Repubs Hold Your PEE: Why the Torture won't matter in 9-11 Trials!

As thereisnospoon very aptly pointed out yesterday, the Authoritarian and Neo-Con wing of the Republican/Conservative/Tea Party is having a Piss Hemmorage over the likelyhood that the upcoming 9-11 Trials in New York will Fail because some sneaky shyster lawyer will DARE to bring up the deep dark non-secret that KSM was Waterboarded 187 Times.

John Boehner:

The Obama Administration’s irresponsible decision to prosecute the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks in New York City puts the interests of liberal special interest groups before the safety and security of the American people. The possibility that Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his co-conspirators could be found ‘not guilty’ due to some legal technicality just blocks from Ground Zero should give every American pause. emphasis added

I think technically those are War Crimes - but even so, it doesn't matter and I'll tell you why.

---

You can find lots of evidence of Wingbag heads exploding all over - like brain matter spattered at a crime scene...

Sarah Palin (1/2 Term Governor/Blogger/Bookhawker)

Horrible decision, absolutely horrible. It is devastating for so many of us to hear that the Obama Administration decided that the 9/11 terrorist mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, will be given a criminal trial in New York. This is an atrocious decision. [...]

Criminal defense attorneys will now enter into delaying tactics and other methods in the hope of securing some kind of win for their “clients.” The trial will afford Mohammed the opportunity to grandstand and make use of his time in front of the world media to rally his disgusting terrorist cohorts. It will also be an insult to the victims of 9/11, as Mohammed will no doubt use the opportunity to spew his hateful rhetoric in the same neighborhood in which he ruthlessly cut down the lives of so many Americans. [...]

Not much with the "Equal Justice Under the Law" and "Due Process" is she? Technically the only time KSM will probably speak would be on the witness stand - where he can be thoroughly cross examined and his hateful rhetoric balanced with some fracking facts. Something Sarah The Unemployed Pundit wouldn't know anything about.

Then you have the Ex-Super Mayor, Former U.S. Prosecutor and Associate Attorney General Rudy (Noun, Verb & 9-11) Giuliani who - of course - thinks giving KSM a criminal trial is a grave mistake, even though he used to think it was a great idea to put Zacarious Moussaoui on trial.



Someone tell Cavuto that a building that has collapsed doesn't cast a shadow anymore - nitwit.

Ghuliani Now:

GIULIANI: [O]ur criminal justice system is geared to let guilty people go free if there's any doubt. That's the way it is -- that better to have nine guilty go free than one innocent person convicted. Very different situation when you're at war. So when we see all of these procedural problems that are going to be created over the months and years that this could take with these terrorists sitting here, I think we're going to realize that this was a terrible, terrible mistake. [Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, 11/13/09]

Ghuliani Then:

Giuliani reportedly praised Moussaoui's 2006 trial as evidence "we can give people a fair trial." After Moussaoui's trial resulted in a sentence of life in prison without parole, Giuliani reportedly praised the legal process as demonstrating "that we can give people a fair trial, that we are exactly what we say we are. We are a nation of law." He added that Moussaoui will "be a symbol of American justice." He also reportedly said he was "in awe of our system." [New York Daily News, 5/4/2006]

It's not as though this atavistic fear of the Justice System on their part is completely without merit - Torture has already been the reason for Gitmo Prosecutors to DROP CHARGES against a Terrorism Suspect.

But here's why, in this case, none of this hand wringing and Depends Binge-ing really matters:

Besides having a complete and total lack-of-faith in our criminal justice system these guys are all operating under the Liz Cheney Theory of Terror-Fighting, that the key information gained from people such as KSM were done using "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques".



For a quick Refresher Please Review my previous post on the Top Ten Tortuous Lies of Liz Cheney.

On one hand they say these methods were "Perfectly Legal" and "Effective" - but on the other hand they are clearly afraid that if these techniques are revealed in an open U.S. Court of Law any and all evidence gathered using these methods are likely to be excluded as fruits of a poison tree by the court.

The problem is that all of the critical information gained linking them to 9-11 after the capture of key al Qaeda members such as Zubaydah and KSM - were gathered Before Harsh Methods were Deployed as has been documented by FBI Interrogator Ali Soufan.

One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.

It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.

We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.

There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.

This Agent Soufan reiterated during his Senate Testimony



There have been several reports that KSM openly bragged about his involvement with 9-11 when he was captured. Even Pete (We found the WMD!) Hoekstra says so.

On Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement this morning to bring Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and five other high-value 9/11 hijackers to the United States, the American people need to ask: Why is this necessary?

KSM has already confessed to being not only the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, but also to planning multiple additional attacks on Americans. He is already being held in the best possible security at Guantanamo Bay, and he has already been charged for his crimes in a military commission process where he faces the death penalty.

And here's the question that these small Republican Minds can't seem to ask - if KSM confessed, and he did so before being water-boarded - Why the FRACK WAS HE WATERBOARDED in the first place?

One could argue that it was to get the location of Bin Laden, but as we can all see - the result of that effort was a ALL FAIL. Again, KSM has during Military Tribunal proceedings admitted that he Lied under Torture. ("I Make Up Stories")

The other reason that these methods were used, was to get some information - besides their involvement in 9-11 and the location of bin Laden - that the Bush Administration was desperate to have. That information was - HOW WAS SADDAM LINKED TO THE ATTACK!

Sorry for the background whine during this video:



The Vice President specifically asked for detainees in Iraq to be Water-Boarded in order to show links between Saddam and 9-11 - but CIA inspector Charles Duelfer refused since he was already getting plenty of good information from the man, and ultimately Duelfer found that Saddam had no links to al Qeada, no links to 9-11 and NO WMD!

But then Bush already knew this..

Habbush, the former head of Iraqi Intelligence had already Defected before the War began and he had told us, and Bush was personally briefed on this, that Saddam had Secretly destroyed his WMD stockpiles in 1992.

Instead of listening to Habbush's information, or the declaration that Saddam had supplied to the UN, Bush paid him off to write a Forgery that framed Saddam for 9-11.

On page 371 of "The Way of the World," Suskind describes the White House’s concoction of a forged letter purportedly from the hand of Habbush to Saddam Hussein to justify the United States’ decision to go to war.

Suskind writes: "The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001. It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq — thus showing, finally, that there was an operation link between Saddam and al-Qaeda, something the Vice President's office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade."

He continues: "A handwritten letter, with Habbush's name on it, would be fashioned by CIA and then hand-carried by a CIA agent to Baghdad for dissemination."

The reason that the Torture will not matter in the upcoming 9-11 trial is because they aren't prosecuting Saddam Hussein. They already had the information they need to convict KSM (and presumably others) before "enhanced techniques" were used - and all the allegedly "good information" they received went nowhere.

Straight down a rat-hole.

None of that stuff is relevant to the case at hand, and none of it is likely to be introduced in determining whether these five individuals do or do not have culpability for the attacks of September 11th. The Wingnuts are still going to be afraid, and frankly they have good reason to be afraid ultimately that all of this information will eventually come out and become fully understood by the American people and the world.

Eventually the person who deserves to be on trial for these actions, including the false excuses for the Iraq War - is George W. Bush.



But that isn't the trail before us today... maybe eventually, but not today.


Vyan

On This Day: Let's Remember the Important Things - All of Them

On this 8th Anniversary of the September 11th attacks on America, let us indeed Remember - but let us not cherry-pick what we recall.

Let us remember the fallen. Let us remember the brave. Let us remember the nobility and the sacrifice of those who fought to take control back of Flight 93, who rushed up the stairs in Tower 2 as it began to collapse and those who rushed back into the Pentagon as it burned.

But let us also Remember the Urgent Memo from Richard Clarke at the NSC to Condie Rice arguing that Osama Bin Laden and Al Qeada were an Imminent Danger. But he was ignored, then demoted.

How George Tenet, Clarke and others rode together in a desperate midnight meeting with Condie to warn her that "We Were Going to be Hit" and how this event was initially hidden from the 9-11 Commission until being revealed by Bob Woodward.

Let us remember the FBI Pheonix Memo which documented that there were some guys learning to fly planes who didn't seem all that interested in Landing them.

Let us remember the 52 Separate Warnings that were received by the FAA of an Al Qaeda Hijacking.

Let us Remember the August 6th PDB, which named the method and targets of an impending al Qeada attack. It did everything but include the date and time.

Let us recall how Osama Bin Laden escaped at Tora Bora, and still hasn't been killed or captured.

Let us recall the Downing Street Memos which revealed that the "Facts were being shaped to fit the Policy" in order to justify an invasion of Iraq, even though there was no evidence connecting that country to 9-11.

Let us recall both Abu Zubaydah and Khallid Sheik Mohammad were providing us with excellent intel before harsh tactics were used - but even after being waterboarded dozens of times (and in KSM case nearly dying at least once) they Still didn't provide any conclusive links between Saddam and Osama.

Let us recall that before the Iraq War began the head of Iraqi Intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush, had revealed to us that Saddam told the TRUTH to the United Nations when he said he didn't have any WMD, because he had destroyed it all way back in 1991- and instead of listening, the Bush paid him $500,000 in hush money and had him write a forged letter that attempted to link Saddam to 9-11!

Let us remember that no one suggested there were credible links between Saddam and 9-11 except for Ibn Sheihk al-Libi, and didn't do so until he was Buried Alive.

Let us remember: He Lied.

Let us recall how ABC and Foxnews tried to Blame Bill Clinton for being "asleep at the switch" and causing 9-11.

Let us recall how former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called all those who criticized his handling of the Iraq War "Morally and Intellectual Confused" - just before he was Fired.

Let us recall how the REAL Joseph Wilson was treated when he dared to point out that the Niger Receipt was probably a forgery and Saddam didn't have - and didn't try to buy any Yellowcake Uranium.

Let us remember the 4000 U.S. Troops - more than those we lost on 9-11 - who died in Iraq for no good reason.

Let us remember that the people that are screaming "Fascist", "Socialism", "Kenyan" and "YOU LIE" at our duly elected President - are the same ones who seem completely incapable of remembering all the above.

Vyan

GOP = Party of Teh Stupidz!!

Some of us have known this sad sorry truth for a very long time. But more and more, from the Tea Party Screamers having absolute conniption fits about losing "Their America" to Socialist-Commie-Fascism from Kenya - all the way back to when Condie Rice refused to listen to Richard Clarke about the Dangers of Al Qeada. It's always been teh Stupid.

Too Stupid for the August 6 PDB.

Or to put down "My Pet Goat".

Or resist the urge to Kick Somebodies Ass after 9-11, even if it was the wrong ass.

Then came the Kidnapping and Extraordinary Renditions.

Torture.

Illegal Surveillance of U.S. Citizens.

Secret Assassination Squads.

And still 8 Years Later we still don't have Osama bin Laden, or any WMD's.

Actually STUPID doesn't quite cut it.

Calling this "Stupid" - as the President once described the actions of the Cambridge Police in arresting a man for burglarizing his own house - is actually a compliment, because if these people aren't suffering from Terminal Stupidity, they are something much worse - A Series of Pathologic Delusions fueled by Blind Rage and an Atavistic Fear of Facts.

To this day they think they are the ones who're being unjustly picked-on and muzzled by those damn dirty meany Democrats.

Yeah, right.

They forget about events such as this, when one couple - Nicole and Jeffery Rank - who merely wore T-Shirts were arrested and ejected from a Bush Speaking Event in 2004.



We have only to look back to last year, 2008, when the St. Louis Police used tear-gas against protesters at the RNC Convention. Eight persons were charged with Terrorism and are still looking at prosecution.



Or here in 2007 when Rev. Lennox Yearwood was pulled out of line while trying to enter a hearing with Gen. David Petraeus. When he complained about being singled out he was assaulted and arrested - his injuries included a broken leg once the dust settled. Not for the squimish.



Imagine if Congressmen Wilson had been treated like any of these people, or like Cindy Sheehan was when she wore a T-shirt which counted the number of dead in Iraq to a Bush State of the Union in 2006? (She was Arrested)

Why are the wingnuts so fearful of power in the hands of Democrats being directed against THEM as their political rivals? Because it's exactly what they spent 8 years doing to Democrats for daring to point out the Crimes and Malfeasance of the Bush Administration!

But then, when you believe you are the Righteous Ones Decorum doesn't matter much, does it?

Neither do facts.

SEC. 246. NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS.

Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.

When confronted with plain English, the GOPers have literally figured out how to get 500 Angels to Dance on the Head of a Pin - in order to justify their ridiculous positions. Just as John Boehner does here, wherein he proclaims that the "Real" Liar - Is Obama.

Boehner: The President said that no will be forced to change their (health care) plan. But if you look at the employer mandate, many employers may choose to simply drop their plan and pay the 8% payroll tax - thereby forcing their employees into the Government Plan

Bzzzt!

If Employers drop coverage their employees will be able to buy low-cost coverage on their own through the Health Exchange - which includes Private Insurance Plans such as Aetna and Blue Cross exactly in the same way that Boehner himself gets his insurance through the Federal Employees Benefits Program.

They might also have, among those plans, a Public Option. Maybe a Co-op, maybe even the ability to Buy-In to Medicare (Yeah, I"m still hoping) - and unless they happen to be Illegal Immigrants they'll receive Affordability Credits to help them pay for those plans.

So even if your Employer does drop your coverage you'll have a way buy it on your own without having an Employer Dependance. My, Isn't that kinda - Freedom-like - and stuff?

The Bone-man goes on.

Boehner: HR 3200 does not include any restrictions on non-citizens participating in and paying for coverage, weather the citizens are present legally or illegally

BZZZZT!

Ok, so what's saying is there isn't going to be a Citizenship Test for those people who are buying insurance through the Exchange.

SO?

That's EXACTLY what we have now. If an Legal Resident Alien or a Undocumented Alien get into a car accident, it's not like the EMT is going to check their papers and the one who isn't a legal resident is going to be left on the side of the road to bleed out.

Apparently though, that's would Boehner and Wilson would like to happen. How "Christian" of them.

Even though they'll be mandated to pay for health insurance and won't receive federal assistance to help them pay for it - Boehner and Wilson still think either that these people should remain uninsured and be left alone to suffer or possibly remain untreated while they spread Lou Dobbs favorite bogey disease Leprosy to the rest of the population. Not to mention Tuberculosis, H1N! Bird Flue or Monkey Pox.

Sorry Honer - but by definition Health Care IS a Public issue.

And frankly, I think the personal mandate is probably a pretty good disincentive for continued illegal immigration, not an incentive.

Come to America: Now Pay your Bill or ELSE!

But if you want to find the Lord God Queen of teh STUPIDZ - look no further than Sarahcuda The Quitter Palin

"In his speech the President directly responded to concerns I've raised about unelected bureaucrats being given power to make decisions affecting life or death health care matters," Palin wrote. "He called these concerns "bogus," "irresponsible," and "a lie" -- so much for civility."

Obama was the Uncivil One? Isn't that so Stupid it nearly makes your Eyes Bleed?

Would it be "Uncivil" of me to wonder if being a Fracking IDIOT could be considered a Pre-Existing Condition for revoking Mrs Palin Parking Priveleges on the Highway of Public Discourse?

Just like the fact the Illegal Aliens can currently go to the Emergency Room all over the U.S., reimbursement for End of Life Consultation is already a part of Medicare.

Further the wacked-out scenario that she posits on her Facebook page where Government Bureaurcrats encourage doctors to steer patients toward care which is cheaper, but ultimately detrimental to their health - is exactly like what Insurance Companies are DOING NOW!

We already have "Death Panels" - their called the Health Insurance Industry.

Don't believe me, just ask Nataline Sarkisyan or Eric De La Cruz - and if they can't answer you, it's because their insurance companies effectively MURDERED THEM by refusing needed treatments. Nataline who was just 17, had her Liver Tranplant denied by Cigna, and Eric who was only 27 had a pre-existing condition that prevented him getting a Heart Transplant which wasn't covered by Medicaid.

Pulling the plug on "Grandma" is the least of our worries.

But what Obama would do is BAN the practice of denying care via the excuse of a Pre-Existing Condition. Even for you Sarah. He would BAN unreasonable rescissions of care simply because the policy holder had the temerity - TO GET SICK. He would BAN the unreasonable denial of claims which have driven literally Millions of American into bankruptcy after a medical catastrophe.

We Will have Significant Health Care Reform in this Country. It will happen THIS YEAR.

Meanwhile all teh Stupidz will be able to do is Fume. And Flail. And Scream - to an audience that will hear them less, and less, and less...

Vyan