| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 8:26 am Post subject: 9/11 mastermind takes lead role in Gitmo courtroom |
| 9/11 mastermind takes lead role in Gitmo courtroom
By MIKE MELIA, Associated Press Writer
Tue Sep 23, 7:23 PM ET
Professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed took center stage in a military court Tuesday as he questioned the judge's impartiality and acted as the de facto spokesman for his four co-defendants.
Mohammed, the highest-profile al-Qaida figure in U.S. custody, boasted at a 2007 closed hearing that he was responsible for 31 terrorist plots and the Sept. 11 attacks "from A to Z" — claims that U.S. officials said were exaggerated.
Mohammed's interactions with the judge and his co-defendants on Tuesday underscored his taste for the limelight and sense of authority. The former al-Qaida No. 3 has led his co-defendants in raising challenges to the court and even assisted in getting a boycotting co-defendant to leave his cell.
Glaring at Judge Ralph Kohlmann from beneath bushy eyebrows and a black turban, Mohammed pressed the Marine colonel to explain how he could provide a fair trial as a member of the U.S. Armed Forces that are at war with al-Qaida.
"How can you, as an officer of the U.S. Marine Corps, stand over me in judgment?" Mohammed, who is acting as his own lawyer, asked in English. "How can you be unbiased, given your position?"
Mohammed also questioned the judge about his religion, his Marine training and his knowledge of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics Mohammed experienced in CIA custody before he and his co-defendants were transferred to this U.S. military base in southeast Cuba in September 2006.
Seeking to justify his question about Kohlmann's religious faith, Mohammed declared that "there are some extremist organizations in America that are against us."
"If you, for example, were part of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson's groups, then you would not at all be impartial toward us," Mohammed continued.
Kohlmann, wearing black judge's robes over his uniform, responded that he doesn't belong to a church now but has attended Lutheran and Episcopalian services.
He said he had seen references to the prisoners' treatment in CIA custody but has not read detailed accounts of their experience. According to the rules set forth for the first U.S. war-crimes trials since the end of World War II, the judge can exclude evidence that he determines was obtained through torture.
But Kohlmann made clear his patience is limited. He scolded Mohammed twice for ignoring his instructions to stick to the topic at hand, and warned he could lose the right to represent himself.
"You are not going to have free rein," Kohlmann intoned from the bench. "I will not allow you to act in a manner that is disrespectful to this court."
The judge also disclosed he is scheduled to retire in April. If the trial is not completed by then, he said a new judge would be appointed.
During breaks, Mohammed pivoted in his seat at his defense table and chatted amiably in Arabic with his co-defendants, who sat at their own tables arrayed behind him — despite complaints that he used a similar opportunity in June to pressure the others to reject their Pentagon-appointed defense lawyers. His co-defendants later denied they were intimidated.
Kohlmann initially proposed beginning Tuesday's pretrial hearing with questions from lesser-known detainees. But the other four defendants agreed one by one that Mohammed, seated at the table closest to the judge, should go first.
All five face the death penalty if convicted of their roles in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
Mohammed also has offered himself as a problem solver. With his co-defendant Ramzi Binalshibh refusing to appear in court on Monday, Mohammed raised his hand and volunteered to help persuade him to come. The three others agreed to help as well and all four sent letters to Binalshibh.
Binalshibh, accused of helping the Sept. 11 hijackers enter the United States and find flight schools, agreed to leave his cell and came to court on Tuesday. In court, Binalshibh followed up Mohammed's questions about the judge's religion.
"As far as I know, your last name is Kohlmann, which is a Jewish name, not a Christian name," Binalshibh said. The judge said his statement was inaccurate.
At the close of the hearing, Mohammed had one last request on behalf of his co-defendants. Noting that all five are Muslims, he said the clothing of some women in the courtroom was too revealing for them and asked the judge to ensure they are dressed "appropriately and modestly."
"That request is denied," Kohlmann responded immediately. | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 8:35 am Post subject: |
| Scroll down to the bold type in the following Los Angeles Times article:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040725012414/http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/nation/9222612.htm
Posted on Fri, Jul. 23, 2004
THE MASTERMIND
U.S. policy on Israel key motive for effort
PLOTTER INVOLVED BIN LADEN TO GAIN MORE RESOURCES
By Terry McDermott
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the man who conceived and directed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was motivated by his strong disagreement with American support for Israel, said the final report of the Sept. 11 commission.
Mohammed conceived the initial outline of the attack six years before its execution and brought the plan to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden because he thought he did not have the resources to carry it out on his own.
The Sept. 11 report contains the fullest accounting of Mohammed's overarching role from original conception to supervision of details. Bin Laden, too, was fully involved, selecting all or most of the participants, ordering the substance and the location of their training, and contributing to the timing of the attacks and the selection of targets, the report says.
The report makes a strong case that al-Qaida accomplished the attacks without any hint of state sponsorship. The report also appears to lay to rest the notion, long alluded to by administration officials including Vice President Dick Cheney, that hijacker Mohamed Atta traveled to the Czech Republic to meet an Iraqi intelligence operative in the spring of 2001.
In addition to repeating evidence that Atta was in the United States at the time, the report revealed that the Iraqi agent was not in Prague either when the meeting was alleged to have occurred.
Much of the report's detail comes from interrogations of al-Qaida operatives in U.S. custody, including Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh. Some of that information is contradictory; much of it is difficult to corroborate. One CIA analysis cited in the report, for example, is titled "Khalid Shaykh Muhammed's Threat Reporting -- Precious Truths, Surrounded by a Bodyguard of Lies."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bin Laden: Palestinian Cause Primary Motivation for 9/11:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2008/05/16/bin-laden-palestinian-cause-prompted-9-11.php
Additional at the following URLs:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/08/05/the-gorilla-in-the-room-is-us-support-for-israel.php
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/03/17/u-s-middle-east-policy-motivated-by-pro-israel-lobby.php | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 8:48 am Post subject: |
| JINSA Behind Drive To
Cover-Up Israeli Spy Scandal
Executive Intelligence Review News Service
1-6-2
(EIRNS) - One of the "Mega" agencies that mobilized to quash the Fox TV pick-up of our Israeli spy scandal was JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.
JINSA President and CEO David Steinmann is also a director of CAMERA (Committee for Accurate Middle East Reporting in America), the group that actually staged the e-mail, fax, letter, and phone call mobilization that squeezed Fox TV, to the point that they removed the transcripts of the four Carl Cameron segments from their own web site.
While CAMERA lists Tom Lantos among its advisors, along with Sharon cabinet minister Natan Sharansky, it is JINSA that is the real hotbed of "Mega" and "X Committee" clout, particular inside the Pentagon.
On its own website, JINSA boasts that "Only one think tank puts the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship {first} -- JINSA!"
JINSA lists among its directors: Richard Perle, Steven Bryen (whose wife, Shoshana Bryen is still one of the few full-time JINSA employees), Max Kampelman, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Jack Kemp, Michael Ledeen, Joshua Muravchik, Kenneth Timmermann, and James Woolsey.
Beyond these hardcore "X Committee" operatives, JINSA's board also includes a dozen or more retired flag grade U.S. military officers, including Lt. Gen. Anthony Burshnick (USAF), Gen. Crosbie Saint (USA), Maj. Gen. Lee Downer (USAF), Adm. Leon Edney (USN), Gen. John Foss (USA), Adm. David Jeremiah (USN), Adm. Jerome Johnson (USN), Maj. Gen. Jarvis Lynch (USMC), Rear Adm. Sumner Shapiro (USN).
JINSA makes no bones about the fact that it is recruiting an Israeli fifth column inside the U.S. military command.
They sponsor frequent all-expense-paid junkets to Israel for retired officers, which are co-sponsored by the Israeli Defense Force; they run an exchange program for military academy cadets at West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy with military institutes in Israel; and they host lecture programs at all the military institutions in the U.S. where they bring in top IDF and Israeli intelligence officials.
One of the top figures on the JINSA lecture circuit is Dore Gold, who is a top aide to Sharon and is about to come to Washington as the Israeli ambassador.
JINSA's output of policy papers and press releases also makes clear that they are leading proponents of the "Clash of Civilizations," and the drive to lure the U.S. into a suicidal military alliance with an Israeli marcher lord state.
Typical of JINSA's operations of late are their sponsorship of a series of lectures by Iraqi National Congress honcho Chulabi, and their Sept. 13 press statement, calling for the U.S. to "go beyond bin Laden" to launch military attacks against Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Sudan, the Palestinian Authority, Libya, Algeria, "and even our presumed friends Saudi Arabia and Egypt."
The release demanded that the U.S. bomb Beirut and Damascus, cut military aid to Egypt, and revoke the Presidential ban on assassinations. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 8:54 am Post subject: |
| Odigo says workers were warned of attack
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=77744&contrassID=/has\
By Yuval Dror
Odigo, the instant messaging service, says that two of its workers received messages two hours before the Twin Towers attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen, and the company has been cooperating with Israeli and American law enforcement, including the FBI, in trying to find the original sender of the message predicting the attack.
Micha Macover, CEO of the company, said the two workers received the messages and immediately after the terror attack informed the company's management, which immediately contacted the Israeli security services, which brought in the FBI.
"I have no idea why the message was sent to these two workers, who don't know the sender. It may just have been someone who was joking and turned out they accidentally got it right. And I don't know if our information was useful in any of the arrests the FBI has made," said Macover. Odigo is a U.S.-based company whose headquarters are in New York, with offices in Herzliya.
As an instant messaging service, Odigo users are not limited to sending messages only to people on their "buddy" list, as is the case with ICQ, the other well-known Israeli instant messaging application.
Odigo usually zealously protects the privacy of its registered users, said Macover, but in this case the company took the initiative to provide the law enforcement services with the originating Internet Presence address of the message, so the FBI could track down the Internet Service Provider, and the actual sender of the original message
---------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 9:58 am Post subject: |
| Access the 'What Motivated the 9/11 Hijackers?' youtube linked on the lower right at the following URL:
http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.COM | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
