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newsAlso in this section:
Dolphin capture opponents mobilize, promoters respond Allegation of an Al Qaeda plot to attack the canal
Has the old Inter-American Air Force Academy really been demilitarized? Latest US State Department report on human rights in Panama
May
trial of civil suit about US-based company hiring Colombian death squad
by Eric Jackson
As the controversy around stripping the federal courts of jurisdiction over prisoners held at Guantanamo swirls and in the midst of ugly scandals about poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Hospital and orders to reclassify soldiers found medically unfit for duty as fit to be sent back to Iraq or Afghanistan, the Pentagon made a stunning March 15 announcement. It declassified and released a transcript of a purported confession by the highest ranking Al Qaeda leader in US custody, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. In that document the man is said to have admitted being the head of the movement's military committee and having supervised virtually all of its attacks, including the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, plus a number of other actions around the world that for various reasons were never carried out.
"I was responsible for planning, training, surveying, and financing for the Operation to bomb and destroy the Panama Canal," the document reported Muhammad to have admitted.
The Panamanian government hasn't had anything to say about this, nor has it ever said very much about the increased security measures that it has taken since the World Trade Center was taken down. It is known, however, that with US advice and assistance canal protection has been beefed up.
The Panama Canal is not as vulnerable to attack as many people have supposed. A satchel of explosives will usually not be enough to destroy an 80-ton steel lock gate or the 18-ton gears that move it. Take out a control room and there will be a backup. Punch a hole in the Gatun Dam and it can be patched, with lost water replaced by opening the gates at Madden Dam. But blow up a propane tanker while it's in the locks and the combined loss of lives and damage to the facility would be very disruptive. There are even more horrifying possibilities that nobody responsible has ever wanted to write about for the general public.
The claim that Al Qaeda wanted to "blow up and destroy" the canal is ambitious but not outside the realm of possibility.
It is also likely that Panama has already been the target of Islamic fanatics. The 1994 bombing of a commuter plane carrying mostly Jewish passengers from the Colon Free Zone to Panama City took place within 24 hours of the bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina and is thought by Israeli authorities to be the work of the Lebanese Hezbollah. The action bears certain similarities to the Al Qaeda modus operandi as well, and it's unlikely that the Shiite Hezbollah and the bigoted Sunnis attracted to Osama bin Laden would have much to do with one another. Officially in Panama, the commuter plane bombing remains an unsolved crime.
The large number of actions for which Muhammad claimed responsibility would imply several things. First, it could mean that he's simply making a falsely exaggerated confession, for whatever reason. Second, if it's true, then it would mean that he had a certain overall responsibility but must have had a wide network of other people on the ground in many countries, including in Panama, to do the work.
It again raises the question of whether Panama is home to an Al Qaeda cell.
One of the controversies in this case is that, according to some Democrats in Congress, Muhammad claimed in his declaration that he had been tortured but this part of the document has remained classified by the Bush administration. A confession extracted under torture was the norm in Stalin's purge trials and until Beccaria's time was the norm in most legal systems. Now, however, most criminologists and jurists discount the validity of such confessions and the custom in international law is to reject their use. The Bush administration, however, notoriously uses torture at places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and has faced widespread criticism both inside and outside of the United States for the practice.
And now that raises doubts here in Panama: were we the victims of scare tactics intended to draw public attention away from an Iraq War that's going badly and a series of attendant scandals, or do we really need to be more concerned about Osama bin Laden's operatives in our midst?
Also in this section:
Dolphin capture opponents mobilize, promoters respond Allegation of an Al Qaeda plot to attack the canal
Has the old Inter-American Air Force Academy really been demilitarized? Latest US State Department report on human rights in Panama
May
trial of civil suit about US-based company hiring Colombian death squad
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