US Justice (sic) Dept. memos giving the green light to torture or for the Military Commissions Act, which permits torture and death sentence based on confession extracted by torture.
Mohammed's confession of crimes and plots is so vast that Katherine Shrader of the Associated Press reports that the Americans who extracted Mohammed's confession do not believe it either. It is exaggerated, say Mohammed's tormentors, and must be taken with a grain of salt.
In other words, the US torture crew, reveling in their success, played into Mohammed's hands. Pride goes before a fall, as the saying goes.
Mohammed's confession admits to 31 planned and actual attacks all over the world, including blowing up the Panama Canal and assassinating presidents Carter and Clinton and the Pope. Having taken responsibility for the whole ball of wax along with everything else that he could imagine, he was the entire show. No other terrorists needed.
Reading responses of BBC listeners to Mohammed's confession reveals that the rest of the world is either laughing at the US government for being so stupid as to think that anyone anywhere would believe the confession or damning the Bush regime for being like the Gestapo and KGB.
Humorists are having a field day with the confession: "'I'm a very dangerous mastermind,' said Mohammed, who confessed to the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, the Brink's robbery, St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and the Lincoln and McKinley assassinations. Mohammed also accepted responsibility for spreading hay fever and cold sores around the world and for rained out picnics."
If there was anything remaining of the Bush regime not already discredited, Mohammed's confession removed any reputation left.
The most important part of the Mohammed story is yet to make the headlines. Despite having held and tortured hundreds of detainees for years in Gitmo, and we don't know how many more in secret prisons around the world, the US government has come up with only 14 "high value detainees."
In other words, the government has nothing on 99 percent of the detainees who allegedly are so dangerous and wicked that they must be kept in detention without charges, access to attorneys and contact with families.
And little wonder. The vast majority of detainees, alleged "enemy combatants," are not terrorists captured by the CIA and brave US troops. They are hapless persons who happened to be outside their tribal or home territories and were kidnapped by criminal gangs or war lords who profited greatly at the expense of the naive Americans who offered bounties for "terrorists."
The US government does not care that innocent people have been ensnared, because the US government desperately needs both to prove that there are vast numbers of terrorists and to demonstrate its proficiency in protecting Americans by capturing terrorists. Moreover, the US government needs "dangerous suspects" that it can use to keep Americans in a state of supine fearfulness and as a front behind which to undermine constitutional protections and the Bill of Rights.
The Bush-Cheney Regime succeeded in its evil plot, only to throw it all away by releasing the ridiculous confession by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Will Bush's totalitarian Military Tribunal now execute Mohammed on the basis of his confession extracted by torture, or would this be seen everywhere on earth as nothing but an act of murder?
If Bush can't have Mohammed murdered, the US government will have to shut Mohammed away where he cannot talk and tell his tale. The US government will have to replicate Orwell's memory hole by destroying Mohammed's mind with mind-altering drugs and abuse.
It is to such depths that George Bush and Dick Cheney have lowered America.
Showing posts with label KSM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label KSM. Show all posts
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Saturday, March 17, 2007
More Al Qaida Fairy Tales
True Confessions? The Amazing Tale of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
Anthony D.Amato
Uni of Pitt Law School
Sat, 17 Mar 2007 03:37 EDT
As Don Williams of the Knoxville News-Sentinel points out, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's confession goes public just as Scooter Libby is convicted of lying and obstruction in the Plame case; just as Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh exposes Bush's illegal funding of murderous Sunni groups with ties to al-Qaida, in order to conduct covert wars in Iran; just as Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove come under extreme scrutiny for purging US attorneys across the country for political reasons; as the Bush "Surge" has now gone way over the limit, Israel is continuing its genocide of the Palestinians, and no doubt, some "surprise" is in store for us all regarding Iran. .... What better way to push these scandals to the back pages than to break the earth-shattering news that the biggest terrorist of the 21st century has been captured?
[and failing that, there's alway Brittany, Paris, and American Idol]
Nevertheless, it is interesting to see that so many mainstream journalists and commentators are now seeing through the Bush lies on both issues, and some of the funniest commentary we've read in awhile refers to the amazing deeds of derring-do committed - or planned - by KSM. But, even more seriously, they are beginning to draw some terrifying parallels.
[Actually, I find it a bit odd, as nothing gets into the MSM unless there is an ulterior reason for it to do so. "Fringe" news sites like Signs of the Times have been talking about this since immediately after 9-11. Check their extensive Archives]
Anthony D'Amato of Northwestern University School of Law says the sweeping Guantanamo "confessions" of al Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed rival the scope of those made in the Stalinist purge trials of the 1930s, and should equally prompt us to question the legal process in which they were made...
Students of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s will recall the astounding confessions made in open court by the accused persons. They had been severely tortured over weeks and months. But they showed up in court without external marks of torture. With all apparent voluntariness, they admitted subverting the Five-Year Plans that would have provided the Soviet people with necessary food items. They sabotaged factories, making sure the production lines were inefficient. They managed to import inferior metals so that Soviet tanks and automobiles would fall apart after a few months' use. They infiltrated the Soviet Army and through dint of their persuasiveness, convinced the foot soldier that it was absurd to risk his life defending a dictatorial government. In short these accused persons, briefly in court on their way to the firing squad, took responsibility for everything that had gone wrong for the past two decades in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
So why is it today that no one draws the connection between the Soviet purge trials and the confession of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed? Mohammed said that he had been tortured by his American captors. No one contradicted his assertion. Then he went on, with a straight and sincere face, to take responsibility for a long list of crimes recently perpetrated.
Mr. Mohammed personally decapitated "the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan," he testified. He must have been on an overnight flight from South Korea, where he personally identified targets "such as American military bases and a few night clubs frequented by American soldiers." Perhaps it was on that flight that he planned the "Shoe Bomber Operation to down two American airplanes."
The busy Mr. Mohammed planned, financed, surveyed, trained, and followed up the operations to destroy American military vessels and oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz, the Straits of Gibralter, the Port of Singapore, and the Panama Canal. On a side trip to the Philippines, he masterminded the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II.
What about the Big One, namely, the crash into the World Trade Center Towers on 9/11? Mr. Mohammed was responsible "from A to Z," he said. He also was responsible for the earlier attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.
This person really got around; you've got to give him credit for that. Maybe he had a job as a chef aboard Air Force One; he didn't say. But he did manage to get all the way to Bali, Indonesia, where he supervised the infamous nightclub bombing that killed many British and Australian nationals.
At least he was arrested before he managed to carry out a few of his plans, such as assassinating President Carter (Mohammed surveyed and financed this assassination plan), and blowing up Library Tower in California, the Sears Tower in Chicago, several suspension bridges in New York, Heathrow Airport in London, the Canary Wharf Building, New York Stock Exchange, the Plaza Bank in Washington State, and last but not least, the Empire State Building in New York City. It's a good thing the latter was averted as it would have drained all the drama out of the remake of King Kong.
Anything else you want to say for yourself, Mr. Mohammed? Why yes, he replies. Don't forget my responsibility for the Filka Island Operation in Kuwait that killed two American soldiers, the destruction of numerous nightclubs in Thailand, planning the destruction of buildings in the Israeli city of Elat by using Saudi airplanes, planning and financing for the destruction of American embassies in Indonesia, Australia, and Japan, the bombing of the hotel in Mombasa that is frequented by Jewish travelers, and planning, surveying and financing to hit several nuclear power plants in the United States. And . . .
O.K., Mr. Mohammed, just ask your lawyer to hand over the complete list. Do you have any explanations for the Court?
Yes, "not I'm making myself hero when I said I was responsible for this or that. If America they want to invade Iraq they will not send for Saddam roses or kisses, they send a bombardment. This is the best way if I want. I'm American enemies."
It gives me a warm feeling that these proceedings took place on board U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with the Review Tribunal made up of a Captain from the United States Navy, Lieutenant Colonels from the United States Air Force and Marine Corps, and a Gunnery Sergeant as Reporter (all names redacted). A confession before a tribunal is the best evidence of guilt, isn't it? Whether it's Guantanamo Bay or the Gulag Archipelago.
Anthony D.Amato
Uni of Pitt Law School
Sat, 17 Mar 2007 03:37 EDT
As Don Williams of the Knoxville News-Sentinel points out, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's confession goes public just as Scooter Libby is convicted of lying and obstruction in the Plame case; just as Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh exposes Bush's illegal funding of murderous Sunni groups with ties to al-Qaida, in order to conduct covert wars in Iran; just as Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove come under extreme scrutiny for purging US attorneys across the country for political reasons; as the Bush "Surge" has now gone way over the limit, Israel is continuing its genocide of the Palestinians, and no doubt, some "surprise" is in store for us all regarding Iran. .... What better way to push these scandals to the back pages than to break the earth-shattering news that the biggest terrorist of the 21st century has been captured?
[and failing that, there's alway Brittany, Paris, and American Idol]
Nevertheless, it is interesting to see that so many mainstream journalists and commentators are now seeing through the Bush lies on both issues, and some of the funniest commentary we've read in awhile refers to the amazing deeds of derring-do committed - or planned - by KSM. But, even more seriously, they are beginning to draw some terrifying parallels.
[Actually, I find it a bit odd, as nothing gets into the MSM unless there is an ulterior reason for it to do so. "Fringe" news sites like Signs of the Times have been talking about this since immediately after 9-11. Check their extensive Archives]
Anthony D'Amato of Northwestern University School of Law says the sweeping Guantanamo "confessions" of al Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed rival the scope of those made in the Stalinist purge trials of the 1930s, and should equally prompt us to question the legal process in which they were made...
Students of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s will recall the astounding confessions made in open court by the accused persons. They had been severely tortured over weeks and months. But they showed up in court without external marks of torture. With all apparent voluntariness, they admitted subverting the Five-Year Plans that would have provided the Soviet people with necessary food items. They sabotaged factories, making sure the production lines were inefficient. They managed to import inferior metals so that Soviet tanks and automobiles would fall apart after a few months' use. They infiltrated the Soviet Army and through dint of their persuasiveness, convinced the foot soldier that it was absurd to risk his life defending a dictatorial government. In short these accused persons, briefly in court on their way to the firing squad, took responsibility for everything that had gone wrong for the past two decades in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
So why is it today that no one draws the connection between the Soviet purge trials and the confession of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed? Mohammed said that he had been tortured by his American captors. No one contradicted his assertion. Then he went on, with a straight and sincere face, to take responsibility for a long list of crimes recently perpetrated.
Mr. Mohammed personally decapitated "the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan," he testified. He must have been on an overnight flight from South Korea, where he personally identified targets "such as American military bases and a few night clubs frequented by American soldiers." Perhaps it was on that flight that he planned the "Shoe Bomber Operation to down two American airplanes."
The busy Mr. Mohammed planned, financed, surveyed, trained, and followed up the operations to destroy American military vessels and oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz, the Straits of Gibralter, the Port of Singapore, and the Panama Canal. On a side trip to the Philippines, he masterminded the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II.
What about the Big One, namely, the crash into the World Trade Center Towers on 9/11? Mr. Mohammed was responsible "from A to Z," he said. He also was responsible for the earlier attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.
This person really got around; you've got to give him credit for that. Maybe he had a job as a chef aboard Air Force One; he didn't say. But he did manage to get all the way to Bali, Indonesia, where he supervised the infamous nightclub bombing that killed many British and Australian nationals.
At least he was arrested before he managed to carry out a few of his plans, such as assassinating President Carter (Mohammed surveyed and financed this assassination plan), and blowing up Library Tower in California, the Sears Tower in Chicago, several suspension bridges in New York, Heathrow Airport in London, the Canary Wharf Building, New York Stock Exchange, the Plaza Bank in Washington State, and last but not least, the Empire State Building in New York City. It's a good thing the latter was averted as it would have drained all the drama out of the remake of King Kong.
Anything else you want to say for yourself, Mr. Mohammed? Why yes, he replies. Don't forget my responsibility for the Filka Island Operation in Kuwait that killed two American soldiers, the destruction of numerous nightclubs in Thailand, planning the destruction of buildings in the Israeli city of Elat by using Saudi airplanes, planning and financing for the destruction of American embassies in Indonesia, Australia, and Japan, the bombing of the hotel in Mombasa that is frequented by Jewish travelers, and planning, surveying and financing to hit several nuclear power plants in the United States. And . . .
O.K., Mr. Mohammed, just ask your lawyer to hand over the complete list. Do you have any explanations for the Court?
Yes, "not I'm making myself hero when I said I was responsible for this or that. If America they want to invade Iraq they will not send for Saddam roses or kisses, they send a bombardment. This is the best way if I want. I'm American enemies."
It gives me a warm feeling that these proceedings took place on board U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with the Review Tribunal made up of a Captain from the United States Navy, Lieutenant Colonels from the United States Air Force and Marine Corps, and a Gunnery Sergeant as Reporter (all names redacted). A confession before a tribunal is the best evidence of guilt, isn't it? Whether it's Guantanamo Bay or the Gulag Archipelago.
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