Khalid Shaikh Mohammed | PROBABLE CAUSE

In the aftermath of the killing of Osama Bin Laden, supporters of enhanced interrogation techniques––better known as torture––are attempting to rewrite history. One of its most vocal proponents, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, claimed that an “enormous amount of valuable intelligence” was gained from torture techniques such as waterboarding. But let’s look at the facts.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Al-Qaida’s operations chief, was waterboarded 183 times in 2003. If he gave us all this “valuable information” why didn’t we capture or kill Osama Bin Laden sooner? Why would it take 183 times to force Mohammed to talk? And why, if these techniques were so effective, would we stop using them? The facts are that Mohammed gave interrogators false information about the courier after he was waterboarded repeatedly according to U.S. officials, and as reported by the Associated Press.

Former senior military interrogator Matthew Alexander (a pseudonym) conducted or supervised over 1300 interrogations without using torture. Treating prisoners with respect and building trusting relationships led to a 80% success rate, and to the capture of numerous Al-Qaida terrorists, and the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. As Alexander reported on MSNBC last night, the long-term consequences of torture far outweigh any benefits. Also, the torturing of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay was the number one recruiting tool used by Al-Qaida.

Article 1 of the Geneva Convention states that “torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”

Article 2 states that each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

And Article 4 clearly states that each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person, which constitutes complicity or participation in torture. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties, which take into account their grave nature.

Japanese soldiers were hanged for torturing American prisoners of war. On February 28, 2008, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the absolute nature of the torture ban by ruling that international law permits no exceptions to it. Instead of reframing the argument and debating whether or not torture was effective, we should be moving to charge those who knowingly participated in and/or authorized the use of torture. That we haven’t done so, tells us a great deal about the current values of our leaders and our country.

Richard Reid, the notorious “shoe bomber,” was charged with eight criminal counts related to his acts of terrorism including, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, attempted homicide, placing an explosive device on an aircraft, attempted murder, interference with flight crew members and attendants, attempted destruction of an aircraft, using a destructive device during and in relation to a crime of violence and attempted wrecking of a mass transportation vehicle. Reid pled guilty to all eight counts on October 4, 2002.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the September 11 attacks, called himself a “jackal” and was quoted by American interrogators as saying that “the language of war is victims.” On Dec. 8, 2008, Mohammed, along with four co-defendants, sent a note to a military judge at Guantánamo asking to confess and to plead guilty.

Now suppose you are a young Afghani born Muslim who grew up in Pakistan but moved with your parents to the States to attend high school in New York City. Later, you decide to join Al-Qaida and seek revenge against the U.S. because of what the U.S. military is doing to civilians in Afghanistan. You receive weapons training at a camp in Pakistan where you learn about explosives and how to detonate a bomb. When you return to the U.S., you build a powerful explosive while living in Denver and then drive to New York City where you plan a martyrdom operation to detonate the bomb in the subway system. However, good police work eventually results in your arrest and charges that include conspiracies to use weapons of mass destruction and to commit murder in a foreign country, and to provide material support for a terrorist organization. You are twenty-five years old and if convicted of the charges, you probably will spend the rest of your life in prison. How do you plead?

Well, if you are Najibullah Zazi, you plead guilty in U.S. District Court, but only because your mother could face criminal immigration charges. Huh???

If he really were a committed terrorist who believed in martyrdom and a cause like Reid or Mohammed, why wouldn’t he plead guilty? Maybe, like Oklahoma City bomber and terrorist Timothy McVeigh, who instructed his lawyers to use a necessity defense when he was charged with eleven federal offenses and faced the death penalty, Zazi only believed in the act and not the cause.

With wealthy parents and lawyers swarming to represent him, it seems unlikely that 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the “underpants bomber,” will remain committed to his cause and plead guilty. But why should taxpayers have to pay for the costly trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants when they have asked to plead guilty to all the charges?