Terrorism

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.

Journalist Sues Tar Sands Refinery For Illegal ‘Terrorism’ Detention

September 5, 2014 4PS, www.ut4ps.tumblr.com Resist! Journalism, Police, Tar Sands, Terrorism

n award-winning independent journalist filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Tesoro and the Salt Lake City Police Department for illegally detaining him and accusing him of terrorism for taking photographs of a refinery. Jesse Fruhwirth posted a video on the Internet (see below) of December 16, 2013, when an ice storm and power outage prompted a major pollution event at Tesoro’s tar sands refinery in the Rose Park neighborhood. "I was in bed reading and through my window suddenly I could see that the night sky was ablaze as if all of Rose Park was on fire," says Fruhwirth. "Only the refinery was on fire, but I knew that such huge flare offs were extra dangerous events for babies, old people and sick people and I thought it was important to film the fire that might severely sicken or kill some of my neighbors that night." Fruhwirth also filmed the interaction he had with a police officer who ordered him to stop filming. In the video, Salt Lake officer Yvette Zayas tells Fruhwirth that she detained him for taking pictures of “critical infrastructure,” that she would refer her report to a “Joint Terrorism Task Force” to protect “homeland security.” Zayas is simultaneously a paid employee of Tesoro and SLCPD, but that night she was working directly on Tesoro’s payroll.

Guantanamo Defense Lawyer Resigns Over ‘Show Trial’

September 3, 2014 NPR, www.npr.org Educate! Guantanamo, Law, Terrorism, Torture

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks, is facing a military commission at Guantanamo Bay and potentially the death penalty. He was captured in 2003 but his case still hasn't gone to trial. Last week, Maj. Jason Wright — one of the lawyers defending Mohammed — resigned from the Army. He has accused the U.S. government of "abhorrent leadership" on human rights and due process guarantees and says it is crafting a "show trial." Wright joined the military in 2005. He served 15 months in Iraq during the surge and has worked as a Judge Advocate. For nearly three years, he served on Mohammed's defense team. Wright formally resigned on Aug. 26. Earlier this year, the Army had instructed him to leave the team in order to complete a graduate course that was required with his promotion from Captain to Major. He refused the order; he says it would have been unethical for him to have followed it. Asking For Trust, Wearing The Captors' Uniform Wright tells NPR's Arun Rath that it's hard to gain any client's trust, but it was especially hard with Mohammed. His former client is one of six "high-value detainees" being prosecuted at Guantanamo for offenses that could carry the death penalty.

British Jihadists To Be Forced To Attend Deradicalisation Programmes

September 3, 2014 Tom Whitehead, www.telegraph.co.uk Educate! ISIL, Islam, Terrorism, United Kingdom (UK)

British jihadists returning from Iraq and Syria will be forced to attend “deradicalisation” programmes to reverse their warped brainwashing, David Cameron announced. Dangerous fanatics made subject to court controls will be ordered to engage in anti-extremism schemes as part of a raft of new measures to combat the risk of British Islamists returning to the UK. The move comes amid growing concern over the threat posed by Britons who have joined the terror group Isil in Syria and Iraq. At least 500 are believed to have travelled out and half are now back on the streets of the UK, with some feared potentially plotting attacks here. In a Commons statement, Mr Cameron said: “Adhering to British values is not an option or a choice. “It is a duty for all those who live in these islands so we will stand up for our values, we will in the end defeat this extremism and we will secure our way of life for generations to come." Under the proposals, any terror suspect placed under a Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (Tpims) will now be forced to engage in the Government’s Prevent programme, which tackles radicalisation.

How The Brutalized Become Brutal

August 26, 2014 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com Educate! Psychology, Terrorism, Violence, Wars and Militarism

The horrific pictures of the beheading of American reporter James Foley, the images of executions of alleged collaborators in Gaza and the bullet-ridden bodies left behind in Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant are the end of a story, not the beginning. They are the result of years, at times decades, of the random violence, brutal repression and collective humiliation the United States has inflicted on others. Our terror is delivered to the wretched of the earth with industrial weapons. It is, to us, invisible. We do not stand over the decapitated and eviscerated bodies left behind on city and village streets by our missiles, drones and fighter jets. We do not listen to the wails and shrieks of parents embracing the shattered bodies of their children. We do not see the survivors of air attacks bury their mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. We are not conscious of the long night of collective humiliation, repression and powerlessness that characterizes existence in Israel’s occupied territories, Iraq and Afghanistan. We do not see the boiling anger that war and injustice turn into a caldron of hate over time. We are not aware of the very natural lust for revenge against those who carry out or symbolize this oppression. We see only the final pyrotechnics of terror, the shocking moment when the rage erupts into an inchoate fury and the murder of innocents. And, willfully ignorant, we do not understand our own complicity. We self-righteously condemn the killers as subhuman savages who deserve more of the violence that created them. This is a recipe for endless terror.

The Powers Behind The Islamic State

August 25, 2014 The Real News, www.therealnews.com Educate! Iraq, ISIS, Syria, Terrorism, Wars and Militarism

Well, the first thing, I think that is very important to grasp: the role that our governments have played in fomenting the crisis that we see. The rise of ISIS was kind of predictable, and it's something that some analysts--analysts have warned about civil war in Iraq for years. I guess the accelerated nature of what we're seeing, most people haven't anticipated that, but it was predictable. And when we look at the way in which we've been funding some of these groups, it's kind of ironic that we have the very same people now calling for boots on the ground, calling for a response, are the same people that have been very loud in their support for arming some of the most virulent of elements of these rebel groups. And even though the Obama administration, for instance, has given a lot of lip service, saying that we only want to fund, you know, the kind of moderate rebels and so on and so forth--but the Obama administration has actively coordinated the financing that has come from the Gulf states to the very types of groups that they historically have always favored, which is the most virulent jihadist al-Qaeda affiliated organizations. So there is a contradiction here in what we're being told now and the way in which policymakers have kind of created this crisis and now not taken responsibility for this crisis.

More War In Reaction To Foley Murder Will Fuel ISIS

August 21, 2014 Owen Jones, www.theguardian.com Educate! ISIS, Journalism, Terrorism, Wars and Militarism

The first defeat for the alleged killers of James Foley would be for him to be remembered as a courageous journalist. Reporting from a war zone is riskier than ever: over 200 media workers died in the Iraq war, more than any other conflict; at least 70 journalists were killed in global conflicts last year; and Agence France-Presse estimates that at least 30 have died this year. Foley had already spent 44 days in captivity at the hands of Gaddafi’s forces in Libya, but that did not deter him from seeking to uncover the truth about Syria. His apparent killers want him to be remembered as a tool to spread terror; celebrating his work would be an act of defiance. Everything about the video seemingly of Foley’s murder is intended to chill. It is unlikely that Islamic State (Isis) selected an executioner with a strong London accent for no reason. It was the Iraq war that first popularised the execution video, but hearing the blood-curdling threats and dogma of Isis recited in tones that are all too familiar is itself a message. Terrorism by definition aims to spread terror to achieve its political ends. One of the reasons Isis has outmanoeuvred its rivals is because it has embraced social media so effectively. By publicising its atrocities online, it tells would-be opponents what will happen if it is resisted, and this partly explains why so many have fled rather than confront Isis forces. The ruthless use of social media has proved instrumental in the toppling of entire cities. This operation is being gladly assisted by those in the west who portray Isis as a unique, undiluted evil that needs to be bombed out of existence, granting the militant group the mystique it clearly craves and relies on.

Muslims File Suit Over Terror Watch List

August 16, 2014 CAIR, www.cair.com Resist! Muslims, Surveillance, Terrorism

On Thursday, August 14, the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) will hold a news conference to announce the filing of a lawsuit on behalf of several Muslims challenging their placement in the government's Terrorist Screening Database - a watch list of "known or suspected terrorists" - without due process. The lawsuit will be filed in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit. "The federal government has unjustly and disproportionately targeted American Muslims by routinely adding their names to the Terrorist Screening Database without affording them their rights to due process," said CAIR-MI Staff Attorney Lena Masri. "The lawsuit will challenge the government's broad and unchecked power to secretly label individuals as 'known or suspected terrorists' without concrete facts, but based on only a vague standard of 'reasonable suspicion.'" CAIR-MI's lawsuit challenges the widespread government practice of placing names on watch lists without providing individuals with any notice of the factual basis for their placement and without offering a meaningful opportunity to contest the designation.

ACLU: US Has Illegal Muslim Blacklist

August 7, 2014 Matt Reynolds, www.courthousenews.com Resist! ACLU, Muslim, Surveillance, Terrorism

The United States violates its own immigration laws through an under-the-radar "blacklist" that denies citizenship, green cards and political asylum to thousands of people, including innocent people placed on a terrorist watch list, longtime legal-resident Muslims claim in Federal Court. Lead plaintiff Reem Muhanna, et al. claim that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service has consistently denied their applications for citizenship and lawful permanent residence after secretly blacklisting them as "'national security concerns,'" though they pose no threat to the United States. The ACLU filed the lawsuit on July 31 against the USCIS, the Department of Homeland Security, and a slew of their national and regional officers. The plaintiffs claim that the Citizenship and Immigration Service uses obscure rules, under a program known as the Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program (CARRP), to delay or deny applications. "Under this unfair and unconstitutional program, the government has blacklisted their applications without telling them why and barred them from upgrading their immigration status in violation of the immigration laws," ACLU attorney Jennie Pasquarella said in a statement. The plaintiffs ask the court to order Uncle Sam to judicially settle their applications for citizenship and permanent residence, as required under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The executive branch of the government does not have the authority to set rules on citizenship and permanent residence, the plaintiffs say.

Another Snowden-Style NSA Leaker

August 7, 2014 Ben Mathis-Lilley, www.slate.com Educate! Edward Snowden, Privacy, Surveillance, Terrorism

The U.S. government believes that a new Edward Snowden–style leaker is giving national security documents to journalists affiliated with Snowden confidante Glenn Greenwald, a suspicion that Greenwald has hinted at confirming. From CNN: Proof of the newest leak comes from national security documents that formed the basis of a news story published Tuesday by the Intercept, the news site launched by Glenn Greenwald, who also published Snowden's leaks. The Intercept article focuses on the growth in U.S. government databases of known or suspected terrorist names during the Obama administration. The article cites documents prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center dated August 2013, which is after Snowden flew to Russia to avoid U.S. criminal charges. (It's not clear why the government believes there's "a" new leaker as opposed to multiple new leakers.)

An Inquiry Into The 9/11 Commission’s 10th Anniversary Report

August 1, 2014 Mike Lofgren, www.truth-out.org Educate! Foreign Policy, Iraq, Terrorism, Wars and Militarism

One of the many things I learned in government is that the investigative commissions which inquire into a scandal, disaster or atrocity are usually intended to bury the real causes of the incident and trumpet other circumstantial or irrelevant details as if they are shocking or novel. In other words, commissions are cover-ups pretending to be exposés. This is not always the case, but as the stakes rise, it becomes the accepted practice. One of the masters of this technique has been former House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Indiana). He cut his teeth as chairman of the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, where he was careful to stop short of implicating President Ronald Reagan of impeachable criminal culpability, and, more importantly, provided the same service to the future President George H.W. Bush. A few smaller fries took the fall, and Reagan, the man whom Republicans retrospectively credit for making the sun shine and the rain fall, was chastised for not being in control of his own immediate subordinates. Bush, of course, was out of the loop. In 1992, Hamilton chaired the House October Surprise Task Force, and failed once again to find Bush culpable of criminal misdeeds - in this case, the allegation being that Bush was involved in secret and illegal negotiations with Iran to deny the American hostages' release until after the 1980 elections. Twenty years later, however, Hamilton confessed to investigative journalist Robert Parry that he now has second thoughts about the October surprise. As they used to say in vaudeville, now he tells us.

The Constitutional Nightmare Of The Terror Watch List

July 25, 2014 Conor Friedersdorf, www.theatlantic.com Educate! Civil Liberties, Law, NSA, Surveillance, Terrorism

At long last, Americans know more about how people end up on a terrorist watchlist—though still not much. Early on in a just-leaked 166-page U.S. government guide to officially declaring someone a terrorist or suspected terrorist, a passage acknowledges that "watchlisting is not an exact science." The whole enterprise has "inherent limitations," in part because "analytic judgments may differ regarding whether subjective criteria have been met," the document states. "Given these realities, the U.S. government's watchlisting process attempts to safeguard the American people from a TERRORIST attack while safeguarding privacy, civil rights and civil liberties." Despite this explicit, official recognition of the system's inherent dangers, the Bush and Obama administrations both conspicuously failed to incorporate basic safeguards to protect innocent U.S. citizens and foreigners from inclusion. Their gross negligence stems from disregard for longstanding legal norms and protections and from unwarranted faith in the federal bureaucracy. This hubris is at direct odds with the logic of checks and balances within the American system that go back to the founding of the country. Consider the features of the U.S. system that have traditionally distinguished us from repressive regimes where innocents are wrongfully labeled enemies of the state, or from Franz Kafka's stories:

Obama Approves Massive Increase In Terror List

July 24, 2014 Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux, www.firstlook.org Educate! NSA, spying, Terrorism, TSA

The “March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance,” a 166-page document issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings. The new guidelines allow individuals to be designated as representatives of terror organizations without any evidence they are actually connected to such organizations, and it gives a single White House official the unilateral authority to place “entire categories” of people the government is tracking onto the no fly and selectee lists. It broadens the authority of government officials to “nominate” people to the watchlists based on what is vaguely described as “fragmentary information.” It also allows for dead people to be watchlisted.

Citizens Sue Over Suspicious Activity Program

July 12, 2014 Kevin Gosztola, www.dissenter.firedoglake.com Resist! ACLU, Law, Privacy, Surveillance, Terrorism

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of five United States citizens challenging a domestic surveillance program, which involves the collection of “suspicious activity reports” on individuals. The federal government has a National Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (NSI) that, according to the ACLU’s filed complaint [PDF], “encourages state and local law enforcement agencies as well as private actors to collect and report information that has a potential nexus to terrorism in the form of so-called ‘suspicious activity reports [SARs].’” Any individual who is flagged as having a “potential nexus to terrorism” will automatically be subject to “law enforcement scrutiny, which may include intrusive questioning by local or federal law enforcement agents.” Plus, “Even when the Federal Bureau of Investigation concludes that the person did not have any nexus to terrorism, a SAR can haunt that individual for decades, as SARs remain in federal databases for up to 30 years.”

Middle School Students Called “Terrorists”

July 9, 2014 Dan Johnson, www.mintpressnews.com Educate! Civil Disobedience, Education, Student Activism, Terrorism, Youth

A group of Georgia middle school students decided they had enough of the school dress code and would violate it together in an act of civil disobedience. The school, Cowan Road Middle, found out about the plan and suspended the students for…terrorism. What? According to WSB-TV (emphasis added): “To me it was just a bunch of 13-year-olds acting crazy,” said Christopher Cagle, the father of a suspended honor roll student. Cagle said the principal called the students’ actions terroristic threats. He said the principal was too swift and severe with the punishment.” Violating the school dress code is indeed a violation of school policy, but to elevate it to a level where one could be indefinitely detained, without charge or trial, is going way too far.

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