For the last couple of days, cnn.com has run several front-page stories about the amazing confessions of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. This guy is one of the most famous people the military has been holding at Guantanamo. Presumably he's been tortured, at least by general (i.e. non-Cheneyesque) definitions of torture. We know that some people at Gitmo have been tortured, and if anybody has, as a "high-value target", surely this guy has. And lo and behold, he's confessed to pretty much every bad thing that has happened in the past six years!
- he is the mastermind behind 9/11
- he personally beheaded Daniel Pearl
- he was behind an assassination attempt against Pope John Paul in the Philippines
- and partially or solely responsible for 30 other major terrorist operations!
Now, torture's not good for much, but if Torquemada taught us anything it's that it's great at extracting confessions. However, none of these CNN stories make any mention of the fact that the guy might be lying... they all have the tone of "OMG we got the guy who did 9/11 and Daniel Pearl and killed Bambi's mom!!!" This is very annoying to me; cnn.com is not Fox News, they are supposed to be presenting a reasonably intelligent take on the news stories.