For some, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has ceased to be a human being. He has become the vessel for the fantasies of the Bush administration and justification for a twisted judicial system.
John Yoo, an architect of the administration’s legal response to the Sept. 11 attacks who is now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, drew a different conclusion from the transcript. “K.S.M.’s statements show that he in fact was and is a treasure trove of intelligence information on Al Qaeda,” Professor Yoo said, referring to Mr. Mohammed by his initials. “He knew not just of past plots to attack the United States, but threats that were in motion at the time of his capture, threats that had to be stopped. “The criminal justice system cannot handle the demand both for an open trial with the right to remain silent and the need to collect that intelligence and act on it swiftly and secretly.”
Now there's someone with brain enough to be a distinguished legal scholar who has become addicted to his own wrongheadedness.
Meanwhile, a sane voice sneaks in a word or two:
John Sifton, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said he questioned whether the statement read for Mr. Mohammed by his representative authentically reflected his views. “The grammar of it alone, when juxtaposed with his version of English, suggests it was prepared for him,” Mr. Sifton said. “It looked to me like it was printed out of whitehouse.gov.”
...By giving him that platform on a military level, the United States has dignified and legitimized a criminal, Mr. Sifton said, adding that could have been avoided by charging Mr. Mohammed with crimes in ordinary American courts.
Amen.
Update: Two senators attended KSM hearing at Guantanamo : "Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a committee member, watched the proceedings over closed-circuit television from an adjacent room."
