War on Terror

Afghanistan, al Qaeda, Debra Burlingame, Iraq, Osama bin Laden, September 11, War on Terror

Iraqi hero of Anbar offers to take fight to Osama bin Laden

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The New York Sun reported today:

The leader of the tribal confederation that has fought to expel Al Qaeda from most of Iraq’s Anbar province is offering his men to help gin up a rebellion against Osama bin Laden’s organization along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

In an interview, Sheik Ahmad al-Rishawi told The New York Sun that in April he prepared a 47-page study on Afghanistan and its tribes for the deputy chief of mission at the American embassy in Kabul, Christopher Dell. When asked if he would send military advisers to Afghanistan to assist American troops fighting there, he said: “I have no problem with this; if they ask me, I will do it.”

The success of the Anbari tribal rebellion known as the awakening spurred Multinational Forces Iraq to try to emulate the model throughout Iraq, including with the predominately Shiite tribes in the south of the country. Today, the tribe-based militias formed to protect Anbaris from Al Qaeda are forming a political alliance poised to unseat the confessional Sunni parties currently in parliament in the provincial elections scheduled for the fall and the federal ones scheduled for 2009.

During his nomination hearing for taking over the regional military post known as Central Command, General David Petraeus said one of the first things he would do would be to travel to Pakistan to discuss the current strategy of the government in dealing with Al Qaeda’s safe haven in the Pashtun border provinces. A possible strategy for defeating Al Qaeda would be an effort there along the lines of the Anbar awakening to win over the tribes that offer Osama bin Laden’s group protection and safe haven.

“Al Qaeda is an ideology,” Sheik Ahmad said. “We can defeat them inside Iraq and we can defeat them in any country.” The tribal leader arrived in Washington last week. All of his meetings, including an audience with President Bush, have been closed to the public, in part because the Anbari sheiks, while likely to win future electoral contests, are not themselves part of Iraq’s elected government.

Of his meeting with Mr. Bush, Sheik Ahmad said he was impressed. “He is a brave man. He is also a wise man. He is taking care of the country’s future, the United States’ future. He is also taking care of the Iraqi people, the ordinary people in Iraq. He wants to accomplish success in Iraq.”

When Sheik Ahmad’s brother, Sheik Sattar, met with Mr. Bush in Anbar last fall, he told the president that he dedicated his victory over Al Qaeda to the victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001. On September 13, 2007, Sheik Sattar was assassinated by an improvised explosive device. Since then, his brother Sheik Ahmad has led the awakening movement.

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9/11, al Qaeda, Guantanamo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Military Commissions, September 11, War on Terror

Moussaoui trial propaganda part II: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ‘death penalty makes me a martyr; anything less and I win’

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A 10:25 AM (EDT) update from Mike Nizza on the New York Times’ blog tells of self-admitted 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s arraignment:

In his first public appearance since his 2003 capture, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told an American military judge that he wanted to fire his legal team. “I will represent myself,” he said. He cited religion, saying the he “cannot accept any attorney who is governed” by law “rather than the Lord of the law,” Bloomberg News reported.

When the judge informed him that he faced the death penalty, the Al Qaeda operative welcomed the possible sentence with open arms. “Yes, this is what I wish, to be a martyr for a long time,” he said.

The anti-death penalty activists will be pouring out into the streets with shouts of “Save KSM: Don’t turn him into a martyr.”

In Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s jihad-driven mind, he wins — life or death — either way. Yet the only way he really wins is if we let his propaganda drive the decision either way. We win if we follow our law and impose the appropriate sentence of death upon this self-admitted war criminal whose actions led to the murder of 2,973 men, women, and children on September 11, 2001.

After pleading guilty and during the two days of his testimony during the death penalty phase of his trial, Zacarias Moussaoui mocked the family members of 9/11 victims who had testified, seeming to goad the jury into sentencing him to death. Yet, when the sentence was handed down, this was the scene:

Moussaoui, who pleaded guilty to six terrorism conspiracy charges related to the attacks, gave a slight smirk as the verdict was read aloud by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in a packed courtroom here.

“America, you lost!” the husky terrorist called out later as he was led from the courtroom. “I won.”

Zacarias Moussaoui was sent by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to train and become a hijacker pilot, well in advance of September 11. Moussaoui was not told the details of the “planes operation” so that he could not reveal the plot if captured; that is the same reason why none of the other pilots knew, except for Mohamed Atta who needed to know to execute the plan. While it is important to note that Moussaoui may have been sent as the pilot of an additional plane (earlier planning included targeting buildings on the West Coast and Chicago) or to pilot a plane during a second-wave attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed briefly considered him as a replacement muscle hijacker after the designated 20th hijacker was denied entry into the United States in June 2001.

The point is the jury knew all that when they deliberated Moussaoui’s sentence.

Yet Moussaoui “won” when he was sentenced to life imprisonment because several members of the jury bought his propaganda (as echoed by a few 9/11 family members and anti-death penalty activists) that a death sentence would make him a martyr; he won because the jury let the propaganda affect their decision.

It remains to be seen whether another jury repeats that mistake with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and company.