George W. Bush 'knew Guantánamo prisoners were innocent'

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.

The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.

Defense lawyer Scott Fenstermaker in an interview with The Populist describes how he was blocked by the government from representing 9/11 detainees and how the judges and lawyers in the New York trial may themselves be prosecuted in a future war crimes tribunal.

Scott Fenstermaker, the 9/11 Lawyer, Speaks Out The Populist, November 30th, 2009

Scott Fenstermaker has become the lightning rod for 9/11. He is the only defense lawyer mentioned in the upcoming trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-conspirators. Although he won’t be defending them in court, he’s been pilloried by the press for daring to suggest that these detainees have any legal rights.

I called him this weekend, and asked him why.

Scott Fenstermaker has represented Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali in various legal proceedings at Guantanamo Bay. Mr. Ali stands accused of conspiracy, murder, destruction of property, hijacking, and terrorism for his part in the September 11th attacks. I could not understand why Mr. Fenstermaker would not defend his client in court, so I began the interview by asking him to clarify this:

(Updated with further developments from Democracy Now. Essentially, the Obama administration is threatening the security of British citizens to prevent disclosure of torture crimes; a less roundabout way to describe it would be that the White House is "threatening with increased risk of mass murder by ending intelligence sharing" -- SnowCrash)

British Lawmaker David Davis Challenges US Threats to Suppress Evidence of CIA Torture

Democracy Now, August 5, 2009

A British court heard evidence last week that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to prevent the disclosure of details regarding the CIA’s role in the alleged torture of former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Binyam Mohamed. We hear from conservative British parliamentarian David Davis about the Obama administration’s attempts to suppress evidence in this case.

Terrorist Pianos of Doom!

Arthur Silber

http://uruknet.com/?p=m54682&hd=&size=1&l=e

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/04/what-led-to-krystian-zimermans-surprising-performance-walkouts-.html

May 29, 2009

Toward the end of last month, a noteworthy incident occurred in the classical music life of Los Angeles:

this would be his last American appearance -- in protest of the nation's military policies overseas.

In a low voice that could not be heard throughout the auditorium, Zimerman, universally considered among the world's finest pianists, made reference to Guantanamo Bay and U.S. military policies toward Poland.

"Get your hands off my country," he said.

From Rawstory: "House Minority Leader John Boehner has posted an alarming new video on his YouTube page that includes images of the Pentagon burning on Sept. 11, 2009, and implications that the Congressman, or those who created the video, support torture techniques used on terror war prisoners during the Bush administration."

Note that Sept. 11, 2009 should have read Sept. 11, 2001, but I've quoted Rawstory verbatim, errors included. They or may not correct it soon.

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/12/in-100-years-neocons-will-be-recognized.html

Neocon John Bolton claims that “in 100 years,” people won’t remember two of the biggest stains on Bush’s record, Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib:

“In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, he was strong and decisive and that was critical for both the country and for the Western world,” believes John Bolton. “In 100 years people aren’t going to remember Guantánamo or Abu Ghraib, they’re going to remember 9/11 and Bush’s reaction to it.”

Is he right?

No.

60 years after Hitler, the exact thing which we most remember are his concentration camps.

Do we remember the false threats he drummed up to scare his people? The fake threat from Poland, for example, which is the exact parallel to the Neocon's fake "war on terror"?

What convenient timing . . . but a later session requested by Judge Henley?

MONDAY 8 DECEMBER 2008

Alleged 9/11 Plotters Offer to Confess at Guantánamo

by: William Glaberson, The New York Times

Guantánamo Bay, Cuba - All five of the Guantánamo detainees charged with planning and coordinating the Sept. 11 attacks have asked a military judge to accept their confessions in full. The request appeared to be intended to cut short any effort to try them, and to challenge the United States government to put them to death.

At the start of what had been expected to be routine proceedings Monday, the military judge, Col. Steven Henley, disclosed that he had received a written statement from the five men. The statement said the five planned to stop filing written motions and instead "to announce our confessions to plea in full."

As he questioned one of the men, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has described himself as the mastermind of the 2001 attacks, Judge Henley of the United States Army asked whether Mr. Mohammmed was prepared to enter pleas to the charges against him today. "Yes," Mr. Mohammed answered brusquely.

mainstream mention of Cheney's

A Ticket to The Hague for Dick Cheney?

www.harpers.org/#hbc-90003846

By Scott Horton

Gene Burns is one of the nation's most popular talk radio hosts. For years he has dismissed accounts of torture; America, he has said, does not torture. But last night, after watching Torturing Democracy and realizing that he had not understood how important and serious an issue torture had become, Burns abruptly changed his tune.

Here's a transcript of his remarks:

"I now believe that some international human rights organization ought to open an investigation of the Bush Administration, I think focused on Vice President Dick Cheney, and attempt to bring charges against Cheney in the international court of justice at The Hague, for war crimes. Based on the manner in which we have treated prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, and the manner in which we have engaged in illegal rendition–that is, surreptitiously kidnapping prisoners and flying them to foreign countries where they could be tortured by foreign agents who do not follow the same civilized standards to which we subscribe.

We will not be silenced . . .

http://socialistworker.org/2008/08/01/refusing-to-be-silenced

http://socialistworker.org/2008/08/01/refusing-to-be-silencedSpeech: Dave Zirin

Refusing to be silenced
August 1, 2008

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On July 24, about 100 people gathered in Baltimore for a forum to stand up against a long-term spying operation conducted by the Maryland State Police against anti-death penalty and antiwar activists.

The surveillance and infiltration of the groups took place while Republican Robert Ehrlich was governor, according to 43 pages of state police reports recently released to the ACLU. The spying continued month after month despite the fact that the state's agents never recorded a single illegal act among the groups' protest activities. This week, the current governor, Martin O'Malley, appointed a panel to review the state police surveillance operation against the anti-death penalty and antiwar movements.

Dave Zirin, a sportswriter and activist, was one of the activists named in the spying reports. At the July 24 meeting, he talked about his reactions to the spy scandal and activists' plans for "going on offense."

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/623820.html
Posted on Wed, Jul. 30, 2008

Alleged 9/11 mastermind won't testify - live
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Reputed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed has balked at testifying in person at the trial of Osama bin Laden's driver, defense lawyers said Wednesday. Instead, the jury will get written statements from the al Qaeda kingpin and another alleged plotter in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Lawyers for Salim Hamdan, 37, plan to use the testimony of Mohammed and Walid Bin Attash to try to exonerate the driver, Hamdan, of being an al Qaeda co-conspirator.

One of those men has already written Hamdan's lawyers that the Yemeni with a fourth-grade education ''Was not fit to plan or execute,'' according to defense attorney Harry Schneider of Seattle. ``He is fit to change tires. And oil filters.''

The argument dovetails nicely with the driver's defense that he never joined al Qaeda, did not know in advance about the details of al Qaeda terror plots and merely drove for $200 a month -- and not for ideology.

Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKNASU6040120080605

9/11 families excluded from Guantanamo hearing

Thu Jun 5, 2008 4:03am BST

By Jane Sutton

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - As the Guantanamo war crimes court prepared to arraign five prisoners on death penalty charges of orchestrating the September 11 attacks, a Pentagon official apologized on Wednesday for excluding victims' families from the hearing.

The U.S. military quietly invited one woman whose brother was an American Airlines pilot killed in the plane that crashed into the Pentagon in the 2001 attacks.

But the invitation to attend Thursday's arraignment at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba was rescinded when the New York Daily News revealed that lone invitee Debra Burlingame was an ardent defender of President George W. Bush who spoke in support of his administration at the Republican Party convention during his 2004 re-election campaign.

Relatives of other victims complained that the Guantanamo trials were being politicized and the Pentagon's legal adviser, Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, acknowledged the matter was mishandled.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080211/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_sept_11_trial

Pentagon charges Sept. 11 suspects

By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer

The Pentagon has charged six detainees at Guantanamo Bay with murder and war crimes in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, it was announced Monday. Officials said they'll seek the death penalty in what would be the first trials under the terrorism-era military tribunal system.

"These charges allege a long term, highly sophisticated, organized plan by al-Qaida to attack the United States of America," Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, the legal adviser to the tribunal system, told reporters. He added that the charges have been sworn "against six individuals alleged to be responsible for the planning and execution of the attacks" which occurred on Sept. 11, 2001 and killed nearly 3,000 people.

Hartmann said the six include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the attacks in which hijacked planes were flown into buildings in New York and Washington. Another hijacked plane crashed in the fields of western Pennsylvania.

Here is the most recent news on this subject:

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070315/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_terrorist_confession

Published: Thursday, March 15, 2007

Al-Qaida No. 3 says he planned 9/11

By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confirmed his notoriety as al-Qaida's most ambitious operational planner when, according to military transcripts, he confessed to planning and supporting 31 terrorist attacks, topped by 9/11, that killed thousands of innocent victims since the early 1990s.

The gruesome attacks range from the suicide hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001 — which killed nearly 3,000 — to a 2002 shooting on an island off Kuwait that killed a U.S. Marine.

Many plots, including a previously undisclosed plan to kill several former U.S. presidents, were never carried out or were foiled by international counterterror authorities.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070312/ts_nm/guantanamo_hearings_dc

Published: Monday, March 12, 2007

September 11 suspect gets Guantanamo hearing

U.S. military officials have held initial hearings for three terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, including the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the United States, the Pentagon said on Monday.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said a three-member panel examined the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at a closed hearing on Saturday at the U.S. military prison camp on Cuba.

Mohammed is among 14 prisoners identified by U.S. authorities as "high-value" terrorism suspects and transferred to Guantanamo last September from secret CIA prisons abroad.

The hearings to determine whether the suspects meet U.S. authorities' definition of an enemy combatant began on Friday, the Pentagon said.

The cases of two suspects -- Ramzi bin al Shaibah, a Yemeni also accused of involvement in the September 11 attacks, and alleged senior al Qaeda figure Abu Faraj al Libi of Libya -- were examined on Friday, Whitman said.