Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: You Decide

abc NEWS: How Much Did He Really Do? Some Experts Doubt the Claims That Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Makes in His Confessions

Several counterterrorism experts and former intelligence officials believe that Mohammed, who made the mass confession during a military hearing atGuantanamo Bay, is a fabulist. Their reasons: the lack of evidence to implicate him in many of these plots and his reputation as a self-aggrandizing egotist.

New York Times: Terror Suspect Said to Confess to Other Acts.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who took responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks, said he decapitated the American journalist Daniel Pearl, according to a revised transcript released today of his remarks at a military hearing held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Saturday.

Rosie O'Donnell: "He confessed without reporters being present," "Government-sponsored torture prison," "He is not the be all, end all of terrorism in America."

Daily Kos: Bush Admin Snowjob on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed!

This will then allow them to claim that hard interrogations (read torture) are justified. As always, reality is shifted to suit administration ends.

Daily Kos: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Games The System

Mohammed's statement demonstrates why the CSRT kangaroo courts are embarrassingly flawed. His statement demonstrates why due process is important, especially when the crimes being alleged are so heinous. Due process does not only protect the defendent's rights, it also is a path to an objective finding of the facts. Without it we are left with dueling stories, nothing more. Mohammed asked for witnesses, he was denied. The government called no witnesses, but instead simply read off a litany of charges. Mohammed then launched into an unchallenged and lengthy statement - one that would have benefited from cross examination.

Instead, Mohammed's statement, unchallenged, has redefined the case against him. His statement is given further weight by the inherent unfairness of the "process" at Guantanamo Bay.

Mohammed achieved three goals. First, he declared himself a resistance soldier fighting an invader. He framed the war as one between the oppressor and the oppressed. He declared himself a revolutionary and compared bin Laden to George Washington. He pointedly did not say that he is fighting to impose Islamic law on the West. Instead, he railed against American foreign policy against his land and suggested that his goal was to cause an "awakening" about the ills of this policy. This argument does, and will have, broad appeal across the entire Muslim world and much of the Third World. Mr. Bush's hollow argument about defending against an Islamist takeover of western civilization may rally his base here, but Mohammed knows exactly what rallies the base over there. If Mr. Bush wants to combat the spread of extremism, he needs to understand the power of the argument Mohammed put forward.

Second, Mohammed argued that he was using the "language of war". According to the "language of war", during war civilians suffer. He cited Mr. Bush's arguments about the Iraq war as an example of civilians dying in the cause of a greater goal. He justified the attack on the World Trade Center by claiming it as an economic target, and therefore within the "language of war". He likened his alleged torture and the killing of Iraqi civilians to the terrorist attacks on 9/11 by claiming an exception to the rules of war, allowed as part of the "language of war". The argument is hauntingly similar to George W Bush's justifications for "bending" the rules in the service of justice. It is an argument that Zbigniew Brzezinski called "Manichean delusions" in his recent testimony in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Third, Mohammed drew a distinction between those who are fighting a defensive war to protect their land, like the Afghanis and the Taliban (and the Iraqis), and those who are taking the fight to the invader, al Qaeda. He then appealed to the Americans to spare the non-al Qaeda held at Guantanamo. By arguing that he was a real soldier and most Afghanis are merely caught up in a conflict in their backyard, he both gains sympathy from the population, and at the same time is able to portray himself as fighting for their interests. Any attack on America, viewed through this lens, is seen now as a means of fighting the invader or oppressor. This is al Qaeda's version of the Doctrine of Pre-emption and of force projection. It has some appeal in the Muslim world just as Bush's doctrine has some appeal in the United States.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, given his opportunity, made his points well.

Daily Kos: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Confesses: Too Bad It's Tainted by Torture

Today the MSM will make a big dramatic show over the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) "confessed" to all sorts of dasterdely deeds. (This is being used to distract from the public from the Administrations' commission and cover-up of the U.S. Attorney Massacre.

Daily Kos: How long till Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Executed?

What has really died here? What little justice we had in this country was waterboarded into submission by Alberto Gonzales and replaced with John Yoo'stwisted vision which is now institutionalized, a vibrant, dynamic block of our criminal justice system to extract "evidence" for use in secret tribunals.

LGF: The Kos Kid-al Qaeda Convergence

Killing is killing, and we need to stop defining our actions as noble and holy and the terrorists’ as evil and inhuman. KSM seems as saddened by the seeming inevitability of war as any pacifist.

He just wants us to admit that there are victims on both sides - that, to some suffering communities who have been on the wrong end of American bombs, Americans are the inhuman ‘enemy combatants.’

UPDATE at 3/15/07 2:29:41 pm:

The diary has now been deleted, and the Kidz are working themselves up into a lather: Daily Kos: LGF false flag op on dKos.

“False flag op.” Heh. As if it’s unusual to find posts like that at Daily Kos.

Hot Air: Video: Matt Lauer, terrorism expert

LAUER: How credible is this laundry list of targets? If you’re being subjected to waterboarding or torture, won’t you just spew out all kinds of locations to make it stop?

I don't know what I need to say. This man planned 9/11. He declared war on America.

What other rights does he have? What else is there to say? They are excusing and apologizing for terrorism; for the worst terrorist act in American history.