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The Administration Guts Its Own Argument for 9/11 Trials
"What I'm absolutely clear about is that I have complete confidence in the American people and our legal traditions and the prosecutors, the tough prosecutors from New York who specialize in terrorism" -- Barack Obama, yesterday.
"Holder said five other Guantanamo detainees would be tried by military tribunals. The five include Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri, who is accused of masterminding the 2000 attack on the USS Cole warship in Yemen; and Canadian Omar Khadr, accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan" -- NPR, yesterday.
"'Administration officials say they expect that as many as 40 of the 215 detainees at Guantanamo will be tried in federal court or military commissions . . . . and about 75 more have been deemed too dangerous to release but cannot be prosecuted because of evidentiary issues and limits on the use of classified material' . . . If true, that means that there are 75 so-called 'Fifth Category' detainees who might be subject to indefinite detention without trial" -- The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder, yesterday, quoting The Washington Post.
* * * * *
Can anyone reconcile Obama's homage to "our legal traditions" and his professed faith in jury trials in the New York federal courts with the reality of what his administration is doing: i.e., denying trials to a large number of detainees, either by putting them before military commissions or simply indefinitely imprisoning them without any process at all?
During his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Eric Holder struggled all day to justify his decision to put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on trial because he has no coherent principle to invoke. He can't possibly defend the sanctity of jury trials in our political system -- the most potent argument justifying what he did -- since he's the same person who is simultaneously denying trials to Guantanamo detainees by sending them to military commissions and even explicitly promising that some of them will be held without charges of any kind.
Once you endorse the notion that the Government has the right to imprison people not captured on any battlefield without giving them trials -- as the Obama administration is doing explicitly and implicitly -- what convincing rationale can anyone offer to justify giving Mohammed and other 9/11 defendants a real trial in New York? If you're taking the position that military commissions and even indefinite detention are perfectly legitimate tools to imprison people -- as Holder has done -- then what is the answer to the Right's objections that Mohammed himself belongs in a military commission? If the administration believes Omar Khadr belongs in a military commission, and if they believe others can be held indefinitely without any charges, why isn't that true of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? By denying jury trials to a large number of detainees, Obama officials have completely gutted their own case for why they did the right thing in giving Mohammed a trial in New York.
Even worse, Holder was reduced to admitting -- even boasting -- that this concocted multi-tiered justice system (trials for some, commissions for others, indefinite detention for the rest) enables the Government to pick and choose what level of due process someone gets based on the Government's assessment as to where and how they're most likely to get a conviction:
Courts and commissions are both essential tools in our fight against terrorism . . . On the same day I sent these five defendants to federal court, I referred five others to be tried in military commissions. I am a prosecutor, and as a prosecutor, my top priority was simply to select the venue where the government will have the greatest opportunity to present the strongest case with the best law. . . . At the end of the day, it was clear to me that the venue in which we are most likely to obtain justice for the American people is a federal court.
Does that remotely sound like a "justice system"? If you're accused of being a Terrorist, there's not one set procedure used to determine your guilt; instead, the Government has a roving bazaar of various processes which it, in its sole discretion, picks for you based on ensuring that it will win. Even worse, Holder repeatedly assured Senators that the administration would continue to imprison 9/11 defendants even in the very unlikely case that they were acquitted, citing what they previously suggested was their Orwellian authority of so-called "post-acquittal detention powers." Is there any better definition of a "show trial" than one in which the defendant has no chance of ever being released even if acquitted, because the Government will simply thereafter assert the power to hold him indefinitely without charges?
I understand that sending even a limited number of Terrorism suspects to federal court is politically difficult and controversial, as the last couple of days have demonstrated. But by refusing to embrace and defend the core principle of justice at stake here -- that a distinguishing feature of our political system is that we don't imprison or kill people without charging them with a crime and proving their guilt in a real court, and that military commissions and indefinite detention are un-American (which Democrats argued under Bush) -- the Obama administration has made it far more difficult for it to defend what it is doing, as well as for those who want to defend their decision to give trials to 9/11 defendants.
To see how that works, here is part of the exchange I had on MSNBC this week with George Pataki, while debating trials for 9/11 defendants:
MR. GREENWALD: If you look at how the British treated the people who did the London subway bombings, the Spanish who treated the people who did the Madrid subway bombings -- even India just put on trial the sole surviving terrorist who perpetrated the Mumbai massacre last year. Even Indonesia gave trials in their real cities to the people who blew up the nightclubs in Bali.
It's only the American conservatives who are feeding the terrorist agenda by saying that we're too scared to hold trials --
MR. RATIGAN: Hold on, Glenn.
MR. PATAKI: Can I respond to that, Dylan? Only the -- only the -- only the American conservatives? Then tell me why Obama and Holder are using military tribunals against those who blow up Americans in acts of war overseas? They're just picking these particular terrorists for trial in New York because they blew up civilians in New York. So what their logic is, "Kill thousands of civilians and you can get a civilian trial; kill one or two overseas, and we're going to use military tribunals."
That makes no sense.
For those wanting to defend the administration, what's the answer to that? The same thing happened when Rep. Nadler, as part of the same segment, tried to defend the Obama administration's decision to try the 9/11 defendants in New York:
REP. NADLER: I think that our tradition is that people accused of heinous crimes get trials, and they get trials in the area in which the crime is committed, which is right here. And I think it's exactly the right thing to do. . . .That's the way it ought to be, and we ought to show the world that we adhere to our traditions of justice and that these terrorists are not going to cause us to abandon the law.
MR. PATAKI: ... We are going to use military tribunals. They're saying they're perfectly fine for some terrorists, but these terrorists they're going to try here. What's the justification for that, Jerry?
REP. NADLER: Well, I -- well, I don't think there is any justification.
MR. PATAKI: I don't either.
The administration should have the courage of its convictions and defend jury trials as a linchpin of American justice, which would entail giving them to all Terrorism suspects not captured on any battlefield. But by refusing to do so -- by exhibiting the very cowardice of which Holder accused Republicans, i.e. denying Terrorism suspects a trial -- the administration has no cogent argument to make in its own defense. It's just another case of the administration wanting to bask in the rhetorical glory of "the rule of law" while simultaneously trampling on it for petty political convenience.
UPDATE: The blogger Patterico -- who, notably, is a prosectuor himself and thus inclined to be empathetic with prosecutorial goals -- nonetheless compiles additional evidence to criticize Holder's decision as follows:
You can see that what we have is an administration that is choosing where to try the detainees, not based on some principle or neutral protocol (as they claim), but based on where they can win. They're rigging the game.
And if they lose, they won't let him go anyway.
This is just further evidence that the KSM trial will be a show trial.
It's worth reading the arguments from a prosecutor about why the administration's conduct is such a breach of basic justice, even as they cynically wrap themselves in the rhetoric of the sanctity of jury trials and the rule of law.
UPDATE II: For a crystal clear refutation of the claim that it's normal to use military commissions for the crimes at issue here, see this comment from the always-enlightening Pow Wow, which is based on this equally enlightening interview by Marcy Wheeler of Lt. Col (and now-Law Professor) David Frakt, highlighting the numerous myths on which the case for military commissions is predicated.
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45 Comments so far
Show AllJustice is an illusion, a concept of fair treatment.
This pertains to a perverted legal system, i.e.,
written laws and arbitrary interpretations issued from a perverted country.
This is but a symptom. Search for the root. Why would some of these defendants dedicate their lives to fighting america? Do they feel oppressed by occupying armies? Are they fed up with random violence that falls from the sky? Is it frustration towards their own governments, the leaders of which sleep with foreigners to get rich from stolen resources while the common people live in poverty?
Bring ALL soldiers home from ALL foreign lands.
Who knows? Maybe if we acted like friends we could make some.
Excellent!
They may be using military trials instead of civil trials to curtail the disclosure of any inconvenient details that might contradict the myth of what happened that day as told to us by the "official" 911 Commission.
The more the public is shielded from from any embarrassing disclosure, the less likely they are to start asking questions like:
Where did the gold go that was in the WTC basement?
Why didn't they disclose who had the heavy short on the specific airline stocks?
Why were members of the Saudi Royal Family allowed to fly from this country when all other non-military aircraft were grounded?
Why didn't jets intercept the airliners since they had numerous warnings of terrorist attacks?
Why did Ashcroft stop flying commercial airlines, citing an unidentified "threat" in July 2001?
Why did FEMA lie about their presence in New York on 9/11?
Why didn't the Secret Service hustle Dubya out of the classroom?
Why did passengers or crew members on three of the flights all use the term box cutters?
Where are the flight recorders?
How did Bush see the first plane crash on live camera?
How did they come up with the "culprits" so quickly?
How did they find the terrorist's cars at the airports so quickly?
Why didn't NIST test for demolition explosives?
Why was all of the debris (evidence) rushed away so quickly and recycled so we could not conduct further tests on the material?
There are hundreds more, but we can't have the sheep asking such questions!! Only a few of us kooks want to know anything more beyond "those ter'rists hate Merica."
I am a bit of a kook like you when it comes to challenging the many holes in the 9/11 Commission official narrative. However, of the fourteen hypothetical questions you list, most raise issues that could not by the wildest stretch of the imagination be stirred into a federal jury trial by even the most skilled defense counsel on behalf of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his conspiracy codefendants.
The one area that very well may be discoverable, and potentially could be admissible at an anticipated KSM trial in New York, is evidence of the Pakistani ISI's preexisting relationship with KSM and the Central Intelligence Agency in the days, months, and years preceding September 11th. You can bet your ass there will be a battle royal as government prosecutors try to keep any such evidence out, but federal judges do have considerable discretion in their evidentiary rulings. Also, the perpetual joker in the deck is a federal criminal defendant's right of self-representation. What happens if KSM wants to stand up and tell the jury that he, Mohammed Atta, and others were all asset informants of the ISI and/or the CIA while planning, preparing, and carrying out the dirty deed?
Unfortunately, it sure looks like whatever mental state Khalid Sheik Mohammed may have been in when the Pakistani ISI turned him over in his wife beater T-shirt to the CIA for questioning, the man is crazy as an outhouse rat today. Thus, the smart money says there never will be an actual trial at all.
These defendants have already announced they want to commit suicide by executioner so that they can go out wrapped in martyrdom. Uncle Sam will happily oblige.
In that manner, the 9/11/01 lid will probably stay on. If your questions are ever to be answered, in all likelihood they will have to be raised in some other forum.
Bill from Saginaw
As the French say, be careful what you hate because that is what you will become. We emulated Hitler by invading a sovereign nation (or nations) without cause. Now we are emulating Stalin by staging show trials. The world knew what was going on behind the scenes in the Soviet Union and exactly what the outcomes would be. So even from a PR standpoint --our moral sense is already dead--the New York trials are a mistake.
ChrisII
Very good point as it certainly appears that, given the partisan statements uttered by Obama and AG Holder, the fix is in. All that needs to happen, it would seem, is, to paraphrase a line from the film noir classic Out of The Past, to build that gallows high.
It`s not the NY trials that are the mistake. Those aren`t that likely to be anything but open and shut cases, after all the defendants in those trials want to be martyred. It`s the military trials that the world is going to see as kangaroo courts, and by holding those the rest of the us judicial system will be seen as nothing more than a kangaroo system of punishing the scapegoats. The longer your nation allows this dry rot of corruption and moral leprosy to continue...
When I was young it was said by yanks that everyone wanted to be an American, I never believed it then - as I wasn`t an American, and never have wanted to be one. I think that when I am old, (or maybe not so old) no one will want to be an American...
Of course "our(america) moral sense is already dead."
america has no morals and is plum out of sense.
Excellent points by GeorgeHayDuke. Also, the selectivity that Glenn Greenwald mentions by the United States as to where they wish to try these alleged terrorists seems similar to when either prosecutors or defense attorney file motions in order to get what they consider the most favorable judge to preside over their case which is called judge shopping.
It is also surprising that Glenn Greenwald did not mention that the validity of trying Mohammed itself remains seriously in doubt considering the fact that he was waterboarded over 180 times by the United States. It would certainly seem that the judge on that case, if he or she has any semblance of being impartial and does not believe Obama's assertion that Mohammed should be convicted, must grant a defense motion to dismiss based on tainted evidence which was produced as a result of its client being tortured by our less than humane military and government.
Traditionally, the remedy for tainted evidence is to exclude the tainted evidence, not automatic dismissal of the underlying criminal indictment. If there still exists sufficient untainted evidence to convict the defendant of the crime charged without using the fruits of government misconduct, the trial can still proceed.
Just because the arresting officers broke Jack the Ripper's legs behind the station house to induce a confession of guilt does not mean that the murderer gets to hobble out of jail a free man.
Bill from Saginaw
Bill
Your point does nothing to undermine my argument which is if the defense files a motion to exclude that evidence which is presumably the basis for the government's case against Mohammed then that must mean that the government's position will crumble because the evidence which is the foundation of their argument against the defendant case must then collapse, [that is, if the judge does the right thing], by not allowing Mohammed's testimony to be entered into evidence. Again, the testimony by Mohammed is most likely what the government's entire case is built upon and if the judge grants the theoretical defense motion to exclude his evidence, which was obtained through the most specious and illegal of reasons, then the government should have no substantial evidence which would enable it not only to continue its case but also to emerge victorious. But as I stated in another comment undoubtedly the fix is in because the U.S. needs someone to use as a scapegoat and the last people that Holder would decide to prosecute are the ones that very well may have had a hand in orchestrating what took place on Sept. 11, 2001 and that would be certain members of the Bush administration and the top people in the military command structure. To paraphrase a motto from the military, the politicians, either Democrat or Republican, usually end up taking care of their own.
I'm no jurist, but it seems logical that any prosecuting attorney will do just about anything to win a conviction. The flaw in Mr. Greenwald's (and even the right's) argument is that it takes the AG's position as final, as when he posits the question: "Does that remotely sound like a "justice system?" No, it sounds like the administration's or DOJ position. Judges and courts have already shot down many of the arguments the Obama administration is recycling here. I trust they will do the same as the legality of various aspects of this work themselves out. I dare say that even if acquitted and STILL held, the larger judicial process will intervene and restore habeas corpus.
The system established in the Constitution works for the worst of the worst. It could even work to bring presidents, vice presidents, their staffs, generals, secretaries of the government -- and whomever else is implicated in the crimes the US has been committing with impunity -- to justice.
coupeditor: "Judges and courts have already shot down many of the arguments the Obama administration is recycling here. I trust they will do the same as the legality of various aspects of this work themselves out. I dare say that even if acquitted and STILL held, the larger judicial process will intervene and restore habeas corpus."
It seems that you are playing the long game here, meaning that the judicial process will right things, eventually.
Remember that for many of the prisoners held by the US, they have already won their habeus appeals. Nevertheless, they languish in prison. It has been six, seven, eight years already for thousands of them in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba and in still secret prisons where torture is practiced.
Even if Obama deems it acceptable to try a few of them in the normal US courts, the government has already stated that regardless of what judges, including supreme court judges say, the prisoners will remain captives indefinitely. I have not heard the US supreme court contradict Obama on this, have you?
So even if a few captives appear in "real" courts in New York, they have been threatened with perpetual imprisonement and death regardless of the verdict. So what, pray tell, is the credibility of any prospective verdict or possible plea agreement. How can you defend yourself in court if you know that the harder you fight the charges, the more likely the government will simply spirit you away to a military commission with a "jury" of Dick Cheney clones. conversely, how can a plea of guilty be believed if the plea is being made to escape threats of summary execution or torture or perpetual imprisonement.
As you can see, what Obama is doing is not what a good prosecutor would do, seeking the best outcome for the state in its upholding of the law. Obama is creating show trials in Cuba and if he doesn't get the verdicts he wants there or in New York, he is changing the rules until he does. And as Greenwald says the US government has already said that even if the show trials don't go the way they want, they will continue to hold the prisoners anyway. This is a systemic failure of the US justice and political systems and is very different from what is practiced in democracies elsewhere where everyone has a right to a fair trial.
What a tangled web we weave...
LSAT questions require law school applicants to give a legal opinion on a case, then for a different case give a legal opinion that does not invalidate the opinion given for the previous case. It can be very confusing. How did Holder manage to get into law school?
In one of his brilliant comic diatribes Lewis Black stated that the most confusing and disillusioning thing after the ruthless invasion of Iraq (and the lack of WMD's) was that his government didn't even bother to futher LIE to him - that previously, he was secure in knowing that the government would always lie to him.
It seems now that the Obama administration has taken it a step further. In a departure from Bush and company's nasty indifference, Obama Inc. has come out to blatantly state that WINNING IS ALL THAT MATTERS. Why are lies and indifference no longer enough for these people?!!!
Now they have to prove, through more elaborate pretensions, that their DISDAIN for the Constitution is even greater than Bush and company's.
OH!
So THIS is the change we can believe in! Now we can all go about our little lives proudly knowing that we no longer have to live under the illusion that those annoying and frustrating notions about integrity, equal justice, and/or human rights will continue to hold us back from our predetermined superiority over each other.
The truth is setting us free!
Forget about egotism, this is one for the id!
Glenn Greenwald----THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN!!!!!
Mr. Greenwald----You are a Great American if I may say so!!!
You are also a brilliant man! Oh so much. Good day!
Mr. Pataki and Mr. Nadler quoted above both refer to the
suspects to be tried as "these terrorists..."-- not as SUSPECTS.
I have heard both AG Holder and Pres. Obama claim that they will be convicted, that no other option is possible or acceptable.
In the minds of each, they are GUILTY with or without a trial.
What they are saying and threatening to do is hold a kangaroo court, with a predetermined outcome. This is a blatant abortion of justice and unconstitutional. Add to this the detention of suspects for far longer than any other country with similar cases (Britain, Spain, India, Indonesia) -- WITHOUT CHARGES--
and the word totalitarianism comes to mind.
The question also comes to mind: how long will it be before this blatant disregard for rule of law and the Constitution will come down on you and me?
"The question also comes to mind: how long will it be before this blatant disregard for rule of law and the Constitution will come down on you and me?"
As we discover that Wall Street will need much, much more bailout money to cover their derivative bets that are waiting to implode, the Administration (whoever it might be) will jab the tax payers again to ensure the ultra wealthy do not feel too much discomfort with their loses. You can be kicked out of your house and live on the streets and you are just a statistic. The Big Boyzzz have an Uncle Sam parachute to ensure they don'y enjoy the same fate.
Don't you wish the government would cover your speculative bets in the casino? Especially when you make them with heavily leveraged, borrowed money? Yet they still have the gall to call this free market capitalism! HAHAHA!
You see, only "players" can make it out of the primaries and into the big game in the White House. No matter how much "Change" they promise, they must pass muster with our owners first.
Anyway, when they need to milk us yet again to move the little remaining wealth amongst us peons upward, my guess is many in the Middle and Working Class will say ENOUGH and stop paying taxes or find other creative ways to revolt. That's when they bring it on home for the rest of us to enjoy. We cannot disrespect the wishes of our owners!
"The question also comes to mind: how long will it be before this blatant disregard for rule of law and the Constitution will come down on you and me?"
I have a sneaking suspicion that the first "enemy combatants" charged on US soil will be those who finally decide that they have had enough of the class war and decide to fight back against the economic "status quo." Note that Northcom has been deployed to aid in cases of "civil unrest?"
This blatently unconstitutional "legal" system that has been set up for use against so-called terrorists can be used against American citizens trying to bring down an unjust economic system just as easily as it has been used against foreigners fighting against illegal invaders of their country. We are finding ourselves in a very precarious position here!
Right on aussiedog! We're the next enemy combatants if we refuse to happily accept our new serf status.
This seems to be the only cogent reason for installing the new US system of justice.
By not treating terrorists as criminals but defining them as enemy combatants the Bush administration opened the door to a class of domestic enemy combatants. The enemy within that seeks to overturn the existing social order can now be imprisoned indefinitely at the whim of the President or his appointee.
Kangaroo court? You betcha! To paraphrase Obama: first we are going to give you a trial for the sheeple, and then we are going to hang you!
Sad as it is to say, I think I found Bush and Cheneys position on this a little less distastful...Of Course, I totally disagree with their position, but as least they had a consistent if somewhat fascist internal logic to it:
"The USA is a Global Empire that can do what it wants to anybody"
Obama's twisted logic has the ability to do more damage....civilian trial by jury (with his publically stated predetermined outcomes...death) for some, military kangaroo courts for those with slim evidence, including a Canadian 15 year old "child soldier" who was dragged there by his Father.....and illegal indefinate detention without hope for a trial for the rest of the goatherders and taxidrivers rounded up and sold the the USA, whom they have ZERO evidence against.
Here is a question...where are they gong to get an unbiased jury of Kalid Mohammads "peers" in NYC?
The ONLY way possible to get ANY sembelance of a "fair trial" way to deal with these alleged terrorists is to send them to the International Criminal Court.
New theory:
The reason so many American pussies are shitting their pants at the very thought of some alleged terrorist stepping foot on American soil is because they've been so warped by action films and shows that they actually believe a sleeper cell band of heavily armed real terrorists will find a way to outsmart and outgun the U.S. Military, CIA, FBI, SS, NSA, and SWAT, free said alleged terrorist, and then set off a nuke in Nashville.
Could happen, you know, so f**k the Constitution, okay? I'M AFRAID!!!
"Post-acquittal detention powers"??
My blood is now running cold, and I need to vomit.
here's an ironic piece of news....sad as it is for the individual concerned and his family's :
an American citizen of chinese descent ..a geologist working in china for an american company - has been under Chinese Detention for TWO YEARS - and allegedly tortured with lit cigarettes pressed to his arm...the case has been a "quiet" news - unknown to most americans..detained under suspicion of stealing industrial secrets from china concerning mining .
isn't it then ironic that - a chinese/heritage american - from the land of the "free" - happens to be detained by a foreign state under suspicion - and the USA , with president obama had to "raise the issue" with china 0n his recent state visit?....
the point:
what are the cases of the ones the USA "indefinitely detains" UNDER SUSPICION ONLY...and only on the strength of "potential" according to SUSPICIONS only...that are given no court appearances, and even if, according to the US government, EVEN IF tried and found NOT GUILTY -- THE US GOVERNMENT STILL RETAINS THE RIGHT TO HOLD THEM INDEFINITELY ANYWAY?
and a further point:
how can america RETAIN ANY claims about rights and "rule of law" and "due process" when an american citizen - today or some day - and perhaps many more , for one reason or another, innocent perhaps even, or regardless of guilt, - is HELD incommunicado and held "indefinitely" by foreign governments for the SAME things or similar things the USA practices openly and VERY broadly :
"indefinite detention, torture, incommunicado, kangaroo courts, found GUILTY on mere suspicions, Detain indefinitely EVEN if found NOT guilty?"
obama "RAISED THE ISSUE" with CHINA...on the case of ONE AMERICAN CITIZEN ?
how many "indefinitely detained" SUSPECTS by america are held by the USA not just in guantanamo, but abu ghraib, afghanistan and MANY more "black spots" across the globe
who are innocent or by mere suspicions?
The New York Times
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November 21, 2009
Obama Raised Issue of American Held in China
By KEITH BRADSHER
HONG KONG — The Chinese government has held an American oil geologist on suspicion of stealing state secrets for nearly two years, prompting President Obama to raise the issue during his visit to Beijing this week, the American Embassy in Beijing said Friday.
The geologist, Xue Feng, has also been tortured by interrogators who pressed cigarettes into his arms, according to people seeking his release who have had access to him in custody.
Chinese prosecutors indicted Mr. Xue for theft of state secrets for having signed a contract on behalf of his employer at the time, IHS Inc., for the purchase of an oil industry database from a Chinese company, said Jerome Cohen, a New York University law professor who is seeking Dr. Xue’s release. Mr. Xue’s arrest received no public attention until this week and remains mired in a lengthy legal proceeding in Beijing.
The case raises broad issues for foreign businesses operating in China, Mr. Cohen said. Disclosure of Dr. Xue’s legal difficulties comes after China also arrested four executives from Rio Tinto of Australia last summer and charged them with commercial bribery and trade secrets infringement for gathering information during iron ore price negotiations, although an initial threat to prosecute them for theft of state secrets was not pursued.
It is unusual for an American to spend as long in custody as Dr. Xue without attracting public notice. For the past two months, Dr. Xue has been pleading with consular officials to tell his friends to make his case public, said David Rowley, a University of Chicago professor of geophysical sciences who has co-written papers with Dr. Xue and has been campaigning for his release for more than a year.
IHS and Dr . Xue’s wife have both tried to keep the case quiet while seeking his release.
Dr. Xue’s detention was first reported on Thursday by The Associated Press, which said that it decided to publish because of Dr. Xue’s wishes to go public and because of the lack of progress in negotiations for his freedom. The New York Times decided to publish because the American Embassy was willing to discuss it publicly, because Dr. Xue wanted it public and because Mr. Cohen said that he believed Dr. Xue would be more likely to benefit than be harmed from greater international attention to his case.
Ed Mattix, a spokesman for IHS Inc., said, “We have been advised that any further communication on the situation could be detrimental to the diplomatic efforts. ” Mr. Mattix said that the advice came from “outside advisers” retained by the company, not from the State Department, and he declined to identify the advisers.
Chinese officials have not indicated to IHS that they suspect the company, a 3,800-employee global consulting and data company based in Englewood, Colo., of any wrongdoing, he added.
Mr. Mattix said that Dr. Xue left the company six months before his arrest; Mr. Cohen said that Dr. Xue’s detention was the result of work done for IHS, and was critical of IHS for not doing more to help Dr. Xue, particularly during the first months after his detention.
Mr. Mattix said that IHS’s only priority was to help win Dr. Xue’s release. Mr. Mattix declined to discuss whether IHS was providing legal assistance to Dr. Xue.
Dr. Xue and his wife were raised in China and still have family there. They moved to the United States and gained American citizenship. However, the Chinese government has often taken the position that its citizens cannot renounce their citizenship without permission by becoming citizens of another country.
Mr. Rowley tried on Friday to reach Dr. Xue’s wife to ask if she would be willing to discuss the case. He said that she did not answer her phone and did not respond immediately to an e-mail.
Susan Stevenson, a spokeswoman for the American Embassy in Beijing, said that consular officials has visited Dr. Xue in detention more than 20 times, most recently on Nov. 13. “The U.S. government is concerned for Dr. Xue’s well-being and rights to due process under Chinese law,” she said, adding that the embassy had raised his case repeatedly with high-level Chinese officials.
Mr. Cohen said that greater public attention had a strong potential to help in Dr. Xue’s case. “There’s always the risk that it may backfire, but there is also the risk that it could work,” he said.
The Associated Press said that a spokesman for the No. 1 Intermediate Court in Beijing has said that Dr. Xue’s trial was “still in mid-process.”
KSM undoubtedly lied under torture.
With this taint of duplicity hanging over him, why would any of his testimony be believed?
Has anyone speculated on whether the way the U.S. handles these underlings will affect how it handles the possible trials of Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri? Personally, I would want them tried in civilian courts . . . and they wouldn't have a defense of having been tortured, or so it seems.
Why would we assume a trial of bin Ladin or al Zawahiri would be any other than a show trial under any circumstances?
The US has based two invasions on the pretext that the 9/11 attack was the responsibility of foreign governmental powers--3 invasions if you want to count the US murders of Pakistanis and proxy murders by the Pakistani government.
If they wish to assert this, how can they not treat a bin Ladin or an al Zawahiri as a foreign combatant?
Holder and 0bama and the lot of them have made very little moves towards any consistency of any kind, and the previous gorillas made fewer
:
Apparently, when the US tries political prisoners, it consults its advertising people, media experts and choreographers before it talks to its lawyers.
If this different than the Stalinist show trials, it is not different in its level of depravity.
No one here wants to demand an independent investigation of 9/11 !!!
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed please explain the following:
1. How did you choose the pilot training facilities for your operatives?
2. How did you convince superiors in the FBI to not investigate
when agents in the field were demanding investigations of strange
people wanting to learn how to fly planes, but not take off or land?
3. How did you get the CIA to issue visas for your operatives out of
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia?
4. How did you get the U.S. Department of Defense to pass an additional
$100,000 through the ISI of Pakistan to Mohammed Atta in Florida?
5. Now, that I think about it, How did you get the Saudi Royal Family
to fund your operatives in San Diego?
6. How did you get NORAD to have a training mission and "Stand Down" and
watch for more than one hour as the planes were hijacked?
7. As President Bush stated that you had confessed,"Mohammed told us that
his operatives were to place the explosives low enough to make sure
that people could not escape." So, how did you get the explosives into
the Twin Towers and World Trade Center #7?
In case you people hadn't noticed, Obama agreed to NOT investigate the past! His job is to build on "The Myth" and continue the "Never Ending War Against Terror"
As Saddam Hussein was beheaded before he could tell about his relationship with the CIA. As Lee Harvey Oswald was murdered before he could tell about his relationship with the CIA. ("JFK, The Unspeakable" by James Douglass) Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will never be tested by an independent board of psychiatrists to see if he is not schizoid or dillusional because of the brainwashing experiments in torture committed by the CIA.....(see CIA McGill Studies done in the 50's and 60's).....Osama Bin Laden does not exist any more only Khalid Sheikh Mohammed can be tried and there is no evidence only confessions and whatever forgeries the CIA was able to create. If Khalid was the leader of Jundullah, why would the CIA be using Jundullah to help destabilize Iran (400 Million dollars was allocated by George W Bush in July of 2008.)
There is no evidence and only confessions coerced through torture. Guantanamo should have been closed when Obama took his oath. The United States was not attacked by any nation and there was no investigation of who was really behind the attacks.....Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is going to be the "CIA's Patsy" just like Lee Harvey Oswald. Ahhhh, to be Powerful and Wealthy !
Okay, I'm only responding once. Please try to follow logically.
1. The attacks on the so-called "World Trade Center" towers, the Pentagon, and wherever the other plane may have been headed, have been used to make the United States of America into a MORE paranoid, aggressive, and militaristic empire. That is the main fact of this horrible sequence of events.
2. Whoever was behind it and whoever knew/knows all of the details is not something we can ever be certain about.
3. If the CIA and/or other agents of the U.S.A. were involved, do you really believe there is a snowball's chance in Hell that there can be an "independent" investigation? This plea is so absurd as to appear fraudulent.
4. Two wars have been started and untold millions of people have suffered horribly at the hands of the United States of America. For you to attack the very people who have most vocally protested against these acts of unilateral aggression is to make yourself into a fraud.
5. When you address others as "You people" it reveals a tendency for stereotyping and that is repugnant.
Above questions and your comments can find rational ground.
Read below and you will get a picture, which will be extremely hard to swallow, and very painful to digest: “Collateral Damage” by E. P Heidner, part I and II.
>>> www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner <<<
The two documents have just recently been published and are very well researched and referenced (over 400 verified footnotes). The articles are lengthy, some parts not easy to follow and to digest and they need to be read with an open mind. But they are well worth the effort. They provide the most distressing information (some reads like a thriller) you have ever come across.
The implications will challenge how we look at politics, economy, history, finance, war and terrorism. Many persons in the documents are well known; many are right now in pivotal positions of politics and finance. These people do shape OUR life and that of our children right now. The details are stunning. The consequences are BEYOND BELIEF.
Read it. You will be surprised.
Hmm you make little sense. Plus I think you've responded to the wrong post.
The answer to your #3 is in the question itself. It's been 8 years since 9/11, has there been an independent investigation? No. If that alone doesn't convince you that the attacks were an inside job, nothing will.
As you clearly show us, a 12-year old can see that 9/11 was an inside job.
Bring America Back !!!!
****Great list of questioning here, and I hope this is the exact line they
pursue if Team Obama gets the Muslim Patsies into Court in NYC !!!
You either have the Rule of Law or you don't have the Rule of Law. You can't say it applies to some people, but not others - because that means you don't have the Rule of Law. And that's where we are now - on the road to totalitarianism. But human nature being what it is, if it's the other guy - especially if you don't like him or better yet hate him - that is deprived of the rule of law, many people just don't care. What they don't realize is once you don't have the rule of law, eventually, they WILL be affected.
www.theintrovertspeaks.com - I have been affected.
Bring America Back !!!!
***Look !! We simply cannot waterboard Muslim Detainees into an admission that they were "masterminds of 9/11",
subject them to the Kangaroo commissions at Gitmo, then
put them into Civil Trials expecting them to be the best witnesses against themselves. !!!! Cannot !!
***Can you imagine any Judge in his right mind allowing
all this so called evidence to come in Under factually proven Torture Programs==Duress by Torture !!!!
***Greenwald knows this--for he has written whole encyclopaedias of info on Torture in here. Sometimes Glen
misses the forest for the trees, though.
***The Torture and Rendition programs of the USA were done for one thing only===to produce Patsies, fall guys they could browbeat into admitting guilt to crimes, terror they never really committed. They succeeded==especially with the illegal Kangaroo courts of Gitmo !!! Those masterminds are also demanding to be martyred, so they can be Islamic heros and join their 70 virgins in heaven !! PATSIES !
***But, just wait, if Glen Greenwald would Think before Writing, and consider the sheer Genius of what Obama and Holder are doing:======if this gets into Court in NYC,
just look at the beautiful list of questioning posed by
herbert r chersonsky in his post below.
***The Genius is that we have not been able to get officialdom to really investigate 9/11, but a really good
Prosecutor and Defense could do the Trick !! Lets bypass the years it would take for an inquiry==and get right to the heart of the matters.
***The boys and girls of Building #7, World Trade Center, NYC (They know well who they are, and were) always knew their original Patsy==Osama bin Laden--would not carry water forever==so they needed more Patsies. Yes let us have official Trials and find out how their Waterboarded Patsies hold up in Court.
*******As Greenwald notes, Team Obama guts its own premises,
but I say: See You In Court !!!! We will never forget.
Cheney Inc sure hung Saddam in a hurry. Dead men tell no tales.
TK- I hope you are right. Tortured men might talk up a storm.
but who would believe them?
Wheels within wheels. 9-11.
Anyone think b4 the bldgs fell, the Fall Guy was NOT signed, sealed delivered, an arrow readied in the quiver w/ the planted charges next to The Fairy Tale?
And too, fall guys never know the set-up, just that their eponentially potentiated non-roles have turned them from nobodies into," I'm a PATSY!!! Lee hollered b4 the lights were dimmed and he was shoved into a short barreled .38 caliber silencer. Of truth.
Try them? These poor innocent souls were shoved into Hell's Inferno the millisecond those ArabMonsters killed 3,000 lovely peoples.
"We are not your problem."
"It's just another case of the administration wanting to bask in the rhetorical glory of "the rule of law" while simultaneously trampling on it for petty political convenience."
The rule of MONEY has replaced "the rule of law". As such, I disagree that trampling on the rule of law is for "petty" political convenience. The corruption and outright disregard for the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights and citizens of this country goes far beyond petty political convenience; allowing a system of financial and political control in the hands of a private few is betrayal.
I can't begin to comprehend the reason(s) for the inconsistencies, but the fact that it occurs so often is both galling and crazy-making. The Administration needs to appoint a Get-Your-Act-Together Czar so the White House can at least APPEAR to know what it is doing.
"so the White House can at least APPEAR to know what it is doing." –(Pippilin)
–In case no one was paying attention, not even the 'appearances' matter any more. Pretense is no longer necessary.
The White House and Obama know this. He may pontificate some bilious platitudes from time to time to keep the rubes in line, but he assuredly knows he really doesn't have to waste his time.
Not that fascism is a newfangled novelty– only that America has done such a masterful job of obscuring it, fearing it would be somehow 'inconvenient' politically, eliciting outrage in the voting public.
That is no longer the case. There is no reason to fear repercussions or adverse consequences. But then in all truth, there never were.
But the real point is that it wouldn't have mattered either way, then or now! Americans are 'way cool' with fascism. Why all the tedious, unnecessary prevaricating?
The genius of American politics is that it has created the conditions where the arrival of fascism is unrecognizable as such, and differs little from what preceded it.
Seamless, incremental transitions for sure, but all cut from the same cloth, the same intractable continuum hell bent on totalization.
"Post-acquittal detentions?" Certainly! Let's cut to the chase. How wonderful is that quaint phrase of the Democratic republic!
Calling all 'Progressives!" Vote fascism out of office in the next round of elections! Nominate better candidates. Of course. Sure thing!
Fools don't rush in, as they are already there. And so shall they remain.
–(Jill Bains)