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MIAMI (Reuters) - Guantanamo war crimes prosecutions of five prisoners charged with plotting the September 11 hijacked planes attacks will be delayed by two months because of lost files caused by Pentagon computer problems, U.S. military officials said on Wednesday. A weeklong pretrial hearing had been set to begin on Monday in the death penalty case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the attacks, and four alleged co-conspirators. The judge overseeing the case postponed the hearing until June 17 at the request of defense lawyers who said three to four weeks' worth of their confidential work files had...

Did you know that 30 years ago today Ronald Reagan first called the Soviet Union the  “Evil Empire” in a speech  delivered at a meeting of the National Association of Evangelicals?     Calling communism “the focus of evil in the modern world,”  his otherwise rather routine speech  electrified and polarized the political class, as it was delivered at a time when Congress was debating a resolution in support of a "nuclear freeze," a doctrine  then supported, not surprisingly, by the Soviet Union. It’s still supported today by Russia, their successor of evil. And apparently it’s still supported by Reagan’s successor...

A convicted terrorist serving life with no parole plus 240 years for masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing has reportedly filed a lawsuit arguing he should be let out of solitary confinement. "I request an immediate end to my solitary confinement and ask to be in a unit in an open prison environment where inmates are allowed outside their cells for no less than 14 hours a day," he reportedly wrote in confidential government records obtained by The Los Angeles Times. His terror acts were funded by Al Qaeda and his uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is allegedly the...

Defense Secretary Panetta admits that CIA used the information from waterboarding to capture Osama Bin Laden • Controversial film Zero Dark Thirty has graphic waterboarding scene • Director Kathryn Bigelow says all information in the film was based on 'first hand accounts' of what happened but now Senator disputes theory Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that some of the information that was used to locate and kill Osama bin Laden was attained using torture. The admission comes after months of speculation about the role that waterboarding plays in CIA interrogations following its graphic depiction in the Oscar-nominated film Zero Dark...

This doesn't quite qualify as breaking news for those who tracked the extraordinary labyrinth of intelligence that emerged in the days following the 2011 Abbottabad raid, but the subject of US interrogation policy is again generating controversy in advance of the release of 'Zero Dark Thirty,' a film that dramatizes the bin Laden mission.  Writing in today's Washington Post, a former top CIA counter-terrorism officer sets the record straight on what measures were, and were not, employed to help bring down the world's most infamous terrorist.  Jose Rodriguez -- who made headlines last year when his book exposed Nancy Pelosi's...

'CIA island jail' to be probed A UK parliamentary committee is to investigate allegations that US authorities held 'terrorist' suspects in secret prisons on an Indian Ocean island leased by the US from Britain, officials said. Reprieve, a British legal charity, says the CIA detained suspected al-Qaeda members at an airbase on the island of Diego Garcia. Reprieve says at least three al-Qaeda linked prisoners - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Hambali - were held on the island with the consent of British authorities. George Bush, the US president, admitted in 2006 the CIA had held the three and...

NEW YORK — The families of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks have been invited to military installations in four states to watch pretrial hearings in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for five men charged with planning or assisting the terrorist strike. The hearings, which begin Monday, are closed to the public, but relatives who register in advance can watch on closed-circuit television at forts in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland and New York City. The suspects on trial before the military commission include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

WASHINGTON—Military prosecutors won't say whether they plan to use newly disclosed tape recordings in the upcoming trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed even though the tapes could solve the prosecution's problems with tainted evidence. A new book says Justice Department prosecutors were stunned to learn three years ago that the U.S. military had secretly tape-recorded incriminating comments that Mohammed made to fellow detainees during daily prison yard conversations but was not planning to use them at military tribunals. In "Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency," journalist Daniel Klaidman says Mohammed was...

A female defense attorney, who is not Muslim, wore the traditional Islamic hijab to the military court staging the trial of five Guantanamo Bay prisoners accused of the September 11 attacks yesterday. Cheryl Bormann, 52, who represents Walid bin Attash, said that her client had demanded she wear the clothing and insisted that other women at the hearing also wear ‘appropriate’ clothes out of respect for his religion. Today she explained her decision at Guantanamo Bay, saying she always wears the hijab around her client. She asked that other women follow her example so that the defendants do not have...

A female defense attorney, who is not Muslim, wore the traditional Islamic hijab to the military court staging the trial of five Guantanamo Bay prisoners accused of the September 11 attacks yesterday. Cheryl Bormann, 52, who represents Walid bin Attash, said that her client had demanded she wear the clothing and insisted that other women at the hearing also wear ‘appropriate’ clothes out of respect for his religion. Today she explained her decision at Guantanamo Bay, saying she always wears the hijab around her client. She asked that other women follow her example so that the defendants do not have...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — They knelt in prayer, ignored the judge and wouldn't listen to Arabic translations as they confronted nearly 3,000 counts of murder. The self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four co-defendants defiantly disrupted an arraignment that dragged into Saturday night in the opening act of the long-stalled effort to prosecute them in a military court. It wasn't until more than seven hours into the hearing that prosecutors at the U.S. military base in Cuba began reading the charges against the men, including 2,976 counts of murder and terrorism in the 2001 attacks...

The arraignment of accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four top Al Qaeda lieutenants opened Saturday in a heavily guarded island courtroom with the so-called “Gitmo 5” launching a silent protest, refusing to cooperate, listen to translations or even answer fundamental questions about a process that could end their lives. The long-awaited trial began with defense lawyers speaking for the alleged terrorists and arguing that the protest was over their clients’ anger about alleged CIA torture and mistreatment at the prison on the southern rim of Cuba. … (Updated at 10:14 a.m., May 5:) Three hours into the...

Ex-CIA chief defends waterboarding of al Qaeda leader Jose Rodriguez has no regrets about using the "enhanced interrogation techniques" - methods that some consider torture -- on al Qaeda detainees questioned after 9/11 and denies charges they didn't work. The former head of the CIA's Clandestine Service talks to Lesley Stahl about those methods, including waterboarding, for the first time and defends their use - even comparing them to the current policy of killing al Qaeda leaders with drone strikes. The Rodriguez interview will be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday, April 29 at 7 p.m. ET/PT. Rodriguez says everything his...

A former staffer for Bay State Sen. John F. Kerry has been charged with leaking the names of CIA operatives, including one who was involved in the interrogation of terror suspects held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, according to the U.S. Department of Justice and Kerry’s office.

September 11, 2001                                         The Islamic Jihad [carried out by mostly Saudi Arabs] massacres (around) 3,000 innocent people in the U.S. * al-Qaeda's Bin Laden admits to the crime. * The sick 'death cult' - Arab "Palestinians" celebrating it. * Ring leader: Mohamed Atta & his accomplices: profiles of '"Pious" dirty Muslim hypocrisy'[The Jihadist Muslim terrorists --while professing criticism of western sexual morality and covered with towels pictures containing women hanging in their hotel room, they-- visited/used: strip joints, lap dances,...

Prosecutors filed charges against 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators, bringing the five a step closer to facing a Guantanamo military tribunal. The charges, which must now be approved by a tribunal official, set the stage for the highest-profile Al-Qaeda suspects in custody to finally face justice almost a decade after the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

"KSM figured out waterboarding. He figured out the limits," Marc Theissen, a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, said during a panel discussion at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. KSM "actually mocked his interrogators by holding out his arm and counting off the seconds with his hand. He knew exactly how far we could go and when the terrorists know how far you can go it's very very hard to break them." Justice Department memos released by President Barack Obama indicate that the maximum duration for a single application of water to a terror suspect in the program authorized...

In this O'Reilly Factor exposé Marc Thiessen, the former chief speechwriter for President Bush, explains the enhanced interrogation methods used to start the chain of events which eventually lead to the death of Usama bin Laden. While most people believe that these methods are used to extract information, Thiessen explains that enhanced interrogations are used to create a more cooperative environment. After the subject is broken, interrogators can then start to extract the desired information, sometimes as simply as having a conversation with the person. BILL O'REILLY, HOST: Now for the top story tonight: an inside look at how the...

The September11 terror attacks in the US were staged to overcome disunity in al-Qa'ida, confidential computer records reveal. Alan Cullison reports on what happened after his laptop was wrecked while he was covering the combat in Afghanistan IN the autumn of 2001, I was one of scores of journalists who ventured into northern Afghanistan to write about the US-assisted war against the Taliban. After losing use of my computer in an accident, I scrawled stories by candlelight with a ballpoint pen and read dispatches to my editors at The Wall Street Journal over a satellite phone. When the Taliban's defences...

(CNSNews.com) – Information from an al-Qaida operative named Hassan Ghul, captured in Iraq in 2004, provided the “key moment” in identifying the notorious courier that ultimately led to the killing of Osama bin Laden, a U.S. government official confirmed to CNSNews.com. Further, the official said, high ranking al-Qaida operatives Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) – the mastermind of 9/11 -- and Abu Faraj al-Libi, each tried to mislead interrogators about the courier, whose nickname was Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. KSM identified al-Kuwaiti as not important, while al-Libi declined even knowing him. This greatly conflicted with what other detainees had said. The...

Burlingame describes the encounter with Obama: "As a former attorney I know you can't tell the Attorney General what to do, he said, 'No, I can't.' But I said 'we -- that shouldn't stop you from giving your opinion. We wouldn't be here today if they hadn't done their jobs. Can't you at least give them your opinion.'

In an especially well-timed release this week, Richard Miniter’s MASTERMIND: The Many Faces of the 9/11 Architect, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed reveals Mohammed’s rise to the top of Al Qaeda and his planning of the jihadist attacks on America in 2001. More than that, though, Miniter’s book includes shocking new disclosures about how the US treats its detainees. Miniter tells Big Peace: I was stunned to learn while researching Mastermind that Guantanamo detainees succeeded in convincing prison officials to no longer raise the American flag anywhere they could see it. Each morning on every U.S. military base around the world, the...

With all the renewed talk about waterboarding I thought it would be a good thing to open a thread where folks who have been waterboarded can sign and leave their comments for posterity.The rest of the Freepers can thank us for our service and sacrifice in perfecting this effective non-torture technique.And, there is not one person who has administered a session that has not themselves been "on the board".

Apparently, the key to the whole operation was finding and tracking Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, a process that took years — and involved info given by Guantanamo detainees: Sunday afternoon’s raid by U.S. forces that killed Osama bin Laden was the “culmination of years of careful and highly advanced intelligence work,” senior administration officials said in a conference call, describing the genesis of an operation that sounded like it was right out of a “Mission Impossible” movie. Some time after Sept. 11, detainees held by the U.S. told interrogators about a man believed to work as a courier for...

The, ahem, "man-caused death" of the world's most infamous terrorist is marvelous news for our country.  It is a testament to the skill and dedication of our men and women in uniform, and to the tireless work of our intelligence agencies.  It completes the hard and sometimes frustrating efforts of two successive presidential administrations.  That justice has been visited upon bin Laden is an unmitigated, non-partisan good.  But as the media pieces together the puzzle of how yesterday's surgical mission came to be, a politically controversial fact has arisen -- the investigation into locating and neutralizing bin Laden gained early...

(CNSNews.com) - A senior administration official providing the “details on the intelligence background” of the raid that killed al Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden said that when U.S. intelligence officials first discovered the compound in Pakistan where they believed bin Laden was living they “were shocked” by what they saw. U.S. intelligence agencies found the compound after years of following a trail that began with information they gleaned from “post-9/11 period” al Qaeda detainees, the official said in a conference call briefing held by the White House shortly after midnight. The transcript of the briefing was posted on...

The view from (some) on the right in regard to the Bin Laden news is: waterboarding is vindicated. One GOP Congressman tweeted: Wonder what President Obama thinks of water boarding now? The reason is that there's a direct line to be traced from the big news to data collected at GITMO -- data that was almost certainly collected under duress. Here's the key interrogation note regarding a courier going to Abottabad: Rest @ link

WikiLeaks: Osama bin Laden Killed After Tip-Off From His Deputy The mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, who was interrogated using “torture” techniques, gave the United States the breakthrough that resulted in the killing of Osama bin Laden. 02 May 2011 Follow Tim Ross on Twitter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who was repeatedly subjected to methods including “waterboarding” and stress positions, provided the CIA with the name of bin Laden’s personal courier, according to US officials. A second source – also an al-Qaeda “leader” held at Guantanamo Bay – then confirmed the courier’s identity, sparking an intense manhunt that resulted in...

On Monday, as Attorney General Eric Holder stood at the podium at the Justice Department headquarters in Washington to announce that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terrorists would be tried by military commissions at Guantanamo, he still insisted that he'd much prefer to try them in civilian courts. The guy just doesn't get it -- and because he doesn't, he should resign forthwith. Almost a year-and-a-half ago, when he announced at the same podium that he'd decided to try KSM and four of his co-conspirators in lower Manhattan, Holder did so with complete disregard for the security and day-to-day-activities...

I never thought I'd say it, but I miss Janet Reno. I never thought I'd ever again see an Attorney General of such incompetence, yet here we are. In what CNN calls "A long line of Obama shifts" Eric Holder announced that Khalid Sheik Mohammaed would be tried in a military tribunal instead of a civilian court. The poor man whined about Congress interfering and forcing him to try KSM in the military rather than the civilian system. He made it clear that he believes he knows better than Congress what to do with KSM: Expressing his disappointment in...

It took two years, but the Obama administration finally announced that self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four alleged co-conspirators will face prosecution by a military tribunal in Guantanamo. Attorney General Eric Holder, appearing as if he had been waterboarded into reversing his prior decision to try them in a federal court in New York, made the announcement yesterday. The reversal spared the nation from a made-for-TV Al Qaeda propaganda circus and allowed New Yorkers to breathe a sigh of relief that they won’t have to host these monsters in their backyard. Nevertheless, Holder just couldn’t miss an...

Attorney general forced to accept military tribunals for terrorists Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s 13-minute rant on abandoning plans for a civilian criminal trial for Sept. 11 attack mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) had the distinct tone of a sore loser. Mr. Holder’s failure to sell his vision of giving international terrorists the full constitutional rights enjoyed by U.S. citizens is a big win for our country. Mr. Holder was clearly not happy about the fact that he has been ordered to drop his plans for a open-court trial in New York City for the al Qaeda uber-terrorist in...

Debra Burlingame appeared on Fox today to react to the Obama administration’s reversal on trying captured terrorists in military tribunals. Burlingame blasted Attorney General Eric Holder as a “disgrace,” says the administration has been “incredibly dishonest” with the 9-11 families, and blasted Holder’s behavior toward the families of 9-11 victims. She also adds that she believes Holder has invited leftwing groups to attack the tribunals, and that he wants the tribunals to fail. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) adds that if Holder really feels so strongly against trying terrorists in military tribunals, he should resign. Burlingame’s brother, American Airlines pilot Charles...

Presidential hopeful, Barack Obama announced via the dumbest attorney general since Janet Reno that KSM and his terrorist comrades will be tried in military tribunals. The announcement coincided with Obama’s official declaration of his candidacy. The never astute AG, Eric Holder, had desparately wanted to please Obama’s boss, George Soros,by trying KSM and his fellow True Believers in Manhattan. Nobody in New York other than the liberal trustonians thought this was a sane idea. The simpering Holder blamed it all on congress. America thanks you, 112th.

McCain/Lieberman: "It is the right decision and we strongly commend the President and the Attorney General for reaching this decision."

It took 500 days, but President Obama yesterday abandoned his ill-conceived effort to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian courtroom. Attorney General Eric Holder was none too gracious about it, however. It was back in November 2009 that Obama and Holder docketed KSM and four confederates for trial in New York. An uproar ensued -- understandably -- and Congress promptly outlawed the movement of Guantanamo Bay detainees to the US. There the matter stood for some 15 months -- until yesterday, when Holder announced that the deadly quintet will now return to military commissions at Gitmo, right...

Complete title: JW Statement on the Obama Justice Department’s Announcement that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be Tried before Military Commission “It is no coincidence that this stunning reversal comes on the day that President Obama announced his reelection campaign. We are grateful that the opposition of the American people beat back the ‘terrorist lobby’ in the Obama administration to keep the KSM trial in Gitmo, where it belongs.” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton issued the following statement today regarding the Obama Justice Department’s stunning reversal that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be tried by a military commission and not by a...

Attorney General Eric Holder today will announce that self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will be tried in a military commission. A source says the commission will be held at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Attorney General Eric Holder today will announce that self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will be tried in a military commission, CBS News has learned. A source says the commission will be held at the Guantanamo Bay prison. Trying Mohammed in a civilian court and closing the Guantanamo prison were once some of the Obama administration's top priorities, but political realities have hamstrung both goals. Holder previously recommended that Mohammed and four other alleged Sept. 11 plotters be tried in New York City...

WASHINGTON -- The new White House executive order on detainees at Guantanamo Bay has baffled critics, who say the administration needs to issue a clear decision on where it will try Sept. 11 terror mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. "I hope the president's new thinking on Guantanamo and military tribunals also signals a willingness to expedite the military prosecutions of the terrorists who carried out the September 11th attacks," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who praised the decision to restart military tribunals and hold prisoners indefinitely at Guantanamo. "The families of those who died have waited 10 years, and they deserve,...

Will the Obama administration's policy toward Egypt be based on a perception that the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood would be extremely dangerous? Or have they taken the position - voiced in parts of the U.S. foreign policy establishment - that the Brotherhood has become moderate and can be talked to? Initial administration reactions indicate that it does not rule out Muslim Brotherhood participation in a future Egyptian coalition government. Since January 28, the Muslim Brotherhood's involvement has become more prominent, with its support of Mohamed ElBaradei to lead the opposition forces against the government. In the streets of Cairo,...

The "moderate" fascist 'Muslim Brotherhood' (a) The 'core' of today's violent Islamic fundamentalism *. (b) Inspired by (European) Fascism *. (c) Hitler admirer * - Distributor of Mein Kampf in Arabic *. (d) Anti-Christian agitator in Egypt *. The 9/11 attack - connection *. FundamentalismIn 1928, Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood, a rigidly conservative and highly secretive Egyptian-based organization dedicated to resurrecting a Muslim empire. According to al-Banna, "It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet." Al-Banna also...

MIAMI – A suspected al-Qaida operative who lived for more than 15 years in the U.S. has become chief of the terror network's global operations, the FBI says, marking the first time a leader so intimately familiar with American society has been placed in charge of planning attacks. Adnan Shukrijumah, 35, has taken over a position once held by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Miami-based FBI counterterrorism agent Brian LeBlanc (said). That puts him in regular contact with al-Qaida's senior leadership, including Osama bin Laden... Shukrijumah and two others were part of an "external operations council" that designed and approved...

An analysis of veins corroborates a confession by a senior al Qaeda leader that he personally beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, according to a new report released Thursday. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is suspected of planning the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States. Mohammed has not denied his role in the killing of Pearl, who was abducted in January 2002. A video of the journalist's slaying was distributed online nearly a month after he was abducted, but the face of the killer who slit his throat was not visible. U.S. officials have not charged Mohammed in...

A recently completed investigation of the killing of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan nine years ago makes public new evidence that a senior al-Qaeda operative executed the Wall Street Journal reporter. Khalid Sheik Mohammed - the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, who is being held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - said at a military hearing in 2007 that he killed Pearl. But there have been lingering doubts about his involvement, and the United States has not charged him with the crime. According to the new report, which was prepared by faculty members and...

ASHINGTON, June 7— A re-examination of years of terrorist plots and attacks around the world, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, suggests that American intelligence agencies profoundly underestimated Al Qaeda's reach and aspirations for more than a decade as it grew from obscurity into a global terrorist threat, lawmakers and investigators said this week.As Congressional investigators look back far beyond the series of signals missed before the Sept. 11 attacks, they are seeking answers to many questions about Al Qaeda that law enforcement and intelligence agencies still cannot answer themselves, officials said.In particular, they said, Congressional investigators are trying...

The Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has voted 212-206 to ban the Obama administration from spending any funds to try terrorism suspects in civilian court instead of by military commissions. Attorney General Eric Holder is reportedly all miffed and vexed. Since Congress failed to pass a new budget for 2011, the House passed a continuing resolution on Dec. 8 to continue funding the government next year. Somebody on the House Appropriations Committee, to Holder's supposed shock and dismay, inserted a provision that prohibits federal funds from being used to prosecute terrorist detainees in federal criminal courts, according to Susan Crabtree...

Requesting recommendations from anyone who has read this book. Gets 3.5 star recommendation from Amazon reviewers. Here is an excerpt from Courting Disaster:

Let’s review the state of play, shall we? Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama blasted the Bush administration’s decision to treat al-Qaeda terrorists as enemy combatants and detain them without trial at Guantanamo Bay. Now, two years into his presidency, Obama has decided to treat al-Qaeda terrorists as enemy combatants and detain them without trial at Guantanamo Bay. The media is reporting that the administration will hold Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 plotter indefinitely, granting them neither a civilian nor a military trial. This determination, leaked over the weekend, appears to be a rebuff of Attorney...

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, will probably remain in military detention without trial for the foreseeable future, according to Obama administration officials.