Thursday, March 15, 2007
Terror Confession appears Delusional
The news that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad has confessed to planning 31 acts of terror (eight of which were carried out) as well as personally killing reporter Daniel Pearl has got to raise some eyebrows.
The list includes:
*The truck bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.
*The 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
*The bombing of a nightclub in Bali in 2002
*The plot in which Richard Reid was going to blow up a plane with a shoe bomb.
*A 2002 attack on a beach resort in Mombasa, Kenya.
This guy really gets around...
As much as I'd like to believe we've caught the mastermind for all these attacks, you have to wonder if this confession isn't the product of a mind that finally broke after years at Guantanamo, and interogation techniques included waterboarding. That he said whatever he thought would make the FBI leave him alone.
That or delusions of granduer.
The 23 attacks that he says he wanted to carry out reads like a terrorist wet dream. He claims he planned to attack NATO headquarters, the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower, and Library Tower in Los Angeles, US warships in the Persian Gulf, Gibraltar and Singapore, and, most incredible of all, to blow up the Panama Canal and several US nuclear power plants.
Not long ago we were hearing how Al-Qaeda is extremely independent, each cell operating in near autonomy. Suddenly it seems they were puppets run by one man.
Perhaps the confession is true. Perhaps we have caught the criminal that masterminded all of this. I tend to think we have caught a major player who has exagerated his role, either to make America look foolish for believing his outrageous claims, or to encourage others to follow his footsteps -- if I a single man can plan all this, so can you -- or to make himself look "good."
Unfortunately, our government is not planning to put him on trial. We tried Noriega, we should try Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. Universal human rights demand a trial. And the people of America deserve a trial. Cynical minds will say we don't want him to reveal on the witness stand exactly what goes on at Guantanamo. Proponents of no trial will say he could use the witness stand for spreading his anti-American propaganda.
Either way, we -- and he -- deserve to have a trial to determine the truth of his confession. ¶ 11:58 PM
The list includes:
*The truck bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.
*The 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
*The bombing of a nightclub in Bali in 2002
*The plot in which Richard Reid was going to blow up a plane with a shoe bomb.
*A 2002 attack on a beach resort in Mombasa, Kenya.
This guy really gets around...
As much as I'd like to believe we've caught the mastermind for all these attacks, you have to wonder if this confession isn't the product of a mind that finally broke after years at Guantanamo, and interogation techniques included waterboarding. That he said whatever he thought would make the FBI leave him alone.
That or delusions of granduer.
The 23 attacks that he says he wanted to carry out reads like a terrorist wet dream. He claims he planned to attack NATO headquarters, the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower, and Library Tower in Los Angeles, US warships in the Persian Gulf, Gibraltar and Singapore, and, most incredible of all, to blow up the Panama Canal and several US nuclear power plants.
Not long ago we were hearing how Al-Qaeda is extremely independent, each cell operating in near autonomy. Suddenly it seems they were puppets run by one man.
Perhaps the confession is true. Perhaps we have caught the criminal that masterminded all of this. I tend to think we have caught a major player who has exagerated his role, either to make America look foolish for believing his outrageous claims, or to encourage others to follow his footsteps -- if I a single man can plan all this, so can you -- or to make himself look "good."
Unfortunately, our government is not planning to put him on trial. We tried Noriega, we should try Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. Universal human rights demand a trial. And the people of America deserve a trial. Cynical minds will say we don't want him to reveal on the witness stand exactly what goes on at Guantanamo. Proponents of no trial will say he could use the witness stand for spreading his anti-American propaganda.
Either way, we -- and he -- deserve to have a trial to determine the truth of his confession. ¶ 11:58 PM
