Terrorism

What’s Happening To Canada? Open Letter From Ralph Nader

March 7, 2015 Ralph Nader, www.rabble.ca Educate! Canada, Terrorism, Wars and Militarism

You are quoted as saying that "jihadi terrorism is one of the most dangerous enemies our world has ever faced" as a predicate for your gross over-reaction that "violent jihadism seeks to destroy" Canadian "rights." Really? Pray tell, which rights rooted in Canadian law are "jihadis" fighting in the Middle East to obliterate? You talk like George W. Bush. How does "jihadism" match up with the lives of tens of millions of innocent civilians, destroyed since 1900 by state terrorism -- west and east, north and south -- or the continuing efforts seeking to seize or occupy territory? Reading your apoplectic oratory reminds one of the prior history of your country as one of the world's peacekeepers from the inspiration of Lester Pearson to the United Nations.

Nonviolent Leader Arrested In The Maldives

March 2, 2015 Matt Mulberry, www.opendemocracy.net Educate! Climate Change, Terrorism, United Nations

The former President of the Maldives and global climate activist Mohamed ‘Anni’ Nasheed was arrested on February 22 on “terror” charges just days before he was to lead a mass demonstration against the current government. Both the UN and the EU have issued statements of concern over what now appears to be an escalation by entrenched power holders in the Maldives to stifle effective political opposition. Known to outsiders for its pristine beaches, clear turquoise waters, and five-star luxury resorts, the Maldives is a nation of about 340,000 people spread across an archipelago of 26 atolls located in the middle of the Indian Ocean, roughly 500 miles southwest of Sri Lanka. Its natural beauty is its biggest asset, given that nearly one-third of the country’s GDP is generated via tourism. But that beauty also has a way of obscuring the intense political struggles that have come to characterize everyday life for most Maldivians over the past 30 years.

Why Does The FBI Have To Manufacture Its Own Plots?

February 28, 2015 Glenn Greenwald, www.firstlook.org Educate! FBI, Media, Terrorism

The FBI and major media outlets yesterday trumpeted the agency’s latest counterterrorism triumph: the arrest of three Brooklyn men, ages 19 to 30, on charges of conspiring to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS (photo of joint FBI/NYPD press conference, above). As my colleague Murtaza Hussain ably documents, “it appears that none of the three men was in any condition to travel or support the Islamic State, without help from the FBI informant.” One of the frightening terrorist villains told the FBI informant that, beyond having no money, he had encountered a significant problem in following through on the FBI’s plot: his mom had taken away his passport. Noting the bizarre and unhinged ranting of one of the suspects, Hussain noted on Twitter that this case “sounds like another victory for the FBI over the mentally ill.” In this regard, this latest arrest appears to be quite similar to the overwhelming majority of terrorism arrests the FBI has proudly touted over the last decade.

How The US Can Really Combat Radicalism

February 26, 2015 As'ad AbuKhalil, www.english.al-akhbar.com Educate! Foreign Policy, Terrorism, Wars and Militarism

The US government held yet another conference on how best to combat “Islamic radicalism.” It is interesting that radicalism — even without adding the Islamic adjective, as the Obama administration avoids the label — is applied to only one cultural and religious milieu. Radicalism is thus assumed to be a phenomenon of one culture and one religion. When the US government speaks about radicalism, it ignores the radicalism that prevails in the US Congress or in the US churches. It has only one radicalism and one form of violence in mind. Thus the violence of the US government, visited upon people in many Muslim countries, is not seen as the product of radicalism, but of moderation and of lofty ideals. Furthermore, for the US to really demonstrate its willingness to effectively combat radicalism it has to undertake those steps and policies — which it will never do. . .

New Report Reveals Magnitude Of Black Lynchings In US

February 12, 2015 TeleSurTV, www.telesurtv.net Educate! History, Racial Justice, Terrorism

About 4,000 black people were lynched in the southern states of the United States between 1877 and 1950, equivalent to more than one per week, according to a new report published Tuesday by the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative (EJI). Over 6 million black people also fled the South between 1910-1970 to escape the violence and terror in a region known for its extreme and widespread racism. This is the most extensive study published on “racial terrorism” recently, after five years of investigation in 12 southern states. It has added 700 more cases of lynchings to the previous investigation by sociologists Stewart Tolnay and E. M. Beck in 1995.

The Terror We Give Is The Terror We Get

February 10, 2015 Chris Hedges www.truthdig.com Educate! ISIS, Terrorism, Violence

We fire missiles from the sky that incinerate families huddled in their houses. They incinerate a pilot cowering in a cage. We torture hostages in our black sites and choke them to death by stuffing rags down their throats. They torture hostages in squalid hovels and behead them. We organize Shiite death squads to kill Sunnis. They organize Sunni death squads to kill Shiites. We produce high-budget films such as “American Sniper” to glorify our war crimes. They produce inspirational videos to glorify their twisted version of jihad. The barbarism we condemn is the barbarism we commit. The line that separates us from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is technological, not moral. We are those we fight.

The FBI Invents Some Plots & Ignores Others In War On Freedom

February 3, 2015 Derek Royden, www.occupy.com Educate! FBI, Law, Terrorism

After Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI was forced to re-prioritize, making counter-terrorism the Bureau’s main focus. More than 1,800 agents, almost a third of the total dealing with criminal cases from organized crime to insurance fraud, were transferred to terrorism and intelligence duties in the aftermath of the attacks. What 9/11 did, among other things, was to create a need for proof, via arrests, that the new State focus on terrorism was showing results. We’ve all seen the headlines from mainstream media sources after arrests were made and press conferences were given by high level officials announcing another disrupted “terror plot.” Yet, when one investigates these cases, as many journalists and writers in the alternative press have done, we see the score isn't as it all appears – and when compared with similar cases where terror charges were not brought, a disturbing picture emerges.

The War On Terror: Ex-CIA Officer John Kiriakou Speaks

January 21, 2015 Andrew Jerell Jones, www.firstlook.org Educate! CIA, Human Rights, Terrorism, Torture

John Kiriakou is the only CIA employee to go to prison in connection with the agency’s torture program. Not because he tortured anyone, but because he revealed information on torture to a reporter. Kiriakou is the Central Intelligence Agency officer who told ABC News in 2007 that the CIA waterboarded suspected al-Qaeda prisoners after the September 11 attacks, namely Abu Zubaydah, thought to be a key al Qaeda official. Although he felt at the time that waterboarding probably saved lives, Kiriakou nevertheless came to view the practice as torture and later claimed he unwittingly understated how many times Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding.

NYPD’s Counterterrorism Apparatus Is Being Turned On Protesters

January 20, 2015 Alex Kane, www.vice.com Educate! New York City (NYC), NYPD, police brutality, Terrorism

Activists organizing protests against police brutality in New York are marking Martin Luther King Day with a march beginning in Harlem. Some attendees might be surprised along the way to encounter officers in blue jackets with the words "NYPD Counter Terrorism" emblazoned on the back. But Linda Sarsour, a prominent Muslim-American activist and member of the anti-police brutality group Justice League NYC, one of the sponsors of the march, is almost used to it by now. As head of the Arab American Association of New York, Sarsour has been a leader in the fight against police misconduct. Much of her energy has gone into speaking out against the NYPD's expansive spying program that since 9/11 has targeted Muslims and activists.

Another Fake FBI ‘Terror Plot’: Informant Frames Cornell

January 16, 2015 21 Wire, www.21stcenturywire.com Educate! FBI, ISIS, Terrorism

This is potentially one of the most bogus and crass attempts yet, as the FBI rushes to grandstand over what appears to be another case of entrapment, joined by a media keen to push the fear envelope in America in the wake of last week’s international terror event in Paris. 1-Chris-Lee-Cornell-OhioEager to capitalize on the media wave generated by the Paris Attacks, jobsworth FBI agents decided to accelerate the frame-up of 20 year oldChristopher Lee Cornell (photo, left) from Cincinnati, Ohio, claiming the youth was planning a “pipe bomb attack” against the nation’s Capitol in Washington DC. Amazingly, US media jumped all over this story, trying to somehow tie it to Paris, and also claim that Cornell was “linked to ISIS”, and that this wassomehow an “ISIS-inspired attack”, only no attack actually took place.

Freedom Of Speech: France Arrests 54 For Offensive Speech

January 15, 2015 Lori Hinnant, www.AP.org Educate! Charlie Hebdo, France, Terrorism, Xenophobia

France ordered prosecutors around the country Wednesday to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and glorifying terrorism, announcing that 54 people had been arrested for those offenses since the Paris terror attacks. The order came as Charlie Hebdo's defiant new issue sold out before dawn around Paris, with scuffles at kiosks over dwindling copies of the satirical newspaper fronting the Prophet Muhammad. Like many European countries, France has strong laws against hate speech and especially anti-Semitism in the wake of the Holocaust. In a message distributed to all French prosecutors and judges, the Justice Ministry laid out the legal basis for rounding up those who defend the Paris terror attacks as well as those responsible for racist or anti-Semitic words or acts.

The Roots Of Charlie Hebdo Attacks: Colonialism & War

January 11, 2015 Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! Colonialism, France, Imperialism, Terrorism, United States, Wars and Militarism

Understandably the government of France does not want to admit that its policies contribute to the anger of Muslims living in France and around the world. No one want to justify these mass killings, really they cannot be justified, but that does not mean we should not try to understand where this anger comes from. The roots run deep. Al Jazeera reports the killings are "rooted in generations of violence, hypocrisy and greed." Mark LeVine points out people do not want to face these truths because "The problem is that this system is hundreds of years old, implicates most everyone . . ." The roots are in French colonialism. Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern warns that we should not let these killings lead to another cycle of violence. The attacks on Muslims in France and the "war" comments of the Prime Minister sadly seem to be leading toward more violence. If history were faced would it not be obvious that this violence comes from violence. McGovern points out: “Carif Kouachi was previously known to the authorities, as he was convicted by a French court in 2008 of trying to travel to Iraq to fight in that country’s insurgent movement. Kouachi told the court that he wished to fight the American occupation after viewing images of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.” The endless war on terror is itself terrorism, it "hardens the views on both sides" creating "extremists by the bucket-load." Rather than admit the true cause of non-state violence the politicians and the media that reports the government view blames the violence on Islamists, hate preachers and Muslim extremists -- rather than colonialism and war being the drivers of violence it is the Muslim faith. A false conclusion based on lies that will continue the cycle of violence

Terrorism ‘Insurance’ Expires

January 4, 2015 Buddy Bell, www.vcnv.org Educate! Drones, Terrorism, Wars and Militarism

In 2002, at a time when insurance providers were unwilling to provide coverage for losses resulting from acts of terrorism, and when construction and utility companies were stalling in their development projects, Congress passed the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA). They decided to socialize some of the financial risk, giving a federal government guarantee on insurance payouts exceeding 100 million dollars. Over the next 12 years, Presidents Bush and Obama and six different Congresses made countless decisions to increase the risk of terrorism (and of a bailout under TRIA). Of course, the most brutally profound effects of those decisions were imposed on children, women, and men in other parts of the world. Likely the least affected people were the ones complaining in the business sections of major papers last month.

Blazing The Terrorism Trail: The US War Industry

November 22, 2014 CJ Werleman, www.middleeasteye.net Educate! Capitalism, State, Terrorism

In a recent op-ed, Noam Chomsky, who is often acclaimed as America’s greatest intellectual, wrote, “It's official: The US is the world's leading terrorist state, and proud of it." Chomsky cites a New York Times piece that had quoted President Obama as saying he had demanded the CIA to conduct a review to find cases of “financing and supplying arms to an insurgency in a country that actually worked out well. And they couldn’t come up with much.” Each case cited was a “major terrorist operation conducted by the US,” according to Chomsky. The self-defeating war on terror has destabilised and wrought social chaos in the Middle East, and “helped spread jihadism from a corner of Afghanistan to a larger part of the world.”

Chomsky: America Is the World’s Leading Terrorist Nation

November 4, 2014 Noam Chomsky, www.inthesetimes.com Educate! CIA, Cuba, ISIS, Noam Chomsky, Syria, Terrorism, usa

“It's official: The U.S. is the world's leading terrorist state, and proud of it.” That should have been the headline for the lead story in the New York Times on October 15, which was more politely titled “CIA Study of Covert Aid Fueled Skepticism About Helping Syrian Rebels.” The article reports on a CIA review of recent U.S. covert operations to determine their effectiveness. The White House concluded that unfortunately successes were so rare that some rethinking of the policy was in order. The article quoted President Barack Obama as saying that he had asked the CIA to conduct the review to find cases of “financing and supplying arms to an insurgency in a country that actually worked out well. And they couldn't come up with much.” So Obama has some reluctance about continuing such efforts.

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