Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

9/11, Debra Burlingame, DOJ, James Cole, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Military Commissions

Urgent Action Alert: nomination of Deputy Attorney General James Cole Must Be Stopped

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Urgent Action Alert for [today]! A message from Debra Burlingame of 911 Families for a Safe and Strong America.

Dear 9/11 Families and Friends:

President Obama has nominated James Cole to be the Deputy Attorney General (DAG) at the the Department of Justice. This is a critically important position. While Attorney General Eric Holder is the nominal head of the Justice Department, it is the deputy attorney general who actually runs the day-to-day operations of the entire department. For instance, it was Mr. Holder who, as DAG during the Clinton administration, orchestrated the Sept. 1999 clemencies of 16 terrorists belonging to the FALN, a Puerto Rican separatist group that carried out 146 bombings which killed 9 people and maimed NYPD bomb squad officers. Mr. Holder also facilitated and pushed through the pardon of fugitive Marc Rich, who made billions of dollars engaging in illegal oil trades on behalf of Iranian ayatollahs. Today, the DAG has a pivotal role in formulating and executing decisions dealing with the policy issues surrounding the capture, detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected Islamic terrorists.

So who is James Cole? As a partner at the law firm of Bryan Cave, he represented Prince Naif Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family and one of the defendants in the 9/11 lawsuit filed on behalf of 9/11 Families against the government of Saudi Arabia and other Saudi individuals by the law firm of Motley Rice. Prince Naif ran the Al Haramain Foundation, a Saudi charity designated in 2004 by the U.S. Treasury Department as a facilitator of terrorism which diverted charitable funds to Al Qaeda both before and after Sept.11, 2001.

Additionally, in 2006, Mr. Cole was also appointed as an independent overseer of insurance giant AIG. The whistleblower non-profit, Government Accountability Project, has come out against his nomination due to the gross irregularities that happened while he was charged with oversight responsibilities prior to its 2008 collapse. See http://www.whistleblower.org/blog/31-2010/529-aig-monitor-james-cole-wrong-choice-for-deputy-attorney-general

In light of this history, it is impossible to fathom how Mr. Cole can ethically carry out his duties and responsibilities as the de facto head of the Justice Department while U.S. troops are fighting terrorists who receive funding and support from organizations associated with the Saudi government and their proxies. This is a direct conflict of interest. Given Saudi NGOs’ continued involvement in terrorist facilitation world-wide and their connection to the Saudi royal family, this conflict of interest will cripple Mr. Cole’s ability to ethically perform his duties as head of a department charged with investigating and prosecuting terrorist facilitators associated with or working for the Saudi government.

Below is an op-ed published by Mr. Cole just two days before the first anniversary of 9/11, in which he compares 9/11 to drug crimes, ordinary murder, rape and mafia-type crimes, saying that the “war on drugs” is actually “a longer term and far more devastating disaster for our country in terms of the number of people affected…” Ironically, Mr. Cole says that the only factor which distinguishes those crimes and the “tragedies of Sept. 11? is that “foreign organizations, possibly even foreign governments, were involved in the planning, funding and carrying out of the Sept. 11 attacks.”

Further, Mr. Cole has gone on record opposing military commissions for any detainees, stating that military commissions are an inferior form of justice which do not provide defendants with adequate due process protections. In light of the fact that the Obama administration continues to drag its feet on an announcement regarding the forum and venue for the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other admitted 9/11 conspirators, Mr. Cole’s nomination is an alarming signal. The public is overwhelmingly opposed to holding these trials in New York federal court. Clearly, the administration needs to hear from us again.

Mr. Cole is scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Tuesday, June 15. The hearing, calendared so quickly after the announcement of Mr. Cole’s nomination, appears calculated to capitalize on the media’s attention on the oil spill crisis in the Gulf, and to limit our ability to mount public objection.

I urge all 9/11 family members and friends who were disappointed that the administration opposed the 9/11 Families’ opportunity to have their day in court in the Saudi lawsuit, to contact the President Obama, Attorney General Holder, and members of Congress, and express your adamant objection to Mr. Cole’s nomination to Deputy Attorney General.

Respectfully,

Debra Burlingame
Co-founder, 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America
www.911familesforamerica.org
media@911familiesforamerica.org

See the 9/11 Families Legal Complaint: http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/1239.pdf

9/11, al Qaeda, Gitmo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, KSM, Military Commissions

Jam the jihad; a military commission judge should silence KSM’s propaganda

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Our nation makes selective use of enemy communications. We intercept to gather intelligence and jam to disrupt enemy command and control; these help shape the battlefield and forces the enemy to fight at a disadvantage. Limiting enemy propaganda is a critical aspect of winning the information battle fought during every war.

Some, including Michael Daly at the New York Daily News, used the subway bomb plotter’s fifteen minutes of fame in Brooklyn’s federal court to claim there would be no harm in prosecuting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the same way, in the same place:

Why not put Khalid Shaikh Mohammed on trial in New York … He is only going to make himself sound as twisted as Ahmedzay. He is sure to sound exactly like a monster who would murder thousands of innocents. He certainly is not going to sway anybody who has any sense and decency.

President Franklin Roosevelt provided no public forum to enemy war criminals to spew pro-Nazi propaganda. On June 13, 1942, eight German saboteurs landed on Long Island and Florida shores and buried their uniforms on the beach. According to the U.S. Department of Justice:

The purpose of the invasions was to strike a major blow for Germany by bringing the violence of war to our home ground through destruction of America’s ability to manufacture vital equipment and supplies and transport them to the battlegrounds of Europe; to strike fear into the American civilian population, and diminish the resolve of the United States to overcome our enemies.

All eight were captured a week later and six of the eight — including American citizen Herbert Hans Haupt — were executed a mere fifty-six days after landing. Their military tribunals were witnessed by a few selected journalists; the courtroom was closed to them when classified information was discussed and their news reports were censored. Germany made no further attempt to attack America on its soil during WWII.

Why help Khalid Sheikh Mohammed slaughter thousands more?

At Gitmo, judges and prosecutors have a ‘pause button’ close at hand to instantly silence the sound outside the glass enclosed section of the courtroom to prevent the accidental release of classified information.

It should also be used to silence KSM’s propaganda whenever he attempts to incite more to fight our troops and attack the innocent. The defense lawyers and mainstream media (and al Jazeera) would denounce the practice. So what? (They would denounce his trial by military commission regardless.) FDR ignored their complaints and informed the Supreme Court he would do the same to them, no matter how they ruled.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is not some righteous dissident; he is a senior member of al Qaeda. America’s enemies have no Constitutional right to use our system to promote their causes.

Let’s jam the jihad as we prosecute the 9/11 conspirators.