The Wall Street Journal - 30.07.2019

A4| Tuesday, July 30, 2019 PWLC101112HTGKBFAM123456789OIXX ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

CAPITAL JOURNAL

By Gerald F. Seib

hearing there, Mohammed in-

terrupted when a military judge

described the proceeding as “a

death-penalty case.” It was a

“martyr case,” the defendant

said. “This is what I wish. I’ve

been looking to be martyred for

a long time,” he said.

“A lot has happened in the

past 10 years,” said a person fa-

miliar with the Guantanamo

proceedings. “The 9/11 defen-

dants are not as interested as

they once were in martyring

themselves.”

In 2017, the Defense Depart-

ment official overseeing the

proceedings, Harvey Rishikof,

began exploring a potential

plea bargain with the Sept. 11

defendants that would ex-

change guilty pleas for life sen-

tences, according to court doc-

uments and people familiar

with the case.

Mr. Rishikof is said to have

been concerned the prosecution

had been undermined by the

torture inflicted upon Moham-

med and other defendants at

secret Central Intelligence

Agency facilities overseas. That

issue has mired the cases

against them in years of hear-

ings and raised the possibility a

military or federal court could

punish government misconduct

by barring the death penalty.

After word spread of plea

discussions, Mr. Rishikof was

fired by then-Defense Secretary

Jim Mattis for what Mr. Mattis

said were unrelated reasons.

One of the primary goals of

those now-scotched plea negoti-

ations was obtaining coopera-

tion from the defendants, the

person familiar with the Guan-

tanamo proceedings said. “One

of the main things that the 9/

defendants have to offer is clo-

sure, particularly closure for the

victims,” this person said. “With

capital charges gone, there is an

opportunity to tell the story of

9/11 once and for all.”

James Kreindler, a lawyer

for the Sept. 11 victims suing

Saudi Arabia, said his team

contacted Mohammed and his

co-defendants as part of wide-

ranging discovery in the case,

which is in pretrial stages that

could continue for years.

We are living in an age of
technological disruption, so it
figures that the most impor-
tant trend in international
politics is the rise of disrupt-
ers around the
globe.
Last week’s
ascension of
Boris John-
son—notorious
bad boy,
mocker of the system that
produced him, the man as re-
sponsible as anyone for tear-
ing the bonds holding together
the European Union—to be-
come Britain’s prime minister
merely extends this trend.
President Trump is, of
course, the disrupter-in-chief,
the most prominent leader to
rise to power by proudly tak-

U.S. NEWS

Led by Trump, Disrupters Rise Globally

ing a wrecking ball to the

prevailing political system.

But he wasn’t the first, nor

will he be the last. In addi-

tion to Mr. Johnson, a partial

list of fellow disrupters in-

cludes Narendra Modi in In-

dia, Viktor Orban in Hungary,

Imran Khan in Pakistan, Em-

manuel Macron in France, Pe-

dro Sanchez in Spain, Jair

Bolsonaro of Brazil and Mat-

teo Salvini, the deputy prime

minister of Italy.

W

hat unites the dis-

rupters isn’t some

shared ideology.

They come from across the

traditional left-right spec-

trum. Most are populists and

nationalists, though those la-

bels don’t apply to France’s

Mr. Macron, who considers

himself an anti-populist.

Instead, what unites the

disrupters is an ability to

capitalize on the grievances

of their populations and the

perceived failures of the tra-

ditional political system.

“Lots of people in different

societies—their anxieties

about the future accelerated

by the revolution in technol-

ogy and various forms of in-

equality—are confused and

angry,” says William Burns, a

career American diplomat

and the former deputy secre-

tary of state. “And it

shouldn’t be a surprise when

they’re attracted to big per-

sonalities who make big, pan-

dering promises—who throw

rocks through the windows of

the old order and promise

easy, sweeping changes,

whether they’re tethered to

facts and reality or not.”

Certainly the rise of the

disrupters is tied to fears of

economic globalization. The

idea that the world is blend-

ing into one giant economy

alarms workers who fear they

have been thrown into a cut-

throat, winner-take-all eco-

nomic competition in which

blurry borders and mass mi-

gration are obliterating eco-

nomic security and driving

down living standards.

The rise of new technolo-

gies exacerbates such fears,

leaving many citizens fearing

they are being left behind,

unprotected, if they can’t

keep up with the pace of

change. Certainly, Mr. Trump

rode such anxieties to power,

as did Britain’s Mr. Johnson.

Rising concerns about eco-

nomic globalization, in turn,

are feeding the rise of nation-

alism. Increasingly citizens

are looking for assurances

that they can at least rely on

traditional cultural, racial and

ethnic bonds to protect them

from the rest of the world—

and strong borders to keep

that world at bay. Thus, India

has turned the reins over to

Mr. Modi, who is such an ar-

dent Hindu nationalist that,

not so long ago, he was de-

nied a visa to visit the U.S.

because of his role in anti-

Muslim rioting.

Less noticed in the political

brew from which the disrupt-

ers emerged is the end of the

Cold War. For half a century,

in both the East and West,

citizens felt they needed to

remain locked into the alli-

ances and ideologies that

were set when capitalist soci-

eties faced off against com-

munist societies, with nuclear

conflict always lurking as the

potential decider if the com-

petition got out of hand.

T

he end of the Cold War

has, over time, elimi-

nated the feeling that

people had to remain in those

blocs by necessity, and freed

them to try what once would

have been radical and un-

thinkable alternatives. There

has been a kind of political

jailbreak in both East and

West, liberating, for example,

the once-communist Hungary

to take a hard-right turn to

Mr. Orban.

Above all, the disrupters

have emerged because of a

broad feeling that the pre-

vailing political systems have

ceased to provide adequate

answers. Thus did Mr. Ma-

cron, after starting his politi-

cal career as a seemingly

conventional minister in a

traditional French govern-

ment, become president by

breaking away from the sys-

tem and forming his own

centrist party.

On one hand, the disrupt-

ers are breathing new life

into ossified political sys-

tems. On the other, some are

simply old-school strongmen

who are better at busting up

the old paradigm than con-

structing new alternatives.

“Because they’re generally

adept at fueling divisions

within their societies rather

than healing them, the task

of producing an alternative to

the status quo that most peo-

ple can get behind becomes

even more elusive—and the

corrosive damage can be

long-lasting and very hard to

repair,” says Mr. Burns.

As a footnote, this rise of

the disrupters presents an in-

teresting backdrop for the

Democratic presidential can-

didates who gather this week

for their second round of de-

bates. Are American voters

ready to continue the Trump-

fueled disruption—or are

they weary of it and ready

for a return to a bit more

normalcy?

Certainly the rise of

the disrupters is tied

to fears of economic

globalization.

ing, a status letter to U.S. Mag-

istrate Judge Sarah Netburn,

the lawyers wrote that earlier

Friday, Mohammed’s counsel

told them their client wouldn’t

consent to a deposition “at the

present time.”

Mohammed’s lawyer said,

however, that “the primary

driver” of the decision was the

“capital nature of the prosecu-

tion” and that “[i]n the absence

of a potential death sentence

much broader cooperation

would be possible,” according

to the filing.

A lawyer for the Saudi gov-

ernment, Michael Kellogg, de-

clined to comment. Moham-

med’s lawyers couldn’t be

reached for comment, but an

attorney for Mohammed’s

nephew and co-defendant, Ali

Abdul Aziz Ali (who also is

known as Ammar al-Baluch),

said there had been changes in

the defendants’ positions.

“I think [Mohammed] feels

ready and willing” to assist the

Sept. 11 victims’ lawsuit, “but I

think he feels he needs to get

through” the death-penalty

question first, said the lawyer,

Alka Pradhan.

Mohammed, who also is sus-

pected in the 2002 murder of

Wall Street Journal correspon-

dent Daniel Pearl, took a more

defiant stance earlier in his stay

at Guantanamo. At a June 2008

WASHINGTON—Alleged
Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed has opened
the door to helping victims of
the terrorist attacks in their
lawsuit against Saudi Arabia if
the U.S. government spares him
the death penalty at a Guantan-
amo Bay military commission,
according to court documents.
Mohammed’s offer was dis-
closed in a Friday filing in the
victims’ federal lawsuit in New
York, which accuses the Saudi
government of helping coordi-
nate the 2001 suicide attacks.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed
when terrorists crashed hi-
jacked airliners into the World
Trade Center, the Pentagon
and, after passengers resisted,
a Pennsylvania field. Riyadh
has denied complicity in the at-
tacks.
Separately, President Trump
signed legislation Monday that
pays for medical claims from
victims of the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks, including first
responders, for the rest of their
lives.
In the lawsuit against Saudi
Arabia, plaintiffs’ lawyers had
requested depositions from
three of the five Guantanamo
detainees accused in the Sept.
11 conspiracy. In the Friday fil-

BYJESSBRAVIN
ANDANDREWRESTUCCIA

Key9/11Plotter

Offers to Aid Suit

To Save His Life

U.S. soldiers stood guard in April at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base detention center, established after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

ALEX BRANDON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

“A city where if

you dream big,

big things can

happen.”

• Houston Mayor
  Sylvester Turner

#HoustonIsInspired

Location:GraffitiPark

Muralby:PinkLoMein

Featuring:ArushiGarg

@The_Snazzy_Mom

BRING THIS SCENE TO LIFE: 1.Gotoyourdevice’sappstore 2.Install“HoustonARScanner”3.Scanthisad