Transcript

This transcription of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's tribunal is immensely interesting. My first reactions:

1. I love how the moment he starts talking about torture and ill treatment by the CIA, things start being [REDACTED].

2. This guy is toast. Not just because he's admitted doing what has now, in mass consciousness, become symbolic of Absolute Evil, but because he has accepted the terms of the trial. I think that psychologically, he has accepted the moral terms in which he will be tried, and that means that he has already found himself guilty in some sense. Fascinating how he has accepted large parts of the US discourse so readily. With the US' worst enemy, the conversation still happens on the US' terms. The same thing happened with Saddam, I remember, though he and Milosevic seemed much more unapologetic during their trials.

3. In those confused ramblings of his, there are numerous entry points to understanding the perspective of Al-Qaeda. I am almost certain none of them will be used.

4. I'm pretty sure he's boasting about some of the operations he was in charge of.

5. He makes a couple of points, which is really sad. He asks for the release of innocents from Guantanamo. "For me, I have patience (...) The Americans have human right." "God knows that many that many who been arrested, they been unjustly arrested." He points out that "enemy combatant itself, it flexible word". How sad that even the terrorists have to point this out.

6. Oh how I wish that Mohammad's trial was carried out in public, under just circumstances. You know, like an actual trial. Actually using democracy to bring down the man who was responsible for 9/11? Imagine the symbolic effect.

7. Near the end of his statement, he says: "military throughout history know very well. They don't war will never stop. War start from Adam when Cain he killed Abel until now. It's never gonna stop killing of people.

He could have been talking about the war on terror.