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Attorney General Eric Holder is to be commended for his plan, expected to be announced later this morning, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other detainees at Guantanamo will face charges in federal criminal court in the Southern District of New York. The attacks of 9/11 were an abominable criminal act and should be treated as such.
The treatment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed while in American custody presents problems for his criminal trial. As pointed out by Marcy Wheeler, he was waterboarded 183 times in a period of less than a month. The rules of evidence in federal courts prevent the inclusion of testimony delivered under duress, so any statement made by KSM as a result of waterboarding will be excluded as a matter of law. It seems to me that a good defense attorney will be able to argue that any statement by KSM made against his self-interest at any time after his waterboarding could be considered to be under duress since he remains in the custody of the country responsible for this torture.
Although the waterboarding has stopped, KSM’s torture continues in a very real sense.
Consider this passage from page 51 of the CIA Office of Inspector General report released last August:
The "We’re going to kill your children" most likely was taken seriously by KSM, since his children were captured and transferred to US custody several months before his own capture. No word of the fates of these children has surfaced in the subsequent eight years. Because KSM knows that his children were last known to be in US custody, and because he was told during his interrogation that his children would be killed, it seems to me that any statement KSM would make at his trial would be made under the duress of his children continuing to be threatened with death.
Because Holder has decided to move forward with a criminal trial, it seems likely that the Department of Justice has determined that sufficient evidence of KSM’s role in the planning and execution of the attacks of 9/11 exists outside of any evidence obtained by the torture of KSM or any other witness. A trial carried out with all of the appropriate safeguards of due process will be a major step toward ending a horrible chapter in US history which began with a crime against our country and moved to crimes committed by it.
It is one thing to achieve closure in the crimes committed by KSM to convict him based on evidence untainted by torture. However, closure for the crimes committed by the US against KSM and other detainees in the "war on terror" is not yet at hand. The fates of the children of KSM (and other other children in US custody) must be disclosed. Those responsible for authorizing, ordering and carrying out torture must also face prosecution for their crimes. Only then can the United States "look forward" and claim to have ended the practice of torture.
92 Comments
Jim,
Regardless of the legal outcome of the trial, the fact that we’re finally going to have one within our exisitng court system is a great improvement. It will be important for the people of southern NY, important for our justice system, and obviously important for KSM. Massive step in the right direction for everyone concerned, except for torturers.
Hopefully we are going to learn more not only from the govt’s prosecution, but more importantly from KSMs defense. It’s a tragedy that a separate justice system was ever devised.
You are right that it is good for criminal trials to start, but see this morning’s posts by Marcy Wheeler and Glenn Greenwald for cautions about how the headline of KSM’s trial is hiding a plan to prosecute other detainees in military commissions where due process is not observed.
Recommended. Thank you, Jim. When I read Southern District of NY, here’s what came to mind: [excerpt from his wiki]
As you know, that same court and judge sent Dr. Aafia Siddiqui down the long corridors of Hell that she has lived so long and whose three small children were captured with her, two of whom are presumed dead.
I think it is false hope to believe that any true form of justice can be obtained in the courts of a country that has committed these criminal acts.
It is said that a wise lawyer does not ask a question to which he does not already know the answer. I apply that to AG Holder – IMHO, he is finally going to allow KSM’s case to come to trial because he has the outcome already determined and fixed.
Perhaps my cynicism is partially caused by the legal history of my state, where John Cornyn was Attorney General and Alberto Gonzales was a State Supreme Court Judge…and where LBJ and his attorney, Edward Clark, owned the court system from about 1948 until they both died.
IMO, Eric Holder ain’t no Judge Robert Jackson.
KSM confessed to masterminding almost every attack that occurred worldwide; who can ever know what he is rightfully guilty of?
Clinton knows about Aafia and here’s her idea of helping Aafia and her children..ie..pass the buck.
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“For example, an MP who participated in the session told The News that PML-Q leader Faisal Saleh Hayat raised the issue of detention of Aafia Siddiqui in the US and demanded her release.
He argued that such a measure would help restore confidence among Pakistanis about the US and people here would appreciate Washington for such a good gesture. However, the insider said, Clinton made no commitment for Aafia’s release and confined her remarks to saying she would take the suggestion to the Obama administration. ”
http://freedetainees.org/7372
Precisely. I have no idea how my fellow liberals and left activists can sit there and bad mouth 9/11 truth activists while supporting the Bush-Cheney propaganda and torture that this whole trial is based upon. How can there be a trial when so much of the so called “evidence” and “confessions” were obtained through months of brutal torture?
Have we forgotten that the so called “20th hijacker” had to have charges dropped, as well as Abu Zubaida after both were nearly killed from CIA torture?
Almost makes you wonder who the real terrorists are.
The answer is simple..they cannot and will not handle the truth.
Well, 8bitagent, how about this for starters? Stumbled on it while looking for the GHWB quote said to Sara McClendon in 1992 : “If the American people really knew what we had done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched.” I’ve got to learn more about the author, Al Martin, and how he fits into the picture and whether he has credibility.
I think that Aafia and hundreds of other missing Pakistanis would disagree with this. That quote has never been denied by Bush and yes, Martin is credible.
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“CIA says it gets its money’s worth from Pakistani spy agency
It has given hundreds of millions to the ISI, for operations as well as rewards for the capture or death of terrorist suspects. Despite fears of corruption, it is money well-spent, officials say. ”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-cia-pakistan15-2009nov15,0,4066853.story
” And who is Al Martin? After Al Martin retired as a Lt. Commander from the US Naval Reserves, his life went into the fast lane as a black ops specialist in the Office of Naval Intelligence. His first assignment was in Peru, where he was tapped for a CIA-sanctioned operation, smuggling American Express cards into Argentina in 1979.
After that he met US Government-sponsored con man Lawrence Richard Hamil, a Department of Defense shadow player, who taught him the ropes of profitable covert operations.
At a meeting with General Richard V. Secord and Hamil, Martin was briefed about Iran Contra operations and allowed to view voluminous CIA white papers concerning “Operation Black Eagle,” the code-name for the Bush-Casey-North program involving US Government-sanctioned narcotics trafficking, illicit weapons deals and wholesale fraud. ”
http://www.almartinraw.com/book.html
Thanks, blue. I returned to the Martin article, then to the book page and read his short bio, then went to abebooks.com and found the latest edition (2002) dirt cheap. I didn’t find a thing in the article to argue with. All the money the Bush Cabal gobbled up was probably stashed in off-shore banks – prime candidate is USB in Swtzland where old Phil Gramm watches over their ill gotten gains. I wonder if Poppy is blubbering in his old age because he finally faced the fact that he could not steal it ALL, or that W failed to become in fact King with all dissenters in the Fema camps, or is it that he sees in Jeb the exact replica of his own sorry, soulless self? He truly committed the S word. If all the accounts of the Cabal could be frozen and applied toward our national debt or health care for all it would only be just.
/s/ One Fodder Unit
Speaking of UBS…
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“But the U.S. would have had nothing on Liechti (as evidenced by the fact that it searched his place some five years ago and couldn’t make a case), but for Brad Birkenfeld, who blew the whistle on Liechti and other top UBS executives.
So, it is especially shocking to find that the U.S. granted immunity to Liechti, the mastermind, when it wouldn’t grant immunity to Birkenfeld, and actually prosecuted him! ”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/14/804385/-Breaking-Justice-Dept.-Corruption-in-Birkenfeld-Case:-U.S.-Gave-UBS-Kingpin-Immunity
Is this administration capable of picking anyone who actually might work towards peace with Iran instead of war?
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“When the Iranian Revolution exploded on the world scene three decades ago, John Limbert was a greenhorn diplomat assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. After that station was taken over by revolutionary students, he spent 14 months as a political hostage in the building that came to be known as the “Nest of Spies.”
Today Limbert is the newly appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iran in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. That makes him Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s point person on Iran, just as pressure is building in Congress to impose more sanctions on the Islamic Republic. ”
http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/11/441645.html
Got to go to your link and learn; never heard of the guy. I think we need to kick Netanyahoo in the pants and stay out of Iran’s affairs. CIA is gonna keep on until they get us into war with them. Then I think Brits will say “no thanks, not this time” and Russia and China will buddy up and tell the Big Bully, “butt out or else”.
Do you think the greenhorn’s time as a political hostage in Iran is effecting Hillary’s hard line on Iran?
hummmph! He’s CIA for sure.
blue, somewhere I left you a message asking if you had seen this. If you click the first link there you will see a full enlargement of the chart. I don’t like that picture…
Beyond a shadow of a doubt he will promote her hard line on Iran. I’d missed your message. I hadn’t seen that site before; it looks good. There is a link to Sibel’s writeup on Armitage. I’d linked to it, but I think you missed it a day or two ago. On that chart, Clinton and Foster appear together. Guess that would explain his ‘suicide’. Bush blubbered because Jeb did not become king. Russia has said that if Iran is attacked, it means war. WWW3 is the neocons/MIC’s big dream; that’s why the US keeps baiting the Iranians. Want a smile..I asked a question that didn’t get an answer; read 21 and 22.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/14535
Yeah, blue, facts are stubborn things, huh? M sights Leen in the crosshairs no matter what the diary is about. Para: You’ll never guess the subject in this post – 9/11. You will read some very enlightening comments there, too. Finally the Pasture Bull couldn’t take it and chimed in…didn’t seem to matter.
One of the commenters gave this link to a story about a second plane like a C-130 accompanying the one that hit the Pentagon. Eyewitness accounts.
Now 2:38 a.m. – got to stop this!
I thought my fun for the day was having M ignore me when I called him M after he used one of his alias to comment to me, but your link was funnier. Gotta love how the bull and others were drowned out. The gatekeepers had a hard time..haha. That kind of ignorance is what drove me away from reading there. They and those like them that refuse to investigate, and use their heads for something other than an ornament, are pathetic creatures. #63 sums up Kos’s gate keeping rather well. I hope you said hi to your pillow after your last comment..’g’.
Booga booga booga. We’re just about due for another tape from the dead Osama.
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“Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey said today that it is highly likely that terrorists will attack New York City as a consequence of the Obama administration’s decision to send five alleged Sept. 11 plotters there for trial in federal court. ”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/1109/Mukasey_very_high_risk_of_attack_on_NYC_911_trial.html
Turrests will attack? He-ull fore, they captured the town long time ago. Set on all the jedges banches now. (that’s texan just in case you couldn’t tell – hee,hee,hee)
In my mind’s eye I see a maggot wriggling in the old two-holer of my childhood whenever Mukasey’s name appears.
Let’s see, as possible heads of the one we have M, G, T, Cregan – think there’s one more; can’t recall. My near-and-dear one explained M’s name for me, T’s is appropriate, G’s is obvious …is Kregon some sci-fi meany?
Got to go to your link at 75 now.
Obvious and not too bright. I was telling Leen that some posters have multiple alias names here, and he answered her by saying “so people like me”..haha..he’s gonna snap one of these days. Yes, at least one more; I know the name when I see it. Will take note of it next time. Good name for Mukasey. What do you expect from a guy who hung Orwell’s picture on his office wall..’g’.
A satirical article highlighting Superman..aka..KSM.
http://www.opednews.com/populum/diarypage.php?did=14952
Too funny..democraticunderground is anti 911 facts. Just guess what article is featured there today?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×7014893
blue, what is so negative about DU? I read the comments to #71 there, seem to be a reasonable bunch to me.
The posters attack anyone who mentions 911,I/P, and now Sibel. Sibel is a member and used to be much admired. When she testified in August, all of a sudden she was not credible because the senator who was involved with the Turkish Lobby is a Democratic. When Brad (Bradblog) commented in regards to her testimony, he was put down, too. Posters attack each other with rude comments as opposed to debating with facts. The nastiness is out of control most days. Some days things are mellow at DU, and then the crapo starts, again. Since they brought in the ‘unrecommend’ anyone can knock an important diary off of the front page rather quickly.
Thanks, blue, now that’s cleared up.
DU discusses the situation.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132×8751006
An expose of ICE.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/172797-the-global-oil-scam-50-times-bigger-than-madoff?source=article_sb_popular
blue, I don’t have the foundation to understand ‘the market’, but surely wish I did. That article makes a lot of sense to me; then come the comments which reveal the different perspectives on the subject. It deserves a diary by someone educated in the subject – a lot of work to move quickly into the abyss of yesterday’s news. (like Hugh’s list and many of Jim White’s – move along forward; nothing to see here).
Takes me back to this article to which I gave the link earlier. What combination of influences caused GHWB to come to TX and enter the oil biness? (1948 ?) Preppie from the East, never had dirty hands, enters an industry known to be made up of ‘roughnecks’ who did not come by that handle by accident. [back in the mid 1920s when my Dad was between marriages he was a roughneck in some of the eary oil boom towns in TX...I know whereof I speak.] You can bet that he of the limp wrists never came close to those guys.
The memo from J.Edgar Hoover proves he was in CIA in Nov/1963…I need to learn when GHWB’s relationship with James Baker III began and how and where. (college?). I think Baker is the link between GHWB and oil. (and Carlyle, Enron, Saudi kings/princes, drugs, etc.) Way back in the 50s I remember a Baker Oil Tool company… guess I’ll see what I can learn of Baker’s ancestry and links with oil from way back.
blue, I’ve been thinking about the men in gov over the period since JFK was assassinated and how many of them have dual Israeli citizenship. I think in my book, Final Judgment, I found that way back before the state of Israel was granted statehood, there was a Russian Jew named Axselrud/Akselrud who emigrated to Palestine, joined up with Irgun and was very instrumental in Israel’s gaining statehood. And we know Rham has dual citizenship and that his g/father was a member of Irgun. In GWB’s administration there were too many of them to count. We might as well call America, Israel Annex.
“He served as the Chief of Staff in President Ronald Reagan’s first administration and in the final year of the administration of President George H. W. Bush. Baker also served as Secretary of the Treasury from 1985-1988 in the second Reagan administration, and Secretary of State in the George H. W. Bush administration.
Baker’s first wife, the former Mary Stuart McHenry, was active in the Republican Party, working on the Congressional campaigns of George H. W. Bush.
Bush then encouraged Baker to become active in politics to deal with the grief, something Bush had done when his daughter, Pauline Robinson (1949–1953), died of leukemia. Baker became chairman of Bush’s Senate campaign in Harris County. Though Bush lost to Lloyd Bentsen in the election, Baker continued in politics, becoming the Finance Chairman of the Republican Party in 1971. The following year, he was selected as the Gulf Coast Regional Chairman for the Richard Nixon presidential campaign. In 1973 and 1974, Baker returned to the full time practice of law at Andrews & Kurth. ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Baker
The Balfour Agreement was the start of this nightmare for the Palestinians. WW2 was just the excuse used to annex Palestinian land and call it Israel. Obama’s people are dual citizens, Zionists, and/or CFR.
“When President Bush appointed former Secretary of State James Baker III as his envoy on Iraq’s debt on December 5, 2003, he called Baker’s job “a noble mission.” At the time, there was widespread concern about whether Baker’s extensive business dealings in the Middle East would compromise that mission, which is to meet with heads of state and persuade them to forgive the debts owed to them by Iraq. Of particular concern was his relationship with merchant bank and defense contractor the Carlyle Group, where Baker is senior counselor and an equity partner with an estimated $180 million stake.
Until now, there has been no concrete evidence that Baker’s loyalties are split, or that his power as Special Presidential Envoy–an unpaid position–has been used to benefit any of his corporate clients or employers. But according to documents obtained by The Nation, that is precisely what has happened. Carlyle has sought to secure an extraordinary $1 billion investment from the Kuwaiti government, with Baker’s influence as debt envoy being used as a crucial lever.
The secret deal involves a complex transaction to transfer ownership of as much as $57 billion in unpaid Iraqi debts. The debts, now owed to the government of Kuwait, would be assigned to a foundation created and controlled by a consortium in which the key players are the Carlyle Group, the Albright Group (headed by another former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright) and several other well-connected firms. Under the deal, the government of Kuwait would also give the consortium $2 billion up front to invest in a private equity fund devised by the consortium, with half of it going to Carlyle. ”
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041101/klein
blue, I, too, have been looking. Baker’s mother was a Bonner of the Bonner Oil Co., one of whom built the first oil refinery in Houston. Baker’s g/gfthr founded the firm of Baker-Botts in Houston, also a first. I can’t find a connection with GHWB before they were tennis buddies at the Houston Country Club (talk about rich elites!). Baker’s wiki shows his positions and the years — I conclude that Baker was to GHWB what Chaney became to GWB, i.e. the brains/handler. Means (to me) that Baker rigged those market deals that nearly caused the world economic collapse in 1987. In Ford Admin 1975, when Rummy and Cheney were in WH, Baker was Undesecretary of Commerce, probably more powerful than it sounds.
In Reagon’s 2nd term Baker was Secy Treasury and also was assigned to be Chrmn of the President’s Economic Policy Council. Baker didn’t know beans about economics (he alleges, tho he founded a brokerage house) so he brought with him from WH, Richard Darman to be his economics adviser. I don’t know beans yet about R. Darman.
When Reagon was shot, it was Baker, Meese and Deaver (known as The Troika) who decided it not necessary to have GHWB officially take seat as pres. They with Reagan(/s) made all the decisions. Near and dear just called; got to stop for now.
I noted that Baker was 23 years older than his #1 wife and 43 years older than his #2…He was 43 when he married 1st time.
Likely gay with a marriage history like that.
hmmmm, thought that myself, ‘specially with the fav tennis buddy being who he was…short people??
Aaaarrrrgggghhhhh!!!! They’re mutants!
hahahaha!!!lol lol lol
That is too sweeping a statement to say that in trials under the Uniform Code of Military Justice that due process is not observed. Can you provide more specifics of what you are referring to?
The military commissions don’t use all of the UCMJ. They have been created in a legal never-never land.
Jim, see Marcy’s later post re the deal-making going on based on this article. It appears to me that the concept of Justice has been totally replaced by Addington and Yoo’s web of legalistic contortions.
Thanks for this post, Jim.
What a bizarro world we live in where the RNC’s family values [sic] allow them to provide abortion coverage for their own staff while trying so vociferously to deny it to others, and where both parties “cover” for torture, not just of adults, but presumably of children, as well.
Is there a dystopic novelist anywhere (besides Margaret Atwood) who could have created such a crazy world?
recommended
Thomas Pynchon and Tom Robbins come to mind.
I guess I don’t read enough dystopic novelists! ;~)
thanks Jim still being tortured. Have you heard Rachel, Keith or any of the MSNBC crew or anyone else touch this?
In the comments thread on Glenn Greenwald’s post this morning, he and I had a discussion where he acknowledged that the arguments I make in this post would be valid for KSM’s defense to raise. However, he points out that it is a distinct possibility that KSM intends to instruct his lawyers not to mount a defense and to confess.
Are these the same defendants that tried to enter guilty pleas? If so, the there is that very distinct possibility there will be no trials. This is quite a gamble for Holder.
The only MSNBC coverage I could find was the Holder Announcement and Morning Joe
Holder Announcement
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/33911263#33911263
Morning Joe and why NY was chosen
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/vp/33907605#33907605
Thank you, RMPatriot, for the link to Holder’s announcement. I must listen to it again and watch for the text. Holder states that he will instruct the prosecutors to seek the death penalty for the 5 detainees.
Holder also said that judges from the Eastern District of VA will also be employed in these trials but all will be held in Southern District of NY. Impartial courts?
Sadly I am reminded of Stalin’s show trials, portions of which were televised in the 1950s when I was in my early 20s. Nobody I knew understood a word of Russian, yet we knew what the verdict would be: execution or Siberia from which few were ever heard of again.
IMO, George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld hurled against the wall of stupidity and greed for power the most precious antique ever held by America: our Justice system. Can it be restored to its original perfection with some legalistic glue stirred up by those in power conferring together to devise a plan for selling their product?
And if AG Holder’s instructions are carried out and executions result, the 5 accused will probably be seen as martyrs by the Islamic peoples of the world, possibly solidifying them as nothing else has ever done.
I hope I am 100% wrong in my present perspective about all this.
Why should their conviction at trial, as opposed to their pre-trial treatment, be seen as anything other than just?
A real trial would let us know if the evidence is real or if this is another WMD imaginary evidence deal. Given the Bushies record question everything. Still if non torture evidence is good enough then he is looking at the death penalty.
Given that he was tortured by Bush I think thanks to Bush the Death Penalty is off the table. How do we judge 9/11 vs torture? vs threatening a guys kids? I have no idea what is fair on this.
At the very least I think the kids should go to relatives.
I want this guy in prison if guilty for life. I want the guys who tortured him to do some time. The guys who ordered the torture I want them to do life.
“As I have explained at length over the last two and a half years (and as the Commissions’ former prosecutor, Morris Davis, explained in a op-ed for the Wall Street Journal this week), the revival of the discredited Commissions, which struggled in vain to establish their legitimacy over the course of seven years, demonstrates only that the administration lacks the courage to trust the federal courts, and, as a result, is prepared to endorse the existence of a second-tier judicial system to be used in cases where it fears that the evidence will not be strong enough to secure a conviction. ”
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/11/13/on-democracy-now-andy-worthington-discusses-the-forthcoming-911-trials-and-outside-the-law-stories-from-guantanamo-video/
Thanks, blue, for the link @ 26 to Amy Goodman & Juan Gonzales’ interview with Andy Worthington (author of The Guantanamo Files) today. There is so much to review and think about that I just got around to watching. I was relieved to hear him say that there are aspects of what we have been told that confuse him, such as the multi-tiered system to be used for the different categories of detainees.
The US shot a Canadian child in the back, tortured him in Bagram and Guantanamo, and now he gets a FUCKING MILITARY TRIBUNAL.
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“Canadian Omar Khadr, the last westerner left in Guantanamo Bay, will face trial by military tribunal unlike the high-profile Sept 11, 2001, attacks plotters who will be brought to New York for trial in a civilian courts where they have far greater rights and protections, U.S. officials announced Friday.
Mr. Khadr’s lawyer Barry Coburn, accused the administration of resorting to Bush-era injustice.
“We thought that the incoming Obama administration signalled a new day with respect to these cases, a new respect for civil liberties, an abhorrence of torture, a respect for the time-honored legal procedures and protections that are mandated by the Constitution and enforced by the federal courts,” he said. ”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/khadr-to-face-us-military-tribunal/article1361934/
http://freedetainees.org/7329
There could be a positive side to the civilian trial in that a lot of the torture and mistreatment especially the point you make about family members can receive much needed visibility because this trial will be covered extensively by the M$M.
While I would prefer all trials be in civilian courts, Holder has presented some logic in his decision by putting those who have harmed military members in a military tribunal and those who have harmed U.S. civilians, as well as military at the Pentagon, in a civilian court.
The press will be allowed to attend the military trials as well as affected family members and the public. The question not answered yet is what happens to all the other mostly innocent at Gitmo whose disposition has yet to be announced.
So we start being really nice to the true terrorists and maybe they will go away?
Timothy McVeigh went away.
Sentence first, trial later.
What treatment then should be received by those who rained long range megaton bombs indiscrimately for weeks upon an innocent Iraqi population that had done nothing to the US. And who then devastated the country with nuclear tipped materiel and white Phophorus oxygen depleting bombs again against the civilian populations in Falluja.
You seem to have a particualry benign tolerance for those who commit crimes against foreigners but not for those that respond in kind.
The difference between KSM and Bush is that whereas we do not yet know the extent to which KSM was implicated in the 9/11 bombings we know exactly the extent to which Bush was responsible for the death of roughly 1 million innocent civilian lives in Iraq.
The idea that a fair trial is a nicety will come as a surprise to many people. I suppose that unfair summary execution is the better standard.
assuming that shrubco could not actually have been so craven as to have gone so far as murdered KSM’s achildren, what could have become of them? Any ideas?
Convictions in criminal trials are always just?
Great motive to tell us anything we wanted to hear.
Indeed. In fact, on further thought, the argument could be made that his confession could be prompted by a belief that his children might be released after he is executed. What parent wouldn’t make that trade? That’s why any evidence used to convict him must be absolutely unrelated to any statements he has made subsequent to his torture.
Tell EW confess guilt you die your kids go free everything he said after his kids are threatened junk. Plus America will understand this.
Does Holder really have any non torture evidence?
Absolutely. See this post by Cynthia Kouril earlier today.
Could this trial if held on American soil be a set up a way to let discovery do the leaking without Obama’s WH being directly involved?
Obama does hate doing anything direct thats why he has Rahm. The GOP will still blame him but this time if the information is found in discovery at trial thats good.
I think he should do time just not be tortured and his kids should be with relatives.
They’re not always just at all. But more often than not, when the defendants are guilty the trials and the verdicts are perceived as just, despite massive procedural problems.
I kind of think that the government will be able to produce a fair bit of evidence not related to KSM’s confession.
I think there will be a perception that KSM’s torture resulted in a great many other people, many innocent, also facing torture and abuse in American and allied hands and that execution will be in part to cover up the sourcing on those victims.
While I think there is likely plenty of evidence to convict KSM of bad things and that he’s a very bad guy, I think there won’t be much in the case that isn’t tainted with a lot of issues of believability, in large part because of the loss of credibility of the whole of the US Dept of Justice. When you rely on the integrity of an institution for things like the protection of and foundation for evidence proferred and yet that institution has now been shown to have outright lied to courts over and over and destroyed evidence and hid and “lost” information and disappeared witnesses like al-Libi to his final resolution in Libya etc. – then that loss of integrity will permeate the proceedings and determination.
Not so much for those of us who don’t feel “targeted” by the loss of integrity at the Dept of Justice, so not necessarily a broad swath of white Christian Americans, but definitely among the Muslim world that has been feeling and seeing and sharing with each other the effects of being the targets of the loss of integrity by the American justice system.
Valid or not, there will be huge concerns about the validity of the verdicts because of what has happened to the US reputation for justice on the one hand, and what has happened operationally within the DOJ that has issued torture memos and allowed destruction of evidence and assisted with disappearances and hidden exculpatory memos (like the Aug 2002 memo regarding a number of named GITMO detainees who were acknowledged as being innocent), etc.
It’s like a conviction of American detainees for spying in Iran. How legitimate would most Americans ever find that kind of a conviction and to what extent does that tie to Iran’s reputation here at home?
Fair points, but there’s really not much of an alternative to going ahead with the trial, is there?
Producing in public actual evidence of his guilt seems to be best.
Only if the evidence – the whole evidence chain – is clean and torture free. That might have been possible had he been a prisoner of another regime or had this trial taken place six or seven years ago.
Now, it will be a circus. KSM wants to die at the hands of his sworn enemies. Obama and Rahm want to hide their predecessors’ crimes – and whatever past conduct it wants to be able to repeat without consequence – while appearing to favor the objective rule of law. The MSM will focus on narrow, sordid details that while true, miss the import of this trial and this individual’s possible guilt. The public, in all likelihood, will be misinformed and will misunderstand what it sees and hears, because most of it will be wrong.
I wonder if Marcy has booked her rooms in Manhattan for her live blogging marathon? I smell another fund raiser, Ms. Jane.
If the government doesn’t have sufficient evidence procured prior to, or wholly independent of, his maltreatment I would be rather surprised to see them going to trial.
Not an alternative, but a corollary that would both give better credence to the judgments and also be a necessary corollary to re-establish the institution, would be to put the torturers on trial as well and make a full breast of what has been done.
Do they want to win hearts and minds and regain credibility? Then you treat criminals like criminals. As long as that isn’t happening, it poisens everything.
Will it happen? No. Obama has never really been a leader or someone who has had to grapple with principals.
But if you aren’t going to have concurrent trials for the torturers (and let’s face it, they’ve deliberately run out the US statute of limitations clock on anything but the torture murders) then the bare minimum would be to make all the torture and all its ripples public.
That’s not going to happen either.
So for the US victims KSM and his band of criminals is there another alternative? Not really. But for the Muslim world, much of it, and for a lot of the non-Muslim world, we are actively purchasing more hatred. And we are using the KSM trial to bury the bones of all those who were not KSM, not guilty of anything, and yet equally victimized by our torture regime process. While the monster is center stage, there won’t be any other voices heard.
It will be lovely to take the torturers to task, but I can’t honestly see it as necessarily concurrent to this trial.
I would hope that this and other trials help in airing the government crimes and lead to indictments.
(always a pleasure to hear your thoughts.)
I suspect that the Justice Department will be on trial as much as KSM, which is probably a reason the prisoner in the dock is KSM, the charges will stem directly from 9/11, and the forum is NYC. Why Rahm and his boss – this is clearly not a business-as-usual DoJ decision, but a White House one – think that’s enough to distract from their protection of their predecessors’s crimes is beyond me.
Absolutely. And as EOH says @46, “the Justice Department will be on trial as much as KSM”. It is my sincere hope that somehow the process of trying KSM and DOJ will drive home the damage both parties have done to the fabric of our national soul. It is my fear that it will only result in further harm.
If we have evidence non torture related this guy goes away for life. But I think his trial scares Darth allot the entire GOP seems opposed to even bringing any of these guys for trial in America. I think they fear discovery.
I think they fear never going to Europe for shopping again.
Ah, that poor baby. It is obvious that this guy is the real victim in all of this.
So you support his innocent children being tortured and used as pawns?
Torture doesn’t seem to work. Also how many Americans have died because Iraqi’s and Afghans heard we were torturing people?
We obviously can’t win wars if we torture. If a court shows he is guilty then he never gets free.
However the guys who tortured him they should do time too!
If America does not stand for something better we can’t expect our next invasion to be greeted with hearts and flowers.
What appears to be done to KSM’s kids (age 7 and 12) at the time is simply deranged sadism, authorized by John Yoo’s memo that allowed the use of insects to coerce detainees who might have a morbid fear of them.
These children were forced into tiny cells (coffins) where they had no light or adequate room, and then had insects placed on their bodies.
And there is this classic from Yoo:
But Yoo is absolutely correct…can you point out any law that expressly and specifically forbids crushing the testicles of children?
Child Abuse laws?
When an idiot like Yoo is driven to conclusions such as these you know at once not to take him seriously. When he claims there are no restraints for the President in time of war then any extreme example will do show to his idiocy. This is the perfect example of reductio ad absurdum. If the conclusion is absurd the preceeding premises are equally absurd.
In Yoo’s line of reasoning the initial premise will do just fine. Here you can make the counter argument; what if the President happened to be a pathological sadist why would you endow him with unlimited power. Laws are not based on absolutes they are justified based on their providing actual societal benefit.
It does just so happen that Bush is just the perfect instance of this counter argument.
Thanks for this post.
All I want is the “truth”, but somehow the ending to the Law and Order
episode rings true…
I’ve lost faith in our justice system, so far.
I am hoping this guy gets to see his kids if he does go on trial in America.
Will there be a hearing to determine his mental competency before the state murder can take place ?
One more point about KSM’s torture. As I argued here, I think his torture was carried out in an attempt to get a link between 9/11 and Saddam. Note that March, 2003, when he was captured and waterboarded, was also when we invaded Iraq. The Bush administration’s position, of course, was that “enhanced interrogation” was needed to get information on attacks which might be pending.
http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2009/04/17/was-insect-torture-used-on-khalid-sheikh-mohammeds-children/
If this turns out to be true the Bush library becomes a War Crimes Museum.
If I recall correctly, threatening to kill a prisoner or someone close to him if he doesn’t talk is, um, a felony. The US clearly had the power and will to carry out such threats. Its “immoderation” in waterboarding and otherwise mistreating him made such threats real in the minds of this and other prisoners, regardless of whether those who made those statements actually intended to carry them out.
If Mr. Cheney’s minions had made such threats against Don Corleone, the evidence and very likely the case, would have been thrown out before the Don ever saw the inside of a courtroom, no matter how many people he killed, how much gambling and prostitution he ran, the unions he’d scammed, the volume of goods he’d stolen, or the liquor he’d smuggled.
Yet we continue to hold prisoners we’ve abused and tortured. We plan prosecutions around avoiding admissions of such abuse and torture. What country are we now?
I used concurrent, but basically meant contemporaneous. Sorry. And my response on those needing to be contemporaneous goes to my prior comment as well, which was response to your inquiry as to why a trial & conviction might be seen as “anything other than just”
If only KSM is tried, then Christian America will by and large be fine with it (as a matter of fact, Red State has sent me an email already to tell me how unjust it is that anyone would give KSM a trial, much less a “fair trial”). But in the eyes of the larger world, and the Muslim world, when “justice” is only meted out to the Muslim and only after he has been held in torture for years first, there is going to be a resistance to calling that just.
And as mentioned, the government has already run out statutes of limitations for most of their torture crimes that resulted in something short of death – so I’m not sure what airing and indictments you are hoping for – maybe you could share on that?
I don’t think it would be lovely to take torturers to task – I think it would have been (as it is too late now for most instances) ugly and painful and horrible. But it doesn’t matter much, bc it wasn’t done and it is all just fait accompli now and there is no desire for anything else from America. That’s probably the biggest reason in the end that the trials won’t be viewed as just by much of the world. Because America has made it clear that justice ranks very low on our list of priorities when it comes to handling Muslims.
I guess as a corollary you can ask if Dilawar’s daughter, when she grows up, will be satisfied with the justice from the court martials, or lacks thereof, of the men who tortured her father to death. Did they leave you feeling no one could claim they were “anything other than just?” Did you watch el-Masri’s suit get kicked out of court and think, “well, at least he had a nice, just, opinion from the courts on his claims.”
If my thoughts are a pleasure to hear, that would be astonishing. They aren’t pleasurable to think at all.
Your thoughts and words are as far from pleasurable as I can imagine, but I thank you for them, Mary, and for sharing them with us.
In a certain sense it is fortunate that the 9/11 suspects are being brought to trial after the passage of some time. It allows for clear thinking for good and bad.
This allows for instance people to realize the depravity of threatening children with death in order to coerce confessions. Or the use of physical torture for the same end. This is all to the good.
The bad is that by seeking to have preordained outcomes from civil courts and military tribunals we plainly see the corruption of those in charge of the legal system. Having spoiled the integrity of the evidence adherence to due process would likely require a mistrial, itself a terrible outcome.
In my mind there is an inherent contrivance at the heart of due process wherein it is claimed that all those charged with a crime are presumed innocent. In fact at the time of being charged with commiting a crime suspects are presumed guilty, that is what being charged with a crime entails.
The captivity of the 9/11 suspects brings this contrivance out perfectly. On the basis of the charge alone these suspects were presumed guilty of being enemy combatants and therefore imprisoned. No presumption of innocence was ever entertained. Was the presumption of innocence ever afforded to KSM? Again this is the extreme case but I don’t believe that it makes any sense to say that a suspect is presumed innocent at the time of being charged with a crime.
I can’t see how KSM can be convicted of conspiracy if torture tainted and hearsay evidence is not admitted. I hope that it can happen but all the perps involved in the conspiracy are dead and Massaui was plainly tortured and anyway can not provide direct testimony against KSM. Who is left to incriminate him?
If KSM is bent on martyrdom and confesses that may be the most that can be hoped for. Completely out of the question is the conviction of Bush and Cheney as criminals which is of course what justice demands. Their culpability of crimes against humanity is overwhelming, including crimes against the peace, torture and collective punishment.
This fact will rightly taint the whole proceeding and there can be no doubt that regardless of what happens to KSM, in the eyes of the Muslim world and very likely beyond, the US justice system will be seen as unjust.
Sure, they will probably get a prosecution of KSM plus five. Where would you find a potential juror anywhere in NYC who wouldn’t hand down a guilty verdict? But, all that aside, it is reported that KSM’s children are still missing and there is documented evidence that US investigators threatened to kill them in order to prise information/confessions from KSM. Isn’t that torture; so wouldn’t that rule out most, if not all of the confessions and much of the evidence against KSM?
Anyway, even if the first batch is convicted in NYC, when are we going to see the torturers and their puppet-masters in the dock? We can only hope that an open court will shed some sunlight into the murky depths of depravity perpetrated by those entrusted with adherence to the Constitution, the rule of law, and who knew that what they were doing was flushing America’s greatest asset, its moral integrity and authority, straight down the toilet. Convicting KSM and his cohorts will not bring it back; on the other hand, convicting Cheney just might.
The front page when Flight 103 went down. Multiple pieces and a ten mile debris field. Sounds like it was shot down; not brought down by a single explosive in a suit case.
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http://www.fbiarchive.com/viewer.aspx?img=7332365&search=sabotage
The first trade center bombing. Amazing that terrorists got their hands on this much explosive.
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http://www.fbiarchive.com/viewer.aspx?img=27542600&search=massive
Too often (and too late) we have come to discern the world of opposites. This may have been originated by the Iranians; then again maybe their opposites. I suspect the latter. Who warned the South Africans who canceled their flights? Those DEA men on board, one of whom was going to blow the whistle (1988 – drugs for guns, etc., Poppy’s riches down the tubes and possible prison…) I smell the same cabal that assassinated JFK. “Those dirty A-rabs may turn out to be their near neighbors also of Semitic origin. Great link, blue.