Do you even know what "Extraordinary Rendition" is?
Liberals will do and say whatever they can to make this event seem meaningless.
Terrorist Leader Confession Raises Questions
According to a just-released U.S. transcript, accused al-Qaida operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammad has confessed to a leading role in at least 31 alleged terrorist plots, including the attacks of September 11, 2001. The admissions came in the transcript of a closed-door U.S. military hearing at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But, as VOA correspondent Gary Thomas reports, Mohammad's multiple confessions raise some questions.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad says he was the foreign operations chief for Osama bin Laden and claims a key role, if not the leading one, in some 31 alleged plots around the world and spanning a decade.
But some experts believe that while Mohammad was indeed a key al-Qaida figure, they also say some of his claims are open to question and that he may be inflating his importance in some areas. In 2005, the commission that investigated the September 11 attacks noted Mohammad's sometimes extravagant ambitions and said that he liked to cast himself as a super-terrorist.
Former FBI agent Jack Cloonan, who was on the Osama bin Laden counter-terrorist team in New York, says Mohammad has what he terms an enormous ego. He also notes that the transcript of the March 10 military tribunal hearing has no details of any of the alleged plots.
"Well, one of the things that strikes out at me is that of the 31 operations that he has claimed credit for, claimed credit for himself, is actually the lack of specificity," he said. "Some of the ones are obviously well known, obviously the attacks on the [World] Trade Center, both in '93 and 2001. But some of the other things he's alluding to lack specificity. Now there may be more information that was provided either to the CIA or in fact to the military interrogators. And I hope that information was disseminated."
Mohammad himself claims to have been tortured in his CIA interrogations, but the hearing transcript that was released edited out any further comment from him in that regard.
Tom Parker, a former British counter-terrorism officer, says Mohammad's claims of his terrorist leader status could be true. But he says what kind of treatment Khalid Sheikh Mohammad received could have affected his testimony.
"We don't know what he'd been through in the last three years," he said. "But if he has been subjected to highly coercive interrogation techniques, he could be a broken man. At this point he may be entirely prepared to confess to kidnapping [the late singer] Elvis [Presley]. We just don't know."
McGentrix wrote:
Do you even know what "Extraordinary Rendition" is?
I assume you haven't got a definition in your Girl Guide manual, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Extraordinary Rendition is a euphemism for torture by proxy, i.e. it's were the US send those they've bought off the Northern Alliance, in Afghanistan, or other innocent people to foreign countries to be tortured because they believe by doing that they can't actually be accused of doing the act; they're too thick to understand that torture achieves nothing only pain.
I do hope that is of some help to you; now I suggest you get back outside and carry on helping little old ladies across the street
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed just had a three year Extraordinary Rendition in a secret CIA prison
Ok, good. You now know what it means. Why then would you be so stupid as to write:
Quote:Khalid Sheikh Mohammed just had a three year Extraordinary Rendition in a secret CIA prison
From that statement, it would appear as though you had no idea what it meant. Did you have to look it up after I asked?
Okay, so enlighten me. If Middle Eastern terrorists didn't plan 9/11, who did? And, be sure to provide your air tight, reliable proof, since you can hardly critcize a confession of someone pinpointed by the 9/11 Commission Report as one of the principle architects of 9/11 as being unreliable, and then provide an alternate version patched together from rumor, myth, and highly indirect inference.
Brandon9000 wrote:Okay, so enlighten me. If Middle Eastern terrorists didn't plan 9/11, who did? And, be sure to provide your air tight, reliable proof, since you can hardly critcize a confession of someone pinpointed by the 9/11 Commission Report as one of the principle architects of 9/11 as being unreliable, and then provide an alternate version patched together from rumor, myth, and highly indirect inference.
How about you, "provide your air tight, reliable proof" that Middle Eastern terrorists planned the 9/11 attack and at the same time, "provide air tight, reliable proof" that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wasn't tortured prior to his ramblings, then we will have an even playing field on which to continue this thread.?????
Burying your head in the sand, denying the extremely high probability of US torture, and supporting the Bush regime is an insult to the majority of decent Americans and that is a fact
Kahlid is just an innocent bystander. Al Jazeera made him look like a villain, because they misquoted him. He only happened to be accompanying his old High School buddy, when the interview occurred. Bin Laden, who? The charge sheet was structured to misrepresent the facts. The hearing was divided into Unclassified and Classified sections to make it appear that Kahlid, a wonderful boy who loves his Mother, must be guilty of J-walking, smoking inside a posted area and parking in a Handicapped spot (Oh, the beast!!) Perfectly great witnesses willing to clear his name weren't allowed to testify. One was apparently willing to testify that Kahlid had only dropped by to pick up his kindergarden children from their babysitter the day he was captured, and that he never even knew a laptop existed in this world. The contents on the laptop's drives weren't filled with high-level terrorist plans for attacking a wide range of U.S., British, and Western targets; all that was on the drive was five years scores for solitair Tic-Tac-Toe played by the real owner of the computer who absent mindedly left in in the witness's car while parking it at a local production of My Fair Lady.
Poor Kahlid. Held for years by brutal U.S. Marines who enjoy beating old men with weighted clubs. Every bone in his body was broken ... twice. The shattered bones were only kept stable by the pig-skin constraints that his whole body was wrapped in for months at a time. Subjected to repeated electrical shock, hung from rafters suspended by his wrists tied behind his back. Denied medical treatment, he had to perform brain-cancer surgery on himself with a plastic spoon; he hasn't been mentally well since. Kept for a year in absolute darkness, and starved by a diet of a crust of bread once a week and with water only available by licking the moisture from stone walls. Put upon the rack and pressed by 600 lbs of pressure on his chest. Repeatedly subjected to mock fireing squads, and the bastinada, an Arab invention, I'm told. Denied the comforts of his religion, Kalid was forced to liisten to radical Christian radio broadcasts interspersed by re-runns of Rush Limbaugh and Coulter.
Kahlid is obviously a hero for being able to withstand daily beatings and interrogation sessions lasting for day with no relieve beyond his lapses into unconsciousness for three years. Finally, he must have broken down and agreed to say anything to make the torture stop. Missing from the charges were his taking responsibility for assasinating the Easter Bunny whose main offense was being an infidel who brings happiness to little children. The plot to shoot down Santa Clause with a SAM almost made it into the charges, but someone pointed out that not everyone still believes in the old fellow. Since the hearing was conducted without open minded observers from either Al Jazeera, Iran, or the Taliban, it may never even have occurred. Kahlid may have died of the USMC abuse years ago, and the whole transcript is a clever forgery by the CIA under the personal direction of the Vice-President.
All this to conceal the obviously bogus War on Terror. No attacks were ever made on U.S. soil, its citizens, nor its military assets around the world. Saddam Hussein had to be eliminated before he blew the whistle on his GOP puppet masters. Right up until the U.S. brazenly attacked and invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, the population of the Islamic nations of South Asia loved the U.S., and were intensely working toward full and peaceful democratic governments with participation by women, gays, socialists/anarchists/communists, and dedicated to religious freedom. None of those saintly Imams desired personal power, until after the religious right in the U.S. began conducting regular attacks inside the Islamic World in an effort to eradicate Islam from the world forever.
9/11 was a secret joint operation by the CIA and Mosad, supplied with explosives and technical assistance of Haliburton, and closely supervised by Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld already had experience after blowing up a Marine Barracks with the Marines inside, and sending a boat manned by a stoog to blow a hole in the side of one of America's warships. The conspiracy isn't a new one, but existed even prior to the Ford administration. Only the Democratic Administrations of Presidents Carter and Clinton refused to go along with the plan. It may be that the conspiracy to conquer the world was kept secret from those two Presidents by all the Republican's who somehow managed to retain their government jobs despite their obvious incompetence. Most folks don't even realize that the Shaw of Iran was deposed by the CIA so that they could put their agent-provocateur in power.
Of course the public in the more enlightened countries of the world have long known all of this, but governmental censorship in the U.S. has prevented the voters from learning the truth. The secret death camps filled with Muslims and progressive liberals go about their daily extermination business unmolested. The NSA continues to monitor every American citizen's computer and use of the telephone. The FBI has planted agents in every gathering, right down to the local PTA and local quilting societies. The mails are regularly opened and read. Citizen travel is discouraged by stringent airport security to keep the country divided. Raids in the small hours by Secret Police to round up dissenters goes unreported only in America. Every day more and more people are shot to death, or torn to pieces as they attempt to flee southward into the safety of Mexican prosperity and freedom.
So far the conspiracy begun and orchestrated by The Elders of Zion and a conglomeration of American Merchants of Death at the beginning of the 20th century remains on schedule. If not stopped now by a popular uprising against an illegitimate and illegal dictatorship, the U.S. will conduct unrestricted nuclear war against Iran, the DPRK, Syria, etc. Unless modern technology (a Capitalist design for destruction dating from the onset of the Industrial Revolution, to defeat and oppress and rob third-world peoples) is curbed, then the end of life on this planet is only a decade, or so away. Once American bombs have murdered the peaceful people of Asia, they launch attacks across the Taiwan straights to conquer China. The invasion and occupation of Canada, Australia, and Mexico could happen at anytime ... and there are contingency plans hidden deep inside the CIA vaults for those operations.
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The following is an extract from an article in the Guardian, and this is widely accepted throughout Western society; this is what you are supporting and the reason why the US is the most hated country on the planet You are not defending America, you are besmirching the name of that once admired and respected country by denying the truth and defending the evil perpetrated by the Bush regime; for certain decent American's will not support you and you should be treated with contempt.
Human rights have been traded away in Guantánamo in the hope of gaining security, and it has not worked. One of the US's founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, stated: "He who trades liberty for security deserves neither and will lose both." Adorned on the walls of the Guantánamo camp is its mission statement: "Honour-bound to defend freedom". After five years of Guantánamo, do you feel any safer?
The full report can be read here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1988677,00.html
Well, in terms of being the most hated country on the planet, let's compare the US to those other countries to see if we are the worst:
1. The issue of torture committed by the US breaks down like this:
a. Practices which walk a fine line between torture and aggressive questioning, such as long interrogation sessions.
b. Practices which have been used, but are now forbidden, such as waterboarding.
c. Practices by interrogators who acted contrary to policy and when found out were punished by the US government, such as those of some individuals at Guantanamo Bay.
Not to justify anything wrong that was done, but in terms of being the
most hated country on the planet, the above practices hardly
compare with those of countries which practice extreme torture, e.g.
electric shocks, routinely and as a matter of policy.
2. The invasion of Iraq was undertaken against a country which had
violated its surrender treaty from a previous war, and the invasion
was motivated by a desire to insure that an evil madman with a
penchant for annexing neighbors would not continue nuke and
bioweapons development programs. This is certainly more justified
than many of the invasions in history which were undertaken merely
because the invading country thought it could get something, e.g.
Saddam Hussein's annexation and invasion of Kuwait.
The idea that the actions of the US in the Middle East are worse than the historical behavior of numerous other countries is nonsense.
