Conservatives, please help me out here. Who's responsible for the attack on the USS Cole? According to the Pentagon, it was Bin Laden, then it was Khalid Sheik Muhammad, then it was Muhammad Salih bin Attash, now it's Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri? WTF, how can they charge so many different people/groups with the same crime?



Al-Nashiri mastermined the attack under the direction of Osama bin Laden. Jamal al Badawi was probably the chief coordinator in Yemen. Fahd al Quso was supposed to film the attack, but he overslept and did not arrive in time

http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/uss_cole_bombing.htm

A detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has admitted to helping orchestrate the bombings of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1998 and the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.

The Defense Department today released the transcript of Walid Muhammad Salih bin Attash’s combat status review tribunal hearing, held March 12 at the detention facility. The tribunal was an administrative hearing to determine only if Attash could be designated an enemy combatant.



http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=32503


12. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Reportedly arrested on March 1, 2003, Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Kuwaiti (Pakistani parents), suspected al-Qaeda, alleged to have “masterminded” Sept. 11 attacks, killing of Daniel Pearl, and USS Cole attack in 2000. Listed in “George W. Bush: Record of Achievement, Waging and Winning the War on Terror,” available on the White House website. Previously listed as “disappeared” by Human Rights Watch.

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/11/30/usdom12109.htm




U.S. finds link between bin Laden and Cole bombing

December 7, 2000
Web posted at: 10:25 p.m. EST (0325 GMT)
In this story:

U.S. pleased with progress

Cole to arrive Wednesday

RELATED STORIES, SITES icon

LONDON, England (CNN) -- U.S. officials said Thursday there is evidence linking suspects in the October 12 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen with known operatives of accused terrorist Osama bin Laden's organization.


Sources have identified two key suspects in the attack, who are under arrest in Yemen, as Gamal Al Badawi and Faad Al Quoso.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/12/07/cole.suspect/


I have no idea what to think. This reminds me of the old school southern justice. Where if one minority was accused of a crime, they'll punish anyone who fits the ethnic description, no matter if they really did it or not.

There are two options:

1) It was a false-flag operation.

2) We know damn well who did it, but using this technique works well enough that we can use one attack as an excuse to go after 90 different people.

I don't know the details but I am assuming that ... let's say, Bin Laden is the Asshole in Chief who gave the order, then KSM (or another person) planned it, and a 3rd person was the ring leader of the team who executed it, so all the implicated assholes were in on it, but in a different capacity.

I don't know the details but I am assuming that ... let's say, Bin Laden is the Asshole in Chief who gave the order, then KSM (or another person) planned it, and a 3rd person was the ring leader of the team who executed it, so all the implicated assholes were in on it, but in a different capacity.

That's not how the elite Terrorist Organizations conduct their operations. To minimize chatter in the intelligence community the details as to when, where, and how, the terrorist attack will be carried out is only known by a select few. Who're the select few? The same group of individuals who produce the numerous propaganda video's that are promoted gleefully by the MSM.

The only operatives that are privy to the operational details are those who're physically involved in carrying out the attack. It's not shared between various factions on multiple continents.

The one thing all of these individuals have in common is that their admission of guilt was made while being tortured. Remember, the CIA officers themselves cracked in under 15 seconds when they tested the technique amongst themselves. People will admit to anything while being tortured. Just as John McCain did. He made 32 propaganda tapes for the vietcong during this 5 year imprisonment. So how do we know if we have the right guys? If the physical evidence is stong enough you shouldn't need an admission of guilt.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=1322866

It's not about admitting guilt, it's about gathering information.

That's not how the elite Terrorist Organizations conduct their operations.
How do you know?

And anyway, any organization has a sort of hierarchy and division of responsibilities.

It was probably the Israelis.

It's not about admitting guilt, it's about gathering information. Historically and cross-culturally, torture as policy has not been about gathering information. It's been about obtaining confessions or other validations of the torturer's authority, and intimidating enemy or subject peoples.

True to form, the US torture policies have produced many confessions. Some to physical impossibilities, some to conflicting and unsupported versions of events, some whose validity is unknown.

I wonder if anyone assumed to be influential in AQ and tortured by US interrogators has failed to confess to involvement in the Cole bombings ?

Historically and cross-culturally, torture as policy has not been about gathering information. It's been about obtaining confessions or other validations of the torturer's authority, and intimidating enemy or subject peoples.

True to form, the US torture policies have produced many confessions. Some to physical impossibilities, some to conflicting and unsupported versions of events, some whose validity is unknown.

I wonder if anyone assumed to be influential in AQ and tortured by US interrogators has failed to confess to involvement in the Cole bombings ?

Supposedly, we've been using it not to get confessions, but to gather intel. To learn where certain people are and what they are planning. I don't know how true it is, but it's all I--or anyone else--has to go by.

I also have no idea how effective it is when you're actually trying to get specifics out of someone rather than just a simple confession.

I don't know how true it is, but it's all I--or anyone else--has to go by. We have more than that to go by. We have the history of such behaviors by other governments, the continual dishonesty and coverup surrounding them, the published results such as they are, the extensive analysis of such governmental behaviors by Western intellectuals over hundreds of years, the involvement of our government in such behaviors by other governments whose nature and motives are easier to see, the alignment of the actual policy enactments with the declared goals, and so forth.

One key observation: the US has established a policy of torture, and such policies are normally evaluated on a policy level even by the most cynical and amoral of evaluators - it's not whether torture "works" in some individual case, but what the overall costs and benefits are.

And the overall costs to info gathering and intel of a torture policy are very, very high. Abu Ghraib's photos alone, for example, have been seriously blamed for losing Iraq for the US. That's exaggerated, probably, but what intel could possibly have come from that prison that would make up for the effects of making the US occupation odious and insupportable by decent Iraqis ? Or was the plan to somehow keep the nature of that prison secret from the Iraqis?

Conservatives, please help me out here. Who's responsible for the attack on the USS Cole?
Don't know.

Don't need to know.

Revenge is still in progress.

No one has offered those responsible for the Cole bombing as a gift.

We have no considerate favor to return.

Darwinist rules.

That's not how the elite Terrorist Organizations conduct their operations.

indeed - so that's Bin Laden ruled out as a suspect

It was an exploding tuna.