Paul Craig Roberts - "The Confession Backfired"
by Paul Craig Roberts
The first confession released by the Bush regime’s Military Tribunals – that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – has discredited the entire process. Writing in Jurist, Northwestern University law professor Anthony D’Amato likens Mohammed’s confession to those that emerged in Stalin’s show trials of Bolshevik leaders in the 1930s.
That was my own immediate thought. I remember speaking years ago with Soviet dissident Valdimir Bukovsky about the behavior of Soviet dissidents under torture. He replied that people pressed for names under torture would try to remember the names of war dead and people who had passed away. Those who retained enough of their wits under torture would confess to an unbelievable array of crimes in an effort to alert the public to the falsity of the entire process.
That is what Mohammed did. We know he was tortured, because his response to the obligatory question about his treatment during his years of detention is redacted. We also know that he was tortured, because otherwise there is no point for the US Justice (sic) Dept. memos giving the green light to torture or for the Military Commissions Act, which permits torture and death sentence based on confession extracted by torture.
Mohammed’s confession of crimes and plots is so vast that Katherine Shrader of the Associated Press reports that the Americans who extracted Mohammed’s confession do not believe it either. It is exaggerated, say Mohammed’s tormentors, and must be taken with a grain of salt.
Continued...
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts201.html
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I love...
His writing...
"So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."
Richard Cheney - Chief Executive Of Halliburton
Pearl Family Doubts KSM Confession
Pearl Family Doubts KSM Confession
March 16, 2007 7:04 PM
Dana Hughes Reports:
The father of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl says he doesn't believe al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed is the man who beheaded his son, despite Mohammed's confession to a US military tribunal.
"He wants to take credit for doing it, and he wants to exonerate al Qaeda, blame Pakistan, and whatever," said Judea Pearl, Danny's father. "When a person confesses and he has nothing to lose. You have to take it with a spice of doubt."
Pearl worries that since KSM has confessed to his son's murder, it will be easy for the U.S. Government to slow down or close the investigation into the tragedy.
There's more at...
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/03/exclusive_pearl.html
--
The true threat to liberty comes not from terrorists but from our political leaders whose natural inclination is to seize upon any excuse to diminish them.
~~ Walter Williams, Nightly Business Report, September 2001
I refer to Paul Craig
I refer to Paul Craig Roberts nearly every time I discuss 911 with a doubter who still believes the 911 Truth Movement is a fringe group of radicals. He is clear as day and as legitimate as they come,
And speaking of confessions, this new 911 video also goes over the famous bin laden confession video, which the DOD once truncated as irrefutable proof and, now, they say they have no evidence that the tape is real or how they came to posses the confession video.
Anyway, it's a great new 911 Truth video
911 Surge of Truth
http://www.freedomtown.org/Site/Freedomtown%20Videos.html
Washington Exploits Gump-Two Articles
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=800
Forrest Gump of Manufactured Terrorism Confesses from Gitmo Dungeon Thursday March 15th 2007, 8:21 am
Washington exploits Guantánamo "confession" to justify its crimes
By Bill Van Auken
16 March 2007
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/mar2007/ksmo-m16.shtml
www.northtexansfor911truth.com
KHALID SHAIKH MOHAMMED CONFESSES ALL!
That's right. KSM confesses to all terrorist acts for the last 64,000 years.
WAR ON TERROR OVER! WAR ON EVIL OVER! MUST SEE!
KHALID SHAIKH MOHAMMED CONFESSES ALL!
THE FU&^IN NEWS - HEADLIES WITH DEEK JACKSON
WEEKLY FEATURE AT SURFING THE APOCALYPSE TV
WARNING GRAPHIC LANGUAGE
Always available at http://www.surfingtheapocalypse.tv/satire.php
http://www.surfingtheapocalypse.net/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?noframes;read=172324
Direct video link:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid507922875/bctid647738131
--
The true threat to liberty comes not from terrorists but from our political leaders whose natural inclination is to seize upon any excuse to diminish them.
~~ Walter Williams, Nightly Business Report, September 2001
One of Roberts' best pieces
One of Roberts' best pieces in awhile.
Here's The Spoof's take:
KS Mohammed also confessed to the Lincoln assasination, the Sacco and Vanzetti bombings. the Gulf of Tonkin disaster, the sinking of the Titanic, the Andrea Doria and the recent Staten Island Ferry crash...
Some experts on false testimony resulting from torture have begun to question some details in the Sheikh's confession: "How could he have been involved in the Red Sox trading babe Ruth or the OJ Simpson acquittal, nevermind getting Bush elected a second time!
The Eleventh Day of Every Month
We Know He Was Tortured Because U.S. Gov. Officials Admit He Was
We don't have to draw conclusions that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was tortured (however logical those conclusions are), because U.S. government officials admit that he was tortured:
""
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.
""
From:
"CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described: Sources Say Agency's Tactics Lead to Questionable Confessions, Sometimes to Death," Brian Ross and Richard Esposito, ABC News, November 18, 2005 http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866
And who are these said sources? From the above article:
""
Harsh interrogation techniques authorized by top officials of the CIA have led to questionable confessions and the death of a detainee since the techniques were first authorized in mid-March 2002, ABC News has been told by former and current intelligence officers and supervisors.
They say they are revealing specific details of the techniques, and their impact on confessions, because the public needs to know the direction their agency has chosen. All gave their accounts on the condition that their names and identities not be revealed. Portions of their accounts are corrobrated by public statements of former CIA officers and by reports recently published that cite a classified CIA Inspector General's report.
...
The CIA sources described a list of six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" instituted in mid-March 2002 and used, they said, on a dozen top al Qaeda targets incarcerated in isolation at secret locations on military bases in regions from Asia to Eastern Europe. According to the sources, only a handful of CIA interrogators are trained and authorized to use the techniques:
""
In the below post by me, I provide massive amounts of documentation wherein the U.S. government itself admits it is holding innocent people indefinitely without charges (including children and U.S. citizens), torturing them, raping them--including homosexually anally raping them--and murdering them, and that the orders to do so came from the highest levels of the U.S. government.
"Crushing Children's Testicles: Welcome to the New Freedom," TetrahedronOmega, August 12, 2006 http://www.armleg.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=59&mforum=libertyandtruth
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"Terrorism is the health of the State."--James Redford, author of "Jesus Is an Anarchist," June 1, 2006 http://praxeology.net/anarchist-jesus.pdf