When I said I'm not happy that 3,000 been killed in America, I feel sorry even. I don't like to kill children and the kids.
Unfortunately for Daniel Pearle, KSM’s “sorrow” for killing so many Americans on 9/11 did not dissuade him from savagely beheading Pearle on camera for the world to witness the following year. There is likewise no evidence of sorrow in any of the 31 terrorist actions or plots for wh
ich KSM claimed responsibility, including the Bali bombing pictured at right. Pages 17-19 of the tribunal transcript list each of the plots he allegedly planned according to his own confession. If KSM’s confession is accepted at face value, he would be considered history’s greatest terrorist mastermind, a jet-setting jihadist of unparalleled achievement. Yet that begs the question, did he actually plan and orchestrate this long list of planned attacks, or is he merely taking credit either for personal aggrandizement or to protect his al Qaeda co-conspirators? I find it highly improbable that KSM was involved with each of these plots to the level that he now alleges. His Oscar-worthy expression of "sorrow" fits neither his known personality nor his jihadist commitment, and thus should only be considered a tryout for Best Actor rather than as an expression of any semblance of humanity. Read the list of actions he claims responsibility for again, and you will find no remorse, no sorrow, no tears. You will only find hate and a heretical religious fervor.It is not uncommon for a prisoner facing no hope of release to confess to multiple crimes or terrorist acts for a variety of reasons, ranging from hopes for assignment to a more exclusive prison facility than a common criminal would receive to diverting investigative attention away from his or her accomplices. A careful reading of KSM’s testimony suggests that he viewed his appearance before the tribunal as a method for judicial martyrdom and a public relations windfall. KSM revealed his understanding of world media and displayed remarkable skill in his ability to cast himself as a sympathetic figure to other peoples and nations “oppressed” by America.
He compared Bin Laden to George Washington and claimed that using current American criteria for declaring a warrior for "independence" to be an "enemy combatant," George Washington could have been classified one as well. Of course, KSM omits the fact that the American colonies formally declared their independence, formed an organized military service, and established an autonomous war time government. To my knowledge, radical Islamic terrorists have not done any of these and thus represent no declared or recognized nation, but I digress.
KSM artfully seized on rising anti-American sentiment in Latin America by condemning America for “invading” Mexico and stealing two-thirds of its territory in the name of Manifest Destiny in the nineteenth century. His testimony covered a broad range of historical and religious comparisons. He appeared to know instinctively how best to manipulate the media coverage of his confession to satisfy the anti-Bush appetite of the liberal media. He believed it would likely be his last opportunity to be heard.
There are some in the media who believe KSM’s statement that he was tortured by the CIA rather than interrogated, and others see similarities between his expressions of sorrow and the torture-induced “confessions” of war crimes the North Vietnamese extracted from American POWs, including Senator John McCain. McCain wrote about such confessions in great detail in his memoir Faith of My Fathers
, and even a cursory comparison of those cruelty-induced confessions with the boastful admissions of KSM should convince anyone that KSM made no statements under duress at the tribunal and was not tortured into a confession, as our POWs were, in grotesque and unspeakable ways. To compare the two situations is an insult to the courageous suffering America POWs endured in Vietnam.It is fascinating that many in the media accept KSM’s word as unassailable truth when he stated he was tortured by the CIA prior to his transfer to Guantanamo, but they omit his testimony that he was not tortured in any way at Guantanamo and that his confession was in no way induced by any tactics or made under duress. Selective trust in a terrorist is a dangerous mentality, and it clearly illustrates that some in the media trust a confessed terrorist mastermind responsible for thousands of deaths worldwide more than they trust President Bush. Media Bias? You decide. Spy The News! is confident of which one Daniel Pearle and the 9/11 victims would trust.
2 comments:
O-Be-Wise, let me tell you what bothers me the most (there are so many things about this that bothers me): not so much that this idiot had the audacity to compare himself to George Washington, but that media like the NYT made absolutely no effort to A) point out the obvious differences between the two (some of which you point out), and B) explicitly state that not only is there nothing alike between KSM and our Founding Fathers, there's is an infinite gorge separating the men.
It's like that recent editorial in the Boston Globe, "Surge doomed to final failure," which compared the Iraqi insurgency to the American Revolution. It's ridiculous and, as a historian and someone who serves and takes great pride in his country and its history, I take great offense when garbage like this happens.
My undergrad and Grad degrees are in history and I obviously share your disgust with the comparisons made by KSM between Goerge Washington and Bin Laden. That the MSM in some cases embraces such comparisons to evoke sympathy for terrorists as a way to snipe at the Bush administration is even more despicable,though not at all surprising.
My personal encounters with members of the MSM have demonstrated to me that journalists are similar in some respects to history or poli sci grad students or professors. Making a name for oneself requires development of a thesis or dissertation that has shock value or at least challenges all previous work in the field. history or poli sci grad students and professors know that it's "publish or perish", but at least they understand that their work must be based on at least some original source material to which they can point as a defense for their revisionist distortions. Journalists, on the other hand, more often than not rely on "anonymous sources" or "unnamed officials", which they know cannot be corroborated and thus their articles are accepted by the rest of the MSM at face value.
Thankfully there are true historians out there who work to set the record straight. That the MSM would besmirch the nobility of George Washington as a ploy to drum up sympathy for terrorists and hostility toward our president's War on Terror speaks volumes about the petty and vicious personal hatred the MSM harbors toward President Bush.
Thank you for your comments. I invite you and all readers to call to my attention any similar occurrences of the MSM's inaccurate portrayals of history or improper comparisons between current and historical figures.
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