Use it? I own it! 
That is a nice feat, considering that officialy they say they did not torture.
We got information from torture from Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, “showing” that Al-qaeda was helping Saddam in Iraq. I take it that you never did think about how later all that proved to be false and it was one of the items that was used to justify the Iraq war and the death of thousands.
Even if he had not been tortured, just accepting what he says at face value would not be a wise course of action. Lots of people who are in deep water already admit to many crimes they never committed (look at Henry Lee Lucas, for example–a man who certainly murdered at least one person but admitted to many murders which he could not have committed.)
I think the body of evidence certainly suggests this guy has definitely had major, top-level involvement in several major terrorist attacks over the past 15-20 years.
I’ve always had the impression ObL was more of a philosophical/spiritual leader than a day-to-day strategic planning sort of leader.
Was that the plot that involved destroying the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches? Thank God we dodged that bullet!
Muhammed was reportedly tortured into a confession well over 16 months ago:
“According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda’s toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.”
- BRIAN ROSS and RICHARD ESPOSITO, Nov. 18, 2005
All we know about the confession is what our government is saying about it. There is no independent confirmation (nor is the media seeking out an independent confirmation). Given the track record of this Administration to spin the media, and the media’s willingness to accept being spun, the details of the confession are irrelevant. It’s yesterday’s news that offers nothing for the future. It matters not if this story “broke” today or next year. It would not change anything relevant to the war on terror.
On the other hand, the confession story took the attorneys scandal off of the front page, and that story not only has legs but very explosive (and damning) for the Administration.
Given the choice to push a news story (that cannot be confirmed) which in no way can hurt the Administration, or allow a story (with legs) that can be confirmed and will damage the Administration, which way does the Administration go?
…still waiting for the proof that he was not tortured, wanna go for it ?
El Cid…
I won’t take it personally if you can’t.
…of course, it’s impossible to do isn’t it ?
…and now the only defence of his handling that I can see from anyone attempting this unenviable task is that it was justifed, not much of a defence is it really ?
Which is why the US has done itself an immense judicial disservice, because now we find that we cannot believe any US denials on almost anything to do with war, human rights or almost anything, despite that fact that most will be true.
It’s not just that the US administration lies, or not, its now impossible to recognise either truth or falsehood, do we believe the assurances from US officials that genetically modified crops are safe ?
Can we believe high end US denials that global warming has anything to do with human activity ?
You can go through almost any position that the US takes on the world stage, or even in its domestic policies, no wonder voter turnout is falling.
The lack of independant scrutiny and oversight over the process of interrogation of suspects is just one tiny part of the damage done to the US, you elected your leader, now you must live with the consequencies, and millions of US travellers abroad will find themselves apologising to foreigners for being American, to such a level that it will be an automatic reaction.
Bliar Blair has provided much the same service for Britons.
If only it were possible to trust them.
I invite you to re-read the post(s) to which you appear to be responding. I have not denied Khalid was mistreated by the CIA. In fact, there is credible evidence he was prepared for and quite good at receiving many forms of true torture, such that a reasonably mild technique known as “waterboarding”* was inefficient in his case. That said, he admits only to “naming names” under duress. According to his testimony under direct examination by the Tribunal President, Khalid’s Moussaoui-esque list of crimes was confessed freely and with compunction.
Coupling your aforementioned misunderstanding with the fact that the US authorities heralded Khalid’s capture in 2003, your position (including today’s wandering, spittle-flecked grandiloquence) is groundless. And by the reasoning of your last post, participants in this forum must now “find that we cannot believe” anything you have to say on the subject.
[sub]* As a form of training, many echelons of the US Military, including aviators, have undergone various and structured forms of detention, deprivation and information extraction, one of which is waterboarding. While incredibly unpleasant, if one is aware there is little risk of death, it does not rise to the level of punishment inflicted by sustained ambient cold temperatures.[/sub]
That ‘plot’ was an idea Faris himself reported as not feasible. Apparently you can’t just cut a couple of wires and topple the Brooklyn Bridge.
I’m going to pause now while we all reel back in surprise at the realisation that the Bush regime will claim any piece of pissant shit as a ‘foiled’ terrorist plot.
Gee. I hope they don’t catch onto my fiendish plan to collapse Mount Rushmore with my mighty carbon rod (feasibility study pending).
El Cid
Strange that, earlier you responded to this,
Which was a quote from the OP, in reply you stated
this
As part of you case to discredit the cite that had been provided.
Fair enough, but then you state that
All the while you claim to admit that he was tortured, and yet somehow he felt free enough to be able to make his statement, whilst still in the custody of the country that tortured him.
Please tell me how you can possibly draw the conclusion that his statement was not under some pressure.
Yes he can say the words, and if he isn’t actually undergoing direct physical coercion at the time he made this statement, you seem to think that it is possible to make the assumption that the statement was given freely.
Hmmmmmm
I prefer not to make that assumption, here is an individual who has been abused for several years, neither you nor I have any idea of his state of mind, nor do either of us know what was in store for him the moment he was whisked away out of sight and out of supervision, especially if he refused to make a statement that hi captor required of him.
He could admit to being the man in the moon, with all the oversight that the US can muster, the point remains that because oversight was not provided from day one, that he was held in secrecy, there is actually nothing in his statement that can be accepted, we can’t even be sure that if he says he was tortured, that this took place.
What we can be sure of, is that the secrecy, and lack of independant scrutiny along with the behaviour of the CIA, the administration that has lied time afet time and is continuiing so to do, that we would be fools to trust anything without corroberation, and the US isn’t about to let that happen.
So all we have left that is reliable, is the timing of the story, because the story itself has little value in what it is alleged to have revealed.
Wonder why this story was released now ?
Care to wise us up?
[un-subbed for easier reading]
How does this make waterboarding “mild?” When people are subjected to it as part of an interrogation, I’m pretty sure they’re not aware there’s little risk of death. Just look at Rufus Xavier’s quote: even people who know what it is can’t take it for more than a few seconds.
In the context of my post, when one is aware of and trained for various forms of interrogation tactics, he is able to hold out much longer than one who is not. I am attempting to “get into Khalid’s mind” by applying what I do know of our own combatant training; applying Rufus Xavier’s quote, a man who can withstand 2:30 under the tap has been hardened. Therefore, any information extracted under such treatment must necessarily be viewed with adequate suspicion or disregarded outright.
Ah, I see. Yet another reason not to trust this confession or other coerced confessions.
Point of contention: he claims he was mistreated during his detention by CIA operatives. We do not know whether these operatives were simply contractors, or even ISI working loosely with the CIA. Khalid is now in US custody (instead of filleted by Pakistan, Indonesia or even the Mossad), under the care and protection of the US Military.
I invite you to read the transcript, or barring that, the “Now what.” portion I included in my first post. Under direct examination Khalid said he was indeed an Enemy Combatant and had no desire to delay the Tribunal because his confession was not made under duress. His contention of mistreatment was nothing more than a heartfelt personal appeal that interrogators be “careful with people.” If ever there were a time to say “they tortured me into making a list,” that was it.
You keep trying to expand the boundaries of the “debate,” yet I’ve already answered this particular question. Khalid’s Enemy Combatant Hearing was held on March 10, 2007. This enumerated confession was placed in writing at said hearing.
Marley23: Please read my replies to casdave and the transcript from the hearing wherein Khalid clearly states his 31-point confession was not coerced. I do agree, however (as I alluded with the descriptor Moussaoui-esque), that many of his claims should be taken with a grain of salt. The one obvious exception is the murder of Daniel Pearl.
Just because he said he was not tortured, does not make it so, neither does his stating that he was tortured, the truth is, we cannot know, because of the lack of independant oversight.
All we do know is that some individual have been subjected to varying levels of torture, the severity of which is argued over.
We do know he was held in a place out of normal POW oversight, we know he has been held by those who have tortured others.
We know that those torturers work for an administration that sees no problem with extracting information in whatever way appears to work, and that this administration has gone out of its way to ensure that there is no supervision or oversight from oprganisations such as the Red Cross.
We know that when the Red Cross were invited to inspect one of the detention centres, it refused on the grounds that it would not be on acceptable terms, and that there was a danger that such a visit under those unacceptable terms would be used to lend an air of false legitimacy to the goings on there.
We know that the US has exported its captives countries that are known to torture its prisoners.
We also know that many detainnees that were labelled ‘unlawful combatants’ were in fact nothing of the sort, and were simply sold for bounty, and yet the US whilst acknowledging this, does very little to put right the wrong it has wrought on those individuals.
We also know that the so-called trials will be held under the auspices of a military tribunal where the defence is not independant of the military, nor will it be provided with either the means to mount a viable defence, nor access to the evidence if the tribunal deems it of sufficient secrecy.
So in actual fact, we cannot trust anything the US administration states or those it places in power to abide by any normal standards of human decency when it comes to these individuals who may, or may not be combatants.
There is no doubt that there are some ‘unlawful combatants’, maybe some of them are truly evil, and maybe they have planned terrorist outrages, but the chain of evidence and of custody are now so smeared with the disreputable ehaviour of this administration and it’s employees, that its not possible to believe them.
This is the damage that Bush and his cronies have done to your country, its why American citizens abroad often find themselves distancing themselves from US foreign policy, almost as an afterthought, as they talk to other peoples.
I read what he said. I think a confession can be coerced even if the man isn’t being tortured at the moment he confesses.
How, pray tell, does one enforce independent oversight over a distant, extant battlefield, over a mercenary jailor or over the Pakistani ISI?
He used the word torture. We know he was waterboarded. I call that mistreatment.
He was neither in uniform nor under the colors of any military organization. As a military man yourself you should know that once you take off the insignia, you’re screwed.
The bulk of your contentions are invalidated by this very fact: that Khalid was operating outside the aegis of the Geneva Conventions. As such your argument “So in actual fact, we cannot trust anything the US administration states or those it places in power to abide by any normal standards of human decency when it comes to these individuals who may, or may not be combatants.” is again fallacious induction.
This wasn’t a trial. He will get his trial. This was simply a hearing to decide his status in which he admitted to being an “Enemy Combatant,” and as such, should and will be afforded as much leeway as our judicial system allows. As an Enemy Combatant, he’s in limbo almost indefinitely, since there is no foreseeable end to TWAT. If he ever gets to trial though, he will hang for the much-publicized murder of Daniel Pearl. It’s therefore in his best interest to remain an Enemy Combatant.
Cite, please?
Cites mostly come from Blogs of US citizens writing about their travelling experiences, which will obviously counter as being only representative of that individual.
Here is one debate where this view is made, and argued for and against, however, if you doubt that many Americans abroad do feel embarrassed to the extent of apologising for their govenrments polices, then I suggest you talk to a few, particualarly those who travel in Europe, and especially those who do the backpack/rough guide travelling, as these folk seem to meet the natives much more than the organised parties.
It is quite a long read, but it sets out the issues comprehensively, the differance between a Bush voter and a Kerry voter, one uses their passport, the other doesn’t, you can work out which.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/ips/lobe224.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/13/news/pew1.php
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0614-07.htm
People are voting with their wallets, and it doesn’t do the US a lot of good.
http://superfrenchie.com/?p=901
What, you mean like capturing individuals and flying them over to Pakistan or Saudi Arabia for ‘special consideration’ ?
Why, I think it would be quite easy to stop that, by not turning them over to such nations in the first place.
Most of those detained in what might be termed, ‘potentially active’ unlawful combatants have been detained by US military, not by Pakistanis.