"Mastermind" behind major terrorist attacks

[popslut]

blah blah blah....

So far, your contribution to this thread has been a series of sarcastic ad-hom attacks on the posters whose viewpoint doesn't match your own and little else.

I'm interested to know whether you consider 'news' reports [from whichever source] to be unimpeachable channels of impirical truth or easily manipulated conduits for propaganda?

Or a mixture of both.

[pilcrow]

Are you kidding? ... This guys picture (KSM) along with his story has been on the net/news you name it for years and years already...

The only thing new here is that he just supposedly confessed to all this new shit besides his involvment in 9/11 and Bali which were already known by authorities from Pakistan to the Philipenes.

right, well, then you don't know it, do you? You've merely read about it in papers and on news websites and heard about it on TV and radio for years, but you don't have personal knowledge of it! i.e., you didn't shadow this man and watch him plan and commit atrocities, did you?! Huh? Did you?? And if you did, did you bother to take any photos which would constitute proof? Or, rather, since photos can be faked, did you bother to collect DNA samples at each of your encounters with the Sheik? Because if you didn't--if at the time you simply couldn't be bothered ("Oh, I'm in a hurry, the photos will have to suffice, I don't have time to mess with DNA sampling")--then you're just pulling your so-called "facts" out of your behind, so please leave this discussion to those who know what they're talking about.

So with your last sentence, your implying that you yourself have done all the things you just typed? lol So tell me about your travels "Shadowing the Sheik" and taking "DNA samples from him"... I'm all ears.

Sorry, that was sarcasm. I was parodying popslut:

You *know* all this or you just heard it on the TV?

We need a sarcasm icon.

[pilcrow]

blah blah blah....

So far, your contribution to this thread has been a series of sarcastic ad-hom attacks on the posters whose viewpoint doesn't match your own and little else.

I'm interested to know whether you consider 'news' reports [from whichever source] to be unimpeachable channels of impirical truth or easily manipulated conduits for propaganda?

Or a mixture of both.

My point, more ably made by others here, without the sarcasm, is that this schmuck's been a pretty widely reported bad guy for a long time. And it ain't just the Bush administration saying so. So I guess to directly answer your question, I don't necessarily believe something if I read it in one paper. But as more facts accumulate from more sources--different media in different countries--I do, yeah, tend to think it's probably true.

Question: If you don't trust any tv, paper, internet, where do you get news you trust? You go only on the evidence of your own eyes? I'm serious about that. Where do you get news you trust? If there is such a place for you, you might want to go read about the Sheik. If the Internet is your preferred source, here's a start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Shaikh_Mohammed

My other, and original, point was that a majority on this forum would have the kneejerk reaction that this guy, since he's someone the Bush administration is prosecuting, should be viewed as a sympathetic figure and is probably an innocent bastard who was set up.

[M. Bréqs]

We can, as the western world, decide to just hang the bloke already, because we can't try him properly, we won't even clear the circumstances pertaining to the apprehension for the defence, so why bother?

+1

If I was running US security on 12 September 2001, I wouldn't have publically reported any of the lowlifes we had captured. I wouldn't have offered "finders fees" to turn in "Al Qaeda" operatives who turned out to be butchers and bakers and candlestick makers in Southern Afghanistan. I would have only people who had gunshot residue on their hands ordered to be captured.

I would never have told anybody about Guantanamo, and I would have each arrival interrogated for maybe 6 months max. After that point it would be either release back into the wild as a turned agent, or I would settle the matter with a bullet.

Justice would have been invisible.

[Machinate]

We can, as the western world, decide to just hang the bloke already, because we can't try him properly, we won't even clear the circumstances pertaining to the apprehension for the defence, so why bother?

+1

If I was running US security on 12 September 2001, I wouldn't have publically reported any of the lowlifes we had captured. I wouldn't have offered "finders fees" to turn in "Al Qaeda" operatives who turned out to be butchers and bakers and candlestick makers in Southern Afghanistan. I would have only people who had gunshot residue on their hands ordered to be captured.

I would never have told anybody about Guantanamo, and I would have each arrival interrogated for maybe 6 months max. After that point it would be either release back into the wild as a turned agent, or I would settle the matter with a bullet.

Justice would have been invisible.

Someone get this man a gun, he's ready for battle!

..sigh.

[M. Bréqs]

We can, as the western world, decide to just hang the bloke already, because we can't try him properly, we won't even clear the circumstances pertaining to the apprehension for the defence, so why bother?

+1

Someone get this man a gun, he's ready for battle!

..sigh.

This isn't a battle or a military issue... I'm talking about the way Intelligence does its business; in the shadows. Militaries take prisoners of war and treat them as such. If a state wants somebody to just disappear, you don't send in the army, you send in a couple of agents and it's taken care of out of sight.

At least that's the way it worked in WWII and the Cold War.

[sqook]

+1

Someone get this man a gun, he's ready for battle!

..sigh.

This isn't a battle or a military issue... I'm talking about the way Intelligence does its business; in the shadows. Militaries take prisoners of war and treat them as such. If a state wants somebody to just disappear, you don't send in the army, you send in a couple of agents and it's taken care of out of sight.

At least that's the way it worked in WWII and the Cold War.

Someone get this man a silenced 9mm, he's ready for espionage!

[mikemc]

I asked a question - so far nobody has answered it.

Because they've known this guy is guilty of all kinds of shit since 1994... They had him tapped while talking to his maniac cousin Ramzi Yousef another Mass Murdering lunatic who was actually in a non-military normal trial while spouting lovely things like ""Yes, I am a terrorist, and proud of it as long as it is against the U.S. government." Ramzi Yousefs cousin, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed whos in question here, has had so much evidence piled against him while on the run for almost 14 years its not even funny... They didnt pick him up a a donut shop, there was an International man hunt for this clown for many years.

And hes been in American custody since 2003 but hes only been down at Guantanamo for a fews months. Not 5 years... The last 5 years hes been in a jail in D.C.

½
well if they had all this bleeding edge evidence, then why not try the bastard? Surely the US "intelligence" isn't so sucky that a full "Guantanamo-assisted"(tm) confession is neccesary? Or was the idea to just stick him in jail without even providing this purview? I'm confused here.

The hearing is to determine the purview. The idea is if he is an enemy combatant, then the rules of military tribunal apply: he can be sentenced to firing squad, for example. If he is a criminal, then the rules of civil tribunal apply: he could be found criminally insane, for example.

What he's trying to do is to ensure that he's treated as an enemy combatant, in order to be martyred by firing squad.

IM blathering non-expert O, $0.02, when it is most important that he is able to do so, he cannot properly form a sentence in his own language or in another, other than from canned phrases derived from the extremist programming he's received: he's criminally insane and needs to be confined to an institution indefinitely.

[glu]

he's criminally insane and needs to be confined to an institution indefinitely.

[popslut]

Question: If you don't trust any tv, paper, internet, where do you get news you trust? You go only on the evidence of your own eyes? I'm serious about that. Where do you get news you trust? If there is such a place for you, you might want to go read about the Sheik. If the Internet is your preferred source, here's a start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Shaikh_Mohammed

Answer: I don't. There is no single source of information I trust implicitly [...Wikipedia certainly isn't it...] and I don't see how there ever could be.

The difference between you and me, in this context, is that you sift through the available "information" and decide to place your faith in one commonly held position or another. I sift through it and [usually] decide that none of it is persuasive enough for me to form a firm opinion either way.

I don't automatically presume that the output from the Whitehouse or Downing Street press offices is anymore reliable than that of Al Jazeera or Pravda - every interested party has an axe to grind and a position to uphold and, as we all know, "the first casualty of war is truth."

[b0unce]

Someone get this man a gun, he's ready for battle!

..sigh.

This isn't a battle or a military issue... I'm talking about the way Intelligence does its business; in the shadows. Militaries take prisoners of war and treat them as such. If a state wants somebody to just disappear, you don't send in the army, you send in a couple of agents and it's taken care of out of sight.

At least that's the way it worked in WWII and the Cold War.

Someone get this man a silenced 9mm, he's ready for espionage!

[Nod]

I don't automatically presume that the output from the Whitehouse or Downing Street press offices is anymore reliable than that of Al Jazeera or Pravda - every interested party has an axe to grind and a position to uphold and, as we all know, "the first casualty of war is truth."

A most reasonable position. Especially given from the transcripted confession:

"I hearby admit and affirm, without duress to the following:

(charges 1-6)

7. I was responsible for planning, training, surveying, and financing the New (or Second) Wave attacks agains the following skyscapers after 9/11:
a. Library Tower, California
b. Sears Tower, Chicago
c. Plaza Bank, Wahington State
d. The Empire State Building, New York City"

The Plaza Bank (go see the about section on their website) wasn't founded until 2006. Mohammed was captured in 2003.

[OvertoneZero]

The Plaza Bank (go see the about section on their website) wasn't founded until 2006. Mohammed was captured in 2003.

Do they have the interweb at Guantanamo?

[Nod]

Do they have the interweb at Guantanamo?

Lol - it'd certainly help when picking out targets that haven't been created yet wouldn't it?

http://plazabankwa.com/about.asp

"Founded in early 2006, with a vision of creating the leading commercial bank in the Pacific Northwest...."

[M. Bréqs]

I don't automatically presume that the output from the Whitehouse or Downing Street press offices is anymore reliable than that of Al Jazeera or Pravda - every interested party has an axe to grind and a position to uphold and, as we all know, "the first casualty of war is truth."

A most reasonable position. Especially given from the transcripted confession:

"I hearby admit and affirm, without duress to the following:

(charges 1-6)

7. I was responsible for planning, training, surveying, and financing the New (or Second) Wave attacks agains the following skyscapers after 9/11:
a. Library Tower, California
b. Sears Tower, Chicago
c. Plaza Bank, Wahington State
d. The Empire State Building, New York City"

The Plaza Bank (go see the about section on their website) wasn't founded until 2006. Mohammed was captured in 2003.

That seems to hold up my theory that KSM is making this stuff up for his own self-aggrandisement in jihadist circles...

If the US was fabricating his confession (or coerced his confession) they would have not made such a silly error. However, for a man with no contact with the outside world, that's a little more likely.