Should Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be set free?
Should Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be set free?
By Mike Whitney - Apr 10, 2008
Online Journal Contributing Writer
"This is the time to demonstrate to the world that the United States need not abandon its principles even as it seeks to ensure the safety of its citizens." - Janet Reno, former US Attorney General and member of ACLU Guantánamo Defense "Dream Team"
Should Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be set free?
It's a difficult question, but it deserves a serious answer. Here's why. The only reason the Bush administration has decided to conduct a trial for Mohammed, the alleged terrorist mastermind of the attacks on September 11, is because they feel confident in the outcome. It's a slam dunk. There's no chance that the alleged perpetrator of the biggest act of terrorism in American history (against America, that is) will be found innocent.
Bush thinks a Mohammed conviction will be a vindication for his kangaroo courts (military tribunals) at Guantánamo Bay as well as reinforce the belief that the president has the inherent right to arbitrarily imprison anyone he chooses if he brands him an enemy combatant. It is a cynical power play meant to increase presidential authority while further undermining fundamental legal protections. That means that the so-called tribunals will be choreographed by the Bush public relations team to rehash 9-11 in as frightening terms as possible invoking the same, worn demagoguery we've heard for the past six years.
On the other hand, the ACLU, which has courageously decided to defend Mohammed, will try to demonstrate the basic unfairness of the proceedings (which provide defendants with fewer rights than civilian trials or courts-martial) and how the Bush administration has violated the law at every turn by denying Mohammed due process and by using harsh interrogation techniques, including torture, to extract a confession.
Bush is no friend of civil liberties or justice. Since he first took office in 2001, he's waged a persistent and systematic no-holds-barred attack on the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Conventions. Last week, a 30-page memo authored by former senior Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo surfaced, showing that the Bush administration worked assiduously to create a legal framework for justifying the cruel and inhuman treatment of detainees in their custody...
Continued...
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3159.shtml
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Sorry to be off topic, but I just wanted to get this off my
chest.
I just ran into Barry Scheck of "Dream Team" fame who defended O.J. Simpson. He is also the famous DNA "Innocence Project" crusader, & law professor.
Mr. Scheck was walking his dog in our Brooklyn neighborhood, and I politely asked him if he thought that we may have been lied to about 9/11, & that it may have been an inside job.
He gave me a condescending (and nervous?) look and asked if meant the, “story that WTC Towers were blown-up by explosives.” I said yes, that’s part of it. I then held out a DVD of “9/11 Ripple Effect” and an “11 Remarkable Facts About 9/11” card for Mr. Sheck to look at and/or hopefully take.
Scheck disdainfully muttered that he’d heard about “that”, and he refused to even look at the DVD or at the card I was holding out to him. Suddenly he was in some sort of hurry.
I asked Scheck if he had heard of Building 7, & he turned his back to me and started walking away, as if I were a jerk or something. I called out that that he well knows how "dirty our government really is" and that 9/11 should be no surprise to him. He just kept walking, not even bothering to turn around or say anything more to me.
What the hell is wrong with highly-educated, sharp people like Scheck? (The outspoken Mr. Scheck wasn't at a loss for words when he got O.J. off for murder, so why does he clam-up re: 9/11?)
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Not off topic
The lawyers representing KSM will likely have similar attitudes.
You have a point. The ACLU have been staunch gatekeepers of
9/11 truth to date! Furthermore, no honest civil rights group would have WACO, TX child-murderer & NWO shill, Janet Reno, on their team to defend anyone, let alone a 9/11 patsy for the "official lie"! (Read about outrageous rights violations & abuses by Janet Reno in “Constitutional Chaos” by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano.)
The entire KSM tribunal is a kangaroo court, including the so-called ACLU "Dream Team." Just look at who's on it--many shysters that were involved in all sorts of other gov't kangaroo trials: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/04/03/aclu-unveils-dream-team-to-rep-gitmo...
What a sick joke!
Let's see someone who acknowledges that 9/11 was an inside job properly defend KSM on those grounds!
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I wouldn't go that far
I'm just saying that these lawyers are not likely to question 9/11. If they learn KSM disputes his supposed confession, that might change. That's the big question - does he dispute the official story. Would and could a defense go further? For example. even if KSM admits to the hijackings, most people were killed by the intervening criminal act of the buildings being blown up. Could that be a defense? (I wouldn't be surprised if "KSM" confesses to that, and it not be questioned seriously. Case closed.) Anyway, there's no telling what the lawyers will have to deal with and I'm not questioning their ethics.
The ACLU's statement does bother me, though:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/32758.html
The ACLU chose to focus on Mohammed's defense, Romero said, because he appears to be "the government's top priority in the prosecution. And whether or not they are able to convict Khalid Sheik Mohammed under these rules may well determine the fate of the almost 300 other men who are detained at Guantanamo.''
I think I have Constitutional Chaos and will check it out.
I would go that far, I do question the lawyers ethics, there
weren't any "highjackings", and KSM & others may well have been duped into this entire atrocity by the real perpetrators in our government!
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You don't need to tell me that
If he was duped, he might think the hijackings are real and confess to it.
In Moussaoui, the defense stipulated to the official story. Ideally, it would have to be proved. I don't think they could prove the planes, let alone the hijackings. I don't foresee this commission playing out that way. I imagine that again, the official story will be stipulated or found to be "true." Like you say, a kangaroo court.
Should the lawyers stay out for that reason? Are they intentional or unwitting participants in a charade that perpetuates a terrible lie? Are they giving the detainees the only chance they have for freedom? Can anyone say without being there and talking to "KSM"? Is ACLU effectively colluding with the government's wish to try KSM, which Asst. Sect'y Defense England said had "strategic political value"?
Where are Lawers for 911 Truth?
"Let's see someone who acknowledges that 9/11 was an inside job properly defend KSM on those grounds!"
Right on Colombo.
The rule of law may still be alive and well, if only ...
Yes indeed! Isn't that amazing? The most educated about
right (and wrong?)
Where are the lawyers?
Simple answer. There's no money in it.
Don't mean to be facetious but do lawyers actually care about true justice, or just winning cases within the framework of the existing legal structure?
Survey says . . .
yes
Courts are to determine if someone is guilty or not
and to determine the punishment, right?
How can torture ever be part in such a procedure?
Torture is punishment before the conviction and is PROOF that the conviction has already taken place!
Now does that sound like civilization to you?