"TRUE CONFESSIONS" FROM THE BRITS . . . AND OUR CAPTIVE
The U.S. government must be very unhappy with the misadventure of the British sailors and marines who demonstrated that it is quite easy to get captives to say things that they don't actually believe -- or to change their minds about what they do believe. The eight sailors and seven Royal Marines -- the latter supposedly the tough guys of the UK military -- apologized profusely for straying into Iranian waters and did it on Iranian TV, humbling the once-mighty British and handing the Islamist regime a publicity coup.
After the debriefing, no doubt explanations will be offered to the effect that the confessions were just a clever dodge, they didn't mean it, they sent coded signals in their TV performance, etc. All well and good. But the fact is that the British service members basically cracked in less than two weeks and did whatever it took to get the hell out of there.
Which brings us to Khalid Sheik Mohammed. KSM, as he is known, has been in United States custody since 2003 and spent the last six months in Uncle Sam's Carribean resort for terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After lengthy interrogations by American agents, KSM has reportedly confessed that he, himself, murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and that he planned, among other things:
-- the 9/11 attacks
-- the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center
-- A hotel bombing in Kenya in 2002
-- The Bali, Indonesia, nightclub bombing
-- Assasination attempts against Bill Clinton when he was president; Jimmy Carter; Pope John Paul II; and Pakistan ruler Pervez Musharaff.
-- Attempts to destroy the the Panama Canal; the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower, and other famous buildings in the U.S.; and the Canary Wharf, Big Ben, and Heathrow Airport in Britain.
Not to mention numerous other plots.
Judging from KSM's confessions, he was pretty much the CEO of the al-Qaeda Terrorism Company, the world's biggest bad guy, the Bill Gates of evil. In capturing KSM and putting him out of the mayhem business, we took down a major operative and presumably dialed back on terrorism around the world, didn't we?
Except apparently we didn't. The Global War on Terrorism goes on, not to mention the very specific battle with miscellaneous bad guys in Iraq. Government foresees an endless war against the forces of evil as personified by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, with no relief in sight.
Armed with such a splendid confession, you'd think the U.S. would put KSM on trial. Surely we have some sort of extraterritorialty laws that would let us haul this bird into a courtroom in New York and ask for the death penalty.
Except the government will never do that, because his confession would be pretty much the whole case, and any law school dropout would know that the first thing to do is disavow the confession on the grounds that it was extracted by torture.
But wait, the U.S. would never engage in "real" torture, stubbing out lit cigarettes on his belly fat or ripping out fingernails with channel-lock pliers. We would never do that. We might see how long we can hold his breath underwater, though -- that seems to be within the rules.
But four years of solitary confinement, total isolation from friends (if he has any) and allies, no contact with counsel, legal or otherwise, and constant interrogation, is pressure enough for most people. The British sailors and marines 'fessed up without a mark on them, looking perfectly chipper and cheerful, and said what the Iranians wanted to hear in order to win their release. Wouldn't KSM admit to almost anything if he thought it would end his ordeal? How much pressure can even a dementedly dedicated terrorist take?
The U.S. claims that it got valuable information -- names and dates -- from KSM. Let's hope that's true. If KSM is really the major bad guy that he confessed to being, then surely we can roll up his network and clip al-Qaeda's wings.
One can only wish his confession was worth that much.