So KSM confesses. [1]
Of course, he told us nothing of import we didn’t suspect… except he’d planned attacks on Jimmy Carter and Bubba Clinton. Some of the confession as posted to the press, was redacted… not a shock to anyone there…investigations are ongoing, of course… but taking credit for the stuff that never happened; well, frankly I’m not sure what that’s about. Captain Ed says this morning: [2]
However, if he’s taking credit for attacks that never came off, it seems to me that he’s adding to the reputation of American counterterrorism rather than his own track record of success at mass murder.
His hearing proved how bad the attacks would have gotten, had the US not taken the war to the terrorists.
And so it does. Given that two of the higher profile people that would have been attacked were iconic Democrats, I wonder if the left will finally wake up and realize just what was it stake, or will they claim that this confession was set up by the administration to cover GWB’s backside…
If past is prologue, most likely the latter…. idiots that they be.
Update:
Joyner notes the confession [3] and says, in part:
The story is creating a major blogstorm [4] and is obviously news. Still, I’m not sure what to make of it. He has been in American custody nearly four years, without access to an attorney, and claims to have been subjected to torture. I’m just not sure how seriously to take his claim of responsibility for the 9/11 attack, let alone for all the other crimes. That he’s a liar is a given; that he’s insane, a distinct possibility.
True, in all respects. But then James asks:
How is America safer with this confession than it was Saturday morning?
In several ways….
I respond:
You’re talking about ultimate goals. This is about a major step in that direction.
Illustration: In changing a flat tire, one does not have a rolling car when one has performed the steps of locating the jack, figuring out how to USE said jack, using it, getting the hubcaps off, the wheel loose, and then removed from the vehicle. Those are merely a number of the steps needed to bring about the desired end….a rolling car.
He asks:
And what step would that be? … We’ve presumed from nearly the beginning that KSM was a/the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. We now have ever-so-slightly more evidence in that direction.
And again, I respond:
Well, yes and no… depends on who ‘we’ encompasses.
Mind you, James… this is off the cuff, here.
The left has, for just as long as we’ve held the goon, been suggesting he was a small fish and complaining we’d not captured BinLaden yet…. because, said they, we’re not safe until OBL is caught, supposedly. KSM’s previous claims of responsibility have been discounted by the left, who complained that his admissions were not worth spit because of the ‘torture’ he went through.
So along comes KSM, suggesting this time, it’s a free will offering… which thus eliminates that ‘he was tortuned’ argument. They’ll have no choice but to at least consider he’s been telling the truth.
(As an aside, since his offering now, mirrors almost exactly what he admitted under duress, what does that say to the claims of tourture not being effective, hmmmmmm?)
If we take KSM at his word… (granted a tricky proposition, for reasons we’ve discussed) we see he’s of greater import than BinLaden, if getting the guy responsible for 9/11 was the agenda.
We also find a little wake up call for the anti-war/anti-Bush crowd… whose backside kissing as I said before, doesn’t exempt them from being slaughtered, if this guy and his followers have the chance.
From all of this, we come down to two points, which semi-conflict;
* We were safer all along.. at least in the short term, than many would have us think, given KSM’s out of the picture, he being a bigger fish, in reality, than OBL….
…and…* those who wish us to withdraw (nee, Cut and Run) from this fight, have had a bit of a wakeup call… which makes us safer in the long term… that wakeup call will (one would hope) lessen their stridency against our actions in Iraq and elsewhere… and that left, upon seeing how personal this was getting against their people,too, will finally to start cheering for OUR side, for once.
That last part alone will make us safer…maintaining the resolve to fight.
Mind, I’m not really stupid enough to consider that that last part is going to happen. As if in confirmation one of the usual leftists, over there, pipes up with:
I call b.s. — who, “for just as long as we’ve held” KSM, has said he was a small fish?
My response: [5]
Well, its cheesy the story on OBL and 911 and KSM. KSM is nobody but a small actor in the vast plot..if he was that important, he would not have been caught. He was certainly caught for the purpose of spilling the beans of a supposed OBL plot on 911, plot that resides only in the minds of those who believe in UFO’s etc…
No shock that this is William Arkin’s place at work. The DU was full of this kind of comment as well, at the time.
I’ve been saying for a long time, that the denial from the left that these attacks on the United States and the rest of the world, by the Islam a fascist, are serious business, are the very center of their arguments against the war.
The admission of KSM flies in the face of everything they’ve been claiming. Expect the denials to become more strident over the next week or two.
Update II: Boortz:
So, how long before Ramsey Clark comes knocking to be his defense attorney?