Why the U.S. Has a Quarter of the World's Prisoners

I can think of no greater hell on earth than spending day after day in a little box. What about non-violent offenders? The drug addicts, the bad check writers, the people that are filling up jails and costing money?

The number of prisoners in prisons for drugs equals the total number of prisoners in 1980! The good news: in the past 20 years spending for higher education has increased 21%. The bad news: in that same 20 years, spending for prisons increased 127%. That is creating criminals, not citizens.

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Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is the self-described mastermind

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11th attacks, a man who called himself a "jackal" and who explained away the 3,000 victims of that day by saying "the language of war is victims." At least that is what he has told American interrogators, and what he said at a closed hearing in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, after being held in secret prisons for close to four years.
On Dec. 8, 2008, Mr. Mohammed, along with four co-defendants, sent a note to a military judge at Guantánamo asking to confess and to plead guilty.
Mr. Mohammed, an ethnic Baluchi, was born in Kuwait on April 24, 1965. He is the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. After graduation from secondary school, he enrolled at Chowan College in Murfreesboro, N.C. and then transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. He graduated in 1986, earning a degree in mechanical engineering.
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, his only involvement with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was conversations with Mr. Yousef, and some contributions to the conspirators. He traveled to the Philippines with Mr. Yousef in 1994 and worked on the Bojinka plot -- a plan to explode 12 commercial jets over the Pacific. They also made plans to assassinate President Clinton on his November 1994 trip to Manila. The Bojinka plot fell apart and in 1995 Mr. Yousef was arrested in Pakistan.

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Alleged 9/11 Plotters Offer to Confess at Guantánamo

The five Guantánamo detainees charged with coordinating the Sept. 11 attacks told a military judge on Monday that they wanted to confess in full, a move that seemed to challenge the government to put them to death.
The request, which was the result of hours of private meetings among the detainees, appeared intended to undercut the government’s plan for a high-profile trial while drawing international attention to what some of the five men have said was a desire for martyrdom.
But the military judge, Col. Stephen R. Henley of the Army, said a number of legal questions about how the commissions are to deal with capital cases had to be resolved before guilty pleas could be accepted.
The case is likely to remain in limbo for weeks or months, presenting the Obama administration with a new issue involving detainees at the naval base at Guantánamo Bay to resolve when it takes office next month.
At the start of what had been listed as routine proceedings Monday, Judge Henley said he had received a written statement from the five men dated Nov. 4 saying they planned to stop filing legal motions and “to announce our confessions to plea in full.”
Speaking in what has become a familiar high-pitched tone in the cavernous courtroom here, the most prominent of the five, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, said, “we don’t want to waste our time with motions.”
“All of you are paid by the U.S. government,” continued Mr. Mohammed, who has described himself as the mastermind of the 2001 attacks. “I’m not trusting any American.”
Mr. Mohammed and the others presented their decision almost as a dare to the American government. When Judge Henley raised questions about the procedure for imposing the death penalty after a guilty plea, some of the detainees immediately suggested they might change their minds if they could not be assured they would be executed.
The announcement Monday sent shockwaves through the biggest case in the war crimes system here — the case for which some government officials say the system was expressly devised. With the case suddenly at a critical juncture, President-elect Barack Obama may find it more complicated to carry out his pledge to close the detention camp here.
Brooke Anderson, a spokeswoman for the presidential transition office, declined to comment.
Military prosecutors have sought the death penalty against all five men since filing charges last February in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
Mr. Mohammed has emerged as the outspoken leader of the detainees in the courtroom and, presumably, behind closed doors. In September, Mr. Mohammed requested permission for the men — three of whom are defending themselves — to meet without lawyers to plan their defense. A military judge granted the request with the approval of the prosecution, and the men met several times for a total of 27 hours and prepared a written statement.
On Monday, Judge Henley methodically questioned each man to determine if he agreed with the joint statement.
One of the five detainees, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, told the judge, “We the brothers, all of us, would like to submit our confession.” Mr. bin al-Shibh is charged with being the primary contact between the operation’s organizers and the Sept. 11 hijackers.
National security specialists said the strategy appeared orchestrated by Mr. Mohammed, who has repeatedly tried to turn to the legal process into an international platform.
“These guys are smart enough to know that they’re not ever going to see the light of day again,” said Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal terrorism prosecutor who is chairman of the Center for Law and Counterterrorism in Washington. “I think they’re trying to make as big a publicity splash as they can.”

Pakistan arrests suspected Mumbai attack plotter

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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Troops raided a militant camp and arrested a suspected mastermind of the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan's first reported response to U.S. and Indian demands for action against alleged plotters on its soil, officials said Monday.
The arrest in Pakistani Kashmir of Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi could signal the beginning of a wider crackdown aimed at reducing tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors and satisfying Washington.
Lakhvi is allegedly a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned group blamed for other attacks on its soil. Analysts say it was created in the 1980s by Pakistan's intelligence agencies to act as a proxy fighting force in Indian Kashmir.
Many analysts suspect elements within Pakistan's intelligence agencies keep some links with Lashkar and other militants, either to use against India or in neighboring Afghanistan, but U.S. counterterrorism officials say there is no evidence linking Pakistan state agencies to the Mumbai attacks.
The United States says Lashkar is linked to al-Qaida. In May, the U.S. blocked the assets of Lakhvi and three other alleged members of the group, including its leader, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed.
Indian officials in New Delhi and Islamabad were not available for comment.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack did not confirm Lakhvi's arrest, but said the reported raid was a "positive step."
India says the 10 gunmen who killed 171 people in the country's financial hub on Nov. 26-29 were Pakistani members of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Washington said Sunday the attack was planned in Pakistan.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since 1947, but their ties had been improving in recent years. U.S. officials fear a serious disruption would dent its hopes for regional stability needed to better fight al-Qaida along the Afghan border.
Backed by a helicopter, the troops grabbed Lakhvi and at least 11 other suspected militants Sunday in a raid on the riverbank camp run by Lashkar-e-Taiba, two officials said.
Before the militants were subdued, there was a brief gunfight that wounded several extremists, said the officials from the government and the intelligence agency. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
People living near the camp heard several loud explosions, but reporters Monday were prevented from traveling to the scene close to the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, Muzaffarabad.
Indian officials say the sole Mumbai attacker captured alive has told them that Lakhvi recruited him for the mission and that Lakhvi and another militant, Yusuf Muzammil, planned the operation.
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