NEWS: A Solid 9/11 Confession

confessing under torture...not believable...he's responsible for new orleans and global warming, too...just waterboard a bit longer.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2007/03/3870_khalid_sheikh_m.html

Exactly.

How THE HELL does that response make anything to do with torture remotely defensible?

Here's where we come back to me mocking you.

Show me from the opening post and its attached source the ONE CLAIM (just one will do) that we couldn't have fact-checked without using any torture whatsoever?

Just ONE CLAIM, one part of that coerced confession, that provides new intel that could be fact-checked for veracity. Something we wouldn't have known or even suspected (and hence could not already fact-check).

Just one.

Because otherwise, you're full of shit.

A while back it was asked why, if torture does not produce reliable intelligence, it has been employed so regularly pretty much throughout history. The answer is really quite simple. Torture is not effective at producing reliable intelligence (just ask those women in Salem a few hundred years ago... unless you believe that they were actually Devil-fucking witches laying curses on their neighbors), but that's not to say it doesn't serve any purpose. It does quite well at things like intimidation, producing a climate of fear, and producing support for any point you may care to make as long as you're not concerned about little things like fact.

If you think that any of those are things the US government ought to be doing, especially during a "war on terror", then, well.....I wash my hands of you.

They are not our teachers.

i call bullshit on the confession because the Bush administration's proven willingness to lie, cheat, and kill in order to get what it wants makes me immediately skeptical of anything supportive of said administration. it's simple math--when someone lies to you a lot, you stop believing everything they say.

that said, i don't doubt that Khaled actually did do a lot of the shit he confessed to doing--who knows, maybe even all of it. the fact that the guys at Gitmo are being held illegally and immorally, and are being 'tortured' for confessions (more on that later) does not mean that they didn't do bad things. i simply don't believe that the Bush administration is popular enough or powerful enough to keep all of the Gitmo personnel quiet if a significant portion of the prisoners there were innocent.

which brings us, by way of 'how do you determine guilt and innocence', to the 'torture'. this is not torture. you go through worse than this in some military training programs, which are carefully and specifically designed to not kill or permanently injure applicants. hell, rushing a particularly sadistic frat will get you hazed worse than this. all the boo-hooing about how those poor Gitmo prisoners are being tortured is straight-up pussy bullshit. you want to get a real, useful confession out of someone, show him real, strong evidence, make his life miserable, and wait for him to confess and fill in the holes in what you know. you want to get a fake confession out of someone, make them think they will die unless they tell you what you want to hear. guess which method is being applied at Gitmo?

He's a bastard. I'm pretty sure he stole my cds out of my car, too. That being said, anybody remember that line by Nietzche about not becoming a monster yourself as you fight monsters?

Nietzsche was an ass.

Simple really. What nationality is Osama? I'll just tell you, He is a Saudi Prince. Are we currenlty fighting in Saudi Arabia? What nationality is Mr. Mohammad? No clue. But I'm sure the same five minutes I spent on Google looking up how terrorist groups are structured will tell me. According to inteligent Inteligence Reports from the Clinton Admin, Osama only had about 10 men . The rest were hired from other terrorist groups such as Hamas. We are fighting a man and his ideals,. and just because we are fighting Al-Qadae in Iraq does not mean we are fighting Osama. Just others being paid with his money to kill Americans.

It never ceases to amaze me how many americans just don't get why so many people from other countries don't like you let alone hate you so much they are willing to blow themselves up to hurt your country (or will you simply say my opnion doesn't count cause i live on the other side of the world). Do you never stop and wonder why Hugo Chavez and so many other anti US politicians are so popular just south of your border(but more of that latter).

Your country lies, cheats, murders and installs brutal dictators and fights to spread "democracy" all to further its own ends. While i have little doubt that KSM did commit at least some of the crimes that he has confessed to i find it hard to believe that he was the mastermind behind all of the things. Though i must say there is one thing that i wish he had of succeded in doing, blowing up Henry Kissingers ship, as long as Henry was the only person on board. A fitting end for someone who is probably the biggest terroist the world has know for the last fifty years (Please see the results of Henry's policy in Vietnam, Cyprus, Cambodia, Chile and what is now Bangladesh)

If you ever wonder where Castro came from and why Chavez is so popular just look at your countries history in regards to the over throw of the Salvador Allende government, the support of the Batista and Pinochet regimes and the Contra's (Amongst many others). Now you may be wondering why i'm talking about Anti US sentiment in South America when this article is about Iraq, but it is the same arrogance in your foriegn policy that makes you widely disliked in South America that makes you lothed in the middle east (and most other majority muslim countries)

Don't get me wrong I don't hate the US, I love many aspects of your culture (I could do without your lusting after guns), i have visited your country once before and plan to do so again next year. But i see you country act with such overwhelming arrogance around the world that it boggles my mind that so many of your are so misguieded about why you are so hated. It isn't your freedom that they hate, it isn't your way of life, its that you have bombed many of them back into the stone age and support a country that (wrightly or wrongly) has displaced many of their brethren and continue to treat them as second class citizens. That they combine their believed persecution at the US' hands with fundamentilist islam isn't far removed from the wacko fundamentalist christians white seperatists that have a similar view of the US Government (and funnily enough where responsible for the biggest terroist act on US soil before 9/11)

Of the two presidents of the last fifty years that i have respected as human beings, one you shot and the other you voted out for "being a pussy". Could you imagine what would have happened if George W Bush or Ronald Regan where president during the Cuban Missle Crisis.

Of all the crimes that KSM has "confessed to" the one that most smells of bullshit to me is the bali bombing. Many of my fellow country men died in that bombing so i feel that i have as much connection with this as any american does with the 9/11 attacks. However i find it hard to believe that he was the mastermind behind this, when Jemaah Islamiyah had exsisted for several decades before the founding of Al-Qaeda, had its own bomb maker (who ended up blowing himself up), its own leaders and is half way around the world. I find it hard to believe that they would have to get some guy who spoke another language and was from another culture to plan a relatively small terrorist attack in their own country. Couldn't they find any fundamentalist muslims in indonisia capable of organising for their bombmaker to put explosives in a suicide bombers backpack and go to a club?

The US continues to claim the high moral ground, that terroists hate freedom and are evil, that they torture and behead their enemies, so to stop this the US tortures and executes them. Its a bit of a what came first "the chicken or the Egg". The US government would claim that its enemies started torturing and killing its enemies first and the muslims would claim that the US backed Israel started doing it first and so on down the line. Someone has to break the chain, for every inocent iraqi killed you create 20 family members that have all the more reason to hate the US, kill enough family members and maybe blowing them selves up to stop any more being killed doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

At least they didn't make him watch Glitter.

Well put
Not sure if anyone knows about these two sites.

http://www.infowars.com/
http://www.prisonplanet.com/

I don't know what to say except that's a very nice hole you're digging. Just one question did Osama hire the lot to fight themselves? It's a religious sect war. it's just the one thing both sides can agree on is they don't want the foreigners there, other than they want to kill each other. Sheesh. Think your little civil war which defines your history. They drove out the foreigners then they shot each others, same thing desired, more rapid timetable.

different method of acquiring information

Its not the best, but I've heard from a fair number of sources that befriending works much better than physical coercision for the acquisition of information. It just takes longer, much longer. This is a short article discussing that from the point of a MI officer.

At least to me the logic of it makes more sense.

US foreign policy/meddling is pretty much the same as any other super power, its just been more blatant and lot more clumsy (personal opinion). Installing the shah in Iran, panicking installing and training the bathists in Iraq (when it all went pear-shaped in Iran), arming and supporting the Taliban (whom they were quite good friends with until a couple of days after 9/11) desipte the fact they were a fundamentalist, misognistic and xenophobic group that pretty much ran Afghanastan and its people into the ground and the main reason was because they weren't the USSR, and they'd rather let a group of people under an intolerant religious theocracy than let the commie bastards win.

Besides you certainly can't fight a war on terror (its an illogical statement), hell you really can't fight a war on terrorism, because terrorism will always exist (in its traditional definition) at least at this point of our evolution (or intelligent design), and if you really want to end of all dissident, immoral, wrong, uncivilised behaviour and if all means are justified drop a nuke. No humans, no life, no immorality, no real reminders problem solved.

Ok then, you do realize torture does not yeild reliable information. So (not counting, of course, the VAST number of options we have in between "asking nicely" and illegal torture) we have, in your view, 2 options, both of which don't result in usable information, and you'd rather opt for the more violent and illegal of the two,
gotcha

Absolutely brilliant article.

I heard he confessed to being the Grinch and for being behind the Gunpowder Plot. He broke up the Beatles, and shot down the space shuttle Columbia. And he was the real Deep Throat!

The real kicker is his confession to the 1993 WTC bombing, which is on the record as an FBI op. One of the guys they handled suspected they were going to rub him out and recorded all his conversations with his handler. The transcripts were even printed in the New York Times.

The mainstream media and their supreme commanders are so arrogant they think we'll believe anything.

Will Smith don't have to curse to sell records, well I do. So fuck him, and fuck you too.

Honestly? I love this idea. I want these combatants to see the rest of the world as a non-threat. But as you said it takes longer and you're not going to convince a military body (any of them) knee-deep in a war to initiate this. Quick resolution has become a mantra of every country involved "either win quick or get the hell out and quit killing our boys." Also, there are many of the key players what we'd have to befriend and I can promise you the things we'd have to do to befriend them would become very hard to do, i.e. take all of our military interests out of the Middle East and quit supplying Israel with weapons and UN forces to other Muslim countries. You may have no problem with that what soever and if you don't then keep saying this is an option. But the reality of it is... we do all that and invasions and terrorist actions would happen by the 1000s.

You know how you can tell he's lying? Because he said bin Laden was behind 9/11.

HEY-OH!

**hands award for use of juxtaposition**
Seriously, I'm convinced that they
a) let 9/11happen
b) did it themselves

Honestly...
You keep me locked up for 4 years... let alone torture me, I'd probably confess to whatever you want.

In canadian law, a confession still won't hold up in court....
You still have to prove they did it.

Honestly, i don't know what they are going to do with these prisoners... if they let them out.. they'd be so pissed off.. they'd probably do something worse than 9/11

I can stop laughing at this comment...

Also it looks like he's wearing a friggin' sweater under that shirt...

I wish I had something intelligent to say...*sigh*

or this one...

I am in your debt for making me laugh so hard...

*sigh*...I wish I was smart...

I find it hard to believe that there are people who advocate for torture, excuse me, enhanced interrogation techniques. In terms of both their efficacy and their ethics torture techniques are bankrupt.

Torture in interrogation is simply substituting sadism for competency.

I'm not convinced that we know what we are doing, how to gather intelligence, or make sound judgments about anyone the military encounters. The fact is that our military is designed to confront on a war footing - in effect, everyone is guilty until proven innocent. The model no longer works as evidenced by what has taken place in Guantanamo:

• In early 2002, Guantanamo held 598 "prisoners." By November 2003 the number had grown to 660


• According to the DOD; 132 (20%) became so distraught that they were prescribed drugs for depression


• 3 committed suicide


• One was only 13, another 14, two more were 15, one 16, another was 88, and indeed a 98 year old made it into the mass of threatening individuals. Colin Powell had to step in to see that these people were released


• Approximately 30 were determined to suffer from psychological disorders


• According to research performed by a professor of law from Seton Hall after examining the review boards, fewer than 8% were classified as Al Qaeda by the military (so, who are we fighting?)


• , only 5% of the detainees were actually captured by US troops. The balance were either captured by Afghan or Pakistani forces or turned in by someone else


• Today, 273 "detainees" remain at Guantanamo.

So what happened to those 387 people we first felt it was our right to imprison in a military base far from the rights afforded most people by our country?

• 231 were released and returned to their country after the military determined they were not a threat. Most of those returned spent 2 years or more in Guantanamo and some took part in the now infamous rendition program. I'm betting that many of these innocent people were subjected to the forms of torture some of you believe is absolutely necessary.


• 156 were returned to their country of origin to be held and or charged. Of the 156, it is widely reported that around 110 have been to trial and exonerated. 6 have been convicted of a crime. The balance await the outcome of their trials

Sources: DID Tribunals
Or you must read each of the press releases from DOD ie
DOD Press Releases

Flicking through all this keeps reminding me of that line from K-PAX...

"Most of you still subscribe to this policy of an eye for an eye, which is known throughout the universe for its stupidity. Your Buddha and Christ had quite different ideas, but noone's paid much attention to them, not even the Buddhists or the Christians."

I'm not the biggest fan of 'innocent until proven guilty' but I prefer it to the alternative. Either way, I see it as little more than a part of the legal process. It has nothing to do with what I think. I'm going to be biased. I'm going to think one person is guilty of something and the next is innocent of something else, and I'm glad I'll never get jury duty because I doubt I'd manage true impartiality.

America locks up a whole bunch of potential terrorists in this place. Okay, predictable reaction. Torture? Frankly, also predictable. Getting information as a result of torture? Somehow I'm surprised the torture had such a purpose.

In this day and age I believe we can get better results using drugs than torture. That makes torture a purely emotionally-motivated act. Those inflicting it are making themselves feel better by making the victim feel worse, that's all there is to it. We're supposed to be above that thing. "They did it first" is no argument. We're supposed to be better than them.

We're not. We're just bigger than them.