The Latest 20th Hijacker

Alex Koppelman writes about the latest 20th Hijacker.

So you know the story. Three planes on 9/11 had 5 hijackers, but United 93 only had 4. People assume there was supposed to be a fifth but who is it? Well the government has had no shortage of suspects, or should I say false certainties.

The original 20th hijacker was Zacarias Moussaoui. He was just sentenced to life in prison for being involved. Remember everyone was so sure, and then not. And even though in the end Moussaoui was claiming he was, even he prosecuters didn't think he was.

Then there was Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, but no it wasn't him.

Then there was Mohammad al-Qahtani. "[E]vidence introduced at Moussaoui's trial, including testimony quoting 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, implicated al-Qahtani." Turns out al-Qahtani had been captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and has been held in Guantanamo, and of course interrogated. A year ago Time magazine described it after getting "an 84-page secret interrogation log" from November 2, 2002 to January 11, 2003. Yeah, people would call this torture. Oh and Rumsfeld personally approved many of the techinques used on al-Qahtani.

Now it seems the 20th hijacker was really Fawaz al-Nashimi. This Wednesday an AP Story reports "In a statement accompanying a new video, [al-Qaida]'s propaganda arm identified Fawaz al-Nashimi, ... as the operative who would have rounded out a team that ultimately took over United Airlines Flight 93."

Koppelman points out that the reporting on this leaves out all the context. And he's right, the stories on al-Nashimi barely mention al-Qahtani. Let me just quote the end of Koppelman's article: "Let's go over that again. The military, under the direction of the current secretary of defense, abused al-Qahtani to a degree that horrified at least one Army investigator, allegedly forced a confession out of him, and then government officials trumpeted him as the definitive 20th hijacker. Now it turns out all that -- the sleep deprivation, the humiliation, the 'degrading and abusive' treatment -- may have been aimed at the wrong man."

We tortured him.

Look, you capture someone in a war, you identify them as a "prisoner of war", you don't make up some new term and then say the rules of war don't apply. You think you found a guy involved with 9/11, you try and hopefully convict them in a court of law. There are reasons for laws and we tout the fact that we are a nation of laws. You don't follow the law, you get tried, and if convicted, you go to jail. Even if you're the President.