Finally: Justice for Islamic terrorist Arabs Accused of Plotting 9/11 Attacks Is coming 2021

Via NYT:

WASHINGTON — Moving toward a final reckoning as the nation approaches the 20th anniversary of the day that led to the longest war in American history, a military judge on Friday set a date for the death penalty trial at Guantánamo Bay of the five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The judge, Col. W. Shane Cohen of the Air Force, set Jan. 11, 2021, for the start of the selection of a military jury at Camp Justice, the war court compound at the Navy base in Cuba. It is the first time that a judge in the case actually set a start-of-trial date.

The case against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other men, should it proceed, would be the definitive trial tied to the Sept. 11 attacks. Until now, only foot soldiers of Al Qaeda have been tried at Guantánamo, and many of their convictions have been overturned.

Mr. Mohammed and the four others face the death penalty in a conspiracy case that describes Mr. Mohammed as the architect of the plot in which 19 men hijacked four commercial passenger planes and slammed two of them into the World Trade Center towers and one into the Pentagon. The fourth, which was believed to be aimed for the Capitol, crashed into a Pennsylvania field instead. The other four men are described as helping the hijackers with training, travel or finances.

[….]

In July, a prosecutor, Ed Ryan, urged the judge to set a date saying, “Our client, this nation, deserves a reckoning.”

In a lengthy exchange with the judge, Mr. Ryan argued that “dates energize and mobilize” people to prepare.

On Friday, defense lawyers on the case said that many of the judge’s milestones toward trial were dependent on the prosecution meeting a series of deadlines.

“For a January 2021 trial date to happen, the government would have to drop its obstructionism and produce a lot of important evidence and witnesses,” said James G. Connell III, the lead defense counsel for Mr. Baluchi. Mr. Connell said he had received more than 25,000 pages of case-related documents since July and expected that many more were coming.

Selection of the jury — 12 members and four alternate members — is expected to last months, with American military officers shuttled by air to and from the base in groups because of the limited housing at Guantánamo.

Besides conspiracy, the men are charged with committing murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians and terrorism. Should the men be convicted and sentenced to death, it is up to the secretary of defense to determine the method of execution.

It’s about damned time that these sleaze ball motherfuckers got to trial and are tried and killed. As someone who lived through 9/11 and struggled with depression, Anxiety; of which I am now on medication for…. I hope these rat bastards get the firing squad.

Screw them and their false religion and Pedophile prophet!

God Bless Shepard Smith at Fox News Channel

For this gem of a smack down of Donald Trump: (H/T to Mediaite)

https://youtu.be/weHjxfa4bvA

Shepard Smith is correct, we need NATO, no matter what people like Pat Buchanan might say.

The best words that John Mccain has ever spoken

These are the words of Senator John McCain from the Senate floor. Via his website:

“Mr. President, I rise in support of the release – the long-delayed release – of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s summarized, unclassified review of the so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ that were employed by the previous administration to extract information from captured terrorists. It is a thorough and thoughtful study of practices that I believe not only failed their purpose – to secure actionable intelligence to prevent further attacks on the U.S. and our allies – but actually damaged our security interests, as well as our reputation as a force for good in the world.

“I believe the American people have a right – indeed, a responsibility – to know what was done in their name; how these practices did or did not serve our interests; and how they comported with our most important values.

“I commend Chairman Feinstein and her staff for their diligence in seeking a truthful accounting of policies I hope we will never resort to again. I thank them for persevering against persistent opposition from many members of the intelligence community, from officials in two administrations, and from some of our colleagues.

“The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it, nonetheless.

“They must know when the values that define our nation are intentionally disregarded by our security policies, even those policies that are conducted in secret. They must be able to make informed judgments about whether those policies and the personnel who supported them were justified in compromising our values; whether they served a greater good; or whether, as I believe, they stained our national honor, did much harm and little practical good.

“What were the policies? What was their purpose? Did they achieve it? Did they make us safer? Less safe? Or did they make no difference? What did they gain us? What did they cost us? The American people need the answers to these questions. Yes, some things must be kept from public disclosure to protect clandestine operations, sources and methods, but not the answers to these questions.

“By providing them, the Committee has empowered the American people to come to their own decisions about whether we should have employed such practices in the past and whether we should consider permitting them in the future. This report strengthens self-government and, ultimately, I believe, America’s security and stature in the world. I thank the Committee for that valuable public service.

“I have long believed some of these practices amounted to torture, as a reasonable person would define it, especially, but not only the practice of waterboarding, which is a mock execution and an exquisite form of torture. Its use was shameful and unnecessary; and, contrary to assertions made by some of its defenders and as the Committee’s report makes clear, it produced little useful intelligence to help us track down the perpetrators of 9/11 or prevent new attacks and atrocities.

“I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. I know that victims of torture will offer intentionally misleading information if they think their captors will believe it. I know they will say whatever they think their torturers want them to say if they believe it will stop their suffering. Most of all, I know the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies, our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights, which are protected by international conventions the U.S. not only joined, but for the most part authored.

“I know, too, that bad things happen in war. I know in war good people can feel obliged for good reasons to do things they would normally object to and recoil from.

“I understand the reasons that governed the decision to resort to these interrogation methods, and I know that those who approved them and those who used them were dedicated to securing justice for the victims of terrorist attacks and to protecting Americans from further harm. I know their responsibilities were grave and urgent, and the strain of their duty was onerous.

“I respect their dedication and appreciate their dilemma. But I dispute wholeheartedly that it was right for them to use these methods, which this report makes clear were neither in the best interests of justice nor our security nor the ideals we have sacrificed so much blood and treasure to defend.

“The knowledge of torture’s dubious efficacy and my moral objections to the abuse of prisoners motivated my sponsorship of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which prohibits ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment’ of captured combatants, whether they wear a nation’s uniform or not, and which passed the Senate by a vote of 90-9.

“Subsequently, I successfully offered amendments to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which, among other things, prevented the attempt to weaken Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, and broadened definitions in the War Crimes Act to make the future use of waterboarding and other ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ punishable as war crimes.

“There was considerable misinformation disseminated then about what was and wasn’t achieved using these methods in an effort to discourage support for the legislation. There was a good amount of misinformation used in 2011 to credit the use of these methods with the death of Osama bin Laden. And there is, I fear, misinformation being used today to prevent the release of this report, disputing its findings and warning about the security consequences of their public disclosure.

“Will the report’s release cause outrage that leads to violence in some parts of the Muslim world? Yes, I suppose that’s possible, perhaps likely. Sadly, violence needs little incentive in some quarters of the world today. But that doesn’t mean we will be telling the world something it will be shocked to learn. The entire world already knows that we water-boarded prisoners. It knows we subjected prisoners to various other types of degrading treatment. It knows we used black sites, secret prisons. Those practices haven’t been a secret for a decade.

“Terrorists might use the report’s re-identification of the practices as an excuse to attack Americans, but they hardly need an excuse for that. That has been their life’s calling for a while now.

“What might come as a surprise, not just to our enemies, but to many Americans, is how little these practices did to aid our efforts to bring 9/11 culprits to justice and to find and prevent terrorist attacks today and tomorrow. That could be a real surprise, since it contradicts the many assurances provided by intelligence officials on the record and in private that enhanced interrogation techniques were indispensable in the war against terrorism. And I suspect the objection of those same officials to the release of this report is really focused on that disclosure – torture’s ineffectiveness – because we gave up much in the expectation that torture would make us safer. Too much.

“Obviously, we need intelligence to defeat our enemies, but we need reliable intelligence. Torture produces more misleading information than actionable intelligence. And what the advocates of harsh and cruel interrogation methods have never established is that we couldn’t have gathered as good or more reliable intelligence from using humane methods.

“The most important lead we got in the search for bin Laden came from using conventional interrogation methods. I think it is an insult to the many intelligence officers who have acquired good intelligence without hurting or degrading prisoners to assert we can’t win this war without such methods. Yes, we can and we will.

“But in the end, torture’s failure to serve its intended purpose isn’t the main reason to oppose its use. I have often said, and will always maintain, that this question isn’t about our enemies; it’s about us. It’s about who we were, who we are and who we aspire to be. It’s about how we represent ourselves to the world.

“We have made our way in this often dangerous and cruel world, not by just strictly pursuing our geopolitical interests, but by exemplifying our political values, and influencing other nations to embrace them. When we fight to defend our security we fight also for an idea, not for a tribe or a twisted interpretation of an ancient religion or for a king, but for an idea that all men are endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights. How much safer the world would be if all nations believed the same. How much more dangerous it can become when we forget it ourselves even momentarily.

“Our enemies act without conscience. We must not. This executive summary of the Committee’s report makes clear that acting without conscience isn’t necessary, it isn’t even helpful, in winning this strange and long war we’re fighting. We should be grateful to have that truth affirmed.

“Now, let us reassert the contrary proposition: that is it essential to our success in this war that we ask those who fight it for us to remember at all times that they are defending a sacred ideal of how nations should be governed and conduct their relations with others – even our enemies.

“Those of us who give them this duty are obliged by history, by our nation’s highest ideals and the many terrible sacrifices made to protect them, by our respect for human dignity to make clear we need not risk our national honor to prevail in this or any war. We need only remember in the worst of times, through the chaos and terror of war, when facing cruelty, suffering and loss, that we are always Americans, and different, stronger, and better than those who would destroy us.

“Thank you.”

God Bless Him for standing up for what is right.

(via Memeoradum)

Video: This is why I do not trust Al-Jazeera TV

American version of it or not. I simply do not trust it and this here is why. This comes via Memri TV:

Some of you might say, “But, aren’t you a Buchananite type?” Yes, indeed I am. Which simply means that I am not a fan of Wilsonian Foreign Policy and that’s all it means. If Al-Jazeera TV is putting this sort of garbage on it’s Arab speaking network, it has zero business being in the United States of America. This is nothing more than Anti-Jewish propaganda and it furthers the blood libels that the terrorists thrive on and use to commit acts of carnage.

If our President were actually worth a tinkers damn, he would tell Al-Jazeera TV, “You either do something about that, or you can pack your little network up and go back to mecca, where you truly belong.” But, because we have a President who kowtows down to Arabs and their religion, instead of defending Jewish Americans, you have this network Al-Jazeera TV here to brainwash Americans into believe that 9/11 was somehow justified.

…and that, my friends, is a great American tragedy.

(H/T to Commentary Magazine)

UPDATED – It’s official: The Obama Administration is in deep trouble and I am done defending them

My friends, I was very, very wrong and for that, I am terribly sorry. 🙁

I said that I believed that the entire Benghazi, Libya debacle was over-hyped by the Republicans; and I still believe that, to a point.

However, there are many things that have come up since then, which I simply cannot defend.

They are:

  1. The IRS targeting Jewish groups.  – I mean, honestly, what the hell were the IRS and Obama’s people thinking when they let this one happen?
  2. IRS targeting Conservative groups in Washington and Elsewhere. — Did they not know that this would be exposed?
  3. DOJ going after the AP – This is borderline Watergate, so says a watergate player. — Again, what the hell were these people thinking?

My friends, the “Giving the benefit of the doubt” of the President and his Administration by this writer and blogger are over. There is no doubt in my mind that the Obama administration; much like the Administration of George W. Bush, became consumed with a lust for power and abused and exploited the office of President of the United States and the instruments of Governmental office for political purposes.

I leave you with two videos:

Update: Better clip via The American Spectator:

The Democrats have screwed themselves out of ever winning an election; for like oh, maybe the next 2 major election cycles. This is the sad part, Obama and his Administration promised Americans that he would be a clean break from the policies and practices of President George W. Bush and his Administration and sadly, it turns out that Obama and his Administration are just as bad; if not even worse.   As I wrote before, it is sad ending to a Presidency that offered so much to give; but ended up delivering little or nothing at all, in the realm of change.

It is going to be a long, hot, nasty, political summer for America, Americans, Black Liberal Americans and for Washington D.C.. I just hope that cool heads prevail. But, I really do fear the worst in yet to come.

Blogger Round Up #1: (viaYahoo! NewsJustOneMinuteMichelle MalkinNew York TimesSunlight Foundation BlogBBCWall Street JournalRight Turnwaysandmeans.house.govHot AirThe WeekThe Daily CallerThe HillDaily KosFirst ReadThe Maddow BlogPostPartisanThe FixWhite House DossierThe Other McCainBetsy’s PageDa Tech Guy On DaRadio BlogScared Monkeys,msnbc.comObsidian WingsWeasel ZippersJammie Wearing FoolsTwitchyNational Review,The Lonely ConservativePower LineConservatives4Palin and CBS DC

Blogger Round Up #2: (viaYahoo! NewsWashington MonthlyBuzzFeedThe WeekAssociated PressHit & Run,News DeskFox NewsOpen Channelmsnbc.comemptywheelGuardianWorldViewsPatterico’s PontificationsThe Huffington PostNo More Mister Nice BlogUSA TodayThe HillWeekly StandardPoynterThe Daily CallerThe Volokh ConspiracyErik WempleThinkProgressRight Wing NewsTaylor MarshScared MonkeysAddicting Infoamericanthinker.comCNN,CANNONFIREThe BLTPJ MediaNO QUARTER USA NETThe Moderate VoiceThe Hinterland GazetteNationalJournal.comHot AirWashington Free BeaconWashington ExaminerWired,PoliticoWeasel ZippersGawkerTHE DEFINITIVE SOURCEHullabalooEd DriscollThe Verge,The Gateway PunditSPJ NewsThe PJ TatlerNational ReviewNational Republican …Philly.com,Mother JonesLe·gal In·sur·rec· tionSister ToldjahOutside the BeltwayWonketteTalkLeft andLawfaremore at Mediagazer »

Update #1: Franklin Graham says they were targeted. Those rat bastards have no shame at all. 😡

 Update #2:  Obama Admin’s IRS targeted reporter who gave hard interview.

Update #3: I am just going to say this and get it off my chest:

IMPEACH THE FUCKER AND GET IT OVER WITH!

Roundup #3: The Gateway PunditSister ToldjahWeasel ZippersWashington Free BeaconRule of LawBuzzFeedViralReadJammie Wearing Fools,The PJ TatlerVodkaPundit and Hot Air

Yes! Someone smart comes out and says it

I have been thinking along these same lines.

Via The Christian Post

WASHINGTON – An evangelical professor who was part of a summit on foreign policy held at Georgetown University believes that evangelicals should avoid “Muslim-baiting.”
David Gushee, founder of the organization Evangelicals for Human Rights and professor at Mercer University, told The Christian Post that evangelicals should not participate in projects like the anti-Muhammad film that sparked violent protests in the Middle East.

“We certainly need to have no participation in what you might call ‘Muslim-baiting.’ If we know that attacks on the character of the prophet Muhammad evoke predictably violent reactions, it’s just foolish and unwise and immoral,” said Gushee.

“You want to avoid such things from happening and we need to quarantine out of our community this kind of Muslim-baiting that is happening on our fringes.”

Gushee also told CP that the violence by reactionary Islamic mobs in Libya and Egypt should never be considered justified in their actions.

“We also need to say that random killings of westerners or Americans or Christians because some foolish person somewhere made a film about Muhammad are wrong too,” he said. “Outbursts of randomly directed violence against people who were not involved with the provocation are unjustifiable and must be condemned.”

My feelings about the religion itself aside; the fact of reality is that there are peaceful Muslims here in America and putting these videos out does nothing provoke overseas Muslims to rage, which in turn makes American Muslims look horrible.

It is a sticky situation at best. The question is how does one respond?

Video: Michelle Malkin to White House: These optics suck White House!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y35S4Oua8vI&hd=1

A few questions from a Non-Wilsonian Conservative:

  1. Where was all this outrage when it was discovered that President George W. Bush invaded Iraq based upon bad information from Germany?
  2. Does Malkin realize that the entire “Arab Spring” was started, when Bush invaded Iraq? Best thing that people like her can say in response is, “Blame Bush, Blame Bush….” Well, in this case, his blame is due.

Now, do not misunderstand me here. This is a huge blunder by the White House, and the fallout is getting worse by the minute. I mean, now several Christian Colleges are now being threatened.  However, I believe to pin the blame entirely on the Obama Administration is cheap political theater really.

As for Romney, I believe the media is making hay over that issue, a bit too much. But, he did jump the gun too quickly, I believe.

Furthermore, as a Non-Wilsonian Conservative, I say the following:

  1. This is nothing more than living proof, that the United States of America needs to get the hell out of United Nations and order them out of this Country.
  2. This is living proof that the United States needs to close these idiotic embassies in these Countries that are not necessarily friendly to the United States, and stop having American forces, of any sort, in those Countries.
  3. This is proof that Islam is not a peaceful Religion or political philosophy, and as I wrote before, should be banned in the United States and those that practice it, should be given two choices; convert or leave.
  4. This, if anything, should be proof that, as noted for a long time, by Anti-Jihadi bloggers for years; that the attacks on 9/11 were a declaration of a Religious War between the Judeo-Christian values of the west and of the United States and the backward Islāmic values of the middle east. These attacks this week are a continuation of that War.  Now, if we do pull out, will that war stop? Most likely not. But, I believe that they will subside and the parties will begin fighting one another. Furthermore, if they attack the US on our soil, then we will have a legit excuse for War. Right now, we do not. We are in their lands.

In closing: I want it to be clear, this is not just a posting to knee-cap Michelle Malkin. But it is rather my personal take on what some on the right are saying about this whole thing. I realize it is an election year and all. But, we should not allow ourselves to be duped into blaming one person or President Administration for the events of the past week.

The truth is that what is happening now in the middle east is a result of many years of Wilsonian stupidity from many Presidential Administrations and an utter failure by many in Government that Islam is just incompatible with western values, constitutional freedoms and general social decency.

This is a very important lesson, and the quicker that those in our Government and Governments to come figure this out, the better things will be for this Country.

(via Urban Grounds)

The fallout continues

The fallout from the embassy attacks is continuing.

Some on the left now are even upset about it.

Video via Gateway Pundit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOnQJehP_is

Now there comes word, via one of the most liberal papers in the U.K., that the State Department actually knew that these attacks were coming, and did absolutely nothing:

The killings of the US ambassador to Libya and three of his staff were likely to have been the result of a serious and continuing security breach, The Independent can reveal.

American officials believe the attack was planned, but Chris Stevens had been back in the country only a short while and the details of his visit to Benghazi, where he and his staff died, were meant to be confidential.

The US administration is now facing a crisis in Libya. Sensitive documents have gone missing from the consulate in Benghazi and the supposedly secret location of the “safe house” in the city, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer deemed “safe”.

Some of the missing papers from the consulate are said to list names of Libyans who are working with Americans, putting them potentially at risk from extremist groups, while some of the other documents are said to relate to oil contracts.

According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and “lockdown”, under which movement is severely restricted.

 — Read the rest at the U.K. Independent

Of course, the Obama Administration is in denial mode, via The Politico:

The Obama administration is flatly denying a blaring British newspaper report that the U.S. diplomats in Libya were killed as a result of a “continuing security breach,” and that “credible information” about possible attacks had been ignored.

A U.S. official told POLITICO: “There’s no intelligence indicating that the attack in Benghazi was premeditated.”

[…]

Shawn Turner, spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, emailed: “This is absolutely wrong. We are not aware of any actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent.”

The guys over at Powerline are not buying it at all:

Of course, the Independent story didn’t say that the Obama administration had “actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent.” It said that “the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted,” but did nothing to step up security. The administration’s denial does not contradict the Independent’s statement, and the fact that the denial is phrased so narrowly suggests that the Independent’s report is, in fact, accurate.

[…]

So the Obama administration is already in cover-up mode. Note how willing administration spokesmen are to take absurd positions, secure in the knowledge that reporters will help them with their cover-up.

I can tell you this; the fallout from this is going to be great. I believe this little incident right here and the fact that embassy works were unguarded like this will be amplified during this election cycle and it might just cost Barack Obama the election. I realize Romney might not have handled the situation the greatest. But this here is nothing more than a dereliction of duty.

Sarah Palin over on Hannity weighed in as well:

For once, I actually agree with Sarah Palin. I also agree with the fact that this bogus movie was not the cause of these attacks. These attacks were pre-planned and this movie just happened to be out there and it was used, by these terrorists, as a cover for their actions. The sad fact folks is this, the United States of America and more broadly; The West is involved in a Religious War, between Christianity and Islam. The people over at Gates of Vienna, Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch, and Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs, and others have been covering this for a very long time. The sad truth is that those who point to these sites and just dismiss them as hatemongers are just willfully blind to the danger that Islam is for this Country. The Nation should have realized this after 9/11, but because we had a President who wanted to remain Islam-friendly; the truth was ignored.

Furthermore, as a Christian, allow me to say this; Islam is an intolerant Religion and should be totally outlawed in America. There are extremist Christians in America, there is no denying that. But the last time, I checked, they were not as well funded as these people are. (and before anybody mentions him, Timothy McVeigh was not a Christian! Nor was he well-funded…) This is not a Religion anyways, it is a political philosophy, intermingled with a fascist religion and should be eliminated from this Country. If you are offended at this, tough crap; because the facts are that there is no such thing as peaceful Muslim. There are Muslims who choose to fight Jihad, and there are those who refrain from it. Because of this, America will never be safe at all. Call me a bigot, call me a hater, call me an A-hole; I really do not care. But America is going to learn this lesson of what Islam really is, one way or another. It really is too bad that more people are going to have to die, before the United States Government gets a clue and finally wakes up to this threat.

As a compassionate human being, I hate to think that people would actually be so ate up with their religion that they would act in this manner. However, as a realist; I have to go with my gut feelings and with what I see and all I see is this that is happening.

The sick part is, the way this Nation is headed at the moment, we will most like be too darned broke to even deal with the situation much less even fight it. It is a depressing state of affairs, which is why I try to avoid writing about it, because it just makes me sad and depressed to watch it all happen.

There is my statement, quote me, if you wish. Please, just be aware of this here. Thanks.