To begin with, this episode continues the FBI’s record-setting undefeated streak of heroically saving us from the plots they enable. From all appearances, this is, at best, yet another spectacular “plot” hatched by some hapless loser with delusions of grandeur but without any means to put it into action except with the able assistance of the FBI, which yet again provided it through its own (paid, criminal) sources posing as Terrorist enablers. The Terrorist Mastermind at the center of the plot is a failed used car salesman in Texas with a history of pedestrian money problems. Dive under your bed. “For the entire operation, the government’s confidential sources were monitored and guided by federal law enforcement agents,” explained U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, and “no explosives were actually ever placed anywhere and no one was actually ever in any danger.’”

But no matter. The U.S. Government and its mindless followers in the pundit and think-tank “expert” class have seized on this ludicrous plot with astonishing speed to all but turn it into a hysterical declaration of war against Evil, Hitlerian Iran. “The US attorney-general Eric Holder said Iran would be ‘held to account’ over what he described as a flagrant abuse of international law,” and “the US says military action remains on the table,” though “it is at present seeking instead to work through diplomatic and financial means to further isolate Iran.” Hillary Clinton thundered that this “crosses a line that Iran needs to be held to account for.” The CIA’s spokesman at The Washington Post, David Ignatius, quoted an anonymous White House official as saying the plot “appeared to have been authorized by senior levels of the Quds Force.” Meanwhile, the State Department has issued a Travel Alert which warns American citizens that this plot “may indicate a more aggressive focus by the Iranian Government on terrorist activity against diplomats from certain countries, to include possible attacks in the United States.”

In case that’s not enough to frighten you — and, really, how could it not be? — some Very Serious Experts are very, very afraid and want you to know how Serious this all is. Within moments of Holder’s news conference, National Security Expert Robert Chesney  – without a molecule of critical thought in his brain — announced that this “remarkable development” was “very scary.” Very, very scary. Chesney then printed large blocks of the DOJ’s Press Release to prove it. Self-proclaimed “counter-terrorism expert” Daveed Gartenstein-Ross tapped into his vast expertise to explain: ”Holder weighing in on the plot’s connection to Iran means the administration is deadly serious about it.” Progressive think-tank expert and Atlantic writer Steve Clemons decreed that if the DOJ’s accusations are true, then ”the US has reached a point where it must take action” and “this is time for a significant strategic response to the Iran challenge in the Middle East and globally,” which “could involve military.”

The ironies here are so self-evident it’s hard to work up the energy to point them out. Outside of Pentagon reporters, Washington Post Editorial Page Editors, and Brookings “scholars,” is there a person on the planet anywhere who can listen with a straight face as drone-addicted U.S. Government officials righteously condemn the evil, illegal act of entering another country to commit an assassination? Does anyone, for instance, have any interest in finding out who is responsible for the spate of serial murders aimed at Iran’s nuclear scientists? Wouldn’t people professing to be so outraged by the idea of entering another country to engage in assassination be eager to get to the bottom of that?

Then there’s the War on Terror irony: our Hated Enemy here (Iran) is a country which had absolutely nothing  to do with the 9/11 attack. Meanwhile, our close ally, the victim on whose behalf we are so outraged (Saudi Arabia), is not only one of the most tyrannical and aggressive regimes on the planet, but produced 15 of the 19 hijackers and had extensive and still-unknown involvement in that attack. If the U.S. is so deeply offended by the involvement of a foreign government in an attack on U.S. soil, it would be looking first to its close friend Saudi Arabia, where “elements of the government” were likely involved in an actual plot rather than a joke of a plot.

To make sure you understand just how dastardly and evil the Iranian plotters here are, the DOJ in its complaint highlighted that the used-car-salesman-Terrorist-Mastermind said that he preferred that nobody else be killed when the Saudi Ambassador was assassinated, but if it were absolutely necessary, he could accept some unintended deaths! Here’s how the NYT summarizes that:

The complaint quotes Mr. Arbabsiar as making conflicting statements about the possibility of bystander deaths; at one point he is said to say that killing the ambassador alone would be preferable, but on another occasion he said it would be “no big deal” if many others at the restaurant — possibly including United States senators — died in any bombing.

What kind of monster thinks that way, we are supposed to ponder. Behold the warped mind of the Terrorist! He’s actually willing to accept that others die besides his intended targeted! Is that not the mentality that drives U.S. behavior in multiple countries around the world every day? The U.S. flattened an entire civilian apartment building in Baghdad with a 2,000-pound bomb when it thought Saddam Hussein was there (he wasn’t — oops — but lots of innocent people were). NATO repeatedly bombed structures in Tripoli where it thought (mistakenly) Moammar Gadaffi was located, in the process almost certainly killing large numbers of unintended targets. The U.S. just killed one of its own citizens that it insists (not very credibly) it did not intend to kill in order to eradicate the life of Anwar Awlaki, and killed dozens of innocent people when it previously tried to kill Awlaki with cluster bombs.

The U.S. is the living, breathing symbol of this “collateral damage” rationale. It’s what drives all the multi-nation American wars and occupations and drone campaigns and assassinations that continuously pile up the corpses of innocent people. But we’re all going to gather in righteous disgust at the idea that this monstrous International Terrorist would be willing to incur some unintended civilian deaths in order to assassinate an official of the peaceful, freedom-loving Saudi regime. Really, for brazen irony, how can this be beat?

Tom Kean, former chairman of the 9/11 Commission said the alleged plot “surprises me.” Speaking to CNN’s Erin Burnett, Kean said the plot is “pretty close to an act of war. You don’t go in somebody’s capital to blow somebody up.”

Meanwhile, President Obama decried this plot as “a flagrant violation of US and international law.” But maybe some Persian Marty Lederman in Tehran wrote a secret legal memo concluding that this was all in accordance with domestic and international law, which — as we know — is conclusive and provides a full shield of immunity.

So facially absurd are the claims here — why would Iran possibly wake up one day and decide that it wanted to engage in a Terrorist attack on U.S. soil when it could much more easily kill Saudi officials elsewhere? and if Iran and its Quds forces are really behind this inept, hapless, laughable plot, then nothing negates the claim that Iran is some Grave Threat like this does — that there is more skepticism expressed even in establishment media accounts than one normally finds about such things. Even the NYT noted — with great understatement — that the allegations “provoked puzzlement from specialists on Iran, who said it seemed unlikely that the government would back a brazen murder and bombing plan on American soil.” The Post noted that “the very rashness of the alleged assassination plot raised doubts about whether Iran’s normally cautious ruling clerics supported or even know about it.” The Atlantic‘s Max Fisher has more on why this would be so out of character for Iran.

But while some attention has been devoted to asking what motive Iran would have for doing this, little attention has been paid to asking what motive the U.S. would have for exaggerating or concocting the connection of Iran’s government to this plot. Aside from the benefits the FBI and DOJ receive when breaking up a “very scary” plot — the bigger, the better — it has been one of Obama’s highest foreign policy priorities to isolate Iran and sanction it further: as a means of placating Israel and punishing Iran for thwarting America’s natural right to rule that region (so monstrous is Iran that, as the U.S. has repeatedly complained, they actually continue to “interfere” in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan!). As Ignatius explains, the U.S. Government instantly converted this plot into a vehicle for furthering those policy ambitions:

With its alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Iran has handed the United States an opportunity to undermine Tehran at a moment when U.S. officials believe the Iranian regime is especially vulnerable. . . . “We see this as a chance to go out to capitals around the world and talk to allies and partners about what the Iranians tried to do,” the [White House] official said. “We’re not going to tolerate targeting a diplomat in Washington. We’re going to try to use this to isolate them to the maximum extent possible.”

Meanwhile, Joe Biden announced today that the U.S. is “working to unite the world” behind a response to Iran’s “outrageous” actions. So Iran’s supposed involvement in this plot is the ideal weapon for the U.S. to advance its long-standing goals with regard to that country. Maybe that warrants some serious skepticism about whether the U.S. Government’s claims are true? But we all know that only Bad Muslim countries exploit foreign policy exaggerations or fabrications for political gain, and not the United States of America (especially not with Barack Obama, rather than a Republican, in the White House).

What’s most significant is that not even 24 hours have elapsed since these allegations were unveiled. No evidence has been presented of Iran’s involvement. And yet there is no shortage of people — especially in the media — breathlessly talking about all of this as though it’s all clearly true. If the Obama administration decided tomorrow that military action against Iran were warranted in response, is there any doubt that large majorities of Americans — and large majorities of Democrats — would support that? As I said when discussing the Awlaki killing, the truly “scary” aspect of all of this is that the U.S. Government need only point and utter the word “Terrorist” and hordes of citizens will rise up and demand not evidence, but blood.

UPDATE: Perpetual war-cheerleader Ken Pollack of Brookings says that, if true, this plot “shows that Tehran is meaner and nastier than ever before” and “would represent a major escalation of Iranian terrorist operations against the United States.” Also, he announces, this “should remind us that Iran also is not a normal country by any stretch of the imagination.” That — self-anointed arbiter of who is and is not a “normal country” — from a person as responsible as any pundit or think-tank expert for the attack on Iraq that killed at least 100,000 human beings, denouncing as Terrorists and abnormal a country that has invaded nobody.

The post The “Very Scary” Iranian Terror Plot appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

The key to understanding just how fake this story is can be found in the New York Times report, which informs us:

“For the entire operation, the government’s confidential sources were monitored and guided by federal law enforcement agents, Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District, said in the news conference. ‘So no explosives were actually ever placed anywhere,’ he said, ‘and no one was actually in ever in any danger.’”

Translation: the whole thing is phony from beginning to end.

This is another one of US law enforcement’s manufactured “anti-terrorist” triumphs, where the feds set somebody up, fabricate a “crime” out of thin air, and then proceed to “solve” a case that never really existed to begin with. This has been the general pattern of our “anti-terrorist” operations in the US since the beginning – because finding and catching real terrorists is much too hard, at least for our Keystone Kops. Instead of going out and actually, you know, looking for the Bad Guys, and then apprehending them, they lure some unsuspecting Muslim immigrant into a trap, and spring it when the time is right.

The long narrative spun by the indictment tells us everything but what we really need to know, which is: how is it that these two Iranian “terrorists” just happened to meet up with a Mexican drug cartel assassin who just happened to be a longtime DEA informant? I guess that would be giving too much away: far better to spice up the story with scary details, such as the conversation between one of the alleged plotters and the informant, in the course of which the former says “If you have to blow up the restaurant and kill a hundred Americans, well then f*ck ‘em!”

The credibility rating of this story, taken on its face, is close to zero. Let’s say the Iranians really were plotting to kill the Saudi ambassador on American soil: would they contract it out to the Mexican Mafia, send all kinds of traceable money wires from Iran to the US, and not care if they killed a hundred Americans in the process of achieving their goal? Or would they send some fanatic, who would not only do it for free but also eliminate himself (or herself)? This flimsy cock-eyed tale is so transparently fake that it’s an embarrassment to the United States of America. Can’t our spooks do better than this?

This fabrication marks a new trend in the field of anti-Iranian war propaganda. Previously, the War Party was relying on the same technique they used in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq: the old “weapons of mass destruction” gambit. The big problem with that is it’s old, and tired: no one believes it anymore [.pdf]. Once burned, twice shy, as the saying goes. This latest lie is a fresh angle on a continuing theme, merely substituting Iran for the traditional
bogeyman known as al-Qaeda.

That this story involves the Mexican drug cartels, and Attorney General Eric Holder proclaiming that we’re going to “hold the Iranian government accountable,” has got to be some kind of sick joke: after all, here is a man who stood by and watched while US law enforcement agents let guns travel over the US border to arm those very same cartels. Is this “coup” for the Justice Department the pay-off for that harebrained scheme – and when is Holder going to be held accountable?

That our government would float a narrative like this without any apparent regard for the basic rules
of fiction-writing – create believable characters who do believable things – is Washington’s way of showing contempt for the Iranians, the American people, and anyone else who stands in the way of their war agenda. They don’t care if it’s not believable. They think Americans will swallow anything, that we’re too busy trying to survive day-to-day, these days, to inquire much further than the “official” account. And of course our brain-dead media, which is reduced to a chiefly stenographic role, isn’t going to ask any inconvenient questions.

This story is very scary – not because it’s credible, or believable, because it is neither. However, it’s the most frightening story I’ve heard in quite a while because it shows that the US government is bound and determined to go to war with Iran, no matter what the consequences. Throwing caution to the winds, our rulers have decided to go all out against Tehran – all the better to mask our current economic malaise under the damage done by the tripling and quadrupling of oil prices. This way, Obama can blame our crashing economy on Tehran, rather than his own discredited policies – and sideline the Republicans, who have been criticizing him for being “soft” on Iran.

The making of American foreign policy is all about domestic politics. By preparing the country for war with Iran, Obama will not only defang the GOP, but also appease the all-important Israel lobby, which has been beating the war drums for years.

What Obama and his gang are hoping is that the American people are too tired, too beaten down, and too broke to care enough about this latest exercise in war propaganda to question it. Certainly the “mainstream” media, which is Obama’s loudest cheering section, isn’t about to question it.

Here is where the administration has probably miscalculated: people are just angry enough to wonder “why now?” They’re just broke enough to resent being asked to pay for yet another holy crusade overseas. And they’re just tired enough of the bullsh*t that gets reported as “news” day after day to start asking all kinds of uncomfortable questions about this latest offering by the Washington fable factory.

The Americans are already backing away from the assertion that the Iranian government is directly responsible for the actions of these two individuals, averring that top Iranian officials didn’t “necessarily” know what was going on. As the details of this case become known, Holder’s story is going to start unraveling like a substandard sweater – and you can read all about that unraveling right here, at Antiwar.com….

The post Iranian Terror Plot: Fake, Fake, Fake appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

During a 75-minute “initial” meeting with about 10 people whose relatives died during the terrorist attacks in New York, US Attorney General Eric Holder “broke protocol by acknowledging there is an investigation,” said an attorney for the victims’ families, Norman Siegel.

Holder “listened to their questions, told them the department was taking the allegations seriously, that the allegations were disturbing,” said the Justice Department official who confirmed a probe into the affair was running and was in a “preliminary stage.”

The official asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly about an active investigation.

“Hopefully the allegations turn out to be not true because if it’s true, it’s only more pain for 9/11 families,” said Siegel.

“If it happens to be true… the allegation is illegal both criminally and civilly… (which brings) up to 5 years of prison and punitive damages,” he added.

Siegel said the families are not accusing News Corp. of “any wrongdoing,” but he added it is “logical” to ask about what happened in the United States after revelations that reporters from the media group hacked into phones in Britain.
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Diane Horning, whose son was killed in the attacks said even an unsuccessful attempt to hack into the phones should be punished.

“The attempt to invade this privacy is reprehensible and will be treated even if this attempt was not successful,” said Horning.

News Corp. has been shaken up by a phone hacking and corruption scandal in Britain that erupted into a full-blown crisis for the Rupert Murdoch’s media empire in July and caused the media titan to close their Sunday tabloid News of the World.

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The indictment charging self-professed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others was unsealed when US Attorney General Eric Holder referred the case to the Defense Department for military trials instead of trials at a US federal court in New York.

Holder said Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi could have been prosecuted in federal court and blamed Congress for imposing measures blocking civilian trials of Guantanamo Bay inmates.

They will be tried in military courts in the US naval base in southeastern Cuba.

The now-public details show that the United States, nearly 10 years after hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, reconstructed step by step the logistics of the five accused men.

They compiled bank transactions, flight records, visa applications, and dozens of telephone conversations to create the most comprehensive account of the chain of events before the attacks.

Implementation of the plan began in 1999, when Sheikh Mohammed (referred to as “KSM” by US officials) proposed to Osama bin Laden to use commercial airliners as missiles against US targets.

Until the last minute, according to the indictment, Sheikh Mohammed controlled the entire operation.

“From in or about December 1999, through in or about June 2000, Al-Qaeda selected operatives to pilot the airplanes to be hijacked and dispatched the operatives to the United States to obtain flight training and otherwise carry out the plot,” the indictment said.

Walid bin Attash, born in Saudi Arabia in 1979, traveled in first-class between Bangkok and Hong Kong, with a knife in his pocket “and approached the cockpit to test security measures.” He then took several other international flights, each time with his penknife undetected.

Meanwhile, Ramzi Binalshibh in Hamburg became friends with future hijacker Mohamed Atta. Binalshibh, a 38-year-old Yemeni, applied four times for a visa to the United States in 2000 but was denied each time.

So, at the request of KSM, Binalshibh became and intermediary between KSM and the future hijackers.

At the same time, from Dubai, KSM nephew Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, of Pakistan, provided flight simulation software to the hijackers and began transferring money to US accounts. Between January and June 2000, US investigators pinpointed 35 telephone calls between him and the hijackers.

Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a 42-year-old from Saudi Arabia, was accused of being the principal financier of the attacks.

Bank transfers were made in small amounts so as not to arouse suspicion and different names were used each time. Tens of thousands of dollars arrived in US accounts, including for Zacarias Moussaoui, who was involved in the plot but was arrested a month before the attacks.

In the United Arab Emirates, al-Hawsawi monitored the operations and discusses them with KSM.

Between July 9-16, 2001, Ramzi Binalshibh met with Mohamed Atta in Spain. The two men “discussed, among other aspects of the plot, potential targets for the hijacking attacks.”

On July 23, KSM filed a visa application for the United States which was refused. At the end of August, he told bin Laden of the date for the attacks.

Between September 4-10, the men made their way from the UAE to Pakistan.

Walid bin Attash was with bin Laden on September 11, after which the Al-Qaeda leader ordered him to Tora Bora in Afghanistan to prepare for an offensive.

The five men, all of whom were arrested in Pakistan, could face the death penalty if convicted.

One year after the attacks, Pakistani police arrested Binalshibh at a home in a chic Karachi suburb. He was alone and didn’t put up a fight.

In March 2003, al-Hawsawi and Sheikh Mohammed were picked up by Pakistani special forces in a raid in Rawalpindi.

The indictment said the two men were “at a safe house where they possessed false identification and materials related to Al-Qaeda and the planning and execution of the September 11, 2001, attacks.”

Bin Attash and al-Aziz Ali were arrested by Pakistani police in April 2003.

All five men disappeared into secret prisons until September 2006, when they reappeared at Guantanamo.

Sheikh Mohammed is known to have been “waterboarded” or subjected to simulated drowning 183 times during his years in US custody, a method widely recognized as torture.

After his arrest in 2003 he was handed over to American agents who held him in secret prisons before sending him to Guantanamo.

Sheikh Mohammed also claims to have personally beheaded US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 with his “blessed right hand” and to have helped in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people.

The post US Reveals Evidence Against Alleged 9/11 Plotters appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

This suggests that, given the choice, President Barack Obama would not try the men in the U.S. court system, opting instead for the Bush administration’s policy that the president has long criticized.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said the president remains committed to closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Carney would not speculate on what would happen if bin Laden was captured.

Panetta discussed the hypothetical capture of two of America’s most wanted terrorists in response to a question from a senator during a hearing about worldwide threats. Panetta said — if captured — the men would probably be quickly moved to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan to be questioned and eventually sent to Guantanamo Bay.

Under current law, Guantanamo Bay detainees cannot be moved to U.S. soil, even to stand trial.

Both bin Laden and Zawahiri have been indicted and could stand trial in New York City.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told senators said he expects multiple federal agencies would weigh in on whether to try the men. But if they are sent to Guantanamo, as Panetta predicted, trying the men in the U.S. court system would be prohibited.

Attorney General Eric Holder has said he hopes the U.S. will capture and interrogate bin Laden, but he doesn’t expect the al-Qaida leader to be taken alive.

The U.S. has been trying to capture bin Laden and Zawahiri for more than 10 years. Intelligence officials believe they are hiding in Northwest Pakistan.

The post CIA: If Caught, bin Laden Will Be Sent to Gitmo appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

In comments to reporters, the attorney general said he’d been monitoring the investigation from the start. “I am confident that there is no entrapment here and no entrapment claim will be found to be successful,” he said.

The comments came as 19-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud of Corvallis, Ore., made his first appearance in federal court in Portland. He pleaded not guilty to a grand jury indictment returned earlier Monday.

The one-count indictment charges Mr. Mohamud with knowingly attempting to use a “weapon of mass destruction” against targets within the US. The charge carries a potential life sentence.

The indictment stems from a 15-month undercover investigation in which federal agents posed as Islamic militants willing to conduct indiscriminate terror attacks within the US.

According to court documents, the surveillance began in August 2009. Federal agents had apparently identified Mohamud as a potential Al Qaeda recruit by monitoring e-mail between Mohamud and an unidentified individual in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkwa Province, previously known as the Northwest Frontier Province.

The contact in Pakistan suggested that Mohamud get in touch with a second militant. Mohamud used the wrong e-mail address when trying to contact the second militant but was apparently unaware of his mistake. That allowed the Federal Bureau of Investigation to contact Mohamud, posing as that second Al Qaeda operative – pretending the failed e-mail had reached its recipient.

Between July 2010 and Nov. 26, the undercover agents met eight times with Mohamud to plan a car bomb attack in downtown Portland.

In an apparent effort to address potential concerns about entrapment, an undercover agent asked Mohamud what he was willing to do for the Islamic cause. According to court documents, the agent offered five options from praying five times a day, to raising money, to carrying out a suicide mission.

Mohamud told the undercover agent that he wanted to become “operational.” But he added that he did not know how and would need training.

FBI: alleged Christmas tree bomber thought 9/11 ‘was awesome’

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who is accused of plotting to bomb a Portland, Ore., Christmas tree lighting ceremony, was not entrapped by FBI agents, says US Attorney General Eric Holder.

All eight of the undercover meetings were recorded and/or videotaped. But, according to court documents, the audio recorder malfunctioned during that first meeting.

To defeat an entrapment claim, prosecutors must be able to show that Mohamud was willing to engage in the illegal conduct without the support and encouragement of the undercover agents.

An agent repeatedly asked Mohamud what he thought about the unfolding bomb plot and what was in his heart. The agent stressed that there would be children at the bomb site.

“That’s what I’m looking for,” Mohamud is quoted in court documents as telling the agent.

“For kids?” the agent asked.

“Just a huge mass … to be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays,” he answered.

A second undercover agent told Mohamud that he “loved his idea” of bombing the Christmas tree ceremony.

At one point Mohamud told the agents he was not worried about looking at the carnage after the blast. “Do you remember when 9/11 happened when those people were jumping from skyscrapers.… I thought that was awesome,” the teen told the agents, according to court documents.

He added: “I want whoever is attending that [Christmas tree] event to leave … either dead or injured.”

In addition to discussing the plot, the agents directed Mohamud to purchase what they said would be components of the bomb. He spent roughly $110 of FBI money at a Radio Shack.

Mohamud was also given $2,700 to rent an apartment to assist in his escape from the US after the bombing.

The agents also arranged for Mohamud to engage in a dry run on detonation of the bomb. They took him to a remote location and told him to dial a cell phone number. Explosive experts staged an explosion to give Mohamud the feeling that he could actually detonate the car bomb.

Agents carried the plot all the way to streets of Portland with a fake bomb in a van, parked at a location selected by Mohamud. After he used the cell phone to attempt to detonate what he believed was a bomb, agents placed him under arrest.

Attorney General Holder said Mohamud revealed his state of mind when he was told that children would be among the victims. “You saw his response,” Holder said.

Holder defended the undercover operation. “These investigations are extremely important,” he said. “It is part of a forward-leaning way in which the Justice Department, the FBI, our law enforcement partners at the state and local level are trying to find people who are bound and determined to harm Americans and American interests around the world.”

The post FBI: Mohamud Thought 9/11 Was "Awesome" appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

President Barack Obama will have the final word on whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be given a trial or whether the man dubbed the “mastermind” of the 9/11 attacks will remain imprisoned without trial indefinitely, the Washington Post reports.

Peter Finn and Anne Kornblut write that conservative opposition to a civilian trial in Manhattan and liberal opposition to a military tribunal are prompting the administration to consider simply not trying Mohammed at all.

The administration has concluded that it cannot put Mohammed on trial in federal court because of the opposition of lawmakers in Congress and in New York. There is also little internal support for resurrecting a military prosecution at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The latter option would alienate liberal supporters.

The administration asserts that it can hold Mohammed and other al-Qaeda operatives under the laws of war, a principle that has been upheld by the courts when Guantanamo Bay detainees have challenged their detention.

The Post adds that the White House “has made it clear that President Obama will ultimately make the decision.” If a trial does happen, it won’t be before the next presidential election. And even then a trial would require “a different political environment.”

The report’s assertion that the administration is considering abandoning military tribunals because of “liberal opposition” suggests confusion within the White House on how to proceed with trials of Guantanamo detainees. The administration has seen fit to convict Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen captured in Afghanistan at age 15, in a military tribunal. A plea deal that saw Khadr admit guilt in the murder of a US Army Sgt. Christopher Speer was criticized as a “????.”

Last year, the New York Times reported that Mohammed had been waterboarded 183 times while in US custody. A debate has raged back and forth over whether the torture led to any actionable intelligence.

The Post also reports that the White House has effectively given up on shutting down Guantanamo Bay, a key promise in Obama’s presidential campaign.

Administration officials also think that they will probably not secure the funding and legal authority from Congress to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and transfer any remaining detainees to the United States. There are 174 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, down from 241 when Obama took office. Diplomatic efforts continue to reduce that number through the resettlement or repatriation of detainees cleared for transfer by an interagency task force.

But, one official said, “Gitmo is going to remain open for the foreseeable future.”

The post Report: Obama May Deny KSM a Trial appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

In an open letter, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows urged the attorney general to try the suspects “in federal courts that rely on the U.S. Constitution and the tenets of America’s 200 year-old system of justice.”

“The location is not of consequence, although New York, Virginia, or another venue in the East where most of the families reside, would be optimum,” the group said. “The overarching consideration is that these self-confessed, accused detainees must be tried under well-tested and fair laws recognized by the world.”

Holder said the previous day the government was “close to a decision” on the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of the attacks, and four other suspects. He gave his comments a year after he announced the goverment would seek prosecution through U.S. federal courts instead of military commissions.

The proceedings were set to be held in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. However, the administration encountered criticisms from conservatives who said suspected terrorists should not be accorded the same constitutional rights as Americans in federal courts.

Community and business leaders in Manhattan had also raised concerns about costs of securing the city during the trial, which is expected to take several years. The cost was reported at $200 million annually.

Holder and other administration officials had argued that the Bush administration had used federal courts to try at least 190 terrorists, including Richard Reid, the 2001 shoe bomber, and Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted for 9/11.

Only three defendants have been convicted by military commissions while more than 300 defendants have been convicted and sentenced in federal criminal courts for terrorism-related offenses, according to the Obama administration.

New York had hosted the trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

The arguments failed to persuade opponents, who later included New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Top Republican senators also joined with three Democrats to introduce a bill prohibiting the Justice Department from using funds to try the suspects in federal court.

The highly-charged national debate prompted the administration early this year re-examine its plan, a move that was met with criticisms from liberals comparing Obama to former President George Bush.

Holder had testified before Congress, “We must choose the weapon that will be most effective…. It should be clear to everyone by now that there are many legal, national security and practical factors to be considered here. As a consequence, there are many perspectives on what the most appropriate and effective forum is.”

The issue has been complicated by efforts of the administration to close Guantanamo Bay, where Mohammed and his co-accused, Walid Muhammed Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed Al Hawsawi, are detained.

The Bush administration had also tried to shutter Guantanamo amid criticisms about its use of harsh interrogation methods on prisoners. Then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had asked for assistance from countries with nationals detained in the prison to guarantee that detainees would not “be a danger to society again” once released.

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