Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiThe Only Anchor
Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday that some top al-Qaeda 9/11 conspirators will be tried by jury in New York not far from the scenes of devastation that they had wrought.
This decision by the Obama administration demonstrates faith in the American way of life, and a conviction that even the worst mass murderers can be dealt justice by democratic institutions.
Predictably, Republican critics vowed to fight the decision, since they much prefer to hold people forever without trial while torturing them, sort of the way some English kings did in North America before there was that pesky American constitution. In fact, on a whole range of issues, the contemporary Republican Party is a party of medieval romanticism. Its disquisitions on when the human person begins are theological in character and rooted in assumptions even a lot of medievals would have questioned. Its faith that bankers would never steal from us and so do not need to be regulated is a form of mysticism that medievals would have applied to saints. And its fascination with arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and with torture more recalls the star chambers of yore than the deliberations at Philadelphia over 200 years ago.
Let us listen not to John Boehner of Ohio but to a Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson:
' "I consider [trial by jury] as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine, 1789. ME 7:408, Papers 15:269 '
Or here is John Adams:
"Representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty." - John Adams (1774)
Many Republicans oppose not only jury trials but even habeas corpus for the prisoners at Guantanamo (the right to apply to a court judge to be produced in court so that the authorities are forced to justify the prisoner's imprisonment). They do so on supposed national security grounds, just as the British kings used to. In fact, of course, these prisoners have no fresh information on plots and cannot possibly know anything of value to any contemporary terrorists at large, since they have been sequestered for so many years.
Here is what Thomas Jefferson had to say about the suspension of rights such as habeas corpus on national security grounds:
' "Why suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions? The parties who may be arrested may be charged instantly with a well defined crime; of course, the judge will remand them. If the public safety requires that the government should have a man imprisoned on less probable testimony in those than in other emergencies, let him be taken and tried, retaken and retried, while the necessity continues, only giving him redress against the government for damages. Examine the history of England. See how few of the cases of the suspension of the habeas corpus law have been worthy of that suspension. They have been either real treasons, wherein the parties might as well have been charged at once, or sham plots, where it was shameful they should ever have been suspected. Yet for the few cases wherein the suspension of the habeas corpus has done real good, that operation is now become habitual and the minds of the nation almost prepared to live under its constant suspension." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788. ME 7:97 '
Al-Qaeda number 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri mocked the US that real liberty ". . . is not the freedom of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib." The Republican way of dealing with terrorists gave enormous propaganda tools to al-Qaeda.
Obama just took those propaganda tools away from the enemy and began the process of repairing America's reputation and its fidelity to its own ideals.
61 Comments so far
Show AllObama made a big mistake when he didn't recruit Juan Cole as under secretary of state for the Middle East.
The classical psy-ops framing at the end of his article implies Cole has been bought and paid for for a long time...
I posted this to the news piece about the upcoming trial of KSM and others last night:
I'm glad he's going on trial. I'm glad this won't be a military commission. I think Obama is putting trust in the better angels of our judicial system, an act that has Rethuglicans worried we'll actually realize that those that attacked us are human beings, not creatures.
This is what many of us correctly criticized the Cheney/Bush Junta for not doing. What is it about so many so-called progressives that when Obama DOES make the correct move, we aren't there to support it? Can't we support the correct action without ipso facto being all the ugly things I read being hurled on CD comment boards like Dem apologist, naive party hack, closet conservative, etc, etc, etc?
I've got serious misgivings about our prez for NOT being the socialist the fundie tea-baggers say he is, but by God he's doing the right thing in this instance, and we should support that action, even if we don't like much of the rest of what he's doing... or should I say, not doing?
And for those of you who believe 9/11 was an inside job, well, this is good news for you as well. A vigorous defense will question his participation in the event, if it can. If he's proven guilty BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT, then you'll just have to accept the prospect that you might've been mistaken.
Ya know, I'm no fan of OBL, but unlike the other side, I've bothered to actually listen to his greivances. They are all cogent, and hit on many of the abuses of our military/industrial/corporate complex that many of us correctly criticize and resist here at CD and in our own lives.
OBL, and his cohort featured here, KSM, however, turned to theocratic fascism and indiscriminate violence to resist it. I don't support that either... Whether it be of the Muslim variety or of our very own home-grown Christian version that writers like Chris Hedges have alerted us to.
We have a judicial system in this country that when allowed to operate within the Constitution--as it wasn't under Shrub and Darth Cheney--actually works pretty well, and which I still place alot of faith in.
I say try the son of a bitch. If he's found guilty in a fair trial he's got what punishment he deserves coming to him. And it'll be the sane, civilized way to address a crime, not the insane path terrorists and many world leaders have so often chosen: that of the bomb, the gun, the tank, the missile... The plane loaded full of innocent people...
I am so sick to death of bloody-minded people hurling explosives at each other and having unarmed, innocent civilians caught in the crossfire.
That goes for ALL SIDES!!!
This is a trial. It is part of the solution, people. Obama is doing something correct for a... um, ...CHANGE!
You're saying too much too fast; you have skipped critically objective analysis, or if you haven't, then you have in what you post. If you were speaking of yourself, then you could say what your real goals are, but you're not Obama and it's him you're speaking of. He criminally voted plenty of times while senator, all while his supporters claimed he's a Constitutional Law expert, which is something he hasn't yet given proof of really being or caring about being. He might be such an expert on a paper exam, but the real-life testing has illustrated a contrasting reality.
Like RichM did in this page and as I did for another article on the topic of the five Guant. Bay detainees being moved to NYC for trials there under U.S. federal law, while another five are being put through a so-called "revised" military commission process or trial, and it's not the latter, but the former who are said to be more guilty in the 9-11 attacks, there's something awfully rotten underlying this stage play. All ten of these detainees should be tried under U.S. federal law, but this is not what's happening and Obama is C-in-C in both cases.
Before people get carried away with publishing or posting dreamy words like you did, people need to start applying critically objective analysis and find and produce the answers to the related critical questions, such as the above one, first. Why is Obama discriminating as explained above? There likely enough are additional questions that are related, but answering or explaining why the above discrimination is ordered by the same Obama, President, would be a good start.
There evidently is NO, cannot be a, legitimate reason, so what is really in the plans? Since you pretend to know Obama nearly better than he knows himself, you might be able to answer this question; therefore, give it a shot.
And real justice will never be served until a wholly truthful 9-11 inquiry is established and fully aided, by the White House and CIA, in conducting the investigation. RichM is right about this; he and plenty of others who agree with this [necessity], and many of these people are of the 9-11 Families, like a good majority of them. And since Obama has made it clear that he is against this, maybe you, who claims to know him so well that we might confuse you with him, can explain. There's NO legitimate reason, definitely nothing constitutional, but maybe you'll dream about being able to also explain this wrongful presidential decision.
First of all, the dependant clauses following the semi-colon in your very first sentence are dangling out there in space and it is therefore difficult to understand exactly what you're trying to argue, beyond the ad hominem attack that I'm a dreamer and that what I posted earlier should not be taken seriously by well-informed people-- such as yourself, we are to presume.
Why don't you explain to me, like I'm in the 4th grade, what "critically objective analysis" it is that I've skipped in arriving at the considered opinion that observing such fundamental laws as habeus corpus and the right to a fair trial is a move in the right direction?
OK, OK. I know. I don't have an advanced diploma in constitutional law, like our dear prez does. But I'd like to think I grasp some basic concepts of US civics which I have been appalled that our leaders--particularly the ones in the previous administration--have been blatantly subverting.
And since I lack all that schoolin Barry got, rest assured, Mike, I do not now, nor have I ever, claimed to know what's in his head or heart, or yours even, for that matter. But I do base judgements of my politicians by their words and deeds, which is about all anyone can do. I'm also not stupid enough to think that when we elect a Senator or even a President that we're voting for the Constitutional Law Expert-In-Cheif, regardless of what that occupant studied before becoming POTUS.
And yes, I'm VERY aware Barry made alot of votes in his career with the next campaign in mind. Lots of them you and I wouldn't have made, Mike. That's why we're here on CD while Barry goes to the big show and gets to be Leader of the Free World... You and I probably would've been thrown out by voters suseptible to the half-truths and scare tactics of the scardy-cat greedheads of the right wing.
Point is, Mr. Obama is a politician. Or didn't you know? Are you suprised he'd make decisions or cast votes in a calculating sort of way?
You say there are 5 other detainees who are "more responsible" for 9-11. Name them. Present your evidence. If these 5 are more responsible what exactly is it they did, who are they, where are they, and how do you know?
You still need to explain, or should I say, present your analysis in a critically objective matter, why granting KSM and other people heretofore denied basic human rights like habeus corpus, and the right NOT to be tortured in secret is not a move in the correct direction; or that it might even be part of some larger scheme to further dilute the truth of what really happened on 9-11.
You'll need credible sources to persuade me, not crackpot conspiracy videos posted by who knows what to YouTube.
And I'll admit I haven't the foggiest idea what the difference between the treatment of the two different sets of detainees might indicate. I'll need your credible evidence on that subject as well, because I didn't read your post on a different thread where you explained yourself already... Sorry...
In any event, Mike, I've been waiting more than 8 years for our scared and distracted nation to wake up from it's own bad dreams and realize there ARE more constructive ways of dealing with our hurt and anger than hurling people into dark holes and denying them basic human rights.
Perhaps this makes me a dreamer. But I think a trial is one of them. How 'bout you, mike? Whaddya YOU think about trials?
You claim, "real justice will never be served until a wholly truthful 9-11 inquiry is established and fully aided, by the White House and CIA, in conducting the investigation."
Maybe. But why is it, Mike, that this is the only way to crack the nut of what happened on 9-11? I fail to see how granting trials to people our government has accused of commtting crimes on that day is not also part of the solution.
And maybe granting a trial to KSM won't tell us much about what did happen, but that's not the point of the trial, and it's also NOT what the subject of my previous post was.
The point of the trial of KSM will be to determine whether or not he--that is, Khalid Sheik Mohammed--helped plan the events of 9-11.
The reason I support there being a trial is that at long last the man will finally have his day in court. To no longer be detained and tortured in secret.
He will have his oppurtunity then to speak, or not to. To tell his side of the story. Or not to. To defend himself against alegations. Or not to. To win his case. Or not to.
I applaud that. It's much better than the alternative.
To me it goes to the lie that 9/11 "was an act of war" and not a crime.
Definition of "terrorist": label applied by freak in charge when convenient to have said person murdered.
My definition of a terrorists is: Any group of people that are a perceived threat to our terrorists.
Pretty much.
Interesting that you can try people for a staged event. Since no "terrorists" had anything at all to do with 9/11 it's rediculous to try them. The ones that should be investigated and tried for the 9/11 event are:
George HW Bush
George W Bush
Dick Cheney
General Ralph Eberhart
Larry Silverstein
Condoleeza Rice
Prince Abdulaziz Bin Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud
If we had a really just government these people would be on the FBI'S most wanted list and since you only had 8 I would add Donald Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.
I think some people are overthinking Juan Cole on this article.
To put it somewhat simplistically given the years of legalistic
rationalizations by so many about so much pertaining to those held illegally and tortured at Guantanamo, I suspect that Cole is merely saying, "better a trial than no trial." Thus perhaps the start of the RESTORATION OF THE RULE OF LAW.
That would be refreshing.
Also, given the tone of the LATimes article that leads Cole's article, I seriously doubt that this will be a kangaroo court, because the depth of the legal issues over the years has involved some of our best legal minds, and institutions.
My most serious misgivings about our legal system and what it represents is two-fold: the fact that John Yoo remains a professor at the Berkeley Law School, and that the Congress approved George W. Bush's nominees to the Supreme Court. Then there's that damned DAFT law one of our compatriots keeps bringing up, but that is a Congressional issue...
-30-
OMR-Nice, thoughtful post. Wish I'd said it. joe.
It's all part of USan elites' secretive WAR ON LAW, under the cover of War on Terror. Darth Viper had the rule of law in the crosshairs for eight years while Demoks busily loaded his magazine with hundreds of billions of dollers.
Have we figured out why they hate us yet?
It's too late to call it justice, besides
justice is an illusion,
instead a legal system,
words on paper
Note that this decision comes right after the 2nd US Circuit Court of appeals rejected a Canadian's effort to sue the US government after he was renditioned to Syria where he alleges he was tortured. The court said Congress would have to expressly allow such a lawsuit. This is ridiculous because politically speaking, our corrupt congress will never vote to allow such a lawsuit. That is where the court system is supposed to intervene. So much for our legal system.
Can you say "human sacrifice," boys and girls?
Having tortured these men, guilty or innocent, for years, Holder will bring them to New York for the most theatrical possible disposition of their case.
With all the visual backdrops from 9/11, commercial media will, for a price, assemble montages to create the impression that the perpetrators of the show trials and probable resultant murders have some basis in justice or in concern for the people of New York.
Years ago, some societies chose the poor, the deformed, or the disabled to take outside of town to slaughter.
Perhaps the rationale for judgement does not matter.
The president of the United States will mouth language to the effect that justice has somehow been served and the people protected. He won't shake a rattle or pass gitchie leaves over a body, I suspect, but the rationale of the silk suit remains about the same.
I'll believe there's a trial when the man goes free on the "technicality" of being tortured and illegally held for the better part of a decade, and at least a good part of the chain of command of his torturers get convicted in trial.
Most folks are still barking up the wrong tree. And Juan Cole has an impressive enough resume that he will conclude his essay with such pap as:
"Obama just took those propaganda tools away from the enemy and began the process of repairing America's reputation and its fidelity to its own ideals."
[Pardon me while I throw up.]
And then mandatorily add some inspiring words by Thomas Jefferson and Juan Cole's Main Stream, wave-the-flag position is legitimized, and guarantees the stability and advancement of his career and more invites on MSM talk shows.
The true perpetrators of 9-11 are getting very nervous. The evidence is out there and mounting, and a lot of people are reading it and seeing it. So, yeah, put Sheikh Khalid Mohammed in some nutzed-up version of a trial. The man was waterboarded 183 times. NPR reported that a couple of days ago. How much is left of his brain and rational senses?
Obama is just another shill for the puppetmeisters, and he is playing the script on this fairly well, and excellently on the other scripts that keep the mayhem and transfer of monies to those who already have mega-monies percolating right along.
What a sad, sad waste of my vote and my reinvigorated hope.
Wake up. Study the multi-faceted evidence about 9-11 from a plethora of multi-faceted experts, including high-ranking military personnel.
And when you have a few days, take time to read this incredibly detailed history of 9-11, with lots of familiar names and the rationale for the planning and executing of this event on September 11, 2009.
www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner?popular=1
[Collateral Damage Part 1 and Part 2.]
We are an immoral nation dwelling in the abyss of dishonesty, greed, and conscienceless ambitions. A very, very dark place, and now the results are showing up everywhere.
Not so amazing that the huge flock of sheople always fall for what they want to hear. It's personally much more comfortable that way, and this is not a nation educated on Socratic dialogue [lots of questioning] or encouraged to be curious and imaginative.
[As a secondary-level English teacher in a very brief career, the NYS curriculum required me to teach "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" in a six-week time slot. Six weeks for a story that took a maximum of a half an hour for students to read? My students were so relieved to find out that I thought that was totally insane. So instead we covered as much ground on other stories and books and ideas and philosophies as I could give them. The following year I was terminated, but ahhh ... twenty years later those same students honored me as their Best Teacher Choice and I was the speaker. No school officials attended that 20th Reunion. But from that class came some in-depth thinkers. That is reward enough.]
Time to stretch your comfort limits -- mind and heart -- if you want this nation to survive ... and the earth too. It's a little matter of our home planet.
If I turn you off for lecturing, it's because I am in an elder space, long in the tooth and impatient with pap and sheople minds. And I happen to care about the millions of people dead and the millions more suffering and the steady demise of the once-abundant earth I live on. The dying of the dream of fulfilling our nation's promise as a just and fair and generous and compassionate nation embracing all who come to her shores is a constant dirge playing in my ears. Instead ... greed, dishonesty, chicanery, unconscionable brutality and cruelty ... and apathy and indifference in most that you can cut with a knife.
Juan Cole gave you what many of you wanted to hear. So now ... go stretch your comfort limits and diligently seek the truth about 9-11.
... and if you haven't yet, read or reread Chris Cooper's marvelous essay from a couple of days ago for inspiration: IF ANY QUESTION WHY WE DIED, TELL THEM BECAUSE OUR FATHERS LIED. [... and they are still at it ... again! ... and again! ... and again! ...]
/cm
A wonderful and heart-felt post, CM. Thank you!
if acquited, will Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be charged with wasting police time?
No. KSM would first be arrested for lying to Federal Torturers with false confessions then be billed for the water he used and their time.
Juan Cole initially supported Bush's invasion of Iraq. So right away you have to assume he is a big fan of using the empire's unbridled power to steal the weaker country's resources. He thought Iraq, a sovereign nation who did nothing to us, deserved to be invaded and occupied?
People who have been locked up, tortured, battered, and brain washed for seven years are not going to get a fair trial, no matter how many quotes from the "founding fathers" you use to patriot-wash it. This is to make Obama look good. It's more theater of the absurd, by the absurd, for the absurd. It'll be all absurdity, all the time. We'd better get used to it.
Now, what about investigations and trials against Bush&Congress' crimes? Is that next?
You are right.
I love those quotes from the "founding fathers". Anyone who has, as I have, read and studied those storied gentlemen knows they were supreme opportunists and experts in rhetoric. They, in fact, made it a political tradition to speak on both sides of an issue (at different times and forums, of course) so they could be quoted for, or against something as the "need" (the greed) arose.
It's high time the bowing and scraping to the founding fathers (see henry8 et al) like they were gods be labeled as bullshit. Those people were in it for THEIR life, liberty and Property, period. For the rubes, they wrote "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (nice and vague)". This a historical fact. The original words were "life, liberty and PROPERTY". For those who don't agree, study the HISTORY and background of the writing of the constitution and stop with the hero worship. You are being taken to the cleaners. Wake up henry8 et al. You have been fooled all your sad lives.
Or you can keep submitting to the authority of the rich and die for them.
Cole can be carried away by his Americanism, I fear. This isn't the first time, but it is by far the least disturbing. Evidently he can't see what is wrong with setting up a show trial where New Yorkers can take revenge on those they blame for what happened, using evidence obtained by torture. Better by far to have moved this trial to truly objective territory, the Hague, but that would have meant forgoing the ultimate act of American retribution - the execution. I sometimes wonder if any American now realises there is a profound and critical difference between revenge and justice.
It looks like Cole has been made "an offer he couldn't refuse"....
I cannot but reject the kind of easy approval that is sometimes voiced by people like Juan Cole and Fareed Zakaria at half-moral attempts at settlement of very difficult issues. I find myself more in harmony with the type of analysis that Chria Hedges offers.
It is imperative that the Al Qaeda 9/11 conspirators be brought to trial, and the issue of this being done in military commissions, military courts, or civilian courts in New York or elsewhere on US soil is secondary. It is NOT acceptable to hold them imprisoned indefinitely and subject them to torture sporadically, as Juan Cole soundly argues. However, to represent this as a moral stance deserving of near-self-congratulations is, to me, outrageous. The 9/11 atrocity was not a monstrous act of terrorism committed in a vacuum. There were well-known events leading to them, notably the manipulation of mujahideen fighters in Charlie Wilson's War. This does not excuse that, but the near-self-congratulatory tone of Juan Cole's opinion piece might mislead those who do not read Juan Cole regularly to infer that he is satisfied that America can redeeem itself without ALSO bringing to justice the perpetrators of the subsequent atrocities that were sequels of 9/11 (the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the prolonged Af-Pak war) .
A few days ago, I was filled with despair at reading the statement of Egypt's Grand Mufti, Ali Gomaa on the Fort Hood tragedy/atrocity as I compared it to a Washington Post "On Faith" opinion column by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite. Ms. Thistlethwaite factors into her analysis the psychological/psychiatric dimensions of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that, very likely, tilted major Hasan over the delicate balance between sanity and the PTSD abyss. She brings to bear on the analysis her own experience at helping psychologically-disturbed persons, and her painful decision to quit lest she herself tips over.
Grand Mufti Gomaa, by contrast, seemed to me to have too detached, uncompassionate a view of the tragedy. He does not consider the possibility that Hasan might himself have been a victim of the tragedy, a tragedy that does not deflect from the atrocity of his act(and, if proved mentally capable at the time of the act, its barbarity) . The courts will judge.
But, I have been hurting badly to hear almost all Muslim preachers, including the Imam leading the Friday prayers at the mosque where I regularly pray, directly or indirectly condemn Hasan as not being a true Muslim. I just cannot subscribe to this self-flagellation. We just don't have all the facts yet, we don't know the Major's mental state at the time he committed the atrocity. To me, there is not enough humanism in this haste to condemn: to me, it is this less-than-profound morality that is irreligious, un-Islamic.
>>But, I have been hurting badly to hear almost all Muslim preachers, including the Imam leading the Friday prayers at the mosque where I regularly pray, directly or indirectly condemn Hasan as not being a true Muslim
Your point well taken but it my belief this rush by Muslim Imams to condemn Hasan out of hand before garnering all the facts is one of fear. The State called the United States of America has them on watch and is seizing the assets Of Mosques and temples based on spurious "Links to terror"
Peoples like Glen Beck incite hatred against Muslims at large by suggesting they first must demonstrate no links to terror if they are to run for Public office.
These Muslim Imams fear even more backlash against their community unless they come out and demonstrate their "Loyalty to the State" openly.
I do not agree with their reasoning but can certainly understand it.
Gw; temple's assets siezed? Where Jews worship? In the US?
I'd be shocked into an ER. Now mosques? Quite different. Are they not illegal?
Well-stated, Fuzzytruthseeker!
I agree, of course.
As it happens, I must be one of a microscopic handful of Amerikans who doesn't pretend to know what really happened at Fort Hood.
Yes, there are enough seemingly-reliable "dots" to connect and add up to evoke the usual Lone Nut scenario vis-à-vis Hasan. And THAT conclusion, however tentative and provisional, opens the floodgates for a tsunami of speculative analysis from ALL directions: from the hysterical wingnuts' Hasan the Islamofascist Terrorist to the relatively sympathetic Hasan the Victim of the System.
My own inclination would be to favor the "victim" theory. But I refuse to buy into the virtually instantaneous "cut and dried" theories created by the frenzied and insatiable media.
Madness or badness? IMO, the irrational compulsion to rush to "figure it all out" and take a position is very much a part of the problem. There's no time to sift, weigh, contemplate, and test ideas against both one's intellect AND heart, i.e. humanity.
Instead, people and governments hysterically seize the lowest common denominator of consensus and run with it, discourse be damned.
· Yr Obd't Servant
What a crock. We have no idea whether or not those being tried are, in fact. 9/11 "co-conspirators." I haven't seen any evidence against KSM. Of course, in a legitimate legal system, these defendants would be acquitted because the delays for a fair trial have long since expired.
Fine, but as we rejoice at our goodness in "giving" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a trial, let's
not forget that not only have tortured this man for years, but his children, who were in U.S. custody, have disappeared. Or been disappeared.
And from Bush administration lawyer John Yoo, we know that "there was no law" prohibiting torture of children to influence their parents.
I am not rejoicing about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's "trial," because I think it's a case of the pot calling the kettle black: the Bush administration and their Democratic enablers in Congress should already have been hauled off to The Hague.
From Amnesty International, Canada:
In September 2002, Yusuf al-Khalid, then nine years-old, and Abed al-Khalid, then seven years-old, were reportedly apprehended by Pakistani security forces during an attempted capture of their father, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Reports by other detainees indicate that the boys were ill-treated while in Pakistani custody. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was apprehended in March 2003 and was subjected to over three years of enforced disappearance, and to other torture and ill-treatment, by the US authorities before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay, where he is currently held.
After Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's arrest in March 2003, Yusuf and Abed Al Khalid were reportedly transferred out of Pakistan to US custody -- allegedly for questioning about their father's activities and to be used as leverage to force their father to co-operate. A Sunday Telegraph (UK) article in March 2003 alleged that CIA interrogators had detained the children and that one official explained that: "We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children...but we need to know as much about their father's recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times and they are given the best of care." In the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's Combatant Status Review Tribunal in March 2007, he indicates knowledge that his children were apprehended and abused: "They arrested my kids intentionally. They are kids. They been arrested for four months, they had been abused." Their whereabouts remain unknown.
Bring America Back !!!!..........!!... Let us not be too over critical of Prez Obama and AG Holder since , if Trials
become a reality===any Lawyer worth his Defense will track
back to Building #7, WTC on 9/11.
****Questioning of the Waterboarded "Masterminds" will go something like: Are you familiar with Bldg #7? Answer from the "Masterminds" is: Yes, thats the one we did not fly
jumbo jets into.
Juan Cole is following the MSM talking points by praising this sham trial while figuratively waving the American flag and ignoring the torture used to extract confessions. Does Juan think the defendents will be able to address the torture they endured? Will the torturers will be proscecuted? Oh, we can't talk about that. As Obama says, we can't waste energy and time pursing the torturers and their accomplices. But Obama has no problem going after the victims of torture.
Read the other related articles and comments posted on CD the last 2 days. This trial is a sham with predetermined results. Atty Gen Holder won't even concede the freedom of defendents in case of acquital. And just what kind of "mastermind" does it take to plan to buy a pair of box cutters? Is the defendent the one that threatened the US prior to 9/11 because among other reasons, our foreign policy in the Middle East? I thought that was Osama bin Laden.
The defendents could be guilty, but we will never know because the US has lost its credibility in every aspect of the so called war on terror.
Well Juan makes a good case for these trials and for the return of habeas corpus. But as for justice, there really is no real justice unless it is an always and not sometimes phenomena. And justice should fit the crime whether it is the killing of 3,000 citizens in an act of terror, or the killing of 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens in an illegal act of war (state terror). And do we really know who was really responsible for 9/11. Was it allowed to take place so that the neocons could have their "Pearl Harbor" moment? Why was so much of what happened that day covered up by the fake government sponsored investigations that played out? The death of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan have continued under Obama. No one has clean hands anymore. This trial that is about to take place does not excuse the totally corrupt American enterprise that followed 9/11 and still persists. We are well past due a lot of trials... of people with American names... a good number of whom should be public officials elected and put into office by American citizens.
Bring America Back !!!!
****Sir Goldman, Please stop confusing Juan Cole with the facts, truth, and
actual history. Allow Cole to cling to the coat-tails of Prez Obama and his
figurehead Attorney General !! Mostly, let us pretend we don't know all of those
Detainees were Waterboarded into becoming "Masterminds" !!
***You see, the military-industrial complex knew Osama bin Laden would not hold
up forever as their 9/11 "Patsy", so they really did need to come up with other
alternative "Patsies", er please excuse====Masterminds !!!!
One pre-ordained theatre,how many pre-ordained secret theatres?The rest to rot,to exist at bagram or gitmo for to die would set them free.Justice indeed but for whom?Wont be able to believe cole again.Tony
Lovely. zmann you out there? Yesterday on CD I praised Juan Cole, now this effing piece. Obomba & the "American way of life?" WTF? I choked, BUT, but, Cole's ramblings about the Rethugs were 100% true.
Even sham trials are far better than torture in unnamed holes.
Juan in this piece manages to be dead on re the thugs, but ruins it by sounding cheerleaderish re BO.
Darn, and Juan's column yesterday/Informed Comment (m-f by Juan,) was QUITE Lovely!
This piece isn't too bad imho. Hopefully the trials will shift some people away from the mentality that we need go to out and blow shit up and kill innocent people every time we're attacked. Glenn Beck has been very bloodthirsty this week, expressing near delight at the execution of the DC sniper, and demanding that Major Hasan be executed once found guilty. He also said our troops should have just murdered KSM on sight, and called for "all hairy-back terrorists" to be waterboarded and executed. It's a disgusting perspective that needs to be kicked out of our discourse.
Good lord. Beck is just out of control.
Even sham trials are far better than torture in unnamed holes.
______________________________________
Eeek! No offense, azjoe, since I know you're not one of those fatuous "half-full" finger-waggers who turn up here occasionally.
But I hope you're being sarcastic, because even by inane "half-full" standards, this one's a stretch!
· Yr Obd't Servant
Hi, no OS, I meant not in principle, both lack any.
I meant though 2 things,
1.) Torture anywhere is heinous and the 1st concern is the tortured. If they are being tried in NY, sham or fair, they are not being tortured. Yeah!
2.) Something well may come to light. These guys will have great lawyers. Who will have investigators. Who will get tips. From around the globe.
Thus, I stand by my declaration. As would anyone being tortured. The horror.
Now OS, no offense, but if you can put a logic to your questioning of my serious comment, (not sarcastic,) please do; since I know you think carefully, I look forward to it.
(I too posit that Obomba wants his ass re-elected and is planning to have Holder embarrassing bush's torture lawyers & others just b4/during yhe '12 campaign; this sham trial would factor into that correctly, time & logic wise.
Now that you mention it, I see what you mean. I apologize for my hasty comeback.
I probably have to plead guilty to first-degree hypervigilance regarding the persisent inane attempt to find redeeming positives that is such a staple in political discussion boards (and the articles being discussed).
You know, the kind of Pangloss 'n Polyanna syndrome that causes delusional thought and irrational behavior, e.g. agreeing that a party [cough-Democratic-cough] or candidate [cough-cough-cough-cough] may indeed have fallen like a chicken sandwich into an outhouse toilet, but the thing to do is fish it right back out again to check which parts are still EDIBLE!
Anyway, my knee-jerk reaction was too harsh. I take your point.
· Yr Obd't Servant
OS, You have the capacity friend, to drop me; I'm still laughing. And I certainly share your horror at the thought, visceral reaction to the notion, that any of these clowns we elect have ever known a Redeeming Quality, or committed a Non-Criminal Act. Which they've not. Bred in lairs, they only slink through light briefly when the smell of corruption and money opens their eyes, quickly they find their way back to damp, darknesss, D.C., where they gorge on human flesh, flesh only fed though, only fattened though.....on chicken sandwiches...
OS, sire, I await thy direction.
Juan, what about our continuing to torture prisoners at Bagram? Guantanamo is in the spotlight, but Bagram is out of sight, out of mind.
Wise up Juan.
The fair trial given to KSM is being used to stealthily cement a system of unfair trials for everyone else.
Little noticed or reported yesterday was Eric Holder's other announcement that some detainees would be tried before bogus Military Commissions.
It's rather apparent that the anger of the John Boehner's of the world is less than genuine.
Obama is doing the dirty work, constructing the illegitimate Military Commissions that the dimwitted Bush was unable to. Obama's past life as a Constitutional Professor provides him perfect cover to erect America's new kangaroo court. The fascist right is more than happy to let Obama do the heavy lifting.
The tantrum the regressives are throwing is a diversionary charade for the appetites of television audiences.
When Jeb or Sarah takes the Presidency in 2012 they'll have Obama to thank for a justice system that allows them to achieve a pre-determined outcome of guilt or imprisonment in ANY CASE they desire.
KSM is merely the distracting headline act. His guilt is all but certain anyway.
The real prize is a beautiful new justice system that always works in favor of the king!
Here's a link to an excellent article in yesterday's Common Dreams line-up:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/13-4
Glenn Greenwald sure nails it....
By declaring the factions that joined to fly planes into the towers the enemy in a WAR, the Bushites elevated them in importance 100 fold.
So whoever most of these men are, and I believe all were captured in Pakistan, not on some fictitious "battlefield," they are raised in status to 'combatants' rather than possible co-conspirators in a murderous act.
Perhaps it served the purposes of Cheney and company, but for the interests of the American people, this characterization of those on trial was stupid beyond measure.
"...Obama just took those propaganda tools away from the enemy and began the process of repairing America's reputation and its fidelity to its own ideals..."
- What utter horsesh*t. Cole misses the whole point, which (as per Greenwald's analysis) is that Obama/Holder are putting on trial only those prisoners who are sure to be convicted. Other prisoners are only getting military trials, where evidence obtained by torture & hearsay is admissible. Still other prisoners (in fact, the great majority of those at Gitmo) aren't getting any trials at all.
Furthermore, the trials for the 5 prisoners in civilian courts are only show trials, intended precisely as "propaganda", to justify the Bush/Obama "War on Terror". The trials have nothing to do with "justice." They are intended merely to reinforce the lie that the ongoing US imperialist wars are about (the uninvestigated official story of) 9/11, rather than what they really are: a US military grab for oil, pipeline routes, & permanent bases in Central Asia & the Middle East.
Fine enough post, and Cole does omit much. I think you're unfortunately right about the trials in NYC being show trials for propaganda ..., as you explained.
I don't see how the "mastermind" who was tortured 183 times in 2003 or 2004, alone, can really be considered guilty, now, after all of this torture; unless he made this claim, being the "mastermind", before this torture began, which I doubt he did.
The 9-11 Commission inquiry [definitely] needs to be done again, this time with thorough honesty, with no more obstructions from the President, VP, and the CIA, as happened the first time, which produced a report that several or most of the commissioners [denounced] as being ... crap, while some of them seriously blamed the Pres., VP and CIA for all of their obviously criminal obstructions of due process of inquiry.
That is the most important need right now and if conducted, then some very dark and disturbing (for many Americans who haven't carefully studied the 9-11 attacks research) truths will surely be found. There've been bogus 9-11 "truthers" coming out with bogus "conspiracy theories", which appeared to be for the purpose of publicly discrediting the real "truthers"; but the latter have well survived and continue to push for a new and wholly truthful inquiry, and the least all of these people agree with is that the Bush admin. either let the 9-11 attacks happen, deliberately so, or did something worse; like having been behind the attacks happening, including in the sense of orchestration. Otherwise, not all "truthers" claim to believe more, while some have seriously researched and have presented some strong "conspiracy theories", which will be very difficult to find any corporate news media people writing about other than in derogatory terms; because they want to maintain their incomes, related social benefits, and pensions, instead of being promptly fired for being critically objective and truthful in their reporting.
I don't like the idea of the five Guant. Bay detainees being tried in NYC under U.S. federal law, that is, not if this will be a trial by a jury of U.S. citizens, for too many citizens probably would not really provide a fair hearing; they'd blindly or hastily convict. From what I have gathered, such convictions would mean the death penalty. So if it's trial by jury of citizens, then these citizens had better be impartial, politically, and really in other respects, as well. I'd prefer a trial by international jury, yet the Hague was used to assassinate former Yugoslavian President Milosevic, and international authorities credibly saw to making sure that Yasser Arafat died. Whether or not the latter is what happened is not something I can be absolutely certain about, but it credibly is what happened and I suspected this immediately. In the case of President Milosevic, it was obvious that the Hague was used to assassinate him, "gently", as opposed to brutally shooting him in the head or hanging or electrocuting or gassing him, which wouldn't have made good publicity for the U.S. and its allies.
Juan Cole refers to the Repub. party being guilty with regards to the GWoT torture practices and corruption with banks, but the Repub. Party is not solely guilty in either of these cases. We know that the Dem. Party also is very guilty and that there's nothing new about this.
Hi RichM--Do, please, post your comment at Juan's blog.
OK, I just submitted it (changing the phrase of "utter horsesh*t" to "malarkey" or something suitably polite). But I notice that the comments have to be approved by Prof Cole, before they're displayed. So we'll see what happens.
Nice run of comments there, many citing Greenwald's essay and POV as you did.
A gray-bearded emeritus professor of politics at Princeton, Sheldon Wolin, argues that we're becoming an "inverted totalitarian" society in his new book "Democracy Incorporated" I just bought. Have you heard of this concept before? At first glance, it looks like another way of expressing "corporate communism."
The continual shrinking of the real economy and lowering of living standards will make for a very interesting 2010 political season.
No, I'd never heard of Sheldon Wolin or "inverted totalitarianism." Sounds interesting, though. // I agree that 2010 promises to be a very interesting political season. There indeed will be a rising awareness of the general decline in living standards, as time goes on. For a while, the PR problem can be managed by claiming employment is "a lagging indicator" of so-called "recovery." But this trick will work only for a few more months. If by next spring, there's still massive unemployment, the public mood is going to get very ugly. Cheap PR tricks will only conceal the reality for a limited amount of time.
My economic prognosis for 2010 is grim for the USA as overcapacity continues to cause bankruptcies in the retail and service sectors where most people work, which means increasing unemployment and the continued slowing of money's velocity, while financial transactions mask GDP's decline rate. And the Great Recession will continue to be US-centric as China, India and other countries smartly responnd to their own stimulus measures (China has resumed its 9%+ growth rate) and can now rely on their own internal markets to drive growth--The USA's exalted positions as "consumer of last resort" and "lynch-pin of the global economy" no longer exist.
I think you nailed it pretty well Rich M.Bagram and Gitmo are still there nothing has changed except the name of the "conflicts".I think we are descending to the status of a "Banana" republic Honduras comes to mind. peace
and don't forget extrordinary rendition--so let's not drink the "Obama is great" Kool Ade--he'sajust a continuation of Dumbya slightly less pale.
Poet
duplicate sorry
"Obama just took those propaganda tools away from the enemy and began the process of repairing America's reputation and its fidelity to its own ideals."
Considering Glen Greenwald's analysis this is just neo-nationalist garbage.---though the quotes from Jefferson are good .... but, "propaganda tools away from the enemy" implies that there actually is a "war on terror"....it sounds like something from 1984...
My thoughts as well. No matter how the media tries to spin things, we the people always end up getting the business end of the government screwdriver.