Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed appeared before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) at Guantanamo Bay last Saturday. In the transcripts released by the Department of Defense, the headline was that Mohammed confessed that he was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. This of course is not surprising or new since he had already taken responsibility in a June (or April depending on which version of the story you like to believe) 2002 interview with an Al Jazeera reporter.

The Washington Post reports about Mohammed’s 9/11 involvement from "A to Z":

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, confessed to his Guantanamo Bay captors that he planned and funded that al-Qaeda operation and said he was involved in more than two dozen other terrorist acts around the world, according to documents released by the Pentagon yesterday.

In his first public statement since his capture in 2003, Mohammed declared himself an enemy of the United States and claimed some responsibility for many of the major terrorist attacks on U.S. and allied targets for more than a decade. He told a Combatant Status Review Tribunal at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that he is at war with America and that the deaths of innocent people are an unfortunate reality of that conflict.

"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z," Mohammed told a panel of military officers through a personal representative, who read off a list of 31 terrorist acts that were either carried out or planned but not executed. According to transcripts Defense Department officials released last night, Mohammed later spoke in broken English and Arabic, saying: "For sure, I’m American enemies."

This news of Mohammed’s confession in front of the CSRT will land with a thud. It is not new news. His claims to being involved in a large number of other real and would-be attacks have a tinge of hyperbole to them. However, what he said in a long and rambling statement during the CSRT will likely be the real story from this sorry episode. According to the transcript, Mohammad declared in halting and fragmented English [I’ve included the bulk of the statement below. It is long but is worth reading]:

What I wrote here, is not I’m making myself hero, when I said I was responsible for this or that. But your are military man. You know very well there are language for any war. So, there are, we are when I admitting these things I’m not saying I’m not did it. I did it but this the language of any war. If America they want to invade Iraq they will not send for Saddam roses or kisses they send for a bombardment. This is the best way if I want. If I’m fighting for anybody admin to them I’m American enemies. For sure, I’m American enemies.

…

I consider myself, for what you are doing, a religious thing as you consider us fundamentalist. So, we derive from religious leading that we consider we and George Washington doing same thing. As consider George Washington as hero. Muslims many of them are considering Usama bin Laden. He is doing same thing. He is just fighting. He needs his independence. Even we think that, or not me only. Many Muslims, that al Qaeda or Taliban they are doing. They have been oppressed by America. This is the feeling of the prophet. So when we say we are enemy combatant, that right. We are.

…

But I’m asking you again to be fair with many Detainees which are not enemy combatant. Because many of them have been unjustly arrested. Many, not one or two or three. Cause the definition you which wrote even from my view it is not fair. Because if I was in the first Jihad times Russia. So I have to be Russian enemy. But America supported me in this because I’m their alliances when I was fighting Russia. Same job I’m doing. I’m fighting. I was fighting there Russia now I’m fighting America. So, many people who been in Afghanistan never live [leave]. Afghanistan stay in but they not share Taliban or al Qaeda. They been Russian time and they cannot go back to their home with their corrupted government. They stayed there and when America invaded Afghanistan parliament. They had been arrest. They never have been with Taliban or the others. So many people consider them as enemy but they are not. Because definitions are very wide definition so people they came after October 2002, 2001. When America invaded Afghanistan, they just arrive in Afghanistan cause the [they]  hear there enemy. They don’t know what it means al Qaeda or Usama bin Laden or Taliban. They don’t care about these things. They heard they were enemy in Afghanistan they just arrived. As they heard first time Russian invade Afghanistan. They arrive they fought when back than they came. They don’t know what’s going on and Taliban they been head of government. You consider me even Taliban even the president of whole government. Many people they join Taliban because they are the government. When Karzai they came they join Karzai when come they join whatever public they don’t know what is going on. So, many Taliban fight even the be fighters because they just because public. The government is Taliban then until now CIA don’t have exactly definition well who is Taliban, who is al Qaeda. Your Tribunal now are discussing he is enemy or not and that is one of your jobs. So this is why you find many Afghanis people, Pakistanis people even, they don’t know what going on they just hear they are fighting and they help Muslim in Afghanistan. Then what. There are some infidels which they came here and they have to help them. Bu then there weren’t any intend to do anything against America. Taliban themselves between Taliban they said Afghanistan which they never again against 9/11 operation. The rejection between senior of Taliban of what al Qaeda are doing. Many of Taliban rejected what they are doing. Even many Taliban, they not agree about why we are in Afghanistan. Some of them they have been with us. Taliban never in their life at all before America invade them the intend to do anything against America. They never been with al Qaeda.

…

They way of the war, you know, very well, any country waging war against their enemy the language of the war are killing. If man and woman they be together as a marriage that is up to the kids, children. But if you and me, two nations, will be together in war the others are victims. This is the way of the language. You know 40 million people were killed in World War One. Ten million kill in World War. You know that two million four hundred thousand be killed in the Korean War. So this language of the war. Any people who, when Usama bin Laden say I’m waging war because such such reason, now he declared it. But when you said I’m terrorist, I think it is deceiving peoples.

…

It would be widely definite that many people are oppressed. Because war, for sure, there will be victims. When I said I’m not happy that three thousand been killed in America. I feel sorry even. I don’t like to kill children and the kids. Never Islam are, give me green light to kill peoples. Killing, as in the Christianity, Jews, and Islam, are prohibited. But there are exception of rule when you are killing people in Iraq. You said we have to do it. We don’t like Saddam. But this is the way to deal with Saddam. Same thing you are saying. Same language you use, I use. When you are invading two-thirds of Mexican, you call your war manifest destiny. It up to you to call it what you want. But other side are calling you oppressors. If now George Washington. If now we were living in the Revolutionary War and George Washington he being arrested through Britain. For sure he, they would consider him enemy combatant. But American they consider him hero. This right the any Revolutionary War will be as George Washington or Britain. So we are considered American Army bases which we have from seventies in Iraq. Also, in the Saudi Arabian, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain. This is kind of invasion, but I’m not here to convince you. Is not or not but mostly speech is ask you to be fair with people. I’m don’t have anything to say that I’m not enemy. This is why the language of any war in the world is killing. I mean the language of the war is victims. I don’t like to kill people. I feel very sorry they been killed kids in 9/11. What I will do? This is the language. Sometime I want to make great awakening between American to stop foreign policy in our land. I know American people are torturing us from seventies. [REDACTED] I know they talking about human rights. And I know it is against American Constitution, against American laws. But they said every law, they have exceptions, this is your bad luck you been part of the exception of our laws. They got have something to convince me but we are doing same language.

…

Killing is prohibited in all what you call the people of the book, Jews, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. You know the Ten Commandments very well. The Ten Commandments are shared between all of us. We all are serving one God. Then now [Thou not] kill you know it very well. But war language also we have language for the war. You have to kill. But you have to care if unintentionally or intentionally target if I have if I’m not at the Pentagon, I consider it okay. If I target now when we target in USA we choose them military target, economical, and political. So, war central victims mostly means economical target. So if now American they know UBL. He is in this house they don’t care about his kids and his. They will just bombard it. They will kill all of them and they did it. They kill wife of Dr. Ayman Zawahiri and his two daughters and his son in one bombardment. They receive a report that is his house be. He had not been there. They killed them. They arrested my kids intentionally. They are kids. They been arrested for four months they had been abused. So, for me I have patience. I know I’m not talk about what’s come to me. The American have human right. So, enemy combatant itself, it flexible word. So I think God knows that many who been arrested, they been unjustly arrested.

Mohammed’s statement demonstrates why the CSRT kangaroo courts are embarrassingly flawed. His statement demonstrates why due process is important, especially when the crimes being alleged are so heinous. Due process does not only protect the defendent’s rights, it also is a path to an objective finding of the facts. Without it we are left with dueling stories, nothing more.

Mohammed asked for witnesses, he was denied. The government called no witnesses, but instead simply read off a litany of charges. Mohammed then launched into an unchallenged and lengthy statement – one that would have benefited from cross examination.

Instead, Mohammed’s statement, unchallenged, has redefined the case against him. His statement is given further weight by the inherent unfairness of the "process" at Guantanamo Bay.

Mohammed achieved three goals. First, he declared himself a resistance soldier fighting an invader. He framed the war as one between the oppressor and the oppressed. He declared himself a revolutionary and compared bin Laden to George Washington. He pointedly did not say that he is fighting to impose Islamic law on the West. Instead, he railed against American foreign policy against his land and suggested that his goal was to cause an "awakening" about the ills of this policy. This argument does, and will have, broad appeal across the entire Muslim world and much of the Third World. Mr. Bush’s hollow argument about defending against an Islamist takeover of western civilization may rally his base here, but Mohammed knows exactly what rallies the base over there. If Mr. Bush wants to combat the spread of extremism, he needs to understand the power of the argument Mohammed put forward.

Second, Mohammed argued that he was using the "language of war". According to the "language of war", during war civilians suffer. He cited Mr. Bush’s arguments about the Iraq war as an example of civilians dying in the cause of a greater goal. He justified the attack on the World Trade Center by claiming it as an economic target, and therefore within the "language of war". He likened his alleged torture and the killing of Iraqi civilians to the terrorist attacks on 9/11 by claiming an exception to the rules of war, allowed as part of the "language of war". The argument is hauntingly similar to George W Bush’s justifications for "bending" the rules in the service of justice. It is an argument that Zbigniew Brzezinski called "Manichean delusions" in his recent testimony in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Third, Mohammed drew a distinction between those who are fighting a defensive war to protect their land, like the Afghanis and the Taliban (and the Iraqis), and those who are taking the fight to the invader, al Qaeda. He then appealed to the Americans to spare the non-al Qaeda held at Guantanamo. By arguing that he was a real soldier and most Afghanis are merely caught up in a conflict in their backyard, he both gains sympathy from the population, and at the same time is able to portray himself as fighting for their interests. Any attack on America, viewed through this lens, is seen now as a means of fighting the invader or oppressor. This is al Qaeda’s version of the Doctrine of Pre-emption and of force projection. It has some appeal in the Muslim world just as Bush’s doctrine has some appeal in the United States.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, given his opportunity, made his points well. He made his points unchallenged because of the flawed CSRT process. The Bush administration, in a misguided attempt to deny Mohammed his rights, instead gave him a major platform to spread the very propaganda the Administration claims they are trying to silence by their draconian rules. That propaganda will earn Mohammed and al Qaeda more sympathizers and more followers in the Muslim world. Instead of a trial exposing Mohammed’s guilt in an atrocity that killed nearly 3000 people, we are left with charges backed by "classified" information and a statement proudly justifying his acts.

We have fallen a long way since Nuremburg and the eloquence of Justice Jackson. By denying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed due process, Mr. Bush has denied us, the rest of the world, justice.