Mohammed confesses to beheading Pearl

[oberliner]

Suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed boasted at a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba that he personally beheaded American journalist Daniel Pearl, according to a revised Pentagon transcript released Thursday.

Mohammed has been considered a suspect since shortly after the kidnapping. Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf wrote in a memoir published last year that Mohammed either killed Pearl or took part in the murder.

But Mohammed was not officially linked to Pearl's murder during Pakistani police investigations or the trial that resulted in four Islamic militants being convicted for the killing. One of the men was sentenced to death, and the others to life in prison.

"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan," Mohammed told a U.S. military panel Saturday. "For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070315/ap_on_re_as/terrorist_confession_daniel_pearl_1

[redwitch]

1. What a pig he is.

With apologies to swine everywhere.

[pampango]

17. Redwitch, you should no better than to say such a thing about

a guy like him, especially here at DU. He is portrayed alternately as a fool, a victim, or an egomaniac, but you will see few post accusing him of being a bad man. ;-)

[uppityperson]

27. Guess you missed a bunch of them then

Much fun is being made of his tortured alleged "confessions" (did you hear about the Hindenberg?) but this does not give him a pass as he is a thug and needs to be locked up.

[Warren Stupidity]

30. He may or may not be guilty of any of the things he confessed to.

What we do know is that he has been tortured for four years. Consequently any confessions he has made are worthless. That is the point of all these threads you find so objectionable.

If in fact he has committed crimes, his illegal detention and deliberate mistreatment would make it impossible to convict him of those crimes. In fact, if we cared about due process and justice, we would have to release this 'thug', but we no longer care about such trivial matters. And because we no longer care about such trivial matters we have become just as much the thug as Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

[uppityperson]

31. I agree with you, though am amused by the many threads today

his confession is worthless, but I do think he has been involved with things, thuggishly. I do not give him a pass, though also very much object to how he has been treated "in my name". The USA is a thug also, indeed and just because 1 is a thug does not mean the other should get a pass. I in no way object to "these threads". Not sure if you meant that for me or prior poster.

[eridani]

35. How do we know that he's even still alive?

Or if alive, that he isn't a human vegetable like Jose Padilla? Nobody has seen or heard him for four years other than his torturers, and the only people stating the list of things he's "confessed" to have lied their asses off on every possible occasion.

[Warren Stupidity]

41. We don't even know if he exists at all.

If he does exist and is alive, he certainly has been subjected to at least the level of torture that seems to have reduced Padilla to a paranoid delusional psychotic. But I agree: we know nothing about what has been done in our name, about what is really going on.

[Zhade]

43. "any confessions he has made are worthless"

Yep, but some cowardly thugs here don't mind a little torture.

Assholes.

[bullimiami]

2. he confessed to killing jesus too, after they tortured him for a year and a half.

[Sherman A1]

3. Agreed

and probably every other thing that has happened to mankind for the last thousand years.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

6. I think the public are a little wary of his confessions

[ClassWarrior]

7. He also confessed that he shot J.R. Ewing...

...and that he killed Laura Palmer.

:eyes:

NGU.

[Turbineguy]

12. Wow,

did he really shoot JR? Gadzooks! I'm glad that mystery has been solved. Now I can sleep again.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

16. I have always wondered about that too

yep mystery solved.

Isn't Pearl still alive?

[central scrutinizer]

22. does he only have one arm?

If so, Richard Kimble can finally come in from the cold.

[MADem]

11. Yeah, and he was responsible for the inclusion of some of the more offensive scenes in

Passion of the Christ, too.

AND, he's taking the hit for global warming, only he's calling it 'climate change' the evil baaastid!

He's the one who gave Rummy the idea to market aspertame, too!!!

And TRANS FATS and High Fructose Corn Syrup? Those are in fact Al Q weapons of mass destruction.

[ClassWarrior]

21. I think he was the producer of "Ishtar" too.

NGU.

[MADem]

39. AH!!! Stooooooooooooooone him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's a crime, there!!!!

[bullimiami]

51. wasnt he the costume designer for xanadu?

[randycrow]

50. The communi$t$' Department of Propaganda redacts Mohammad transcript

Fourth ridiculous confession - Timothy McVeigh requests the needle, John Malvo DC sniper patsy, so calls confesses, Zacarias Moussaoui so called 20th hijacker confesses, and now "to dumb to get out of the rain" Mohammad confession and communi$t$ refused to allow Mohammad transcript to be released.
Something like the following found on the Internet

hearing officer asks Mohammad if any statements he made to interrogators were the result of any treatment he received from his capture in 2003 up until his arrival in Guantanamo in September 2006.

Yes. At beginning when they transferred me ..." The completion of the transcript redacted.

It is almost as if the Neocons are deliberately terrorizing us with ridiculous confessions as if to say "hey, don't you stupid Americans realized you are now living in a communi$t police state and there is no way out."

[Vexatious Ape]

4. Ah. His "blessed" right hand.

KSM is a true religious Conservative.

[youngdem]

5. This is four year old news, used to distract us from the US Atty scandal.

Let's not let them succeed.

This is OLD damn news, meant to be cake for the masses.

[jannyk]

8. yes, we know - discussed here at length. He's now

confessed to every crime since the assasination of Lincoln. There's a poll on CNN front page - last I looked, 75% did not believe all the confessions. They have his young kids for christ's sake - he's confessed to every crime they've asked him about. What difference does it make to him? He's toast anyway - may as well take credit for everything that's gone down in the last 20 years. Also makes him more of a 'hero' in the eyes of the jihadists - what's he got to lose?

[tblue]

9. Is this supposed to boost *'s poll numbers?

[jannyk]

14. Or deflect from the 'real' stories Gonzo et al plus

it makes Khalid apppear more evil and effective than Bin Laden - so we don't have to worry that we haven't caught him yet 'cause KSM was the really bad guy.

[w4rma]

10. He's been "confessing" everything and the kitchen sink, lately. They're torturing him. (nt)

[TygrBright]

13. Next up: "I Killed Anna Nicole, Too" says Muslim Terrorist n/t

[jannyk]

15. Now you're just being silly - however....

I heard he IS the father of her baby!
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[MGD]

18. One would hope they used a polygraph machine as well as other info. sources to confirm the validity

of his confessions. If not, I wouldn't believe a word coming out of his mouth and I certainly wouldn't base my operation plans on any of it. of course the incompetency of this administration has been demonstrated time and time again so they probably would.

[Random_Australian]

26. How would a polygraph make anything more valid?

They don't work. Plain and simple.

[MGD]

28. They help corroborate and validate intelligence especially when the intel is from multiple sources

"They don't work. Plain and simple."
The basic machine may not be fool proof but the science has come a long way and, as I said, when used on multiple sources to corroborate stories, they can validate the information to a significant degree.

edit typos

[Random_Australian]

29. I know lots about science. Here are three things extra:

1) Polygraph measures physiological changes, which is indicative only of the emotional state of the person.

2) The mapping of emotion to physiology is poor.

3) The mapping of thoughts to emotions is poor and highly individual.

Therefore they still don't work. QED.

[MGD]

34. As do I.

"Polygraph measures physiological changes, which is indicative only of the emotional state of the person."
Which, when compared against a baseline, provides a statistical assessment of the veracity of a particular statement or answer.

"The mapping of emotion to physiology is poor."
Mapping isn't necessry for a simple polygraph. Only a change from the baseline is measured and recorded.

"The mapping of thoughts to emotions is poor and highly individual."
Thoughts and emotions are not the parameters in question. Heartbeat, blood pressure, respiration and galvanic skin response are the parameters. That being said, I am quite sure that we have brain scanning equipment at this time whichcan detect, with a high degree of accuracy, the neurological differences between a truth and a lie.

"Therefore they still don't work."
A house isn't built by hammer alone. The polygraph is a tool, one of many which, when used in a coordinated and scientific manner, can make predictions about the probability of a statement's veracity with a higher degree of accuracy than would be discernable without this tool. The polygraph has a place in intelligence gathering.

[Random_Australian]

37. I don't think you follow what I mean - when I said

"The mapping of emotion to physiology is poor."
I mean that the various physiological responses give you data, and the ability to interpret that data into emotions (which are the patterns linked with physiological responses, NOT 'lying' or 'truth') is severely limited.

Basically, there are many patterns and many emotions and the two don't line up very well.

Furthermore, even if you COULD know what emotional response you were getting, you still would not know whether or not it was because they were lying.

So polygraphs are still full of it.

[MGD]

40. I'm not calling them infallible but I don't think they're entirely worthless

when used scientifically and in conjunction with other intelligence gathering tools. What's more, I'm quite sure that the day is coming (soon) when the science will be infallible or nearly so at least. There's a difference between lieing and telling the truth and that difference occurs on a neurological level. That being the case, the truth can be discerned using brain imagery and scientific methodology. Can you imagine the ramifications of a 100% infallible lie detector? Such a thing would shake the foundations of every society on earth.

[Random_Australian]

42. Ok, yes, that does sound a lot more reasonable. I'll argue with you about the

100% infallible thing - that is, there is an intrinsic difference between lying and telling the truth.

I say there is only a difference in some circumstances - for instance, if they believe they are telling the truth, then that would be enough. (Might be enough)

But I do agree with you - a real lie detector would have enormous ramifications.

[robcon]

19. I think bombing Pearl Harbor was his idea, too.

I think he'll claim he's been responsible for the Rape of Nanking in 1937, the massacre at Babi Yar in 1941 and the genocide of the Armenians in 1915. He'll claim anything.

[redwitch]

20. And here I thought Bush was Satan.

:shrug:

[kikiek]

23. The 911 commission report dismisses his claims. Why would I believe he had anything to do with Perle

either? The way they have been extracting his confessions makes me doubt anything he says is accurate. This has been saved to try and divert from the real news once again. I don't think it's gonna work. Randi Rhodes read from the report on her show today, and it sounds like they didn't believe his confessions. It isn't even new stuff!

[pinniped]

24. He is personally responsible for global warming.

What a crock of shit.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

25. The people of Los Angeles want to know if he has confessed to the Black Dahlia murder yet...

[bluedog]

32. guess OJ simpson is off the hook too n/t

[okoboji]

33. with his blessed right hand

he also captured big foot and the Loc Ness monster....

there has got to be a TV Reality series in there somewhere for this guy.

[winston61]

36. Oh say, you know what I heard?

He also put his hands up for the JFK assassination, the Lindbergh kidnapping, he's the Zodiac killer and he also killed Little Boy Blue. Let's try this, sweetheart. I'll take you out in the backyard for a little water boarding session and see how long you hold up. If I could ever get Limbaugh on the phone I'd invite him over for a little lesson too.

[mac56]

38. Here's a question - a semi serious question -

If this guy confessed, and he's the guy who planned 9-11, then isn't our job done in Iraq and Afghanistan? Can't we declare victory and bring our troops home? After all, we've got the guy, don't we? :sarcasm:

[majorjohn]

44. Hurricane Katrina was also his idea n/t

[go west young man]

45. I heard Mike Malloy tonight mention that "The Plaza bank" in

Seattle wasn't called "The Plaza bank" when KSM was on the loose. Only recently has there officially become a Plaza Bank and that building is relatively small. FBI agents have speculated that he may be in reference to either the Columbia Center or the Bank Of America Fifth Avenue Plaza. Link here: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420AP_WA_US_Terrorist_Confession.html Something doesn't seem to add up. Why would KSM call it the Plaza bank if there wasn't one back then?

[I_Make_Mistakes]

46. Did he say where the orange jumpsuit in the picture came from?

Old time Du'ers will remember this and that stupid chair. Things in those pictures didn't add up! Just saying, did he discuss that stuff?

[muriel_volestrangler]

48. I think you're mistaking (he-he) this with the execution in Iraq of Nick Berg

Daniel Pearl: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Pearl

Nick Berg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Berg

[Eugene]

47. (AFP) Impossible to know if Mohammed telling truth: Pearl parents

Impossible to know if Mohammed telling truth: Pearl parents

Thu Mar 15, 7:30 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - The parents of murdered US journalist Daniel Pearl
said Thursday it was "impossible to know" if alleged terrorist mastermind
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the man who had beheaded their son.

Mohammed, the self-confessed chief planner of the September 11 attacks,
claimed to have been responsible for decapitating Pearl following the Wall
Street Journal reporter's kidnapping in Pakistan in 2002.

-snip-

Ruth and Judea Pearl said in a statement to AFP from their home in Encino,
California that they were treating Mohammed's statement cautiously.

"It is impossible to know at this point whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's
boast about killing our son has any bearing in truth," they said.

-snip-

Full article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070315/ts_alt_afp/usattacksguantanamo_070315233056

[Javaman]

49. He has also come forward as being the second gunman in Dallas. nt

[daleo]

52. Now that he has confessed to every significant terrorist action of the last 2 decades

Doesn't the invasion of Iraq look particularly pointless? After all, he was captured in Pakistan. It makes the invasion of Afghanistan look pretty questionable too.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi/Afghanistan civilians dead, thousands of U.S. soldiers.

[juno jones]

53. I the murder I need closure on...

Jimmy Hoffa! I'm sure he knows where all the bodies are buried :sarcasm:

[yellowcanine]

54. `Mohammed confesses to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby; says he wanted the

ransom to finance terrorist attacks.