The Latest Prop from Gitmo
I’m generally sympathetic with the complaints defense attorneys are making about the release of the latest diatribe from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and friends. Much of the attention has focused on the question, "Why is the military judge in the case issuing orders in this case when Obama has halted all commissions?" perhaps not least because it recalls the actions of James Pohl, who refused to stay Rahim al-Nashiri’s trial after Obama ordered all proceedings to halt.
But the complaints I’m most interested in have to do with the genesis of the document itself. What proof is there that all five detainees have signed this document, Adam al-Hawsawi’s attorney asked, when all we’ve got is a typed English document.
"There is no evidence that Mr. al Hawsawi knew about, read or signed this document ," Maj. Jon Jackson said in an email. "It is a typed message in English with no signature. I object to this highly irregular document release." Maj. Jackson said he was unaware of the statement until the military judge ordered copies sent to attorneys Monday.
And how is it that this document has been published so quickly, other defense attorneys ask, when their own filings still haven’t been released?
Defense attorneys and civil liberties groups said that the speed with which Judge Stephen R. Henley, an Army colonel, released the statement after reviewing it March 5 was troubling. They pointed to an e-mail from the clerk of court for the military commissions to counsel on the issue, which said, "I have been asked by our . . . folks to release the documents ASAP."
Defense attorneys said they are still trying to secure the release of pleadings they filed eight months ago.
The authorities at Gitmo would have you believe that the five 9/11 detainees charged with 9/11 wrote this on March 1, got it translated into English and typed up and hand-classified Top Secret/SCI, then was given to the judge on March 5. And the judge reviewed it, reviewed its classification and deemed it unclassified, and then released it all by March 10. [Update: As drational points out, the first page of the diatribe itself has the date 2/24/09 in what appears to be the same hand as the TS/SCI classification–so this timeline goes back into at least February some time. He points out that the date probably refers to 12/1/08.]
I guess the Gitmo apologists can produce propaganda quickly when they feel the need.
So what larger agenda do you think this release is serving? If the Military Commissions have been stopped, is the release of the document intended to make it harder for Obama to relocate the prisoners? To what end?
No shit as to not knowing where the thing came from. How did all five get together to do this and agree on it? Why are there no signatures? How did it get translated?
Why does it sound like Michael Steele wrote using his best terrist off the hook phrasing?
During BushCo, we would naturally assume that the orders for the release came directly from Bush or Cheny. Here, you seem to be assuming it’s a local decision, not involving the WH.
Let’s see what Obama does. If he doesn’t slap ‘em down, you have to wonder if the release had Admin approval.
Boxturtle (If I had to bet, I’d bet a deadender Officer already put in for retirement made the call)
They are working hard to discredit Obama and create panic. Witness Glen Beck’s paranoia. It’s not different than the constant headlines of dishonesty regarding Whitewater during the Clinton years. The republicans will continue to discredit and create fear, instability and insecurity where ever they can. “Obama is going to free the bad guys.” “Obama is going to give them rights they don’t deserve”. “We don’t need no stinkin’ rights when we KNOW we got a terrorist in the slammer”.
Ugh. I am so sick of it…and worst of all, it works to some degree. It will be the long haul, it will be what happens next which will determine whether or not these memes stick. But the folks who watch faux news eat this stuff up and parrot it back. (and never ask the questions we see here)
What’s the meaning of any document signed by victims of torture? I suppose it proves the fingers weren’t tortured?
Regarding your timeline. The TS/SCI handwriting dates 2/24/09, so I assume if that is to be trusted it was written before that and not on March 1.
I am also not sure why the release of this would endanger GTMO shutdown, real or fake. We house loads of sociopaths in US prisons….
I am wondering if they wrote it in order to try to provoke Bush into Martyring them before he left office….
What leads you to believe they actually wrote it? I give it 50:50 at best that they wrote it and about zero chance that if they did that it is accurately translated. I fail to see why anyone should bite off on this as stated.
Well,
Having followed KSM for a long time, this is absolutely consistent with his prior statements and behavior.
You will recall that there was a fairly convincing push to bring these 5 to trial in time to make a dent on the 2008 elections. I diaried about this over at kos extensively last year.
KSM has repeatedly expressed interest in being martyred, and 2 of the other 5 have joined him rejecting defense counsel. The remaining 2 tried to dismiss their lawyers last year.
In short, I believe the document because it sounds exactly like KSM in his own words. Whether the others signed it willingly is another question altogether, but given their behavior in following KSM in the past, I wouldn’t be incredulous they signed it.
The question of why it was released now is a good one. But I am not so convinced it is to derail closing GTMO.
Maybe. But keep in mind that you don’t really know shit about KSM, none of us do. We know what we have been fed; what makes you think any or all of that was real either?
I trust the reporting of Carol Rosenberg who I bet has spent more time at GTMO than anyone not in chains. I don’t know whether KSM did what he is accused of doing or what he has crowed about doing, but I do know the words he has used in front of the tribunal.
He has never uttered one word to make me doubt his hatred of Israel and the West, or his desire to be put to death at the hands of the US. According to Rosenberg reporting, he is provocative at every opportunity in much the same way (pro-jihad, anti-west) as the document he allegedly wrote and signed with the others.
So here you see my rationale; I am not sure I understand upon what you are basing your 50:50 chance they wrote it. I don’t understand your evidence for doubt.
Anymore than I can fathom you basis for implicit trust. Thus the even split. I have read the same Rosenberg material you have; but even her reporting is based upon brief glimpses and fed information. You may be right, I may be right; but neither one of us knows diddly squat and we are both guessing.
Well, and don’t forget, Rosenberg was the first person to popularize Lippold. SHe has since at least noted his ties to setting up Gitmo in her second use of his quotes. But she’s right in the thick of the crowd that wants to retain some aspects of teh military commission program.
And the one thing that sticks in my craw on this is they supposedly keep these mopes separated totally. That was the big deal in that one “court” appearance that I wrote about last summer where KSM played Brett Favre and huddled the men up in the courtroom to get them to shun their lawyers and be martyrs. He was doing that because the reports are that they keep them totally segregated and that was his only chance to ride herd on them. So how, pray tell, did they all get together to roast marshmallows and jointly create this manifesto?? I also was only half joking when I said that some of the language in the thing looked like it came out of a Michael Steele delusion. I dunno, maybe this thing is straight up, but I would be shocked if it is. Something reeks here.
I’d only disagree with your characterization that neither of us knows diddly squat. We’re both informed and both making guesses based upon how we deal with the information.
While I don’t think this would have been released to derail the Gitmo closure per se–I’d phrase it instead as an attempt to pressure Obama into retaining aspects of the existing military commissions rather than keeping Gitmo open or closed per se–I think it fair to question the provenance of this document generally (if not to question KSM’s authorship of it).
As to the why pressure to keep military commissions–it’s of a piece with the earlier al-Nashiri stuff, and we know there is an organized astroturf effort to pressure oBama into keeping the commissions. As with al-Nashiri’s judge refusing to hold the prosecution, this is a case where a military judge is allowing proceedings to occur when Obama has asked for a hold. And this is happening just as OBama’s cabinet level people met to talk about GItmo for the first time–so it may serve to help Gates or someone make the case that DOD should still retain control over the proceedings.
And the pressure point is crystal clear. Yes, KSM wants to martyr himself (persumably to improve recruiting for AQ going forward). But he’s going to have a harder time doing that if he is represented by some counsel (which will deprive him of the opportunity to make precisely the kind of grandstanding comments that you refer to in the hearings).
So the why, it seems, is crystal clear–particularly given the al-Nashiri precedent AND this judge’s past willingness to let KSM go off in the courtroom (which seems to serve little purpose than to stoke BOTH the US thirst for revenge AND KSM’s intent to increase his value as a martyr).
SO to me the remaining questions are–who was involved? Were the two reluctant detainees, Hawsawi and Attash, really on board with this? What kind of coordination is going on between people who want to retain military commissions?
Thanks for the explanation, though I am still not sure why releasing the document would exert any pressure specifically to advance the case for military commissions. We can hate them as criminal defendants as readily as criminal POWs.
So I guess my question is why a need for the military commissions? Is it because we would lose 95% of cases if we were forced to try them fairly? Or is it some bid to preserve the executive plenary powers precedent?
Both among other things I suspect. The simple fact is that none of these people are capable of being tried fairly at this point. Evidence has been destroyed, memories have grown stale, torture has occurred, lies have been ingrained into the record, juries have been tainted. Name a due process concern and it has been heinously violated. I absolutely think that Gitmo should be shuttered; but don’t kid yourself, there are massive problems in bringing these guys into the traditional criminal system. And, yes, in spite of the SCOTUS rulings limiting Gitmo as far as being a foreign location, I think there is some hesitancy to give it up.
Thanks. Fixed that in the post.
The Date it was “signed” is on the Islamic Calendar:
3/1/1429.
according to a converter, this is 12/1/08.
So the document may have been around for a few months, although we don’t know the timeline of signing, translation, typing etc.
Sigh… Inconsistencies really bother me. Look at that calendar converter again. 3/1/1429 (assuming day, month, year is the order) converts to 12/1/2008 which is January 12, 2008. That day is a Saturday rather than a Sunday per the document. Now, converting to the Islamic calendar (which is a lunar calendar) is very tricky and can be off by plus/minus a day. Even if the order of the original day was month/day/year (which seems unlikely to me unless it’s a transcription error), the date of the document is Mar. 9, 2008 (which is a Sunday, fwiw).
Stockholm syndrome?
I think the facts about detainees and their treatment supports healthy skepticism. We can’t know the origin of the signed statements.
I mean no one has suggested this…and it’s not that I don’t believe that true hating America and terrorists DON’T exist, but truthfully, if you can torture you can also brain wash. I think there is such a fine line to this possibility where torture is used that I don’t know how we can know the guilty from the innocent. Remember how some of our guys were tortured into saying bad things about America, during Vietnam? I don’t think it would take much to take that even further. You could easily use positive reinforcement of terrorist statements and threats…(”there, now you are telling the truth, now you are acting like the true man we know you to be, now we will feed you, or stop beating you, or stop slicing your penis”). It’s too easy to do once that slippery slope of torture has begun.
It’s hard, because the truth is that our government behaved like a bunch of psychopathic perpetrators. They lied, they tortured, they broke international laws, they destroyed evidence. How can you ever know the truth? Unfortunately I think it puts every bit of evidence at risk.
I think that under those circumstances, it would be very easy to fool honest people.
Slightly OT: Off and on people here wonder when Seymour Hersh is going to start delivering through the floodgates he said would open on January 21. He’s running late, but according to Eric Black of the Minnesota Post he dropped some hints at an appearance he made here in the Twin Cities last night. Black writes that the discussion, that included former VP Walter Mondale, was mostly historical. However, during the Q&A session he quotes Hersh (partial) as follows:
Be patient when clicking through. The MN Post needs a bit more server horsepower.
“I have been asked by our…folks to release the documents ASAP.”
My sensitve ear for words is buzzing with alarm. I can suppose this quote (note the plural form of documents) is from an email, possibly sent to inquiring defense counsel, however there is no justification to refer to the release of the document(s) as a request (”asked me to release”), instead of an order of the presiding judge.
Next, the use of the colloquial term “folks” seems to be shielding someone from accoutability. The WaPo article linked in the first sentence of this posting says the document discussed was ordered released by the judge, so why is the Court Clerk refering to the source of this release as “folks”, and what is intailed by the phrase, “our…folks”. This implies that others beyond the judge have been involved in “requesting the release of documentation of trial information ASAP.
My interest in this derives from an ongoing curosity as to whether President Obama is using Bush administration personnel to carry dirty water for him, or Bush holdovers are using Obama to to the same. Tha WaPo article indicates that the Office of Defense Counsel in the Military Commissions satrapy, is alarmed over this apparant end run around Obama’s order halting the proceedings, and anticipates repercussions when “Obama’s people” learn of it. Stay tuned.
And I love the new edit function, since I just fixed a grievous error in my last comment.
In response to WO at 24
Oh Man, combining the christians, muslims and military has gotten me totally fried.
If 3/1/1429 Islam Calendar is 3rd day, 1st month 1429, then this converts to March 9, 2008. This comports with the “Sunday” of the document.
If 3/1/1429 is 1st day, 3rd Month 1429, then this converts to 1/12/08, which you note is not a sunday.
So this document may date back all the way to March 2008, right in the thick of the push to execute these guys, just before they started to get paraded before the tribunal judge.
My guess is that they were being encouraged to “present their case” in anticipation of the upcoming trials.
It is interesting that this document is not signed by al-Qahtani, who as of March 2008 had not yet been removed from the targeted pre-election prosecutions.
The charges they are responding to were announced on Feb. 11, 2008, officially filed on Apr. 15, 2008, and altered (by hand by Susan Crawford) to exclude al-Qatani on May 12, 2008.
All the hits I find from google for Hijera calendar dates are written day/month/year which is the way the most of the world outside the U.S. writes dates anyway. I have a call out to the only Islamic businessman I know to check with him.
All this raises questions about when the charges were drawn up, when they were presented to the defendants, and when the defense counsels became aware of this document.
I just checked with a Pakistani-born colleague who said unequivocally 3rd day 1st month 1429, so March 2008.
I wonder if these guys sealed their fate as the targets for pre-election prosecution by signing on to this kind of BS.
So to your point, I am not sure when any of the 5 gained access to defense counsels…. sure would be interesting if this kind of BS was solicited before they even had defense lawyers…..
From this Rosenberg article it seems they did not get defense lawyers til April 2008, AFTER the prosecutors had gotten their little diatribe.
This makes me wonder about Bmaz’s point above. We know they were supposed to be separated after the charges were filed, but I wonder when the separation started?
This needs a timeline….
An article in the Miami Herald, 02/11/2009:
[He ruled that threats to a detainee’s family constituted torture.]
snip>
bad link at my 30. try this
One more time for link at my 30, If it fails, the title of the article in the Miami Herald is: With War Court In Doubt, 9/11 Case Gets New Judge
Link at 32 works.
Old Judge = mean Marine; new Judge = kind, patient, only judge to exclude a confession on grounds it was derived from torture. Old Judge retiring from service in April was given as reason for change.
So, bmaz, what do you think is going on now? What’s the hurry all of a sudden? The real reason for the change in judges is pretty clear – torture.
Chaney admitted on TV to having approved torture for 3 detainees.
Has Phillipe Sands put the fear of God into somebody?
Hear hear, but the culpability of those who produced this goes well beyond that of apologists.