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Shssh! Don’t Tell Americans How We Treat “Enemy Combatants”

Saturday, March 24th, 2007

Jacob G. Hornberger

The case of accused terrorist Jose Padilla is moving toward a jury trial on April 16 in U.S. District Court in Miami. It is still unclear whether the presiding judge in the case, Marcia Cooke, will order an evidentiary hearing on Padilla’s motion to dismiss the charges based on the government’s outrageous pre-trial conduct while Padilla was in military custody as an “enemy combatant” in the “war on terror.” (Under post-9/11 jurisprudence, the government has the option of treating accused terrorists either as “enemy combatants” or as federal-court defendants.)

The government is doing everything it can to prevent the American people from learning what the U.S. military did to Padilla during his three years of pre-trial confinement. In fact, U.S. officials are doing the same thing with respect to “enemy combatants” that the CIA has been holding for years in its secret overseas prisons. They say the prisoners should not be permitted to reveal what the CIA has done to them because to do so would threaten “national security.”

Meanwhile, the American people are walking through all this with an ambivalent numbness. Frightened after 9/11 over the prospect that “the terrorists” were coming to get them, many Americans were either silent or supportive when U.S. officials assumed the most powerful dictatorial tool possible — the power to arbitrarily take people into custody, torture them, and even execute them after a kangaroo proceeding. What never occurred to many Americans was that the military would have the authority to exercise this dictatorial power on them.

Not surprisingly, federal officials now want to keep Americans from learning the full extent of the federal government’s post-9/11 power over them. That’s why they used their plea bargain with John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban,” to prohibit him from revealing what they did to him while he was in pre-trial military custody. That’s why they’re fighting fiercely in the Padilla case to keep Americans from learning what they did to Padilla. That’s why they’re claiming “national security” to prevent accused terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and other CIA prisoners from describing the waterboarding and other “alternative” forms of interrogation to which they have been subjected.

Unfortunately, all too many Americans still don’t want to know what U.S. officials don’t want to tell them. It’s much easier to continue walking in blind numbness and reassuring themselves with, “It can’t happen here. This is America.”

As the late psychiatrist M. Scott Peck pointed out, mental health involves an unwavering commitment to reality at all costs. Any hope of restoring a healthy, balanced, and free society requires that Americans fully confront the revolutionary changes that 9/11 has wrought in our nation, including everything that the government now has the power to do to Americans.

Reality is that the U.S. military now wields the power to take anyone, including American citizens, into custody as “enemy combatants” in the “war on terror” and to do everything to them that the CIA and the Pentagon have done to other “enemy combatants.”

Reality is the power to subject American and foreign “enemy combatants” to extreme isolation and sensory deprivation over long periods of time. That’s what those eerie blacked-out goggles and earmuffs on Padilla were all about.

Reality is the government’s power to subject “enemy combatants” to waterboarding and similar forms of “alternative-interrogation techniques.”

Reality is the government’s power to inject substances into “enemy combatants.” (Padilla says it was LSD they injected into him while the military says it was actually an inoculation against the flu.)

Reality is the government’s power to not account for “enemy combatants” who have disappeared after being taken into custody. As Human Rights Watch attorney Joanne Mariner recently wrote, there are many “enemy combatants” who are believed to have once been in CIA custody and who are now unaccounted for.

President Bush recently said that to combat terrorism, the federal government needs to continue spreading freedom around the globe. What he obviously meant was the “freedom” of the CIA and the Pentagon to continue taking “enemy combatants,” both Americans and foreigners, into custody, treating them accordingly, and then keeping what they do to them secret from the American people and the world.

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Why CIA abuse is medieval madness

Saturday, March 24th, 2007

SINCE medieval times, water-boarding, or forcing water into captives’ lungs, has been used to compel prisoners to confess. During the Inquisition, water-boarded prisoners admitted to shape-shifting and cavorting with the devil.

Today, terrorism suspects subjected to this medieval torture admit the wildest things too. Just ask 9/11 plotter, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
KSM was bound to a stiff wooden plank at a secret CIA black-site prison. Interrogators tilted one end of the platform so that his head was several inches below his feet. A rag was fixed in his mouth and cellophane was firmly wrapped over his face.

Slowly, water was poured over his mouth until he began to gag and lurch. Seconds before he blacked out, interrogators ripped off the plastic and pulled the rag from his mouth, allowing him to briefly catch his breath. After 2 1/2 minutes on the waterboard, CIA officials said he was “begging to confess”. He admitted to 31 different plots - nearly every act of terrorism against the US since the early 1990s.

While his hand in 9/11 has been independently confirmed, his other claims are less believable. Former CIA field officer Robert Baer told Time: “(KSM) is making things up. I’m told by people involved in the investigation that KSM was present during Wall Street Journal correspondent Danny Pearl’s execution but was in fact not the person who killed him. There exists videotape footage of the execution that minimises KSM’s role. And if KSM did indeed exaggerate his role in the Pearl murder, it raises the question of just what else he has exaggerated, or outright fabricated.”

Pearl’s father told ABC News in the US the facts “don’t match (KSM’s) story”. Asra Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who knew Pearl well, said: “Anyone who saw the tape of Danny’s murder could confess to those details.” She added: “From everyone I’ve talked to in Danny’s family there isn’t closure … there’s not convincing evidence that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the killer.”

KSM has also confessed to attempting to bomb the US’s Plaza Bank headquarters prior to his arrest in March 2003. “I was responsible for planning, training, surveying, and financing for the new (or second) wave of attacks against … Plaza Bank, Washington state,” he said during his recent Guantanamo tribunal hearing. This claim is also dubious. Plaza Bank was founded in early 2006.

Today, most of KSM’s “facts” are inseparable from fiction. Sadly this was avoidable. Rather than stripping him naked, holding him in a dark cold cell for months on end, blasting loud music and strobe lights at him, threatening violence against his two sons, and nearly drowning him, US officials should have used non-abusive techniques proven to build trust. These methods yield reliable evidence.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the US domestic law enforcement agency that must obtain non-coerced evidence that stands up in US courts. Over time, the FBI has developed an array of non-violent interrogation techniques. FBI investigators methodically engage their suspects in conversation, supply incentives, then slowly vet and cross-check the information their suspects reveal. Rather than shave a Muslim’s beard and abuse his Koran, they give devout men sweet figs and allow them to pray.

The FBI used rapport-building techniques before 9/11 to cultivate relationships with former al-Qa’ida operatives and unravel attacks such as the 1998 East African US embassy bombings.

“FBI agents, as officers of the court, know what the rules are,” said former FBI interrogator Jack Cloonan to The American Prospect. “We have procedures to follow. We firmly believe in this thing called due process, and do not see it as something passe or something that should be seen as an impediment.”

After 9/11, FBI methods were sidelined in favour of the CIA’s tougher techniques. The decision to drop FBI methods will haunt the US for decades. By using FBI rapport-building methods - not CIA tortures - officials could have come closer to unlocking the truth from suspects such as KSM. According to Yosri Fouda, the only journalist to interview KSM before his 2003 capture, he was a “a power-hungry mastermind” who lived for the spotlight. Likewise, the 9/11 Commission report described KSM as a flamboyant character prone to exaggeration. Given KSM’s boastful personality, officials should have known that torture - and its say-anything-to-stop-the-pain qualities - would be the worst way to get accurate intelligence.

By torturing him, the Bush administration slammed shut what could have been a window into the al-Qa’ida terror network. Now, the truth will remain hidden from both the US Government and from KSM’s victims.

Michael Otterman is a visiting scholar at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at University of Sydney and author of American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib (Melbourne University Press).

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Get on with it, said net audience as man hanged himself on webcam

Saturday, March 24th, 2007

Joanna Bale

Kevin Whitrick logged on to an internet chat room and announced that he was going to commit suicide. He then switched on his webcam, stood on a chair, smashed through his ceiling to expose a joist, tied a rope around his neck and hanged himself.

Several visitors to the site thought that it was a hoax and egged him on, but one dialled 999. By the time police arrived at his flat, he was dead. The case is believed to be the first of its kind in Britain.

Friends of the 42-year-old electrical engineer said that he had become lonely and depressed since splitting from his wife and had started drinking heavily. He had also suffered serious injuries in a car accident last year and was distraught at the loss of his father, who had died from a heart attack.

Mr Whitrick is believed to have set up a chat room, Kels Friendly Chat, at paltalk.com and was logged on with about 50 other users to an “insult” chat room where people “have a go at each other”.

Visitors to the site said that they thought he was joking when he told them of his suicide plan. One said: “He tied a rope around an uncovered ceiling joist and stood on the chair as he tied the rope around his neck. Some of us chat-room users, talking to Kevin over text chat, microphones and video, tried to convince him to stop, but others egged him on, telling him to get on with it.

“We just couldn’t believe he was doing it — it was surreal. One chatter said, ‘F***ing do it, get on with it, get it round your neck. For f***’s sake, he can’t even do this properly.’ ” Another visitor to the site who did not wish to be named said: “When Kevin stepped off the chair and was left dangling, the mood in the chat room changed and people began to realise what they had seen. I think someone contacted the police, but sadly no one could get to him in time.”

Moderators then closed the feed from his webcam.

Mr Whitrick lived alone in a small flat on an estate in Wellington, near Telford, Shropshire. His former wife, Paula, and their 12-year-old twins live in less than a mile away.

Police said that an internet surfer alerted them to the suicide on late Wednesday. Officers broke into Mr Whitrick’s flat but, despite attempts to revive him, he was declared dead just after 11.15pm. There were tributes to him in the chat room yesterday under the heading “RIP Kevin”. One, from icemaiden 71, said: “I’m a mate of his and I’m shocked.” But another posting said: “I’m on the phone to the News of the World. I’m going to make a buck on this.”

Mr Whitrick’s former wife said in a statement: “Kevin was a loving father and family man. He was the life and soul of the party and an extremely considerate and kind person. He will be so sadly missed by us all.

“Unfortunately Kevin had a serious car accident in 2006 and he never fully recovered.”

Mr Whitrick was the brother of Mal Whitrick, an associate director and sponsor of Shrewsbury Town Football Club. They worked together at the family firm, RMW electrical services. Mal Whitrick was understood to be returning from holiday in India yesterday. Sharon Atwal, who works in a corner shop opposite Mr Whitrick’s flat, described him as “subdued” when she saw him on the night he died. She said: “Every night he’d take eight cans of Boddingtons bitter from the fridge and restock it with the cans from the shelf. He always seemed quite cheerful. On Wednesday night, though, he didn’t seem himself and it was the first night that he did not restock the fridge. It was as if he knew he wouldn’t be coming back.

“He always struck me as very happy. He was friendly and had two perfect kids. I cannot believe he has done this.”

Police said that they were investigating. A postmortem examination was carried out yesterday.

The case appears to echo that of Brandon Vedas, 21, from Phoenix, Arizona, who committed suicide online in 2003 by overdosing on a mix of alcohol and prescription medication. Some people in the chat room egged him on while others tried desperately to find his address.

Paltalk is the world’s largest online video chat community with more than four million members visiting chat rooms that allow them to see, hear and text each other.

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Spies to bug our baked beans

Saturday, March 24th, 2007

VIRGINIA WHEELER

A COUNCIL is planning to catch residents who leave rubbish out on the wrong day - with cameras hidden in BAKED BEANS tins.

Sneaky Ealing Council in West London will also put the tiny CCTV bugs inside house bricks to film offenders.

Householders caught breaking strict new rubbish rules — dubbed “enviro-crimes” — will be fined up to £1,000.

The surveillance plans have outraged residents who say it is the latest example of Big Brother Britain. It follows a £2million scheme adopted by six councils to put the devices in wheelie bins.

A spokesman for Tory-controlled Ealing yesterday said the £200 movement-sensitive bugs — which may be placed on existing rubbish piles — would become a “vital tool” in catching wheelie bin mis-users and graffiti artists.

He said: “To catch vandals and enviro-criminals, cameras disguised as anything from tin cans to house bricks will instantly email images to the council’s CCTV control centre.”

He added that people who put their rubbish out at all times of the day and night will be targeted. The Ealing Tory councillor responsible for environment Will Brooks said anyone who broke the laws would be considered a fly-tipper.

But local resident Danny Christie, 64, branded the scheme as “utterly insane”.

He said: “I’ve lived here all my life and have never heard of anything so screwed-up. Since when did forgetting to put your rubbish out make you a criminal? James Bond is the sort of person to use spy cameras in bean tins — not the local council. Are we living in Soviet Russia or Korea these days?

“It’s nuts. Big Brother gone mad.”

And the plans were described as “bizarre” by Labour councillor Virendra Sharma. She said: “Educating people on rubbish collection times is a better long-term solution than spy cameras in baked bean tins.”

A spokeswoman for human rights group Liberty said: “Let’s give people more opportunities to be clean and green rather than making criminals out of people who put their bins out at the wrong time.”

In January last year British diplomats based in Moscow were accused of spying after hiding a data transmitter in a fake ROCK.

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Democrats pass “anti-war” bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

Saturday, March 24th, 2007

Barry Grey

After weeks of public posturing and behind-the-scenes maneuvering, Democrats in the House of Representatives secured passage Friday of an emergency spending bill that grants the Bush administration’s request for over $100 billion in additional funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In what amounts to a colossal political fraud, they presented their “Troop Readiness, Veterans Health and Iraq Accountability Act” as a measure to force an end to the war in Iraq by September 1, 2008.

It does nothing of the kind. Even if a similar Democratic measure were to be passed in the Senate—and it will not—and the final bill were to survive a presidential veto—a political impossibility—the resulting law would do nothing to halt the current military escalation in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and would allow upwards of 75,000 US troops to remain in Iraq indefinitely.

The bill is a labored attempt by the Democratic leadership to pose as opponents of the Iraq war, while in practice ensuring its continuation. The vote to authorize war funding flies in the face of the will of the electorate, which expressed its desire to end the war and its opposition to the policies of the Bush administration in last November’s congressional elections, overturning Republican control in both houses of Congress.

In remarks following the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went out of her way to declare her party’s support for the US military and the so-called “war on terror,” calling the bill “a giant step to end the war and responsibly redeploy our troops out of Iraq” so they could concentrate on Afghanistan, “where the war on terrorism is.”

The Bush administration has denounced the bill and promised to veto it, in line with the White House’s blanket opposition to any conditions, no matter how toothless, being placed on its war-making powers.

The bill passed by the narrowest possible margin, with 218 votes in favor and 212 opposed. Only two Republicans voted for the bill and 14 Democrats voted against it.

The conditions attached to US troop deployments by the bill are themselves so conditional as to be meaningless. Under the measure, Bush would be obliged to certify to Congress on July 1, 2007 and again on October 1, 2007 that the Iraqi government has made progress in meeting certain benchmarks, such as containing sectarian violence, reining in militias, and reforming the constitution. Should Bush fail to go through the motions of making such a certification, withdrawal of US combat troops would begin. Even if the government certified progress, US combat troops would be withdrawn by September 1, 2008.

But this “final deadline” could be extended if the administration obtained approval from Congress. In any event, less than half of the 140,000 US troops currently in Iraq are designated as combat forces, meaning that 75,000 or more troops would remain after the “deadline” to conduct counterinsurgency operations, train Iraqi forces, police borders and protect US assets.

As New York Senator Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, made clear in an interview with the New York Times last week, if elected she would keep a large force of American troops in Iraq indefinitely to secure “remaining vital national security interests” there. She elaborated on these “national security interests” by noting that Iraq is “right in the heart of the oil region.”

Similarly, the House Democrats’ bill upholds the war aims of US imperialism by listing as one of the benchmarks the passage of an oil law that will open up Iraq’s vast reserves to exploitation by US energy conglomerates.

The bill also requires the Pentagon to observe standards for training, equipping and resting troops before their deployment and limits the duration of Army tours of duty to 365 days. With the military already stretched to the limit, these provisions could actually create obstacles to the further escalation of the war under Bush’s so-called troop “surge” in Baghdad and Anbar Province. Consequently, the bill allows Bush to waive these requirements in the name of “national security,” giving him a free hand to send as many additional troops as he desires.

In the weeks leading up to Friday’s vote on the floor of the House, the White House and congressional Republicans continually called the Democrats’ bluff, exposing their antiwar pretenses by challenging them to cut off war funding. This culminated last week in the passage, with overwhelming Democratic support, of a Republican-sponsored nonbinding Senate resolution vowing to never cut funds for “troops in the field.”

For their part, Pelsoi and the rest of the Democratic leadership continually tacked to the right, readjusting their war spending bill to placate Blue Dog Democrats and other war supporters within the Democratic caucus by further watering down its nominal restrictions on Bush’s war powers. They secured the support of the party’s right wing by dropping language that would have required Bush to obtain congressional support before launching an attack on Iran.

They loaded the bill with allocations for special projects targeted to win over specific congressmen. Thus the final result includes $25 million for spinach farmers in California, $75 million for peanut storage in Georgia, $15 million for Louisiana rice fields and $120 million for shrimp fishermen.

As Pelosi and her subordinates scrambled to assemble the necessary 218 votes to secure passage, groups on the so-called liberal wing of the party declared their support, including the Congressional Black Caucus and MoveOn.org.

The critical role was played by the misnamed “Out of Iraq Caucus” of House Democrats. This group of some 70 congressmen has postured as the most militant critics of the war. Their key leaders, such as Lynn Woolsey and Maxine Waters, both of California, have been paraded before antiwar demonstrators by protest organizers as living proof that the Democratic Party can be pressured to end the war.

Pelosi dealt with them through a combination of threats and inducements. The house speaker reportedly warned California Rep. Barbara Lee, another leader of the Out of Iraq Caucus, that she would be stripped of her post on the powerful House Appropriations Committee if she sought to block passage of the bill.

On Thursday, Lee, Woolsey, Waters and company insured passage of the bill at a closed-door session with Pelosi. The Washington Post reported on Friday:

“As debate began on the bill yesterday, members of the antiwar caucus and party leaders held a backroom meeting in which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a final plea to the group, asking it to deliver at least four votes when the roll is called. The members promised ten.”

Lee, the author of a bill that would supposedly withdraw US troops from Iraq by the end of 2007, said, “While I cannot betray my conscience, I cannot stand in the way of passing a measure that puts a concrete end date on this unnecessary war.”

Waters said the leaders of the caucus had told their members, “We don’t want them to be in a position of undermining Nancy’s speakership.”

In the debate on the floor of the House, supposedly antiwar liberals denounced the war, and proceeded to call for a vote to fund it. Typical were the remarks of Jim McDermott of Washington State, who declared, “The Iraq war is a fraud… Perpetuating it is a tragedy,” and then announced he would vote for the war funding measure.

Virtually all of the Democratic speakers wrapped themselves in the flag and declared their unconditional “support for the troops.” According to one press report: “In the closing round of the debate, most Democrats focused on elements of the bill that they said would protect American troops by requiring better training and longer periods of rest between deployments.”

Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, who heads the Armed Services Committee, said the bill would strengthen the US military, which has been strained by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I’m deeply concerned about the readiness of our forces,” he said.

The legislative charade mounted by the Democratic Party has nothing to do with ending the war in Iraq. There are, in fact, no principled differences between the Democrats and Bush when it comes to the imperialist aims of the war. Both parties, the Democrats no less than the Republicans, serve the corporate interests—the oil conglomerates, the Wall Street banks, and the American financial oligarchy as a whole—that seek through military violence to establish US control of the resources and markets of the world.

The differences between those within the political establishment who favor continued escalation of the war and those who seek to continue the colonial occupation with reduced US troops are purely tactical. They have to do with the best means of salvaging the US debacle in Iraq by killing and brutalizing more Iraqis, in order to secure US control of the Middle East.

The real political purpose of the Democrats’ bill was indicated in an interview this week on the “Democracy Now” radio program with Robert Borosage, a long-time Democratic Party operative and contributing editor at the Nation magazine. Arguing in support of the war spending bill, he said, “The question is about, can you create a symbolic vote—because the president has vowed to veto it if it passes—a symbolic vote that unites the opponents of the war and shows that there’s a majority in the Congress now united about a date certain to get the troops out.”

In other words, a measure that will have no effect on the war, but will promote the fiction that the Democratic Party is in some way a vehicle for the antiwar sentiments of the people, and thereby keep social opposition within the bounds of the two-party system.

In this critical task for the American ruling elite, forces like the Out of Iraq Caucus and their “left” allies in the protest movement play a crucial role. They serve not to end the war, but to provide a right-wing, pro-war party with a left-wing, antiwar gloss, the better to block the emergence of an independent movement of working people against war, repression and social inequality.

Four-and-a-half months after the election, in which the people expressed their opposition to the war, the result is the opposite of their wishes. Tens of thousands more troops are being deployed, the carnage and death are increasing, and US military spokesmen like Gen. David Petraeus are speaking of an escalation unlimited in both size and duration.

Ending the catastrophe inflicted by American imperialism on Iraq, and preventing new wars in Iran and elsewhere, requires a complete political break with the Democratic Party and the two-party system. It requires the independent political mobilization of working people, both in the US and internationally, in a class-conscious socialist movement.

We urge all those who agree with this perspective to make preparations to attend the Emergency Conference Against War sponsored by the World Socialist Web Site, the Socialist Equality Party and the International Students for Social Equality on the weekend of March 31-April 1.

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7/7 and 21/7 began at al-Qaida camp, court told

Saturday, March 24th, 2007

- Failed attack’s alleged chief admits Pakistan visit
- QC claims direct link with London suicide bombings

Sandra Laville

Direct links were drawn for the first time yesterday between the July 7 suicide bombings that killed 52 people and the failed Islamist extremist attacks in London two weeks later.

Using footage of the martyrdom videos left by July 7 bombers Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer to illustrate the point, a barrister produced what he said was evidence that the ringleader of the July 21 plot had planned a joint UK terror campaign with them while at an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan months before the summer of 2005.

The links were revealed to the jury in the trial of the July 21 suspects on Thursday, but a court order preventing their publication was only lifted yesterday.

Stephen Kamlish QC, representing one of the six defendants, Manfo Asiedu, 33, told the court that Muktar Said Ibrahim, the alleged July 21 ringleader, was in Pakistan at the same time as Khan and Tanweer. He told the court that within two months of all three returning to the UK they had made almost identical bombs containing hydrogen peroxide and an organic substance, such as flour, which had never been used before in the UK.

Mr Ibrahim denied knowing Khan and Tanweer but has told the court that the 7/7 attacks inspired him to do what he said was a “fake” copycat mission, because the bombs had been so successful in starting a debate in Britain about the Iraq war.

The court has heard that Mr Ibrahim was in Pakistan between December 2004 and March 2005. The prosecution claims he was at a jihadi training camp, but Mr Ibrahim claims he was on a three-month holiday with two friends, in which he visited several mosques and the tomb of the founder of Pakistan; his two friends never returned to the UK and are believed to be dead, according to the prosecution.

In cross-examination Mr Kamlish asked Mr Ibrahim whether he had met Tanweer and Khan in Pakistan. He replied: “I have never met any of these two people.”

Referring to evidence given earlier by Clifford Todd, senior scientist at the forensic explosives laboratory at Fort Halstead, Kent, Mr Kamlish continued: “The only two occasions on which the authorities in this country had ever come across an improvised explosive device made with hydrogen peroxide and an organic substance is 7/7 and 21/7.

“Had there been any discussion between you and them on how to make effective bombs, to start a bombing campaign in this country? The first was 7/7 and the second was going to be 21/7.”

“No,” said Mr Ibrahim.

“Do you know they were both in Pakistan the same time as you? When you were in Pakistan, so were they?” “Yes.”

“They were in Pakistan from the end of 2004 into 2005. You were all there at the same time for about two months.” “I don’t know,” said Mr Ibrahim. “All I can say is, I was there for three months.”

“You see the coincidence don’t you?” asked Mr Kamlish. The defendant replied: “From what you are saying is fact, yes.”

The barrister asked: “It wasn’t the case that the plan to use hydrogen peroxide was devised between you and others in Pakistan?” “No,” said Mr Ibrahim, adding: “From what I know, this has been around; the Palestinians use them.”

Jurors were shown martyrdom videos of Khan and Tanweer, both wearing red headscarves and speaking in northern accents, as they justified their suicide bomb attacks nearly two years ago.

Mr Ibrahim stood facing a television screen to the right of the witness box at Woolwich crown court as Khan issued his threat to the west.

“Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world …” Khan said. “Until we feel security, you will be our targets. And until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.”

At the video’s end, Mr Kamlish pointed out Ayman Al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida number two, who referred to Khan and Tanweer having been on a camp in Pakistan.

“They were at an al-Qaida training camp when you were in Pakistan, but you never met them?” he asked. “No.”

“You had nothing to do with them about using hydrogen peroxide based explosives?” “No,” the defendant replied.

Mr Ibrahim, Mr Asiedu, Hussain Osman, Ramzi Mohammed, Yassin Omar and Adel Yahya all deny conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life.

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9/11 Lie In Rough Shape

Saturday, March 24th, 2007

Recent media attacks - by people it has since been exposed are employed by the Bush/PNAC Regime - against American celebrities who support an investigation highlight the fear being created by the failure of the cover-up. Please, keep up the pressure.

The most damning fact is that the War Criminals, Profiteers, and LIARS cannot present any hard evidence to support their own Conspiracy Theory, well over five years after the fact. Even their FBI Director admits there is no evidence linking “al Qaeda” to the attacks.

There was a time, not long ago, when daring to question the official account of 9/11 was risky business. One was almost guaranteed to be attacked as a “crazy person” or a “traitor” or a “terrorist sympathizer.” Times have changed. At this point, less than 20% of the population believes they were given the full truth regarding 9/11. Logically one might ask: “Why is that?”

It wasn’t for lack of trying that the government failed in its propaganda campaign. It wasn’t for lack of “helping hands” in the mainstream media. (Though even that support has begun to fall apart.) No, it was one thing and one thing only that caused hundreds of millions of American citizens to openly question the official account of 9/11; the evidence.

In short, the evidence that we have been shamelessly lied to regarding the events of 9/11 is irrefutable. There is an enormous body of circumstantial evidence, there is an enormous body of physical evidence, and there is an enormous body of historical evidence. Perhaps most damning (at this point) is the ongoing cover up itself. -The deliberate attempt to obstruct an open discussion of the facts. Evidence of that grows by the hour, but not to worry…

If you want to see how the investigation into the attacks of 9/11 was obstructed at every turn; simply watch 9/11 Press for Truth.

If you want to learn the history of government sponsored “false flag” terrorism, simply watch Terrorstorm.

If you want to see the evidence of controlled demolition (all of which has been completely ignored by the mainstream media and government talking heads) check out September 11 Revisited, or this segment of 911 Mysteries, or this segment from Rise of the Police State.

If you want to know what an absolute fraud the “investigation” we finally got was, you can get started with just a handful of issues. Like:

1. One of the most damning pieces of physical evidence regarding the events of 9/11 (the collapse of WTC 7) wasn’t even mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report. How could any report claiming to provide “the fullest possible account” of the events of 9/11 ignore the unexpected free-fall collapse of a 47 story office tower? Is it because, to this day, nobody can explain how it fell? Is it because it wasn’t struck by any planes or burned with any jet fuel (the magic formula that supposedly brought down the twin towers?) Is it because pools of molten metal remained in its basement for weeks and partially evaporated steel beams were found in its wreckage? (It is physically impossible for burning office materials and diesel fuel to liquefy structural steel; let alone evaporate it into a gas.) How did “The Commission” deal with these smoking gun issues that clearly contradict the official account? Simple; they ignored them.

2. How about those towers? You know, the two 110 story buildings constructed with an outer shell of perimeter columns and an ENORMOUS inner array of core columns that supported the buildings’ vertical loads. Of those towers, the commission report claimed “exterior walls bore most of the weight of the building. The interior core of the buildings was a hollow steel shaft.” This is an inexcusable inaccuracy that any “investigator” with an Internet connection and 5 minutes can easily prove wrong. And it should be noted; any claim or “theory” of how the towers collapsed based on this erroneous “hollow shaft” model is fatally flawed. Who in their right mind can take an “official report” like this seriously? If they got something this simple wrong, what else did they miss?

3. Lets not forget “The Commission” said there was “no credible evidence that any person in the United States gave the hijackers substantial financial assistance. Similarly, we have seen no evidence that any foreign government-or foreign government official-supplied any funding.” Hmm, interesting. How about the Pakistani ISI chief who wired $100,000 to the alleged “lead hijacker” Mohamed Atta? Indian intelligence has verified this. And there has been no evidence to refute it. Is that worth looking into? -And how about Sibel Edmonds? Why was she ignored and then gagged under the veil of “National Security.” Better yet, how about we just have her testify in open hearings about “money trails” and where they lead to in our government?

And if all this isn’t enough, maybe the few remaining skeptics would like to hear from some Senior Military, Intelligence, Law Enforcement, and Government Officials who question the validity of the 9/11 Commission Report. No problem. Start here.

-So it’s true. Times have changed and the people (for good reason) no longer believe the lies they’ve been fed about 9/11. We’ve woken up to the level of corruption in our government and the official lie (by all practical means of determination) is in critical condition and not expected to recover.

This can only mean one thing. An Independent investigation into the attacks of 9/11 WILL BE conducted. And this time, it isn’t going to be handful of citizens asking questions and demanding answers; it’s going to be 80% of the country. And this time, you won’t so easily ignore and whitewash the sensitive issues, because an educated citizenry is not so easily fooled. And this time, those who have stonewalled, lied, manipulated, covered up and acted in a criminally negligent manner will be held accountable for their actions.

To those in power who’ve forgotten the reality of their position in government, YOU SERVE AT THE PLEASURE OF THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Once again, you’re on notice to stop ignoring our demands for a new investigation. This issue isn’t going to go away, and your refusal to address it will cost you dearly.

And to those of you with something to hide; perhaps now would be a good time to “lawyer up” and “cut a deal.” The game is over.

J. Plummer 3.23.07

The original story contains links to source material behind many of the author’s claims. They can be found here:

http://stopthelie.com/the_911_lie_is_in_critical_condition.html

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What Bush is hiding

Saturday, March 24th, 2007

In the U.S. attorney scandal, Alberto Gonzales gave orders, but he also took them — from Karl Rove, who plotted to turn the federal criminal justice system into the Republican Holy Office of the Inquisition.

By Sidney Blumenthal

Leave aside the unintentional irony of President Bush asserting executive privilege to shield his aides from testifying before the Congress in the summary firings of eight U.S. attorneys because the precedent would prevent him from receiving “good advice.” Leave aside also his denunciation of the Congress for the impertinence of requesting such testimony as “partisan” and “demanding show trials,” despite calls from Republicans for the dismissal of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Ignore as well Bush’s adamant defense of Gonzales.

The man Bush has nicknamed “Fredo,” the weak and betraying brother of the Corleone family, is, unlike Fredo, a blind loyalist, and will not be dispatched with a shot to the back of the head in a rowboat on the lake while reciting his Ave Maria. (Is Bush aware that Colin Powell refers to him as “Sonny,” after the hothead oldest son?) But saving “Fredo” doesn’t explain why Bush is willing to risk a constitutional crisis. Why is Bush going to the mattresses against the Congress? What doesn’t he want known?

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