The confessions of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

[Bamspeedy]

The full transcript of his tribunal/confession:

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/03/14/transcript_ISN10024.pdf

 

[Bamspeedy]

1) Is this confession in any way reliable?

Yes. Maybe he is claiming a little more credit for a couple of them, but he did clarify one statement that said he was responsible for one of the events and said "I shared responsibility" so he wasn't seeking full credit for all the events.

2) What's the war on terror about if this guy was behind everything?

Just because he is trying to claim for credit for everything doesn't mean he is the only terrorist in the world.

3) Do we owe uncle Osama an apology?

What for? This guy admitted that he swore allegience to Osama to wage a Jihad against the west and he was a member of Al Queda council and the media operations director for Al Queda.

You still trying to claim Osama is innocent because it doesn't fit your agenda of blaming western governments or corporations?

4) Why have these series of confessions been publicized now?

Because he just had his tribunal, perhaps? Date on transcript says March 10, 2007.

 

[Babbler]

One possible everybody forgetting is that he might be making this all up for propaganda purposes. Why not go out with a blaze of glory?

 

[Quiet Sound]

Two additional points of information:

Link

Two young sons of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks, are being used by the CIA to force their father to talk.

Yousef al-Khalid, nine, and his brother, Abed al-Khalid, seven, were taken into custody in Pakistan last September when intelligence officers raided a flat in Karachi where their father had been hiding.

Link

In his confession, KSM claims:

"I was responsible for planning, training, surveying, and financing for the New (or Second) Wave of attacks against the following skyscrapers after 9/11: ...Plaza Bank, Washington state" [Page 18, point 7 of the transcript posted by Bamspeedy]

The Plaza Bank was not founded until 2006 [3 years after Mohammed's arrest] according to their official Web site

 

[plarq]

We shouldn't apologize to Uncle bin Laden since he wouldn't publicly accept our apology.

If they confirmed his guiltiness by other (non-torture gathered) ways, they have the right to torture him in order to extract more information, but they should keep in mind these may be fake ones. Gathering information is only finding clues, not evidence.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Two additional points of information:

Like I said, he could be claiming credit for some of the things he didn't do, but regarding the 'Plaza Bank'...

Buried on page 18 of the transcript is the claim that Mohammed's terrorists planned to hit a "Plaza Bank" in Washington state during the second wave of attacks after Sept. 11. The transcript gives no further details.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/307571_terror15.html

Another downtown Seattle bank is the "Bank of America Fifth Avenue Plaza."

and

But in 2004, the Sept. 11 commission concluded that Mohammed had originally planned the attacks to include "the tallest buildings in California and Washington state." The Columbia Center in Seattle is the tallest building in Washington.

It's possible after being in captivity for a few years, he got the names of his targets/plots a little mixed up.

Edit:
Although I think he may be claiming credit for a couple of the things he didn't do, I certainly find his confession of beheading Daniel Pearl to be credible (which was deleted/redacted from the BBC version because the family hadn't been notified yet about the confession).

 

[Xenocrates]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2368990.ece

The CIA denies that Mohammed was tortured, but evidence to the contrary has been building for years. Two years ago, a CIA official told ABC News that he had been water-boarded, and had won the admiration of his interrogators because it took him two to two-and-half minutes to start confessing - well beyond the average of 14 seconds observed in others.

I think the KSM confession is pretty worthless if any kind of toture is involved. And I think that he has successfully undermined the whole process by admitting to a catalogue of crimes that not even a dark Mary Poppins could achieve.

GK Chesterton Essay: Humanitarianism and Strength):

"According to some modern moralists, whenever Zulus cut of the head of dead Englishmen, Englishmen must cut off the heads of dead Zulus..... And on a similar principle (I suppose), whenever an English Admiral has to fight cannibals the English Admiral ought to eat them"

[However]

All the mystery of the white man, all the the fearful poetry of the white man, so far as it exists in the eyes of these savages, consists in the fact that we do not do such things. The Zulus point at us and say, 'Observe the advent of these inexplicable demigods, these magicians, who do not cut off the noses of their enemies'.... And the cannibals say, 'The austere and terrible race, the race that denies itself even boiled missionary, is upon us: let us flee'

What he's saying in his quaint and racist way, is that the strength of the West is derived by not using the instruments of savagery and torture and that by decending to the level of the savage we lose our power.


KSM admitted to being behind 9/11 'from A to Z'. I'm waiting for Mr Bush to send his apology card and some flowers to Uncle Ossy. Either that or to admit that this confession is nonsense.

 

[nonconformist]

Remember, this is the guy who has the record for holding out the longest during waterboarding, much longer than any CIA agent could.

 

[zenspiderz]

Call me a cynic but I suspect this guy was (before gitmo) just some random cafe owner or carpet salesman. Bushco couldn't find that other guy (OBL) they framed 911 and the other bombings on so they just tortured some random guy the northern alliance sold them until his will was so thoroughly broken that he could be programmed (MK Ultra stylee) to confess to anything. Realpolitik in action.

 

[Xenocrates]

Zen: You're a cynic

Nonoconformist: Either he possesses superhuman powers of self control, or he was largely innocent given that he beat the water-boarding average by an order of magnitude! Either way his zany admissions are unbelievable.

It would clinch it for me if he admitted to sleeping with Paris Hilton - I mean no innocent man would ever plumb those depths

 

[bathsheba666]

Funnily enough, there are a couple of british based 'terrorists' whom the americans have finally accepted are innocent.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2036699,00.html

This is despite one of the individuals now freely confessing:
a) that he was Osama bin Laden's commanding officer
b) a giant snowball was about to engulf the planet at al-Qaeda's behest.

It's amazing what you will confess to after years in solitary courtesy of the us government.


One of them wasa able to prove that he was in London cooking at restaurants, during the time the americans thought he was off training at al qaeda camps.

Just imagine how many of the others are also innocent, but without the ability to disprove the wild assertions being made to justify the fishing expedition.

 

[philippe]

I hope they didn't tortured him with a feather or with a comfy chair...

Eh I guess if they pushed the "interrogation" further he would have confessed to be a witch and have been engaging in orgies with the devil...

 

[mitsho]

The world wide war of Islam vs everyone else. If you need I can give a short list of all the battle fronts that imidiatly come to mind.

Please do, because I can't think of any. If it really is, it is more like a civil war inside the Islamic country. Btw. for example in Indonesia or on the Philippines, there is trouble with the "muslim ethnicities", but not in any sort of combined fight. In Iraq we have a whole Civil War between three ethnicities (the latter two define themselve over religion, so what?), In Egypt, Turkey, Palestine we have a constant fight of the "secular Islam" against the "Muslim Brothers", Iran and Saudia-Arabia is a special case, but it won't become kamikaze-extremist, it just won't. The VAE, Kuwait, Oman - now you would not call them a danger at all, would you?

Al-Quaida, the Taliban and the few - mostly unimportant - countries such as Somalia are not enough imho to warrant the term "War".

mfG mick

 

[MobBoss]

Can you prove me that, MobBoss? Every news site I saw it, told otherwise. Even when I heard the news for the first time, national radio here said, the confession has something to do with torture..

mick

EDIT: By proving, I mean simply giving a source for that information?

Just the facts in the intelligence that had been following this guy for years prior to his capture. Heck, even the 911 commission report mentions his involvement in many bombings. Are you saying that the 911 commission report is wrong?

 

[MobBoss]

Remember, this is the guy who has the record for holding out the longest during waterboarding, much longer than any CIA agent could.

Huh? Ah...nope.

Call me a cynic but I suspect this guy was (before gitmo) just some random cafe owner or carpet salesman.

Oh. My. God. I cannot believe some of you people. This guy had years of intel against him prior to him being picked up for his involvement in murders and bombings and you ALLOW your hatred of Bush to see this guy as 'an innocent carpet salesman'?

Utterly, unbelievable.

 

[mitsho]

Just the facts in the intelligence that had been following this guy for years prior to his capture. Heck, even the 911 commission report mentions his involvement in many bombings. Are you saying that the 911 commission report is wrong?

No, not at all, I just said that I heard it otherwise, you know the list they give on that BBC website is impressive, I first thought it was a satirical joke on American Torture. And you make it sound that he has a great responsibility in all these, but he was rather "just" involved (I know how bad that does sound). After all, I just want to state, that intelligence report are good, but his confessions are totally worthless if made under torture. (I do not know the exact info on this case, sorry)

mick

 

[nonconformist]

Huh? Ah...nope.

Errr...yes:

According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.

 

[MobBoss]

No, not at all, I just said that I heard it otherwise, you know the list they give on that BBC website is impressive, I first thought it was a satirical joke on American Torture. And you make it sound that he has a great responsibility in all these, but he was rather "just" involved (I know how bad that does sound). After all, I just want to state, that intelligence report are good, but his confessions are totally worthless if made under torture. (I do not know the exact info on this case, sorry)

mick

Sigh. Even prior to his capture, he was listed as the #3 man in Al Qaeda. He wasnt just some 'wanna be' terrorist, he was one of the head guys, in planning and executing such acts.

Bottom line, we never did need torture to implicate him. If he was tortured, it was most likely to turn over information that we DIDNT have. We already knew what he was invovled in.

Errr...yes:

Ah...the old faceless 'sources'. Cant beat those for info can you?

 

[mitsho]

Sigh. Even prior to his capture, he was listed as the #3 man in Al Qaeda. He wasnt just some 'wanna be' terrorist, he was one of the head guys, in planning and executing such acts.

Bottom line, we never did need torture to implicate him. If he was tortured, it was most likely to turn over information that we DIDNT have. We already knew what he was invovled in.

Sigh, please read my post again. Today, they cannot understand what I'm saying.

As I told you, I don't care on the details, he may be a terrorist, but that he confessed on responsability for all these things listed on BBC, hey that's quite a much. and it really has nothing to do with torture? See, I don't know and I don't care.

My bottom line is just that every information you didn't have and did get through torture is worthless from a strategic point of view and worthless in a second way, as it cannot be used as proof in any juidical arrangement. Oh wait, I'm sorry, there are no judges in or involved in Guantanamo Bay.

mick

 

[MobBoss]

Sigh, please read my post again. Today, they cannot understand what I'm saying.

As I told you, I don't care on the details, he may be a terrorist, but that he confessed on responsability for all these things listed on BBC, hey that's quite a much. and it really has nothing to do with torture? See, I don't know and I don't care.

My bottom line is just that every information you didn't have and did get through torture is worthless from a strategic point of view and worthless in a second way, as it cannot be used as proof in any juidical arrangement. Oh wait, I'm sorry, there are no judges in or involved in Guantanamo Bay.

mick

Actually, in a tribunal, yes there are.