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In "Unravelling the confessions of the 9/11 chief" in The Sunday Times (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist), Al-Jazeera's Yosri Fouda suggests that Khalid Sheikh "I Did It All" Mohammed is as much a pragmatist as a religious zealot. It is hard to escape the impression in this piece that Fouda admires Ramzi Binalshibh, if not KSM, and considers the former to be a true mujahid, a true man of Allah.
In April 2002, as chief investigative reporter on Al-Jazeera, I was taken blindfolded to meet Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at a safe house in Karachi.He introduced himself as the head of Al-Qaeda’s military committee and admitted responsibility for 9/11. Altogether I spent 48 hours with KSM — as he is known to the intelligence community — and another key figure, Ramzi Binalshibh, whom he described as the 9/11 co-ordinator. Ramzi was captured in September 2002; KSM in March 2003....
He wants to take the credit for high-profile attacks because he is a pragmatist, a power-hungry mastermind, and realises his time is up; he might as well gain sympathy as an ideological hero.
He lived for this spotlight, the chance to say: “Look at this spectacular operation I pulled off against the most powerful nation on earth.” But he is not a fantasist. KSM is a guy who enjoys plotting and being in the field. He could be the head of the mafia and also the imam of a group of people praying in Afghanistan. He would enjoy both roles.
Another possibility is that he might be taking credit so other people, still at large, can avoid the blame. We can never know for sure. One thing that is clear is his wish to be dignified as a prisoner of war. When he mentions George Washington, he is addressing America. He is saying: “This is your own hero, you used to be oppressed by the Brits and the Brits considered George Washington to be a terrorist.”...
He is not a man of Allah but a man of action. I knew that when they were captured it would be KSM who talked first. Ramzi would be much tougher to interrogate: a true believer in Allah, in his own way. I would bet when he was captured Ramzi thought: “My true jihad has just started.” KSM would have thought: “This is it, game over.”
Posted by Robert at March 19, 2007 12:07 AM
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KSM said
you used to be oppressed by the Brits and the Brits considered George Washington to be a terrorist
I find the cooption of the Founding Fathers of the U.S. by the jihadists to be as offensive as their cooption of Jesus Christ as the one who will come back to punish the Christians for disbelief on Islamic Judgement Day.
George Washington never beheaded a prisoner of war, he never set off bombs in London markets, pizzerias, or in horseless carriages. He fought a war, army against army, and showed himself to be a man of honor. Hate to break it to the jihadists, but KSM is a man of zero honor. Mentioning George Washington in the same breath is guaranteed not to convince us that the jihadists are justified in killing us, and it is guaranteed to piss us off.
Just like Keith Ellison's use of Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Qur'an, implying that Thomas Jefferson was sympathetic to the jihadists, when in fact he used it to study for his coming war against the jihadists in Libya.
The Founding Fathers, if here today, would have little patience for the "Religion of Peace" drivel that our current politicians spew on us, and very little sympathy for the jihadists.
Posted by: special_guest![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 19, 2007 12:34 AM
Jesus said, "you will know them by their fruit."
KSM is proof that Islam produces rotten fruit.
Posted by: champ at March 19, 2007 12:35 AM
Can Yosri Fouda get a room with an arrow on the floor and bars on the windows by the end of the day please?
Posted by: KAOSKTRL at March 19, 2007 12:36 AM
Mohammed is as a pragmatist ? Well, I suppose I learn something new every day. Good gracious!
at March 19, 2007 12:47 AM
France: Chirac ready to bail out:
http://sheikyermami.com/2007/03/19/868/
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at March 19, 2007 2:57 AM
The most interesting detail about Khalid Sheikh Muhammad is that he is a Baluchi, but not from Baluchistan. In other words, he is part of a tribe that has an identity other than that of Islam, because of its history and its persecution by the Pakistani army. He might have identified with Baluchistan. Instead, like Mullah Krekar and the Kurdish members of Ansar al-Sunna, he chose not to identify with his tribe or nation, but with Islam, even more fervently. He would be not merely indifferent to Baluchistan and the cause of the Baluchis, but plus islamiste que les islamistes. Possibly his few years in North Carolina, where instead of observing and beginning to question Islam (which is what so many so fondly think happens when Muslims see the big world), he withdrew into the protection and soothingness of resentment and desire for revenge against this more powerful, more self-assured, altogether more advanced West, whose advances he could not deny but had, therefore, to insist that Allah and Islam was more powerful, and he would help to make those seemingly more successful non-Muslims pay for their self-assurance, their arrogance in refusing to bend to Islam, or even to care very much about Islam. And that's exactly what he then set out to do.
Posted by: Hugh at March 19, 2007 8:57 AM
Al Jazeera is such a scum discredited org.
Curious how just about everything that touches petro dollars becomes (or was preconditioned to become) tainted.
Like those many whores in the Washington beltway.
Posted by: dgene at March 19, 2007 9:16 AM
If a man of action works for a group that claims to be all about the Cause of Allah, then I think it's safe to assume that any plans the man of action puts into play are condoned by the group working in the Cause of Allah. One could surmise that such groups condone the plans.
If the groups working for the Cause of Allah also keep the man of action around after violence and murder, then perhaps by continuing to work with this type of sociopath and degenerate, the group shows that they approve of murder and violence and that this type of practice is consistent with the Cause of Allah.
It doesn't matter if Sheik Khalid Mohammed was 'religious' or not. It matters that he worked for a group of 'religious fighters' and that those fighters approved of and continued to support S. Khalid Mohammed after his plans came to pass and many died.
That's like saying that a mob family and the Godfather shouldn't be held accountable for the actions of their hitmen... after all the hitmen are actually killing people... the Godfather and the family are simply running businesses.
at March 19, 2007 10:22 AM
Rosie feels sorry for KSM
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2007/03/outrage_rosie_o.html
The picture of KSM ;ooks like John Belushi after a hard night hitting the pipe.
at March 19, 2007 10:27 AM
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/03/15/video-rosie-dismisses-ksm-says-he-is-not-be-all-end-all-of-terrorism/
I am a woman, but some women (Rosie) should keep their mouths shut about things they don't understand. If KSM was free, he would personally cut her head off, ala Daniel Pearl.
at March 19, 2007 10:36 AM
Calling KSM any kind of man is ludicrous. This gorilla looking creature is simply a piece of crap that needs to be flushed down a toilet. The same goes for any moron who feels sorry for this
scum.
at March 19, 2007 10:43 AM
Amazing how these Muslims all think the terrorists are these brave characters in the movies.
Let's see, KSM had bed head and was hiding looking like he had been on a 3 day drunk.
Saddam juniors 1 and 2 were hiding in a house and died like the cowards they were in butchering others.
Saddam was in a rat hole looking like he was the hermit of lice ville.
Then there is Zawahiri who looks like in every video that he knows what a bath is like toad in a 5 year drought.
bin Laden.....well hiding in the hinterlands. Sadr same deal hiding in the slums.
Where are all these heroic Muslims these reporters ficitonalize about? Everyone of them looks like the poor relatives no one wants to admit exist.
Posted by: Lame Cherry at March 19, 2007 2:49 PM
I don't understand why everyone is so shocked by this. If everyone would have read Fouda's book, Masterminds of Terror, then this whole situation wouldn't have shocked anybody because KSM and Binalshibh give concrete detail about 9/11, Oplan Bojinka, and many other things.
Posted by: Patriot_1/17 at March 19, 2007 3:27 PM
He's not a man, at all. He's a sneaking, underhanded terrorist slob.
at March 19, 2007 10:17 PM
"He is not a man of Allah but a man of action."
If only Mo the Ham had settled for being just a man of action instead of insisting he was divinely inspired.
Mo the Ham would make a catchy substitution for Mack the Knife.
Posted by: BurkasforHitlery at March 19, 2007 11:26 PM
Look, I'm as anti-jihadi as the rest of you, but I'll be very direct with you all.
That scumbag Khalid Sheikh Mohammed didn't kill Daniel Pearl. The Whitehouse is has entered into a bargain with Musharraf to help save his sorry ass: they let Khalid Sheikh Mohammed take the rap for killing Daniel Pearl, and then Musharraf gets to let the real killer Omar Saeed Sheikh off the hook. That will relieve some of the political pressure off Musharraf that he faces from the well-connected radicals in higher circles, of whom Omar Saeed Sheikh was a part.
Musharraf doesn't want to have to put Omar Saeed Sheikh on trial, because the guy was in cahoots with the govt before and thus knows too much. If he got to spill his guts during a trial, then it could destroy not just the govt of Pakistan, but also US-Pakistani relations.
So a trade-off is being made: The rap for Pearl's death will be pinned on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and in exchange Musharraf will let the US have access to AQ Khan, the nuclear proliferator. This will allow the US to get a better assessment of Iran's nuke program, in preparation for military action against it.
Posted by: sanman at March 20, 2007 12:36 AM
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