Official sources first crowned Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the mastermind of the September 11th attacks in the spring and summer of 2002. Writing in October 2003, Chaim Kupferberg deconstructed the fortuitous promotion of "KSM's" role by the Al Jazeera journalist Yosri Fouda in his article, "The June 2002 Plan to Market a New 9/11 Mastermind."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=KUP20070315&articleId=5087Kupferberg describes how Fouda landed an interview with "KSM" and alleged fellow 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh just as the pair came into public focus. This mother of all "KSM" confessions was broadcast in the form of a distorted audio tape in September 2002. I saw Fouda himself on German television explaining how the interview had been videotaped, but the terrorists refused to let him take the tape with him. Instead, they later sent him a distorted version of the audio by mail. Later, Fouda cast further doubt on his own credibility by suddenly saying the interview was not held in June 2002, as he had originally claimed, but actually in September, just before its broadcast. Why? As Fouda said: "I lied."
Kupferberg:
If habitual coincidence is the mother of all conspiracy theories, then one must surely raise a discerning eyebrow at the revelation that, around this time - after more than a decade of staying hidden in the shadows - Khalid Shaikh Mohammed suddenly was stricken with an urge to conduct his very first interview, with none other than Ramzi Binalshibh at his side. The journalist chosen for this honor was the London bureau chief of Al-Jazeera, Yosri Fouda...
...On September 9, 2002, the die was cast. Al-Jazeera was broadcasting Part I of Fouda's historic interview with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh. For the first time, millions would hear - from the planners themselves - exactly how the September 11 plot was put in motion. It was al-Jazeera's version of VH1's Behind The Music, featuring guest commentaries from Vincent Cannistraro and Lyndon LaRouche. Unfortunately, viewers would only get the audio feed of Khalid and Binalshibh, as Binalshibh and Khalid purportedly had confiscated from Fouda his videotape of the proceedings before he had taken leave of them back in June. (...)
...It was practically a seamless propaganda extravaganza, except for one small detail - Fouda had gone on record as dating the interview to June of 2002, thereby raising the prospect of two plausible scenarios. Scenario One: Khalid and Binalshibh's respective roles in the plot were first discovered solely due to Fouda's contact with them; or Scenario Two: The decision to send Fouda on his interview errand was made at the same time that a decision was made to market Khalid as the new 9/11 mastermind. Of the two scenarios, the first one was far more palatable - from a propaganda perspective - as at least it could be kept within the borders of plausible deniability, and only Fouda would get burned by it. The second scenario, however, would raise the prospect of one of those uncomfortable coincidences that could conceivably expose the 9/11 Legend as a pre-fabricated set-up.
Only two days after the initial broadcast of Fouda's interview with Khalid and Binalshibh - on the first anniversary commemorating the 9/11 attacks - Pakistani forces, accompanied by FBI agents, raided an apartment complex in Karachi. After a "four hour" gun battle involving "hundreds" of Pakistani soldiers and policemen, the authorities captured, among a few others, Ramzi Binalshibh himself. Their original target, however, had been Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, whom they had been tracking for months throughout Karachi. While Khalid had just barely slipped away only a few hours before Pakistani forces had arrived at his door, the authorities were reportedly "surprised" to discover that they had netted Binalshibh in the process. At least that is now the official version of the day's events...
News reports in the months that followed held that Khlaid Sheikh Mohammed was killed in the September 2002 raid. These are ably brought together by DU's own Paul Thompson at "The Complete 9/11 Timeline," hosted by the Center for Cooperative Research:
http://cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayksmcaptureKupferberg describes how Fouda tried to solve his dilemma by admitting he had lied about details.
...With the well-timed arrest of Ramzi Binalshibh in September 2002, journalist Yosri Fouda was in a bind. Only days before, he had gone on record - repeatedly - as dating his interview with Khalid and Binalshibh to June 2002. Up to the time of Binalshibh's arrest, the official legend had it that Khalid's pivotal role as 9/11 mastermind was revealed to U.S. authorities through their interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in March 2002. Now, in the aftermath of Binalshibh's capture, word was circulating that perhaps authorities had learned of Khalid's true role by way of Fouda. That contention, of course, would remain most plausible if Fouda's interview could definitively be back-dated to a time before early June 2002 - that is, to a time before Khalid was first publicly announced as 9/11 mastermind. The alternative scenario quite simply pointed to a conclusion that would have to be denied at all costs - that the decision to out Khalid publicly as the 9/11 mastermind was coordinated with the decision to send Fouda on his interview errand with Khalid. Had Fouda erred, then, by initially claiming that his historic interview had taken place in June 2002? Had he possibly exposed a seam pointing the way to a coordinated set-up?
Soon after the Binalshibh arrest, Fouda took the opportunity to revise the date of his interview for the record, revealing to Abdallah Schleifer of the Kamal Adham Center For Journalism:
Fouda: "Actually, this question of dates is very important for another reason. All of these Islamist websites that were denouncing me alluded to my interview as taking place in June. That's what I mentioned both in my article in The Sunday Times Magazine and in my documentary - that I met them in June."
Schleifer: "So?"
Fouda: "I lied."
Schleifer: "Really?"
Fouda: "Yeah."
Schleifer: "But you're going to come clean with , right?"
Fouda (laughter): "Yes, of course. I lied because I needed to lie. I'll tell you why. Because I thought, maybe even expected, that if something when wrong and I needed to get in touch with them through a website or a statement or a fax ... they would be the only ones who would know that I had met them one month earlier than I let on, and so I'd know I was talking to the right people.
So after the first wave of denunciations a pro-Qa'ida website "jehad.net" put up a statement online in the name of Al-Qa'ida clearing me of any blame or connection with Ramzi's arrest and I knew this was an authentic communique because it alluded to the interview taking place in May."
Apparently, Fouda had lied again, for on March 4, 2003 (i.e. a few days after Khalid's eventual arrest), Fouda offered up this newest version of his 48-hour encounter to The Guardian:
"It was late afternoon, Sunday 21 April 2002, when I packed my bags before joining Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-shibh for a last prayer before saying goodbye."
That, as they say in legal parlance, is a very definite recollection. In short, Fouda had impeached his own testimony through these two explicitly detailed, contradictory dates. Fouda, through this compounded lie, was now calling into question the very credibility of his entire interview with Khalid and Binalshibh...
...Recall that, back in June 2002, the "official" legend at the time had it that it was Abu Zubaydah, back in March 2002, who had spilled the goods on Khalid. Yet with Khalid's March 2003 apprehension, this one aspect of the legend was duly revised. As revealed by Keith Olbermann in a March 3, 2003 MSNBC.com item: "Ironically, it would be (Fouda's) interview that would point out, to U.S. intelligence, that (Khalid Shaikh) Mohammed and Binalshibh were the brains behind the 9/11 attacks"...
So much for the credibility of London Al Jazeera reporter Yosri Fouda, his supposed meeting with "KSM" and Ramzi Binalshibh, and his shifting accounts of how it happened.
Pakistani and US authorities claimed to have captured "KSM," alive after all, in March 2003. "He" has been held ever since as an enemy combatant - waterboarded, according to Bush's own words in justification of torture policies - and kept from seeing anyone at all, let alone a defense counsel. And he has provided all these supposed confessions, all delivered to the public *solely* in the form of transcripts from the FBI and Pentagon. The 9/11 Commission was denied requests to see him, but nevertheless based large sections of its best-selling report on his supposed testimony. The Moussaoui defense was denied requests even to receive audio or video tapes of the supposed prisoner.
Is it any wonder that now, finally, even Time magazine is casting doubt on the authenticity of the "KSM" confessions?
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
