[...] They died for their friends, their ship, their flag, and they died to teach us a lesson which we have chosen to ignore. We can no longer afford to ignore the Cole and the lack of accountability. That lack of [...]

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I really do not think that they were going to charge anyone with the Cole attack originally. Thats what I was told on the phone with the New York Office of the Prosecuting Attorney Office this past spring, and the DoD this past May. Its only been because of all the heat that has recently been focused on Yemen. Jane Novak has done an excellent job in that area. And with the imprisonment of journalist, and the new Al-Qaeda Chief not playing by Saleh’s rules anymore, the four year old civil war, the water shortage, the families request for a congressional hearing, and why no one was charged with the attack,etc… The Yemen Regime is falling apart. I have speaking with lawyers who are working on the lawsuits against the Saudis by 9/11 families, and the American Families who are trying to finish the collection of monies from Libyia, and other cases. They are all watching Yemen and Bush real close now for various reason. One is because he is no friend of American Victims of Terrorism. They all agree on one thing, Bushs steadfast protection of Yemen is starting to break. They are hoping that this will help them to obtain information that they need. I doubt that seriously though. Its not in Bush’s interest and or Clinton’s either. Nor any of our politicians interest for the Yemen Case to be blown wide open for obivious reasons.
Bush has to take some damage control before Yemen sinks. Good PR. Nothing more. How far will it go? I know the sleazebag will not get the Death Penalty, or it will never be carried out. Not in this Brave New America at least. As for his waterboarding. Big deal. There is a ton of evidence to hang him on.
The Cole Attack and all the questions about our governments cover up, and the Yemeni cover will remain secret until all the American players(politicians) are gone from the stage so as to protect them as usual. How many times have we not see this over and over in our history? Not enough I suppose. Because there are still Americans out there who really believe that our politicians and presidents would never ever contemplate such a thing, let alone do it.

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On 6/20 I got a note from the FBI saying that they were re-looking into the evidence. That’s all I can say for now. To be clear, yes, there is other evidence besides his waterboarding comments. Additionally, his testimony at Gitmo is a clear confession, in the presence of council, and done without the threat of waterboarding.

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Had no time to blog this last night, but here’s a cut-and-paste of recent news:

July 1, 2008
Pentagon announces charges in USS Cole bombing
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:26 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon said Monday it is charging a Saudi Arabian with ”organizing and directing” the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole — and will seek the death penalty.
Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, legal adviser to the U.S. military tribunal system, said charges are being sworn against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi of Yemeni descent, who has been held at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006.
The charges still must be approved by a Defense Department official who oversees military tribunals set up for terrorism suspects. If they are approved, al-Nashiri he will be the first person charged in the United States in connection with the attack nearly eight years ago.
Hartmann said the allegations include conspiracy to violate laws of war, murder, treachery, terrorism, destruction of property and intentionally causing serious bodily injury.
Seventeen American sailors were killed and dozens wounded when the Navy destroyer was attacked in the Yemeni port of Aden as it refueled.
Al-Nashiri is also accused of a role in the Oct. 6, 2002, suicide attack on the Limburg, a French oil tanker, Hartmann said. The attack killed a Bulgarian crew member and spilled 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden.
Al-Nashiri told a hearing at Guantanamo Bay last year that he confessed to helping plot the Cole bombing only because he was tortured by U.S. interrogators.
CIA Director Michael Hayden said early this year that al-Nashiri was among terrorist suspects subjected to waterboarding in 2002 and 2003 while being interrogated in secret CIA prisons.
Asked at a Pentagon press conference if evidence obtained from the waterboarding is tainted, Hartmann said that would be considered at any trial.
”We will look at the evidence, all of the evidence that is associated with the case,” Hartmann said. ”While there has been an admission that there was waterboarding, there may well be other evidence in the case. That’s not … necessarily the only part of evidence in the case.”
According to U.S. intelligence, al-Nashiri was tasked by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden to attack the Cole, and also was al-Qaida’s operations chief in the Arabian Peninsula until he was caught in 2002.
Hartmann read a charge sheet, alleging the following against al-Nashiri:
–He is a member of al-Qaida and met with bin Laden on several occasions.
–He rented apartments overlooking the port of Aden in 1999 to prepare for the Cole attack.
–His co-conspirators failed in an attempt to blow up the USS The Sullivans in January of 2000. Al-Nashiri and others salvaged the explosives and refitted the boat from that plot, then he went to Afghanistan to discuss reorganization of the plot with bin Laden.
–When the Cole entered the port on Oct. 12, 2000, al-Nashiri’s co-conspirators piloted the boat next to the U.S. ship and detonated explosives that blasted a 40-foot hole in the Cole’s side.
At his hearing last year, al-Nashiri acknowledged meeting with bin Laden many times and received as much as a half million dollars. The money, he said, was used for personal expenses, including for marriage and business deals.
Al-Nashiri said he told interrogators that he used some of the money to buy explosives used to bomb the Cole, but in reality he said he gave the explosives to friends to help dig wells. He said he confessed to involvement in several other terror plots in order to get the torture to stop — including the 2002 bombing of the French oil tanker Limburg, plans to bomb American ships in the Gulf, a plan to hijack a plane and crash it into a ship and that bin Laden had a nuclear bomb.
”From the time I was arrested five years ago, they have been torturing me. It happened during interviews. One time they tortured me one way, and another time they tortured me in a different way,” al-Nashiri said, according to the transcript. ”I just said those things to make the people happy. They were very happy when I told them those things.”
Asked why it had taken nearly eight years for the U.S. to charge anyone in the bombing, Hartmann said it takes time to gather and prepare evidence.
Another one of the alleged masterminds in the bombing — Jamal al-Badawi — was convicted in 2004 in Yemen of plotting, preparing and helping carry out the Cole bombing. He is wanted by the FBI, but Yemeni officials have said it is against their constitution to hand him over to the U.S.
The Bush administration maintains waterboarding was legal when it was used by CIA interrogators in 2002 and 2003 on al-Nashiri and top al-Qaida detainees Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah. Hayden said waterboarding was used, in part, because of widespread belief among U.S. intelligence officials that more catastrophic attacks were imminent.
The CIA banned its personnel from using waterboarding in 2006.

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CORRECTION TO MY #26

The Yemen times article on the ship accident is to a tanker explosion. It’s not the ref I thought it was. Posted it without reading it, just relying on memory. Coming back to me now that there was that other incident and for quite a while they claimed that it wasn’t a terror attack, but this isn’t the article I was thinking of about the Cole. Sorry for the error.

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Here are the links I have for Michael Rubin. You can see from what he writes where he stands.

I don’t know if he is interested specifically in the Cole incident, but I thought to send him the info because it was consistent with the article by him that I referenced where he talks of Bush’s broken promises. The email I used was from the first link, but the others have a different one. Maybe he can provide some additional info. I don’t know. I don’t know him except to read his articles, but he is the only one I know of who had written about the problem.

http://www.meib.org/rubin.htm
http://www.meforum.org/meq/editors.php
http://www.aei.org/scholars/filter.all,scholarID.83/scholar.asp

If you can say the name or names of the company/companies running the port, I would be interested for reference. If you go to the Yemen Times article I referred to in my #8, above (first one in title) you will see that they tried to dismiss the attack as an accident of some kind. They must have known it wasn’t (otherwise they aren’t very competent at what they do) or they are lying.

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Yonason,
Who is Mr. Rubin. If you do not mind answering. I forgot to mention this. I think its extremely important too.

When i wrote congress last month the first time. I also asked as to why they had not stop the contracts for the Port in Aden, Yemen. Approximately two weeks later Sen. Kenndy asked at a hearing “why are we still using the Port in Aden, Yemen.” The reporter was baffled because Kenndy just brought the statement up out of the blue.

So then kenndy was informed that the US had not used the Port in Aden since the attack. Now that is pure BS. I have written for close to seven years now about that port, and for our government to stop giving Saleh money for it. i even got a response that the Port was deemed vital.

But the Cole Case is now heating up and attrating attention. I sent the washington post a bunch of stuff. They ran a big article not long after that. I am not saying my stuff was why they did that. But regardless that article has gotten the politicians to sit up and take notice.

Back to the Port. I then sent the government all my research from the Port, including our governments contracts with the Yemenis on the port. The company in question is ran by arabs of course. but it appears that Salehs familiy members have their fingers in the business as well.

And I could not access what the monies were for. Only the amounts. A good size chunk of change.

Something is not quite right big time. For kennedy to just all of a sudden after seven long years to get interested in the port. And then to just tell the reporter that it was an “off the cuff remark”. Who was the remark for?

I have given all my stuff to some international lawyers. i want to know about the port. And there were two articles from the New York Times that stated back after the initial attack that the Company that ran the port was partially responsible for security of the Cole when she docked at the port. that the FBI was extremely interested in the company. But then it went cold. End of story. Nothing else ever written about it. Jane spent some time researching the Company too. She found where they have even more contracts with our government.

I just know that since I have sent all that stuff that things are starting to happen. I think that maybe they are trying to do some preventive PR damage control.

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This is what I meant when I said Bush was being “consistent” in his behavior (last sentence in my #8, above) by promising not to forget the USS Cole, but appearing to do just that.

I just looked up M.Rubin’s email, and sent him that link from Mr. Swenchonis’ blog so he can add it to his database of Mr. Bush’s broken promises.

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http://terrorismpolitician.blogspot.com/2008/05/president-bushs-letter.html

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Incredible…

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