Maybe Khalid Shaikh Mohammad isn’t going to get that plea deal after all

The New Neo Posted on by

I guess the feedback on the plea deal was awful, because Secretary of Defense Austin has said not so fast:

The deal that stirred national outrage and took the death penalty off of the table has been revoked by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III in a terse memo.

Secretary Austin III is now taking the lead on the case for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi.

In his order, Austin relieved the official in charge of the military commission who had signed off on the original plea deals. …

No explanation was given on why this was not settled earlier before the deals were signed off and publicly released. …

The powerful House Armed Services Committee announced earlier Friday it was launching an investigation into the plea deals, which Chairman Mike Rogers, R.-La., called “unconscionable.”

Did Austin not know what was going on until it became public? Or did he not realize what outrage it would cause? Who’s minding the store here?

The reason it’s Austin, by the way, is that the trial is a military one and so the military is in charge.

And this is the ostensible reason the plea deal was settled in the first place:

[The defendants’] past torture is largely responsible for bogging down the case, since prosecutors and defense attorneys have been arguing for years over whether evidence obtained through torture is admissible in court. In a recent ruling that did not bode well for 9/11 prosecutors, a judge in another different Guantánamo case — the U.S.S. Cole warship bombing — threw out a confession because he said it was a product of torture.

That legal development may have played a role in the U.S. government deciding to settle the 9/11 case.

Who made the decision to settle?:

In a statement, the National Security Council said that “the President and the White House played no role in this process” and learned of the plea bargains on Wednesday.

No one bothered to tell them? And they didn’t bother to keep tabs on what was happening? Excuse me but, WTF? We are supposed to believe they are mind-bogglingly negligent – or they are just plain lying. They are fully capable of either or both, as we’ve learned many times before.

NOTE: I’ve previously written on the subject of the KSM case. Here’s a post that explains some of the reasons it’s taken so long – including that Obama wanted these people tried in civil courts rather than military courts. Astounding. Fortunately, he lost that fight.

I also have written quite a few posts on the subject of torture: see this one, for example.

Will Harris choose Shapiro?

The New Neo Posted on by

I am heartily sick of writing about Kamala Harris or even thinking about her. Likewise with the 2024 election as a whole.

I sometimes believe that some combination of rigging and fraud moots everything I might say about the candidates anyway. I sometimes think well, perhaps not.

I didn’t want Trump to run again; he has too much baggage. But I plan to vote for him. However, I don’t fool myself into thinking the press and the left/Democrats wouldn’t have tried to destroy anyone on the right who might have run instead of Trump. We can see, for example, what they’re doing to Vance. But we also saw what they did to Romney, one of the most moderate of Republicans.

Contrast that to how they suddenly find themselves entranced with Harris. It reminds me of nothing so much as those old-time movies in which the eyeglassed secretary finally takes off those glasses and voila! Turns out she’s irresistible.

The MSM will cooperate fully in making Harris into something wonderful in many voters’ eyes. They may be low information voters who haven’t paid any attention to what Kamala has or hasn’t done as VP or earlier, and the press will make sure that only the right is discussing those negatives. And of course, Kamala would be the first female president as well as the first black female president. So she’s demographically even better than Obama, in a way.

The point Trump made the other day, that Harris is far more Indian than black, doesn’t matter with most people. She is at least part black, and that may be good enough – with the full cooperation of the media.

Also, the Democrats will make sure she isn’t too exposed, just as with Biden in 2020. They never would have swapped Biden out for Harris if Joe’s mask hadn’t dropped for all to see, but that’s what happened and now they are determined to keep Kamala’s mask on until Election Day.

So what of Harris’ running mate? Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania, makes some sense because the Democrats need Pennsylvania. But Shapiro has a big negative in terms of this particular race by this particular Democrat Party: he’s Jewish. He also has gone on record with some pro-Israel remarks – in particular, something he wrote long ago at the age of 21:

“Palestinians will not coexist peacefully,” Shapiro wrote in the piece. “They do not have the capabilities to establish their own homeland and make it successful even with the aid of Israel and the United States. They are too battle-minded to be able to establish a peaceful homeland of their own.”

Shapiro’s spokesperson, Manuel Bonder, told Newsweek that the decades-old comments are not indicative of what Shapiro believes today. He said the governor supports a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Half of the Democrats are pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, and anti-Jewish, and even that waffling by Shapiro would probably not be enough for them to approve of him. But would it matter? Would the costs of a Shapiro as VP candidate be greater than the benefits? That’s the calculus Harris and her advisors must weigh. She may end up avoiding the problem by choosing someone else, but it must be tempting to go with Shapiro because he would almost certainly deliver Pennsylvania.

The choice of Shapiro, who is what passes for a moderate Democrat these days, would also be a signal from Harris that she is moving to the center – or, more correctly, pretending to move to the center. But there are other “moderate” Democrats who aren’t Jewish, and they probably would be safer bets.

Striking an Olympic blow against women

The New Neo Posted on by

By now you’e probably read about the Olympic women’s boxing match in which a genetic male’s blows were so hard that the female opponent gave up after 46 seconds, in dramatic fashion:

Italy’s Angela Carini quit 46 seconds into her Olympic boxing match with Imane Khelif on Thursday, after the Algerian – who failed a gender eligibility test last year – landed the first significant punch of the fight.

The pair were competing in the women’s 66kg category, in a round-of-16 bout in Paris, but the fight had barely begun before it came to a premature end.

After an early pause in the fight, due to Carini needing to adjust her head guard, Khelif landed a clean right hand. Almost immediately, Carini motioned to her team and opted against continuing, with the referee waving off the contest. …

After Khelif’s hand was raised, Carini dropped to her knees in tears. Before and after that moment, the Italian twice seemed to ignore Khelif’s attempts to console her.

Carini could also be heard telling her coach, “It’s not right, it’s not right!” before promptly leaving the arena. The Telegraph and BBC reported that Carini had suffered a suspected broken nose, and the 25-year-old soon told reporters that she had never been punched so hard in her career. Khelif, also 25, did not stop to answer questions.

Initially I imagined – as you may have also assumed – that Khelif was transgender. But, although we don’t know the details, that’s apparently not the case. Khelif is definitely a genetic male: XY. But he may have something called androgen insensitivity syndrome, which muddies the waters somewhat.

When I was in grad school I had to memorize a huge list of such sex/gender anomalies. They are all rare but they are true cases in which it can sometimes be difficult to assign a sex. For example, for androgen insensitivity, the genetic male’s body cannot use its testosterone and the person becomes feminized to a greater or lesser degree. At times, the phenotype is completely female and such a person probably would do well and not have an unfair advantage if allowed to enter women’s sports. However – and it’s a big however – some people with the disorder are predominantly male in appearance. If Khelif has this condition, he would be of the latter type, and IMHO should not be competing against women.

You can read about it here:

There are two categories of androgen insensitivity syndrome: complete and partial.

In complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, the body does not respond to androgen at all. This form of the syndrome occurs in as many as 1 in 20,000 births.

In partial androgen insensitivity syndrome, the body responds partially to androgen. Partial androgen insensitivity occurs at about the same rate as complete androgen insensitivity syndrome.

Babies born with the “complete” type appear to be girls, are raised as girls, and often don’t find out they are XY until they try to have children. But babies born with the partial type exhibit a wide range of possible symptoms:

Babies born with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome may have sexual characteristics that are typical of a male, a female, or both. They may have a partial closing of the outer vagina, an enlarged clitoris and a short vagina. They may be raised as males or as females and have a male or female gender identity.

Other symptoms of partial androgen insensitivity syndrome include failure of one or both of the testicles to descend into the scrotum after birth and an abnormal penis in which the urethra opens on the underside, instead of at the tip. In the least severe cases, the only sign of androgen insensitivity syndrome is male infertility.

As I said, so far the Olympics officials are keeping mum on exactly what’s going on with Khelif, but my guess is that it really is a case of partial androgen insensitivity syndrome. But because Khelif appears to be quite far down on the “mild” scale of things, he (and I think on the whole that’s the proper pronoun for Khelif) should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports.

The Olympics officials probably based their decision on Khelif’s testosterone level. But that’s irrelevant at this point, because he quite obviously has a male phenotype in terms of musculature and almost certainly had enough testosterone getting into his system during adolescence to make permanent changes in his strength that make him more like a man than the women he is facing in the ring.

Back from my trip out west

The New Neo Posted on by

Bet you didn’t know I was away, did you? I’ve just returned from a fairly lengthy trip out west, and now I’m in re-entry: laundry, groceries, reconnecting with friends.

The trip was long because I combined a bunch of things, but mostly visiting friends and family – heavy on the family – in several places. Some of it involved seeing relatives who are ill and from my generation (there is no older generation anymore). Some of it involved my son and my grandchildren. And some of it involved an actual trip, which I may write more about in a later post.

But for now, here’s a photo I took while on the vacation part. Can you guess where? There are no filters or special effects here; this was the true color as I saw it. If anything, it was even more intense, and of course the view was more panoramic than the photo shows:

And then there’s the plea deal with Khalid Shaikh Mohammad

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s what the Defense Department has to say about it: not much.

The Convening Authority for Military Commissions, Susan Escallier, has entered into pretrial agreements with Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, three of the co-accused in the 9/11 case. The specific terms and conditions of the pretrial agreements are not available to the public at this time.

Here’s more about the details, from less official sources:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi have been held at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for years without going to trial.

In exchange for the prosecution agreeing not to seek the death penalty, the trio have agreed to plead guilty to all of the charged offenses, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charge sheet.

Let’s assume that’s the case – it’s certainly what’s being widely reported. Among other things, it’s interesting to me that these guys who talk such a line about how wonderful martyrdom for the Cause is seem to nevertheless to value their own lives rather highly. The again, confessing to the murder of almost three thousand people is probably nothing to them, because they consider the murders highly justified.

More:

Brett Eagleson, the president of 9/11 Justice, an organisation that represents 9/11 survivors and relatives of victims, said in a statement provided to the BBC that the families are “deeply troubled by these plea deals”.

He said the process lacked transparency and urged the authorities to pursue more information on the role of Saudi Arabia in the attacks.

Terry Strada, who lost her husband Tom, told the BBC’s Today Programme: “It was a gut-punch to hear that there was a plea deal today that was giving the detainees in Guantanamo Bay what they want.”

Ms Strada, the national chair of the campaign group 9/11 Families United, added: “This is a victory for Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and the other two, it’s a victory for them,” she said.

Agreed.

This should be hammered home by Republicans during the 2024 campaign.

NOTE: Keeping them alive probably also encourages the taking of hostages by other jihadis, in order to make a deal during a Democrat administration to free them.

Russian prisoner swap releases WSJ journalist

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s the biggest swap with Russia since the Cold War days:

The Wall Street Journal has praised the release of three Americans, including reporter Evan Gershkovich, as part of a historic prisoner swap between Russia and the US.

Gershkovich’s release was negotiated along with that of former marine Paul Whelan and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmashevas, as part of a major inmate swap with Moscow.

A total of 24 prisoners from seven different countries were freed – making it the largest and most complex East-West inmate exchange since the Cold War era.

It’s good that the Western prisoners are free now. But prisoner swaps are almost always bad, and they have very bad consequences: they encourage the imprisonment of Westerners by tyrannical governments in order to effect such swaps.

Who were the people freed by the West in exchange? We don’t know all of their identities, but we have an idea:

Four Russians detained in the US on charges including murder, cyber crime, smuggling and money laundering were thought to possibly be part of the exchange.

The Moscow Times reported the individuals recently disappeared from the federal inmates’ database in America.

Details of exactly who has been released have not been made public yet.

This guy seems to have been the star:

Krasikov, 58, was imprisoned in Germany for the Aug. 23, 2019, murder of Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, who was shot and killed in a park in Berlin, according to The Associated Press. Khangoshvili, 40, was a Georgian citizen who had fought Russian troops in Chechnya and claimed asylum in Germany.

Witnesses reportedly saw the shooter throw a bike, a gun and a dark wig into a nearby river. Police arrested him before he could make a run for it on an electric scooter.

Krasikov was convicted for the killing and sentenced to life in prison in 2021.

An assassin let go in exchange for a journalist imprisoned on fake charges? Fabulous. But that’s the main reason the journalist was sentenced in the first place – to be used as a pawn in just such a deal.

And I’m pretty certain the deal took place at this time because it met the needs of both Putin and Biden/Harris: Putin because if Trump gets elected the terms of the bargain would be more difficult for Putin, and Biden because he can get a lot of praise for it.

Trump spars with black journalists …

The New Neo Posted on by

… and what you think about what he said depends on what you think of Trump – because at the venue, Trump was his inimitable self.

The left will try to make hay of it. People on the right either sincerely believe, or perhaps merely hope, that Trump’s remarks will strike a chord with many black voters as well as others.

Here’s a lengthy discussion of the questions that were asked, and Trump’s answers, including videos. The quote that’s been discussed more than any other is this:

SCOTT: Those are the words for, “DEI,” Sir. I’m asking you a question, I’ve defined it for you. Do you believe VP Kamala Harris is only on the ticket because she is a Black woman?

TRUMP: Well, I can say, maybe it’s a little bit different. I’ve known her for a long time indirectly, not directly so much. She was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn, “Black,” and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?

SCOTT: She’s always identified as a Black woman. …

TRUMP: You know what? I respect either one, I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t. Because she was Indian all the way, and all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person. And I think someone should look into that too, when you ask and continue in a very hostile, nasty tone.

SCOTT: It’s a direct question, sir, do you believe that Vice President Kamala Harris is a DEI hire?

TRUMP: I really don’t know. I mean, I really don’t know. Could be, could be. There are some.

At the link there is also evidence that on many occasions – such as when Harris was sworn in as a senator – on which she identified primarily as being of Indian ethnicity.

I find Trump’s communication style fascinating. It’s a kind of free-form jazz riff that seems haphazard but is usually crafted to give the intended message to those who are ready to hear it, often in an amusing and unique way. This passage is no different. But those who can’t stand Trump tend to hear him as a loudmouthed bigot. So that communication style is both his strength and his weakness, but either way it’s his signature approach.

The question, of course, was a “gotcha” one, as were nearly all the questions. How might he have answered instead? He could have given a more boring version of the same thing, such as: “Whether or not Kamala Harris is a DEI hire, she plays the ethnicity card very well, and the ethnicity she emphasizes changes depending on her audience: sometimes Indian, sometimes black.” Would that have helped? I don’t think so, because he wanted to get the attention of black listeners (or any listeners) who might be susceptible to his sort of plain speaking and then have them ponder what he was actually saying, which is that Kamala is a shape-shifting racial opportunist. Dramatic remarks are better for that than bland remarks.

Or he might have just dodged the question and said: “I don’t know. But whether she was or wasn’t a DEI hire, she has been an integral part of a failed administration and as VP has no accomplishments to her credit.” Would that have been better? Maybe; darned if I know. I doubt it would have gotten the widespread coverage he wants. His actual remarks certainly accomplished that.

The odd thing is that of course Kamala was a DEI hire and everyone knows it. How do they know it? Joe Biden basically said it when he announced that his pick needed to be a black woman. Not “the best person for the job,” but a person hired for ethnicity and sex. He was upfront about it.

So another response might have been to quote Biden on it. However, then the rejoinder would have been something like, “Are you suggesting that limiting the choice to a black woman means that by definition it wouldn’t be the best person for the job?” Another trap.

All questions asked by leftist media are traps for Trump. He negotiates them in the way he thinks will reach people who still might be reached.

ADDENDUM: More here from Ace.

Is the Kamala coronation running into problems?

The New Neo Posted on by

This RedState author thinks so.

As for me, I think it’s way too early to know or even to hazard a guess. The last few weeks have been so – to use a word that seems to be current these days, weird – that I’m not making any prognostications.

I will say, however, that the only Democrat friend of mine with whom I’ve talked so far about Kamala doesn’t like her at all, and is quite angry at the way Harris seems to have been installed as the heir designate. My friend is a Democrat who would never, never ever, vote for Trump, but she thinks Kamala is a weak candidate and would make a lousy president. My friend would much prefer an open convention.

Make of that what you will; it’s an n of one, but I think it’s interesting.

Calley and My Lai

The New Neo Posted on by

William Calley has died at eighty. For those of us old enough to have been sentient during the Vietnam War, Calley’s name is instantly recognizable as one of the major players in the horrific and shameful My Lai massacre. He was the only person prosecuted, although hardly the only person involved.

I’ve written several previous posts about My Lai: for example, this as well as this. The latter contains some quotes based on an article that no longer can be found at the URL in that post; here’s a reference to the article but not the article itself. (If anyone can find the actual article, please give the URL in the comments).

But here are some quotes from the original article, taken from my 2005 post about the article. I think you’ll see why I think it is extremely relevant to present-day events – specifically, the activities of Hamas and other Islamic terror groups – as well as shedding light on what happened in My Lai:

The Viet Cong conducted a guerrilla war that can best be described as “clutching the people to their breast.” They disguised themselves as civilians, hid amongst civilians, often fortified villages (with noncombatants being the vast majority of the population), and even used civilians of all ages and both sexes (little children, women, and old men, included) for logistical support, intelligence, and to plant mines and booby traps. There was widespread belief among American soldiers that the Viet Cong would use the type of civilians mentioned above to throw grenades. An expert on the Vietnamese army remarked that “the Vietnamese communists erased entirely the line between military and civilian by ruling out the notion of noncombatant.” …

A member of the Viet Cong would later confirm that: “Children were trained to throw grenades, not only for the terror factor, but so the government or American soldiers would have to shoot them. Then the Americans feel very ashamed. And they blame themselves and call their soldiers war criminals.” It was not rare for small children to wave an American patrol into a booby trap or minefield. Additionally, the Viet Cong would use women and children as lethal ploys or ruses to lead Americans into deadly ambushes. Female Viet Congs were just as effective as their male counterparts, especially in sniper fire. In other words, the civilians were not exactly sitting out the war. American servicemen soon grew wary and suspicious of all Vietnamese. …

… C Co.’s first casualty comes from a booby trap on 28 January 1968. The following month, on 25 February 1968, C Co. walked into a minefield. CPT Medina kept his head and, after three died and twelve suffered serious injuries, managed to lead his soldiers out. The soldiers of C Co. blamed the Vietnamese villagers nearby who failed to warn them of the minefield and booby traps.

1LT Calley, who had just returned from leave, saw the helicopters transporting the dead and wounded. 1LT Calley also noticed that, from that point on, the attitude of his soldiers toward Vietnamese children had changed — they no longer gave them candy, and kicked them away. According to one account, 1LT Calley could hardly restrain his satisfaction when he said “Well, I told you so.” Prior to the minefield incident, Task Force Barker had failed on two separate attempts to trap the 48th LF Bn in the Quang Ngai Province. During the second attempt, A Co. came under heavy automatic and mortar fire coming from My Lai 4., the second time in a month that Task Force Barker had encountered resistance from around the hamlet of My Lai. Its company commander is among the fifteen wounded, five other soldiers died.

After the minefield incident, C Co.’s esprit de cops and morale sagged and eventually vanished. They went down to 105 soldiers. To make matters even worse, on 14 March 1968, SGT George Cox, an NCO well liked and respected by the soldiers of C Co., an NCO with a reputation for looking after his soldiers, was killed by a booby trap while on patrol. Since arriving in Vietnam three months earlier, C Co. had suffered twenty-eight casualties, including five killed. All the casualties were caused by mines, booby traps, and snipers.

None of this information is meant to excuse anything that happened in My Lai at the hands of the American soldiers. But it gives the background events leading up to the massacre.