I don’t know anyone who is avidly anticipating or who plans to avidly follow the sham-trial of the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Comparing it to the O.J. Simpson trial is a sad joke. The sad truth is that the man most responsible for the carnage of 9/11 would probably walk free if given a fair trial because Dick Cheney and George W. Bush decided to torture him and tainted the evidence against him. Since we are understandably unwilling to just let him go, he will be given a fake trial instead and then he will be condemned to death. Very few people will mourn his passing, but his life is not what we should be mourning. We should be mourning the legitimacy of our system of justice.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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I thought we were already mourning that.
.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."thank you. I was just going to point that out.
If you’re gonna mourn our justice system, let’s not forget the refusal of our leaders to investigate and prosecute the criminals that got us here, and their active interest in prosecuting those who are still looking back.
So let’s all look forward, not back. Who wants to go to jail?
Also, too, someone Tweeted at me yesterday that Congress lies to everybody, so what is lying really. Seriously!! It was by a Wall Streeter claiming that Taibbi is a hack and doesn’t know jack what he’s talking about. He said The Vampire Squid didn’t lie because everyone lies and it’s no biggie.
Now that “our leaders” carry the Democrat brand, the idea of prosecuting war criminals is suddenly not so attractive on this site.
remember when the frog logo was supposed to be a representation of Rove/Cheney/Bush II being frog-marched to the courtroom. Or even the gallows?
But only Republicans were included in that scenario, and now the Democrats are quite obviously equally guilty of war crimes, why…how can they possibly prosecute their accomplices?
Let’s not even talk about it anymore, eh? We’ve got a (
s)election to win!!!What crass electoral bullshit!!!
AG
you have a pretty strange definition of war criminal.
but, by your interpretation of U.S. foreign policy since Vietnam, pretty much every president, vice-president, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Director of the CIA, and operational commander in the military since 1963 are war criminals.
If you define things that way, then some foreign power should just invade us and hold Nuremberg Trials.
Yup.
Ain’t gonna happen, though.
If WW II Germany has possessed enough firepower to end the world a thousand times over it wouldn’t have happened there, either.
Bet on it.
The only thing presently insulating the United States from justice is its power, Booman. Its military power. Nothing more. No right, no wrong, no morality or necessity of action, just pure, destructive power.
But power of that sort…offensive power, which is what we have been using since the Korean War…does not last forever. Eventually it either fades and/or it destroys the user. The only viable option that is left to the United States now is to pull back off of the international economic imperialist feeding trough while maintaining an overwhelmingly strong defensive capability and then to become as self-sufficient as it is possible for the country to manage as fast as is humanly possible. This would involve some serious belt-tightening and a complete overhaul of the kleptocracy that now controls financial matters in the country, but I believe that it could be done.
So does Ron Paul, which is why I continue to support his efforts.
The alternative?
Bubble after bubble of increasingly desperate and futile financial and military “solutions” in a world that is growing increasingly equal to the U.S. both in military and in financial power. Eventually one of the bubbles is going to burst in an unavoidably destructive manner, and then there will be…literally…hell to pay. A coalition will form that will…in search of its own hegemony…end the American Empire. It will the American people…the poor, frightened, confused, totally scammed American people…who will pay the price.
You.
Me.
Our families.
Our children.
Everyfuckingbody.
When?
Any day now.
Aaaaaany day now…
A day?
A week?
A month?
A year?
A decade or two or three?
Only the arc of the moral universe knows how large this particular sub-arc will be.
But it ain’t gonna no rainbow arc, you can bet on that.
Won’t be drawn in pastels, neither.
More like blood.
That is where these policies are taking us, Booman.
Whatchoo gonna do about it?
Continue to support the supporters and (so far) increasingly adept implementers of said policies?
Go ahead.
Hasten the arc.
Hasten the rainbow.
You been warned.
Your choice…if indeed you believe that people actually have a choice.
Otherwise…your fate.
The fate of all of us.
AG
.
Seems reasonable to me, at least the vast majority and add a few dozen members of Congress.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."“The only thing presently insulating the United States from justice is its power, Booman. Its military power. Nothing more.”
Sure. Like the Atlantic Ocean is no factor at all. And of course the fact that people pissed off at the US are on the other side of the PLANET is somehow no factor at all either
And since we are at it, whats stopping everyone from Invading North Korea if the only think is rax military power? How about Burma? Aw about all the other crapholles worldwide that people arnt attacking but also are doing Really Bad Things to people?
The problem with nderstand fanaticly hitching your horse to a simplistic philosophy is that you dont when people see right through it by looking on a map.
And if you can’t understand how the US is kept safe my the oceans around it then I’m not going to explain it. Think a little.
you don’t think Bush and Cheney are war criminals, and the CIA that waterboarded people are war criminals?
Fascinating.
Actually I do think they are war criminals. I have no idea why you took my comment to mean otherwise.
Some 9/11 families will be at military bases to watch the trial.
Congress made it impossible to have the trials in the US.
So much for Obama’s campaign promise regarding “transparency” in government.
Unfortunately this is one more example of how there’s little to no difference between the “two” political parties when it comes to major policy issues.
It’s not just the KSM trial that’s a sham- it’s the entire stinking system.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/18/inside_obamas_orwellian_world_where_whistleblowing
Yes, it is.
I been sayin’…
AG
Okay. You cite the case of Thomas Drake but you don’t follow up:
So, while Mr. Drake was tormented by two separate prosecutors (one from Bush, the latter from Obama), what actually happened to him in the end?
Thanks for the follow up.
“alleged mismanagement at the NSA”?
Weak, very weak.
Your comment here is condescending, yet another attempt to make excuses/lower the bar for the Obama administration, and therefore disturbing. Clearly we’re never going to get anywhere with the phony partisan game that continually occurs in bloggo world.
Someone, you? Needs to explain why the Obama administration is using the bludgeon Espionage Act to to go after whistle blowers. Is this their idea of encouragement for people with information related to illegal behavior occuring in our government?
Your rationale that it’s OK for Mr. Drake to be “tormented” (good choice of terminology) by the feds only to have the bulk of the “charges” dropped- because the government has no case- is really astonishing. I mean, Really?. Your partisanship is totally clouding your judgement, my friend.
IMHO, this behavior by the government is (no surprise) just one step away from torturing our own people. Considering this behavior acceptable is about as wrong and dangerous as it gets.
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/3/21/part_2_whistleblowers_thomas_drake_and_jesselyn_radack_on
_being_targeted_by_obama_administration
I didn’t say it was okay. I said you left a misleading picture.
But you did not say what happened to Drake, and the others, is NOT OK.
You clearly attempted to rationalize what is wrong by:
1.) stating Drake was pursued by the bush administration, then the Obama administration. (thus supporting my position: there’s little to no difference between the repugs and dems on major policy). In this case, as in the use of Predator attacks, the Obama administration is going further than the bush administration.
How this is “progressive” or better than the repug/conservatives is beyond me.
2.) Drake ended up with “only” a misdemeanor, so somehow that makes his torment (your word) by the federal governement OK.
maybe you should try a different approach to reading than the on you’re using.
When I say that a Obama prosecutor “tormented” him, that could be interpreted as a negative statement instead of a rationalization or justification. Unless informed otherwise in rather explicit fashion, you should assume that people do not favor tormenting other people.
You cited an article that is all about how a man was being put on trial for nearly 30 years of jail time for being a whistleblower. You failed to note that shortly after that article was published, the Obama prosecutor dropped all the major charges and let him cop to a misdemeanor that carried no jail time.
When you cite the article to show how draconian the administration is about whistle blowing, you do the reader a disservice when you fail to note such a basic element of the story.
I didn’t justify the way Drake was treated for two years by the Obama Justice Department. I just corrected the record. Everything else you read into it.
But, you ought to consider the fact that the president doesn’t ordinarily know about DOJ investigations, particularly ones that began under the previous administration. Yet, once the case became a big story in the New Yorker the case disappeared with 60 days. Perhaps the president made a discreet call to Eric Holder?
But that’s just conjecture. All we know for sure that the guy was given a slap on the wrist at the end of the day.
.
See this link in my previous comment on this thread … no grace from Obama or DOJ!
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."But you did not say what happened to Drake, and the others, is NOT OK.
Speaking of which, BooMan, when are you going to denounce the Broccoli Mandate? And Stalin?
IMHO, this behavior by the government is (no surprise) just one step away from torturing our own people.
It is indeed no surprise that this is your opinion. It’s still nuts.
Prosecutors threatening greater charges to get someone to plead out is “one step away” – one! – “from torturing our own people?”
On rereading, don’t you think that’s a tad over the top?
You might need to review how fascism came to Germany; a series of calculated moves over a period of time. it didn’t happen overnight.
I would think the authorities reaction to the occupy movement would be some sort of clue (among others) to you, but apparently not.
You might need to review how fascism came to Germany
Leading off with a Godwin is never a good sign.
Look’s like Poe’s Law strikes again: it is impossible to distinguish a parody of political absurdity from the real thing.
Anyway, looks like I have my answer: you aren’t taking it back, you’re doubling down: using more serious charges to get a suspect to plead out is “one step away from” torturing our own citizens. Not only is that is not an overstatement, but it’s something something something Nazis. OK.
The real “sad truth” is that the true movers and shakers of this still ongoing tragedy…our so-called “leaders”, the DemocRatpublican politicians who have pursued ultraviolent policies of economic imperialism throughout the world for well over 50 years…will never get a fair trial at all. Not even an unfair one. They’ll just continue to scam the American public until the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.
A succinct pre-9/11 quote from a man that you like to call a “flake,” Booman:
How flaky is that!!!???
One successful prosecution of a true American war criminal…Kissinger, Cheney, Bush II, take your pick of these or many others…is all that would be needed to end this fiasco.
But NOOOOoooooo…
The shame is on those who refuse to stand up to the plain fact that the U.S. has been the biggest, most effective and most violent war criminal in the world since it entered the Vietnam war situation.
Watch as the empire crumbles under the weight of its own lies and guilt.
Watch.
The poet Robinson Jeffers pinned it, long ago and far away.
What does empire do to its truth-tellers, its prophets?
It disappears them. It tries to do so, anyway. It non-persons them, as it has attempted to do with Ron Paul and as it also attempted to do with Robinson Jeffers.
But that shit doesn’t work, Booman. Eventually, truth…and murder as well…will out.
MLK Jr…another prophet who got “disappeared,” albeit in a more immediate and violent manner because he was a more serious and present danger to the scam…said it pretty well.
and
Watch.
It’s just a matter of time.
Eventually the chickens always come home to roost.
Always.
Watch.
AG
P.S. I will tell you something else, Booman.
Silence is complicity. Silent for “political” reasons? No excuse. The long arc of the moral universe eventually reaches out and smacks the complicit upside the head. There is always some kind of hell to pay. Eventually…just as in a children’s game of musical chairs…the complicity chairs simply run out.
Then what?
Then justice takes its own measure.
This is one real meaning of the word “karma,” Booman. It applies to kings and it applies to commoners as well. It just appears to be bigger and more serious when it hits the kings.
Watch.
Karma.
Eventually, it’s always what’s for dinner.
Watch.
Don’t say I didn’t try to tell you.
You been warned.
We all been warned.
A thousand thousand times.
Watch.
What a farce.
“Why is this so hard?” the judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, declared in exasperation.
At one point, Ramzi bin al Shibh, the alleged organizer of an al Qaida cell in Hamburg, Germany, got up from his defendant’s chair and began to pray. He stood, arms crossed on his chest, then at one point got on his knees. The guards didn’t move and the court watched in silence until he finished.
Military judges know how to a run a trial of a servicemember who is sitting up straight in his chair and saying “No, sir” and “Yes, sir” only when he’s told to speak. These defendants act like clowns, and nobody knows what to do. This isn’t to say that the military justice system is incompetent, just that cases and defendants like this aren’t way they do for a living.
Real federal judges would have seen this all before and know how to handle it. And the same goes for the prosecution, and for the poor saps assigned to be defense counsel.
What a screw-up.
The sad truth is that the man most responsible for the carnage of 9/11 would probably walk free if given a fair trial because Dick Cheney and George W. Bush decided to torture him and tainted the evidence against him.
I don’t think that’s actually true. It’s not like he’s being given a military trial because the Department of Justice didn’t want to risk a civilian trial. Remember, the Obama administration was so confident about their ability to convict KSM in the real courts, using real criminal procedures and standards of evidence, that they tried to make his prosecution the poster child for why Gitmo should be closed and detained al Qaeda suspects tried in the federal courts. They were only prevented from doing so by Congressional action.
As I understand it, the case against Khalid Sheik Mohammed himself is pretty rock-solid, and doesn’t depend upon statements he made after he was captured. The feds knew who this guy was and what he had done before he was even captured. My understanding is that it’s the cases against other suspects – people he may have implicated, directly or indirectlyafter his capture – that are going to have tainted-evidence problems.
The point still stands, though: the insistence on military trials instead of criminal-court trials is a terrible idea. Military lawyers and courts are there to keep order in the ranks, not handle huge, complicated cases involving large international conspiracies. Unlike the FBI and federal courts, the military justice system isn’t designed for this type of case, and they’re liable to make a hash of it.
“Unlike the FBI and federal courts, the military justice system isn’t designed for this type of case, and they’re liable to make a hash of it.”
this is probably the only thing you and I will ever agree on.
I find that comforting.