Ryan J. Reilly
Posted: 01/28/2013

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba --A judge expressed frustration on Monday that an unknown U.S. government entity censored his courtroom audiovisual feed, cutting public access to pretrial hearings for five accused Sept. 11 plotters.

"If some external body is turning the commission on or off based on their own views of what things ought to be, with no reasonable explanation ... then we’re going to have a little meeting about who turns that light on and off," said the judge, Col. James Pohl.

Pohl's comments came after an unknown censor cut off a live media feed to the court proceedings as David Nevin, a lawyer defending Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, began discussing his request for information on his client's case.

Proceedings at Guantanamo's maximum-security court are broadcast over closed-circuit television to journalists observing from an adjacent room. Additional reporters monitor the feed from a nearby media center, and at Fort Meade, Md.

Abby Martin speaks to Jesse Ventura and examines American War Crimes.

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It would appear that, contrary to statements previously attributed to them, the alleged "mastermind" of 9-11 and his alleged cohorts will not plead guilty, but will resist. Their attorneys likewise appear to be providing them with an aggressive defense.

***

5 charged in 9/11 attack resist Gitmo hearing
By Ben Fox
-
Associated Press
Saturday, May 5, 2012
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — The self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks repeatedly declined to answer a judge’s questions Saturday and his co-defendants knelt in prayer in what appeared to be a concerted protest against the military proceedings....

***

The entire article can be found at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/5/911-mastermind-back-guant...

[One assumes no one will ask how these folks could control NORAD, etc. --Student]

April 5, 2012 12:00 am
By Peter Finn / The Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- A senior Pentagon official on Wednesday authorized a new trial for Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four others accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, a step that restarts the most momentous terrorism case likely to be held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The suspects were first charged in a military commission in 2008, but the case was suspended after the Obama administration came into office and later moved to have them tried in federal court in New York City. That effort collapsed in the face of congressional and local opposition.

In April 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he was reluctantly sending the case back to the military. Military charges against the five men were re-sworn in June, and retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, the official who oversees the commissions and is known as the Convening Authority, on Wednesday sent the case for trial after reviewing and approving those charges.

The men face multiple charges, including murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, hijacking aircraft and terrorism. If convicted, they could face the death penalty.

Charged along with Mr. Mohammed are Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, a Pakistani who is Mr. Mohammed's nephew; Ramzi Binalshibh and Walid bin Attash, both Yemenis; and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, a Saudi. All are accused of playing key organizational or financial roles in the attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, a plot that Mr. Mohammed has said he masterminded.

"When the people fear the government that is tyranny.
When the government fears the people, that is liberty."

- Thomas Jefferson

http://www.sfexaminer.com/politics/ap/ap-exclusive-to-keep-program-secre...
CIA whisked detainees from Gitmo
By: MATT APUZZO and ADAM GOLDMAN
Associated Press
08/06/10 1:10 PM PDT

WASHINGTON — A white, unmarked Boeing 737 landed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before dawn on a CIA mission so secretive, many in the nation's war on terrorism were kept in the dark.

Four of the nation's most highly valued terrorist prisoners were aboard.

They arrived at Guantanamo on Sept. 24, 2003, years earlier than the U.S. has ever disclosed. Then, months later, they were just as quietly whisked away before the Supreme Court could give them access to lawyers.

The transfer allowed the U.S. to interrogate the detainees in CIA "black sites" for two more years without allowing them to speak with attorneys or human rights observers or challenge their detention in U.S. courts. Had they remained at the Guantanamo Bay prison for just three more months, they would have been afforded those rights.

 www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/05/21/bagram/index.html 

Obama wins the right to detain people with no habeas review

BY GLENN GREENWALD

Reuters/Jonathon Burch

A detainee holding cell is pictured at the detention centre at the U.S. Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul.

(updated below - Update II)

Few issues highlight Barack Obama's extreme hypocrisy the way that Bagram does. As everyone knows, one of George Bush’s most extreme policies was abducting people from all over the world -- far away from any battlefield -- and then detaining them at Guantanamo with no legal rights of any kind, not even the most minimal right to a habeas review in a federal court.  Back in the day, this was called "Bush's legal black hole."  In 2006, Congress codified that policy by enacting the Military Commissions Act, but in 2008, the Supreme Court, in Boumediene v. Bush, ruled that provision unconstitutional, holding that the Constitution grants habeas corpus rights even to foreign nationals held at Guantanamo.  Since then, detainees havewon 35 out of 48 habeas hearings brought pursuant to Boumediene, on the ground that there was insufficient evidence to justify their detention.

Amnesty International is calling for people to lobby Congress to allow US trials for the 9/11 accused go forward; currently Sen. Lindsey Graham is spearheading attempts to block US trials in favor of military commissions - loose nuke

http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPC...
ONLINE ACTION CENTER: DON'T LET CONGRESS BLOCK TRIALS FOR THE 9/11 ACCUSED

President Obama made the right decision to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other alleged 9/11 conspirators in U.S. federal court, but now members of Congress are attacking the President's decision and threatening to block funding for the trial. Senator Lindsey Graham called federal trials a "dumb idea" and wants to use the kangaroo courts known as military commissions, that he and other politicians cooked up at Guantanamo, to ensure convictions and cover up evidence of torture.

Report Reveals CIA Conducted Mock Executions
A long-awaited report on post-9/11 interrogation tactics will reveal harrowing new details about treatment of suspected terrorists.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/213188

PHOTOS
A Torture Timeline
For hundreds of years, atrocities have been committed in the name of empire-building, religion or national security

By Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Aug 21, 2009 | Updated: 6:58 p.m. ET Aug 21, 2009
A long-suppressed report by the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general to be released next week reveals that CIA interrogators staged mock executions as part of the agency's post-9/11 program to detain and question terror suspects, NEWSWEEK has learned.

Before going on vacation, Jean-Marie Bigard treats us to a 6 Episode Bumper Bonanza

Please vote, comment, distribute and add Jean-Marie's videos as favorites on Dailymotion. Not forgetting to also visit and support his YouTube account.

Here are all 6 episodes:

On Tuesday 20th of January 2009 the Cageprisoners "Two Sides, One Story -- Guantanamo From Boths Sides of the Wire Tour" -- a tour to mark seven years of unlawful detention, abuse and torture, came to Sheffield, UK. Christopher Arendt (former Guantanamo guard, Iraq Veterans Against War), Moazzam Begg (former Guantanamo prisoner, spokesperson for Cageprisoners) and Omar Deghayes (former Guantanamo prisoner, Save Omar) were introduced by Jillian Creasy on behalf of the Sheffield Guantanamo Campaign. It was an outstanding and very moving event and an audio recording of the meeting and some photos can be found on Sheffield Indymedia and The A-Infos Radio Project.

news.ReOpen911.info by Spotless Mind
Translated by DJDaveMark
December 1st, 2008

The administrators at Change.org have deleted the idea for a new investigation into 9/11.

They declared that a new investigation into the attacks – which gave the Bush Administration the power to spy on it's own citizens, to torture, to launch two preventative wars based on lies and more generally to trample all over the Constitution – was "outside the scope" of the site's stated mission and therefore didn't meet their criteria for "specific policy solutions". It doesn't matter how many people want to know the Truth about 9/11, they refuse to have the idea promoted and discussed on their site.

Because of this censorship, the Change.org site has shown that it isn't a "social platform" but, rather, just another gatekeeper of 9/11 Truth.

When the idea was pulled, it was by far the most popular, comfortably occupying the top spot, totaling at least 660 votes (twice the amount of the next best rated idea) only 48 hours after being submitted. On a side note, the other proposed ideas had a 3 week head start, and the 9/11 Truth idea was only just warming up.

Why (pretend to) ask the citizens for ideas then simply delete the most popular? It seems like all of this is more of a joke than a wishful expression for democracy…

Here is the e-mail received by everyone who voted (and to whom we thank for voting):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleen-rowley/911-change-yes-we-should_b_1...

9/11 Change: Yes We Should!
Posted June 24, 2008 | 03:46 PM (EST)

Recently, our government excluded the 9/11 victims' families from attending the arraignment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other terror suspects at the military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay. Initially, none of the families, with the exception of ardent Bush supporter Debra Burlingame, were invited.

After this issue became public, the resultant furor caused Debra Burlingame to be dis-invited and a system was established whereby the 9/11 victims' families could observe future sessions via CCTV coverage at various military bases on the east coast. In addition, a lottery system was established so that selected family members, who may want to attend the trial at Guantanamo Bay, will be provided an opportunity to participate.

first 4 paragraphs, this is great news that the judge is attempting to follow centuries of legal precedent

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Gitmo_judge_No_coercive_questioning_eviden...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - The judge in the first American war crimes trial since World War II barred evidence on Monday that interrogators obtained from Osama bin Laden's driver following his capture in Afghanistan.

Prosecutors are considering whether to appeal the judge's ruling — a development that could halt the trial of Salim Hamdan that began earlier Monday after years of delays and legal setbacks.

"We need to evaluate ... to what extent it has an impact on our ability to fully portray his criminality in this case, but also what it might set out for future cases," said Army Col. Lawrence Morris, the tribunals' chief prosecutor.

Hamdan, who was captured at a roadblock in Afghanistan in November 2001, pleaded not guilty at the start of a trial that will be closely watched as the first full test of the Pentagon's system for prosecuting alleged terrorists. He faces a maximum life sentence if convicted of conspiracy and aiding terrorism.

//www.nytimes.com/2008/07/04/washington/04gitmo.html?_r=1&ref=us&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

July 4, 2008
Two Subplots in Guantánamo’s Long Legal Story
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
The long legal story of the Bush administration’s effort to prosecute detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, now has two fast-moving subplots. Either one could soon write something of a final chapter.

One plot will proceed in a federal courthouse in Washington, where lawyers for a detainee filed papers on Thursday seeking an injunction that, if granted, could be the death knell for the Bush administration’s military commissions at Guantánamo.

The other will play out in a makeshift courtroom overlooking Guantánamo Bay itself, where military prosecutors are pressing ahead with plans for what, later this month, would be the first of the trials the administration has been seeking for nearly seven years.

Either one could be decisive.

“This is a critical moment for the proceedings,” said Joanne Mariner, a lawyer at Human Rights Watch.

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/05/who-are-gitmo-defendants.html

Today, the U.S. dropped charges against the so-called '20th hijacker'.

That got me wondering, who are the remaining Guantanamo defendants?

It turns out that they are not "Al Qaeda terrorists", but a bunch of kids, a car pool driver, and others who may have been involved in a civil war within their own country, but not a war against the United States.

For example, an article written by former Wall Street Journal editor and influential conservative Paul Craig Roberts includes the following bombshell:

The six that the United States are bringing to "trial" include two child soldiers for the Taliban and a car pool driver who allegedly drove Osama bin Laden.

US drops charges against Saudi in Sept. 11 attacks
By BEN FOX, Associated Press Writer
Tue May 13, 12:49 AM ET

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The Pentagon has dropped charges against a Saudi at Guantanamo who was alleged to have been the so-called "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11 attacks, his U.S. military defense lawyer said Monday.

Mohammed al-Qahtani was one of six men charged by the military in February with murder and war crimes for their alleged roles in the 2001 attacks. Authorities say al-Qahtani missed out on taking part in the attacks because he was denied entry to the U.S. by an immigration agent.

But in reviewing the case, the convening authority for military commissions, Susan Crawford, decided to dismiss the charges against al-Qahtani and proceed with the arraignment for the other five, said Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles, the Saudi's military lawyer.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080513/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/guantanamo_sept11_...

”Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives.
I think we are being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and
I think I am liable to be put away as insane for expressing that.
That’s what’s insane about it "

-- John Lennon

Flyby News Notes -
Editor - Jonathan Mark - www.FlybyNews.com
April 21, 2008 - WTC Destruction Published * Martial Law Will Stay

Editor’s Notes:

For those who watched the Oscars Sunday night, finally something of substance surfaced that is worthy of mention. The documentary titled: Taxi to the Dark Side, was hands down the winner.

"A harrowing film throwing the spotlight on US interrogation techniques at military facilities won the Oscars best documentary prize here Sunday.

Alex Gibney's "Taxi to the Dark Side" investigates the death in custody of a Afghan taxi-driver, Dilawar, at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in 2002.

An investigation into the death later found Dilawar had been repeatedly kicked and punched and was chained to the ceiling of his cell for days.

Gibney, who also produced hit documentary "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room", said in his acceptance speech that his wife had wanted him to make a romantic comedy.

Rupert Cornwell: Torture, terror and a trial system that is tainted

Wednesday, 13 February 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/rupert-cornwell-tortur...

If George W Bush has his way, this will be al-Qa'ida's Nuremberg. A presidency that began with the deadliest terrorist attacks in history on American soil will end with the trial, conviction and sentencing to death of those who planned them.

Read Part One: http://valenzuelasveritas.blogspot.com/2008/02/crusade-of-surge-and-sieg...

Hear No Evil, See No Evil

Americans’ ever-enduring, catatonic sleepwalk through the Empire’s vast array of bread and circus, as always produced by the Ministry of Truth and the Department of Propaganda, better known as the corporatist media, has succeeded in the creation of an ignorant, incurious and dumbed down populace completely bereft of knowledge of what is done in its name. With no concern for or understanding of geography, cultures, history, alien societies, the outside world and of the imperial aspirations of the Empire, Americans have proved easy targets to the manipulations and deceptions of the corporatist world. Seemingly unwilling to gain knowledge of anything outside American Idol or the weekly NASCAR rat race, the soldier ants and worker bees of the Empire are content to circumvent the horrors of war and the myriad crimes against humanity committed in their name in order to maintain their beautiful minds at peace.

Indeed, the corporatist media has triumphed in completely erasing America’s two disastrous occupations of Muslim lands from the peoples’ conscious and concern, in effect shifting the ongoing debacles away from the daily reality of Americans and towards the abyss of a most cavernous memory hole. Methodically and systematically, the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan, with all their inconvenient truths, with all their disturbing realities, with all their corresponding death, suffering and destruction, have virtually vanished into a vacuum of nothingness, transported by the corporatist state into a clandestine and secretive reality, making of these disasters non-existent nightmares that vanish upon the waking of a new day.

January 11 2008 is the 12th International Day of Truth Action on the Eleventh Day of Every Month until Justice. The day marks 76 months of 9/11 lies and is the 6th anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. Wherever you are on January 11 - join us in united action for 9/11 truth. We're not stopping until justice.

6 Years of Guantanamo Day of Action
Action Networks Groups taking action every eleventh
January 11 Forum Add your location

The Eleventh Day of Every Month

Italia 9/11 * CIA * Habeas * Yucca * $-down
Flyby News Notes -
Editor - Jonathan Mark - www.FlybyNews.com
December 7, 2007 - Italia 9/11 * CIA * Habeas * Yucca * $-down

”.. all the democratic groups of both America and Europe,
including those of the Italian center-left, know very well
already that the disastrous [September 11, 2001] attack was
planned and realized by the CIA and the Mossad, with the help
of the Zionists, in order to put under trial the Arab countries and to
lure the Western powers to intervene in both Iraq and Afghanistan.”

-- Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga
Quote in Italy's popular newspaper, 30 November 2007

1) Ex-Italian President: Intel Agencies Know 9/11 An Inside Job
- - Former Air Traffic Controller Robin Hordon speaks out on 9/11
- - Seven Senior Republican Appointees Challenge Official Account of 9/11
2) C.I.A. Admits It Destroyed Tapes of Harsh Interrogations
- - US intelligence report shows war drive against Iran based on lies
- - Two-Thirds of Israelis Oppose Attack on Iran: Poll
- - Habeas Corpus War for Guantanamo Prisoners
- - Legal Action by Inmates Could Close Guantanamo

Guns & Butter

Wednesday, March 7, 2007, 1:00pm

Tyranny Abroad, Police State at Home

Interview with attorney and President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner. Michael Ratner has led the center in its aggressive legal fight against the post - 9/11 violations of civil liberties by the Bush administration. He was part of a small group of lawyers that first took on representation of the Guantanamo detainees in January 2001, a case that went to the supreme court where a major victory was won in June 2004.

KPFA 94.1 FM Berkeley 1pm PST, and streaming and archived at www.kpfa.org

www.gunsandbutter.net

Evidence is assembled from secret files

Source: iht.com

By David Johnston and Neil A. Lewis
Published: January 12, 2007

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration has set up a secret war room where it is assembling evidence to prosecute high-ranking Qaeda suspects, including the accused mastermind of the September 2001 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, government officials said this week.

The effort to sift the classified files of the Pentagon, FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies amounts to the first concrete steps that the government has taken to press ahead with war crimes trials of high-level terror suspects under a plan announced by President George W. Bush in a speech last September.

At the time, Bush said that Mohammed and 13 other high-level terror suspects had been transferred from secret prisons around the world to the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where they would be held pending trial.

Mohammed al-Qahtani, detainee No. 063, was forced to wear a bra. He had a thong placed on his head. He was massaged by a female interrogator who straddled him like a lap dancer. He was told that his mother and sisters were whores. He was told that other detainees knew he was gay. He was forced to dance with a male interrogator. He was strip-searched in front of women. He was led on a leash and forced to perform dog tricks. He was doused with water. He was prevented from praying. He was forced to watch as an interrogator squatted over his Koran.

That much is known. These details were among the findings of the U.S. Army’s investigation of al-Qahtani's aggressive interrogation at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But only now is a picture emerging of how the interrogation policy developed, and the battle that law enforcement agents waged, inside Guantanamo and in the offices of the Pentagon, against harsh treatment of al-Qahtani and other detainees by military intelligence interrogators.

In interviews with MSNBC.com — the first time they have spoken publicly — former senior law enforcement agents described their attempts to stop the abusive interrogations. The agents of the Pentagon's Criminal Investigation Task Force, working to build legal cases against suspected terrorists, said they objected to coercive tactics used by a separate team of intelligence interrogators soon after Guantanamo's prison camp opened in early 2002. They ultimately carried their battle up to the office of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, who approved the more aggressive techniques to be used on al-Qahtani and others.

two honest articles about US torture plans:

http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2006c/092906/092906s.htm

http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=9740

Whacko christian is a 911 truther.

http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=111593&ran=56921

Chomsky news:

Chomsky Addresses Crisis in Middle EastAlive and Well, Professor Emeritus
Speaks to Packed Audience in Kirsch Auditorium

http://www-tech.mit.edu/V126/N41/41chomsky.html