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Thursday, August 01, 2024

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed Pleas Out!

After 20 years of detainment, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed reached a deal for a LIFE sentence.

The U.S. government reached a deal with the man who spent over 20 years in detainment at Guantanamo Bay. He was accused of being the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

Even though he did not fly the airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the U.S. government charged individuals as accessory to murder, inspiring terrorism and conspiring to disrupt normal life.

He was expected to get the DEATH card if convicted. But the U.S. was delayed from an in person trial in the U.S.

Now he and several men took a plea deal.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the man accused of masterminding the terrorist attack, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, were captured in 2003, but their cases have faced years of legal delays over whether the evidence extracted during their interrogations was admissible in court.

The Pentagon did not release details of the plea deal. 

According to the New York Times, the deal includes guilty pleas on conspiracy charges in exchange for a life sentence rather than the death penalty. 

The detainees were first held at secret CIA prisons, where they were subject to "enhanced interrogation techniques," or torture, before they were moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2006. The detainees were formally charged in 2008. 

A National Security Council spokesperson said the White House learned of the plea deals, which were negotiated by military prosecutors, on Wednesday. 

"The President and the White House played no role in this process," the spokesperson said. "The President has directed his team to consult as appropriate with officials and lawyers at the Department of Defense on this matter."

In 2023, the Pentagon advised families of 9/11 victims of a potential plea deal involving five detainees, prompting outrage from families who wanted the men to face a death-penalty trial. 

Mohammed was captured in Pakistan and sent to the military installation in Cuba after being tortured in several CIA sites. Thanks to the intelligence of Israel, the CIA and U.S. Marines tortured Mohammed and numerous others. It led us into the quagmire of Iraq and the longstanding aftermath of Afghanistan.

Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan. Former president Barack Obama took credit for the capture and Republicans complained about it. Obama announced the capture and interrupted the season finale of former president Donald J. Trump's reality show The Apprentice. It came days after Obama brutally mocked Trump during the White House Correspondents Dinner and the release of his birth certificate.

Ayman al-Zawahri was killed in Afghanistan. President Joe Biden took credit for the capture and Republicans complained and pivoted to Hunter Biden, Tara Reade and other conspiracies. Biden had the coronavirus and still managed to capture the suspect with little collateral damage and signed off the infrastructure bill into law.

Both were hiding in plain sight and the U.S. finally brought justice to the victims of the September 11th 2001 attacks. As usual, Republican presidents exploited tragedies.

Former president George W. Bush didn't keep America safe. He ignored intelligence.

He took the word of Israel and lead us into Iraq, Afghanistan and nearly Iran. He failed to control Republicans from their onslaught of hate and phony patriotism. The hatred towards Arab Americans, Muslims and Black Americans was off the wall.

Being held in detention without a trial or lawyers was a stain on U.S. credibility as a country that operates under the rule of law.

The U.S. government without a lawyer forced Mohammed to confess to a laundry list of crimes. 

Mohammed has made at least 31 confessions:

The February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City

The 11 September attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon using hijacked commercial airliners

A failed "shoe bomber" operation

The October 2002 attack in Kuwait

The beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl

The 2002 Bali bombings, Pady's and Sari's club bombings in Bali, Indonesia

A plan for a "second wave" of attacks on major U.S. landmarks after the 9/11 attacks, including the Library Tower in Los Angeles, the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) in Chicago, the Empire State Building in New York City, and what has been reported as the Plaza Bank Building in Seattle, although there is no Plaza Bank Building; there is a Safeco Plaza and Columbia Center, the city's tallest skyscraper

Plots to attack oil tankers and U.S. naval ships in the Straits of Hormuz, the Straits of Gibraltar and in Singapore

A plan to blow up the Panama Canal

Plans to assassinate Jimmy Carter

A plot to blow up suspension bridges in New York City

A plan to destroy the Sears Tower in Chicago with burning fuel trucks

Plans to destroy London Heathrow Airport, Canary Wharf and Big Ben in London

A planned attack on many nightclubs in Thailand

A plot targeting the New York Stock Exchange and other U.S. financial targets

A plan to destroy buildings in Eilat, Israel

Plans to destroy U.S. embassies in Indonesia, Australia and Japan in 2002

Plots to destroy Israeli embassies in India, Azerbaijan, the Philippines and Australia

Surveying and financing an attack on an Israeli El-Al flight from Bangkok

Sending several "mujahideen" into Israel to survey "strategic targets" with the intention of attacking them

The November 2002 suicide bombing of a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, and failed attempt to shoot down an Israeli passenger jet leaving Mombasa Airport

Plans to attack U.S. targets in South Korea

Providing financial support for a plan to attack U.S., British and Jewish targets in Turkey

Surveillance of U.S. nuclear power plants in order to attack them

A plot to attack NATO's headquarters in Europe

Planning and surveillance in a 1995 plan (the "Bojinka plot") to bomb 12 American passenger jets

The planned assassination attempt against then-U.S. President Bill Clinton during a mid-1990s trip to the Philippines

"Shared responsibility" for a plot to kill Pope John Paul II

Plans to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf

An attempt to attack a U.S. oil company in Sumatra, Indonesia, "owned by the Jewish former [U.S.] Secretary of State Henry Kissinger"

The U.S. reached a plea deal with four individuals they accuse of being the masterminds of the September 11th attacks.

Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan (about 20 kilometres southwest of Islamabad), on 1 March 2003, by the Pakistani ISI, possibly in a joint action with the CIA's Special Activities Division paramilitary operatives and officers of the American Diplomatic Security Service. He has been in U.S custody since that time.

Initially, Mohammed was held in the CIA's Salt Pit (Cobalt) prison in Afghanistan. After just a "few minutes" of questioning at Cobalt, he was subject to "enhanced interrogation techniques". He was slapped, grabbed in the face, placed in stress positions, placed in standing sleep deprivation, doused with water, and subjected to rectal rehydration multiple times, without a determination of medical need.

During 2003, Mohammad was held at a secret CIA prison, or black site, in Poland, where the CIA waterboarded him at least 183 times. He was then transferred to another secret CIA prison in Romania.

While Republicans, some Democrats, far right agitators and some victims who developed Islamophobic and anti-Arab sentiment will balk, scream and denounce the plea deal, the U.S. finally settles a matter that was over 20 years in the making.

It is a part of the Biden agenda that makes me believe he would have beaten Trump.

Although I despise him and Vice President Kamala Harris for their support of Israel, the prospect of Trump returning and Republicans being open about destroying democracy makes it clear that I have no choice but to support Harris. Project 2025 and Greater Israel are a bigger threat to America. Gun violence and white supremacy are more dangerous than a foreign terrorist.

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