PJM reports:

Broadcasting from a secret location in Syria, Al-Qaeda and its allies now have their own 24-hour television station, Pajamas Media has learned.

Known as Al-Zawraa, Arabic for “first channel,” the station broadcasts enemy propaganda and rebroadcasts of Western anti-war material, including Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. It is not connected with Al-Jazeera.

Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, is delighted by al-Zawraa. A U.S. military intelligence officer told Pajamas Media that the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Masri, “has long-term and big plans for this thing.” Previous attempts by al-Qaeda to set up media propaganda outlets have been limited to satellite radio and the Internet. Al-Zawraa, however, is seemingly well financed and striving for a broader appeal….

The programming originates from Syria, where its main backer, Mishaan al-Jabouri, a well-known Sunni Baathist agitator and former Iraqi parliamentarian, recently fled to escape an Iraqi arrest warrant for suspected corruption and embezzlement. He initially set the station up in Tikrit, Iraq, but in early November its studio was raided by authorities and closed down for incitement.

Al-Jabouri, who in Damascus during the final years of Saddam Hussein’s rule, is widely believed to have forged close ties with Saddam’s intelligence services. More recently, he has been linked to al-Qaeda.

The speed with which al-Zawraa was able to resume its transmissions from Syria and Nilesat after the raid on the Tikrit station is unusual, according to Sennitt. Moreover, the reach of al-Zawraa’s broadcasts indicates that the station is attempting to influence viewers far beyond Iraq.

Government officials tell Pajamas Media that they are trying to remove al-Zawraa from the airwaves. Jim Turner, deputy director of Defense Press Operations, told Pajamas Media in an e-mail that this is the State Department’s decision because “they are the department of the US Government that would interact with another country on such an issue.”

In turn, a State Department official told Pajamas Media, “We are strongly supporting the Iraqi efforts to work with the Egyptians to get this off the air.” The State Department’s comment seems designed to avoid diplomatic fallout, since Egypt’s control of Nilesat would allow it to stop al-Zawraa’s signal.

Turning off al Zawaraa without Egypt’s help would be nearly impossible. Jamming its signal may prove difficult since the physical location of the signal’s feed would need to be located and, according to Sennitt, it could be anywhere. “All that’s needed is a dish pointing at the satellite, and a transmitter on the correct uplink frequency. The satellite will carry whatever signal it receives.”

Wouldn’t the unexpected arrival of a cruise missile work very nicely at turning it off?

In Triple Cross, the third volume of his investigative trilogy on federal mishandling of the World Trade Center bombing investigation, Peter Lance identifies none other than Plame Game prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald as the FBI official most responsible for allowing a senior Al Qaeda operative closely tied to Bin Laden himself to remain operational and at-large under the protection of the US Government.

Toronto Sun:

In the al-Qaida camps, he was known as Abu Mohamed al Amriki — “Father Mohamed the American.” And, until he was finally arrested and convicted in 2000 — after two decades of high profile terrorism, including helping to plan attacks on American troops in Somalia and U.S. embassies in Africa — Ali Mohamed roamed free and even protected.

He was so untouchable, he was taken from quick-thinking Canadian officials, who suspected he may have been a threat.

In the most intimate and thorough way possible, Triple Cross chronicles one of the most vicious spies of our time.

Mohamed was a U.S. Army sergeant, FBI operative and possible CIA asset, who, on the side, was a friend to Osama bin Laden, trained the leader’s bodyguards, was instrumental in killing Americans and was the middle-man in an historic and vile union between bin Laden’s forces and the Lebanese Hezbollah. His fingerprints can be traced to those who assassinated Jewish militant Meir Kahane and blew up the first truck bomb to hit the World Trade Centre.

He made no real secret about being a die-hard jihadi. But the U.S. refused to accept him for what he really was.

“In the annals of espionage, few men have moved in and out of the deep black world between the hunters and the hunted with as much audacity as Ali Mohamed,” Lance, a former ABC News producer, writes in his book.

Mohamed worked his triple-cross as U.S. authorities were — Lance argues — distracted with inner-politics, their own lives, the mob and even a horiffic murder. But more than he does with anyone else, Lance points an accusing finger at celebrated U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who directed the FBI’s elite bin Laden squad, which, Lance argues, allowed Mohamed to remain an active al-Qaida agent.

Lance writes Fitzgerald and other top officials ignored important al-Qaida-related evidence, including proof in 1996 of a liquid-based airliner bomb — a precursor to last August’s plot revealed by British intelligence.

Lance pinpoints how, in 1991, the FBI, knowing of a New Jersey mail box store with direct links to al-Qaida, failed to keep it under watch. Just six years later, two of the 9/11 hijackers got their fake IDs at the same location.

Mohamed himself had come to the FBI’s attention in 1989, when the agency’s Special Operations Group photographed a cell of his trainees firing AK-47s at a Long Island shooting range. The bureau would drop that investigation — as it would in many other cases involving the terror spy.

Peter Dale Scott at Global Research:

It is now generally admitted that Ali Mohamed (known in the al Qaeda camps as Abu Mohamed al Amriki — “Father Mohamed the American”) worked for the FBI, the CIA, and U.S. Special Forces. As he later confessed in court, he also aided the terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri, a co-founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and by then an aide to bin Laden, when he visited America to raise money.

The 9/11 Report mentioned him, and said that the plotters against the U.S. Embassy in Kenya were “led” (their word) by Ali Mohamed. That’s the Report’s only reference to him, though it’s not all they heard.

Patrick Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney who negotiated a plea bargain and confession from Ali Mohamed, said this in testimony to the Commission

Ali Mohamed. …. trained most of al Qaeda’s top leadership — including Bin Laden and Zawahiri — and most of al Qaeda’s top trainers. He gave some training to persons who would later carry out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing…. From 1994 until his arrest in 1998, he lived as an American citizen in California, applying for jobs as an FBI translator.

Patrick Fitzgerald knew Ali Mohamed well. In 1994 he had named him as an unindicted co-conspirator in the New York landmarks case, yet allowed him to remain free. This was because, as Fitzgerald knew, Ali Mohamed was an FBI informant, from at least 1993 and maybe 1989. Thus, from 1994 “until his arrest in 1998 [by which time the 9/11 plot was well under way], Mohamed shuttled between California, Afghanistan, Kenya, Somalia and at least a dozen other countries.” Shortly after 9/11, Larry C. Johnson, a former State Department and CIA official, faulted the FBI publicly for using Mohamed as an informant, when it should have recognized that the man was a high-ranking terrorist plotting against the United States.

Douglas Ross thanks the Times for (implicitly, at least) changing its position on Saddam and WMDs yesterday.

Starting in 1994 — and lasting at least until 1997, but probably longer — Saddam Hussein’s Intelligence Services had multiple, direct contacts with Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.

And, just four days after 9/11, Hussein’s Intelligence personnel issued written warnings that their connections to Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda might be discovered by the U.S.!

In 2003, an Iraqi government memo testified that a convoy of fifty (50) tractor-trailers entered Syria just before the invasion. What cargo would have been shipped into Iraq just before the invasion (for which each driver was paid $200, a very generous sum in 2003 Iraqi terms)?

Also in 2003, another official memo describes where chemical weapons and delivery systems (missiles) were hidden to prevent their destruction in the invasion.

In 2002, Hussein’s government was actively manufacturing the bioweapon ricin.

Also in 2002, Iraqi Intelligence Forces were actively engaged in the design of bioweapon delivery schemes, including the use of airplanes to spread toxic materials.

In 2001, Hussein ordered mass grave sites to be tested for radiation. What exactly about these graves would require testing for radiation?

In 2001, Hussein’s government actively recruited suicide bombers to attack American interests either in the U.S. or abroad.

In 1999, Uday Hussein ordered a series of assassinations in London, Iran, and Iraq.

* * *

And – there’s more where those documents came from. The net result, though, is that the Times has confirmed several critical facts regarding Iraq:

1. Saddam’s government had mature WMD programs just prior to the invasion (bioweapons, chemical, and nuclear).

2. Saddam was only months away from building an atomic weapon.

3. Saddam’s government had multiple, operational ties to global terror groups, including Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.

Thank you, New York Times!

Josh Manchester, at TCS Daily,

Sometimes I think evil is a tangible thing — with wave lengths, just as sound and light have. An evil place can, so to speak, broadcast vibrations of evil.
— Richard Connell, The Most Dangerous Game

What is the most dangerous game of Connell’s short story? It’s the hunting of men by other men for sport. Connell might be surprised today to learn that it’s not fiction.

There are hundreds of websites featuring dozens of professionally produced videos of violence against US forces in Iraq. Dubbed with loud monotonal music for an extra creepy effect, at the point of the attack, the filmers usually erupt into cries of “Allahu akbar!”

The US might film its own missions for forensic or debriefing purposes sure, but that is a far cry from reveling in them. So what might motivate someone to be so twisted as to film and celebrate death?

One answer: recruitment.

A recent story in The Australian detailed the means that terrorist groups use to bait and attract new adherents:

Young Western-born Muslims recruited in universities, mosques and on the internet are increasingly being turned to jihad by terrorist networks, which train them in Islamic countries to support and conduct attacks on their homelands . . .

. . . “They are looking for them in mosques … in the youth centres … on the web … relying on social acquaintances and also family ties and universities,” Dr Ganor told a conference hosted by the institute in the resort city of Herzliya yesterday.

He said terror organisations used psychological strategies to win the hearts of “specific” young Muslims through either indirect recruitment platforms such as the internet, and direct ones such as combing radical mosques and prayer halls.

Read the whole thing.

The Washington Post is reporting a story of the capture in Afghanistan in December of 2001 of documents linking a Pakistani microbiologist named Abdur Rauf to an Al Qaeda project attempting to weaponize Anthrax bacillus.

The documents told of a singular mission by a scientist named Abdur Rauf, an obscure, middle-aged Pakistani with alleged al-Qaeda sympathies and an advanced degree in microbiology.

Using his membership in a prestigious scientific organization to gain access, Rauf traveled through Europe on a quest, officials say, to obtain both anthrax spores and the equipment needed to turn them into highly lethal biological weapons. He reported directly to al-Qaeda’s No. 2 commander, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and in one document he appeared to signal a breakthrough.

“I successfully achieved the targets,” he wrote cryptically to Zawahiri in a note in 1999.

Despite the evidence in US hands, Pakistan has refused to arrest him, and Rauf remains at large. The Post’s anonymous source said:

We will never close the door, but the chances of getting him into the United States are slim to none,” said one U.S. intelligence official, who, like others, agreed to discuss the case on the condition that he not be identified by name.

Beyond the mysterious reasons for Pakistan’s reluctance to cooperate in this particular case, there is also the question of whether Rauf’s biological weapons research was connected to the US Anthrax mailings in 2001.

U.S. officials are even more reticent in discussing possible links between al-Qaeda’s anthrax program and the 2001 U.S. attacks, which killed five people and briefly shut down the U.S. Capitol. Privately, FBI officials doubt that such a link exists. They note that the attacks came with an explicit warning — a letter advising the victims to take penicillin, resulting in a far lower death toll — but without an explicit claim of responsibility. “It doesn’t fit with al-Qaeda’s modus operandi,” one intelligence official said.

Yet U.S. officials have been unable to rule out al-Qaeda or any other group as a suspect. Earlier this month, FBI officials acknowledged that the ultra-fine powder mailed five years ago was simply made and could have been produced by a well-trained microbiologist anywhere in the world.

Several leading bioterrorism experts still contend that the evidence points to al-Qaeda or possibly an allied group that coordinated its attack with the Sept. 11, 2001, strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. These experts point to hijacker Mohamed Atta’s inquiries into renting a crop-duster aircraft and to an unexplained emergency-room visit by another hijacker, Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haznawi, for treatment of an unusual skin lesion that resembled cutaneous anthrax.

The Post’s article references a web site published by a left-wing New York and District of Columbia attorney named Ross E. Getman which extensively discusses the Al Qaeda links to the 2001 Anthrax Mailings, and offers a theory explaining Al Qaeda’s motivations for attacking Senators Leahy and Daschle and the media.

Getman is discussed as one of the amateur investigators of the 2001 Anthrax Attacks in Wikipedia.

The same investigator has also published a shorter article titled, Al Qaeda, Anthrax and Ayman.

—————————-
I was wondering why an anonymous intelligence community source would be leaking such a story (not attacking the Bush Administration) to the Post, and it occurred to me that the relationship of spooks to certain elements in the media may have grown so cozy that they might actually use a Post leak to rattle the Pakistani government’s cage on a controversial issue currently in contention.

The original warning appeared on a now–closed web-site, titled The F*cked Society, reports Rusty Shackleford.

On Sunday, October 22nd, 2006, there will be seven “dirty” explosive devices detonated in seven different U.S. cities; Miami, New York City, Atlanta, Seattle, Houston, Oakland and Cleveland. The death toll will approach 100,000 from the initial blasts and countless other fatalities will later occur as result from radioactive fallout.

The bombs themselves will be delivered via trucks. These trucks will pull up to stadiums hosting NFL games in each respective city. All stadiums to be targeted are open air arenas, excluding Atlanta’s Georgia Dome, the only enclosed stadium to be hit. Due to the open air, the radiological fallout will destroy those not killed in the initial explosion. The explosions will be near simultaneous, with the cities specifically chosen in different time zones to allow for multiple attacks at the same time.

The 22nd of October will mark the final day of Ramadan as it would fall in Mecca. Al-Qaida will automatically be blamed for the attacks. Later, through Al-Jazeera Osama bin Laden will issue a video message claiming responsibility for what he dubs “America’s Hiroshima”.

In the aftermath civil wars will erupt across the world, both in the Middle East and within the United States. Global economies will screech to a halt. General chaos will rule.

AP reported the story, including expressions of skepticism from the authorities.

The warning, posted Oct. 12, was part of an ongoing Internet conversation titled “New Attack on America Be Afraid.” It mentioned NFL stadiums in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Seattle, Houston, Oakland and Cleveland, where games are scheduled to be held this weekend.

The Homeland Security Department alerted authorities and stadium owners in those cities, as well as the NFL, of the Web message but said the threat was being viewed “with strong skepticism.” Officials at the NCAA, which oversees college athletics, said they too had been notified.

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said there was no intelligence that indicated such an attack was imminent, and he said the alert was “out of an abundance of caution.”

“The department strongly encourages the public to continue to go about their plans, including attending events that involve large public gatherings such as football games,” Knocke said.

The FBI also expressed doubt about the threat.

“While the credibility of the threat is questionable, we have passed the information on because it has been carried in some open source reporting,” said FBI spokesman Richard Kolko. He said the FBI was discussing the threat with the NFL as “part of our routine discussions this week.”

The nation’s alert level remains at yellow, signaling an elevated risk of an attack. The threat level for airline flights is at orange, a higher level, where it has been since a foiled plot to bomb U.S.-bound commercial jets was revealed on Aug. 10.

This one does not seem terribly credible, but a little heightened security would not be a bad idea.

—————————

UPDATE 10/20

FoxNews reports:

Federal authorities said Friday they have charged a 20-year-old Wisconsin grocery store clerk with making a hoax threat that said seven football stadiums across the nation would be targeted by terrorists with radiological”dirty bombs”this weekend.

Jake J. Brahm, of Wauwatosa, Wis., surrendered to the U.S. Marshal’s Service in Milwaukee on Friday morning. He was charged in a sealed criminal complaint filed Thursday in Newark, U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said…

Brahm was scheduled to make a court appearance later Friday in Milwaukee.

He was first taken into custody by police in Wauwatosa on Wednesday, based on information authorities received that Brahm was the source of the Internet threat to bomb football stadiums, federal authorities said.

FBI agents interviewed him that night, and the FBI said Thursday it had determined the threats were a hoax.

The New York Sun reports that an Al Qaeda communications manual, intended to foil NSA Echelon surveillance, titled the Myth of Delusion, was released via password-protected Islamic web-sites earlier this summer.

The document’s author, one Mohammed al-Hakaymah, clearly subscribes to Hillary Clinton’s theory of an influential “Great Right-Wing Conspiracy.”

Bill Roggio seems to have been the first to break the story, and he made the text available via .pdf.

Time Magazine reports that US officials have confirmed Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s account that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the actual murderer of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

several U.S. officials tell TIME that KSM’s role in the Pearl murder appears more direct than previously acknowledged — and that the Bush Administration plans to try him for it. The officials tell TIME that KSM confessed under CIA interrogation that he personally committed the murder. Moreover, when he faces a military tribunal at Guantanamo, perhaps as soon as next year, the U.S. plans to charge him not only with the 9/11 plot, but also with direct responsibility for Pearl’s death.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) was one of 14 “high value” prisoners recently moved to the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from secret CIA prisons overseas. In announcing the transfer on Sept. 6, President Bush also promised to try some of the most important captives in military tribunals, a plan that Congress approved last month.

One former U.S. national security official tells TIME there is no doubt that KSM personally wielded the knife that killed the Wall Street Journal reporter. This official says that Ahmad Omar Saed Sheik insisted under interrogation that taking Pearl’s life was not at first part of the kidnap plot — though Sheik also told his questioners that Pearl’s kidnappers could never have released him because he was Jewish. But as the scheme unfolded, someone senior to him in the al-Qaeda hierarchy, known as “the fat man,” took control of the operation and beheaded Pearl.

Sheik never identified KSM as the actual killer, however. The FBI deduced KSM’s role only after analyzing a video of the crime, in which only the perpetrator’s hands are visible. That video was released by Islamic militants soon after Pearl’s murder and then widely shown on Arab television and the Internet. Eventually, the FBI obtained its own version of the original video, as well as the camera used to photograph the murder.

Once KSM was taken into custody in March 2003, a comparison of the hands shown in the video and KSM’s own hands, along with other evidence, confirmed the FBI’s suspicions. Then, under interrogation, KSM confessed, national security officials told TIME, admitting without remorse that he personally severed Pearl’s head and telling interrogators he had to switch knives after the first one “got dull.”

EARLIER POSTING

They are all linked at the earlier post here.

Andrew McCarthy refutes some of the allegations made by critics from the left:

1) That the bill deprives prisoners of habeas corpus.

First, Congress cannot “suspend” habeas corpus by denying it to people who have no right to it in the first place. The right against suspension of habeas corpus is found in the Constitution (art. I, 9). Constitutional rights belong only to Americans — that is, according to the Supreme Court, U.S. citizens and those aliens who, by lawfully weaving themselves into the fabric of our society, have become part of our national community (which is to say, lawful permanent resident aliens). To the contrary, aliens with no immigration status who are captured and held outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and whose only connection to our country is to wage a barbaric war against it, do not have any rights, much less “basic rights,” under our Constitution.

2) Habeas corpus is required to permit prisoners to defend Geneva Convention rights.

it remains a settled principle that treaties are compacts between sovereign nations, not fonts of individual rights. Alleged violations are thus grist for diplomacy, not litigation. Treaties are not judicially enforceable by individuals absent an express statement to the contrary in the treaty’s text. By contrast, Geneva’s express statements indicate that no judicial intervention was contemplated.

This, no doubt, is why the Geneva Conventions, qua treaties, have never been judicially enforced. Consequently, if Congress had actually denied al Qaeda detainees a right to use Common Article 3 to challenge their detention in federal court (and, as we’ll soon see, Congress has not done that), that would merely have reaffirmed what has been the law for over a half century.

If the political representatives of a nation believe one of its citizens is being unlawfully held at Gitmo, the proper procedure is for that nation to protest to our State Department, not for the detainee to sue our country in our courts. In fact, several nations have made such claims, and Bush administration has often responded by repatriating detainees to their home countries … only to have many of them rejoin the jihad. In any event, though, there would be nothing wrong with declining to allow habeas to be used for the creation of individual rights that detainees do not in fact have under international law.

Patterico has published the first two parts of a series of five interviews with “Stashiu,” a 23-year veteran US Army nurse who was stationed at the Guantánamo detention facility, working in its Behavioral Health Services department with inmates with psychological and/or behavioral problems.

We will be linking the later parts of the series as they appear.

Part One: Introduction.

I know Zarqawi,” the terrorist said to the American. “I am going to have Zarqawi cut off your family’s head while you watch. Then he will cut off your head.”

The terrorist said it all in a matter-of-fact way, looking the American straight in the eye.

The American was not frightened. There was little danger that the terrorist was going to carry out his threat . . . at least any time soon.

The terrorist was a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the American was an Army nurse who worked with Guantánamo detainees with psychological and/or behavioral problems. For six months, he spoke with detainees on a daily basis, and built a rapport of sorts with some of the most troublesome terrorists at Guantánamo.

He spoke with me recently, and I will be telling his story in several posts over the coming days.

Part Two: Stashiu arrives at GTMO, and tells us what the terrorists are like.

Stashiu is not able to share specific details of conversations he had with specific individuals, for reasons having to do principally with patient confidentiality, and in part with operational security. But he can give you, the reader, a good overview of what types of human beings are being detained at Guantánamo Bay.

I asked him that very question: what are the detainees like? Stashiu said:

For many of them, think Ted Bundy. Educated, charming, and without conscience for those they consider infidels. Some are truly ill and were taken advantage of because of it. For example, one routinely asked us for an explosive suicide vest so he could assassinate Osama Bin Laden or George Bush for us, whoever he could find first (he was completely serious).

Part Three: Hunger strikes, suicides and suicide attempts, and mental illness.

Detainees Take Advantage of Concessions and Spread False Propaganda

I asked about the recent New York Times Magazine article about Guantánamo, which provided an in-depth look at the hunger strikes and suicide attempts. (I linked to and excerpted heavily from that article in this post.) The article, which was based on interviews with numerous people at Guantánamo, made several points, including these:

The Colonel in charge made numerous concessions to the terrorists in terms of living conditions.
Intelligence officials resisted the Colonel’s changes because they made interrogation more difficult, as the interrogators could not use promises of better living conditions as a carrot.

The suicide attempts and three successful suicides were an organized event designed to create worldwide sympathy for the detainees’ plight — and the detainees who committed suicide did so in part by taking advantage of the Colonel’s measures to improve living conditions.
Of the article, Stashiu said:

The article is amazingly accurate and even-handed. The things that COL Bumgarner tried were good-faith efforts to make the best of the situation. Many of the detainees also made good-faith efforts to improve things, but I believe that any concessions were hijacked by the extremists and used against everyone else’s efforts. For example, the lights being dimmed, extra bedding, etc… were all used to facilitate the successful suicides. But, before those changes had not been at least tried, the extremists escalated the rhetoric against us saying, “See? They will not do anything to make things better!”

As the article explains, there were competing objectives among the detainees. Simply, we were in a Catch-22. If concessions were made, one group would say that they could get even more by continuing to cause problems. If concessions weren’t made, the reasoning was that they just weren’t applying enough pressure. There is a hardcore group of AQ there that will try to turn everything they can to their advantage. They circulate untrue stories of torture, poisoned food, desecrated Korans, and many other things. This keeps the tensions high and then they find a way to light the match.

Part Four: Treatment of the detainees

The attacks on military personnel could be brutal, he explained:

We were told about one female medic who had to have major reconstructive surgery on her face following a detainee assault. She was too close to the beanhole (door opening) and the detainee was able to reach out, grab her head, and pull her face-first into the steel frame of the door, shattering most of the facial bone structure.

As medical personnel we would occasionally forget that these were detainees and treat them as we would regular patients. The guard force was usually very alert and prevented us from inadvertently risking ourselves, but this happened too quickly for anyone to prevent. Of course, we were all very careful about proximity for a long time after that…

I asked Stashiu: what was the most surprising thing about your life at GTMO? He replied that, while you might think it would be something about the detainees, to him the most surprising thing was actually the behavior of the Navy Master-at-Arms — the guard force for Guantánamo. Stashiu said that these guards are generally 18 to 20 years old, and are consistently showered with human waste products thrown at them by detainees — yet as a general rule, they stay remarkably professional and do not allow themselves to be antagonized. Stashiu found their behavior the most impressive part of his stay at Guantánamo.

Part Five: Stashiu reacts to Big Media pieces about GTMO.

Stashiu confirmed something not everyone realizes: detainees are still being interrogated at GTMO — and are apparently still giving up good information.

What harsh techniques are being used to extract this information? The answer to that question will shock you.

A couple of recent pieces in the media have suggested that some of the detainees actually enjoy their interrogations. For example, in a passage that reminded me of Monty Python’s “Comfy Chair” sketch (from the show about the Spanish Inquisition), Rich Lowry said this:

Interrogators rely on the soft sell. Detainees sit in a La-Z-Boy chair during interrogations, and beverages and movies are available to put them at ease. The most effective interrogator is said to be an older woman who adopts a nurturing attitude…

So I asked Stashiu: are the detainees really pampered in interrogations? He said:

For some, they eagerly await days until “reservation” (interrogation) and there are frequently requests to see their interrogator. This is why I said that some fear to return home or they would be killed as traitors. They get to smoke (sometimes 4 or 5 packs at once, uggh!), watch new-release DVDs that have been screened by Intel so they don’t get current events, eat pizza or fast-food, listen to music, smoke a hooka, etc…. The better stuff they give up, the more the interrogators get for them. All of this has been previously released to the public, but you never hear about it in the MSM.

MSNBC must have been recently acquired by Fox News and the well-known right wing conspiracy that keeps targetting Bill Clinton. They, too, are blaming the Clinton Administration for neglecting to take action that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks when, as the video described below demonstrates, they had Osama bin Laden in their sights.

NBC News has obtained top-secret video shot by the U.S. government. It illustrates an enormous opportunity the Clinton administration had to kill or capture bin Laden — critics say a missed opportunity.

In the fall of 2000 in Afghanistan, un-manned, un-armed spy planes — called Predators — fly over known al-Qaida training camps. The pictures are transmitted live to CIA headquarters, showing al-Qaida terrorists firing at targets, conducting military drills, then scattering on cue through the desert.

Also that fall, the Predator captured even more extraordinary pictures of a tall figure in flowing white robes. Many intelligence analysts believed then and now it is Osama bin Laden.

We showed the video to William Arkin, a former intelligence officer and now military analyst for NBC, and asked him why U.S. intelligence believes it’s bin Laden.

“You see a tall man. You see him surrounded by — or at least protected by — a group of guards,” says Arkin.

Bin Laden is 6’5″ tall — the man on the tape clearly towers over those around him — and seems to be treated with great deference. Another clue — the video is shot at Tarnak Farm, the walled compound where bin Laden is known to have lived. The layout of the buildings in the Predator video perfectly matches secret U.S. intelligence photos and diagrams of Tarnak Farm obtained by NBC News.

“It’s dynamite — it’s putting together all of the pieces and that doesn’t happen every day. I guess you could say we’ve done it once — and this is it,” says Arkin.

The tape proves the Clinton administration was aggressively tracking al-Qaida a year before 9/11. But that also raises one big question — if the U.S. government had bin Laden and the camps in its sights in real time — why was no action taken against them?…

Gary Schroen — a former CIA station chief in Pakistan — says the White House required the CIA to attempt to capture bin Laden alive, rather than kill him.

“It reduced the odds from, say, a 50 percent chance down to, say, a 25 percent chance that we were going to be able to get him,” says Schroen.

A Democratic member of the 9/11 commission says there was a larger issue: the Clinton administration treated Bin Laden as a law enforcement problem.