Group items tagged

First, they target a Muslim: not due to any evidence of intent or capability to engage in terrorism, but rather for the “radical” political views he expresses. In most cases, the Muslim targeted by the FBI is a very young (late teens, early 20s), adrift, unemployed loner who has shown no signs of mastering basic life functions, let alone carrying out a serious terror attack, and has no known involvement with actual terrorist groups. They then find another Muslim who is highly motivated to help disrupt a “terror plot”: either because they’re being paid substantial sums of money by the FBI or because (as appears to be the case here) they are charged with some unrelated crime and are desperate to please the FBI in exchange for leniency (or both). The FBI then gives the informant a detailed attack plan, and sometimes even the money and other instruments to carry it out, and the informant then shares all of that with the target. Typically, the informant also induces, lures, cajoles, and persuades the target to agree to carry out the FBI-designed plot. In some instances where the target refuses to go along, they have their informant offer huge cash inducements to the impoverished target. Once they finally get the target to agree, the FBI swoops in at the last minute, arrests the target, issues a press release praising themselves for disrupting a dangerous attack (which it conceived of, funded, and recruited the operatives for), and the DOJ and federal judges send their target to prison for years or even decades (where they are kept in special GITMO-like units). Subservient U.S. courts uphold the charges by applying such a broad and permissive interpretation of “entrapment” that it could almost never be successfully invoked. As AP noted last night, “defense arguments have repeatedly failed with judges, and the stings have led to many convictions.”

There are countless similar cases where the FBI triumphantly disrupts its own plots, causing people to be imprisoned as terrorists who would not and could not have acted on their own. Trevor Aaronson has comprehensively covered what amounts to the FBI’s own domestic terror network, and has reported that “nearly half [of all DOJ terrorism] prosecutions involved the use of informants, many of them incentivized by money (operatives can be paid as much as $100,000 per assignment) or the need to work off criminal or immigration violation.” He documents “49 [terrorism] defendants [who] participated in plots led by an agent provocateur—an FBI operative instigating terrorist action.” In 2012, Petra Bartosiewicz in The Nation reviewed the post-9/11 body of terrorism cases and concluded: Nearly every major post-9/11 terrorism-related prosecution has involved a sting operation, at the center of which is a government informant. In these cases, the informants — who work for money or are seeking leniency on criminal charges of their own — have crossed the line from merely observing potential criminal behavior to encouraging and assisting people to participate in plots that are largely scripted by the FBI itself. Under the FBI’s guiding hand, the informants provide the weapons, suggest the targets and even initiate the inflammatory political rhetoric that later elevates the charges to the level of terrorism.

British and most major corporate and State-funded Western media would focus on whether Emwazi’s claims were exaggerated or not; or whether the authorizations granted by the UK’s Counter-terrorism and Security Act violate the rights of citizens and contribute to radicalizing people rather than preventing terrorism. The questions almost all media shun are: Has MI5 used the above described or a similar method to force Emwazi into becoming cooperative? Has he been forced into the role of Jihadi John or is he a willing executioner / actor? Is he still handled by British or eventually NATO intelligence services? Are the revelations by the guardian a limited hangout to crate a new “legend” after inconsistencies in previous ISIS videos and “convenient timing” of executions had become too blatantly obvious?

In fact, the librarians were even barred from attending the court hearings on the very precedent-setting lawsuit with which they were involved. 

“Our presence in the courtroom was declared a threat to national security,” Mr. Chase related. The gag served to legally prevent Mr. Christian from personally testifying before Congress about the effects of the USA PATRIOT Act before the law’s reauthorization in March of 2006.   It passed through Congress easily and was signed once again by President George W. Bush. Appellate judges were clearly disturbed by the breadth of the NSL gag provisions.  One appellate judge wrote, “A ban on speech and a shroud of secrecy in perpetuity are antithetical to democratic concepts and do not fit comfortably with the fundamental rights guaranteed American citizens… Unending secrecy of actions taken by government officials may also serve as a cover for possible official misconduct and/or incompetence.” Sensing a potential legal defeat, the government took the steps necessary to preserve its powers.  Only a few weeks after the USA PATRIOT Act was renewed, the FBI abandoned the Library Connection case and voluntarily lifted the librarians’ gag order.  This eliminated the possibility that the NSL provisions could be struck down in court, protecting the USA PATRIOT Act from further judicial scrutiny.  In May 2006, the four librarians broke their silence at last.

The result could only be considered a partial victory, however.  While the librarians had regained their freedom to speak, they no longer had legal standing to challenge the NSL provisions, meaning that the sweeping power to subpoena and gag American citizens would remain unchecked in the hands of the government — and continue to be used at an alarming rate; tens of thousands of NSLs and gag orders are issued per year in the name of fighting the so-called War on Terror.

Although details surrounding Ledezma’s exact role in the recently discovered “Blue” coup plot are still unclear, it appears that the opposition politician is implicated beyond his call for a transitional government.  Following the announcement of the coup plot last Thursday, the Maduro administration suggested that further arrests were to be made once there was sufficient evidence to prosecute the political ringleaders of the plan.  “In these intelligence investigations, we have discovered a codified message, in another language,  by an important leader of a party. On translating it, we found that it gave the details, the elements of the coup. We are about to capture the person who brought the script that they were going to read, the script they were going to read out was already written, and circulated by a person who I will name at the correct moment”, said Maduro, referencing a preplanned statement which was to be read out to the public following the aerial bombardment, announcing a “rebellion” of the armed forces against the government. 

It is not the first time that Ledezma has been implicated in a plan to violently overthrow the government. In 2002, he participated in an attempted coup which saw socialist president of the time, Hugo Chavez, ousted for a period of 47 hours. Last year, he was also named several times as a “principal ally” by currently detained terror plotter, Lorent Saleh. Saleh was one of the main underground activists fuelling the armed barricades known as guarimbas which last year claimed the lives of at least 43 Venezuelans. He had planned to go on a killing spree with the help of Colombian paramilitaries but was arrested before the plan could take place.  

Popularly known as “the vampire”, Ledezma began his political career in 1973 as a member of the “Democratic Action” Party. In 1989, he infamously became Governor of the Federal District of Caracas, when he oversaw one of the most violent periods in the history of the Caracas Metropolitan Police.  The police body, which was since disbanded in 2010 due to its human rights violations, regularly opened fire on unarmed student protests, systematically repressed street vendors, pensioners and the unemployed, as well as regularly disappeared political activists.   During this period he also oversaw the “Caracazo,” when up to 3000 people were killed and disappeared by security forces in the wake of violent protests against a government imposed austerity programme.  This particular period of Ledezma’s career earnt him the reputation of “student killer” amongst working class Venezuelans. He is founder and current leader of the rightwing party known as the “Brave People’s Alliance”. 

The “Strategy of Tension” in the Cold War Period, by Daniele Ganser In May 2014, Swiss historian Daniele Ganser contributed this updated version of a previously published article. Dr. Ganser’s article provides important historical perspective for considering what happened on 9/11. His conclusion, based on historical fact, is that objections to U.S. government or military involvement in 9/11 are based on unsupportable, a priori arguments. These eight papers are just a sampling of the wide-range of peer-reviewed research and commentary available at the Journal of 9/11 Studies. If you want to learn more about that fateful day through an evidence-based approach, the Journal is a great resource. For anyone interested in contributing, we continue to seek out new perspectives that have not yet been expressed. Guidelines for submission are published at the website.

There has been a spike in hate crimes against refugees, with much far-right anger and criticism directed at Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to suspend the Dublin Regulation, which stipulates that migrants and refugees can only claim asylum at a German port of entry.

The migration crisis has given fresh impetus to the PEGIDA movement (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident), whose activists staged a number of demos across Germany last month.Some EU member countries are introducing temporary border controls to halt the influx of refugees and to screen those trying to enter the country illegally.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, as well as Egypt have consistently criticized Qatar for its support of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, and a cohort of Muslim Brotherhood and Taliban affiliated organizations. It is also worth noting that an adviser to then U.S. President-elect Donald, in November, promised to “outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood”. Some analysts in Gulf States are asking whether fellow GCC members and the USA could be aiming at “regime change” in Doha while others see the severing of ties motivated by less drastic goals and as aimed at forcing Qatar to change its relatively tolerant position towards Iran, and to end its support of the Taliban and Muslim Brotherhood and their offshoots including Hamas in Palestine.

In November 2016 Walid Phares, a top-foreign policy adviser to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, said the Trump administration will sign a bill that designates the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Walid Phares spoke with the Egyptian Youm7 saying that: “Trump considers the Muslim Brotherhood a dangerous group that fuels the Jihadist ideology, thus he seeks for a military strike against the group and will not politically contain the group as Obama and H. Clinton did”. In February 2016 the US House Judiciary Committee approved legislation calling on the State Department to designate the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as a foreign terrorist organization. However, the U.S. State Department has not taken any further steps since February 2016. The bill cites multiple countries who have declared the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) a terrorist organization. These countries include Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

It is noteworthy that the Obama administration and especially the State Department under then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton colluded with Muslim Brotherhood – linked organizations during the notorious Arab Spring in Libya, Egypt and Syria in 2011. In fact, one of Clinton’s closest advisers, Huma Abedin and her family are known for close ties to Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda linked organizations. But U.S. collusion with Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda linked “rebels” is not limited to Democrats. In April 2013 Conservative Senator John McCain was caught on photo in a safe-house in Syria after crossing the border illegally. (see photo left) Among the “celebrities” present at the meeting was Islamic State leader al-Baghdadi (al-Badri). In November 2014 the United Arab Emirates (UAE) outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood following intense rounds of negotiations between GCC member states, particularly Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The UAE designated the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, along with the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda associated Jabhat al-Nusrah, the so-called Islamic State a.k.a. ISIS/ISIL and Yemen’s Houthi. Saudi Arabia’s position regarding the Muslim Brotherhood is dual. On one hand, some top-members of the Saudi oligarchy including government support Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations abroad while the country opposes its “official” presence within the State. Saudi Arabia considers large parts of the international Muslim Brotherhood as instrument for is ally and rival Qatar, one of the primary international sponsors of Botherhood-linked organizations. Saudi Arabia is, however, “unofficially but blatantly” using Al-Qaeda an the Islamic State as an instrument abroad while it opposes its “official” presence in the country.

Opponents of Trump attempt to denounce the U.S. President-elect as anti-Muslim, and Trump made some “politically incorrect” statements, about Muslim and other communities. That is, provocative campaign statements that could easily be abused and used against him. Meanwhile, a closer look reveals that Trump is not anti-Muslim at all. Much rather, he opposes the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, and he at least appears to be opposed to using Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda-linked organizations as an instrument of US foreign and military policy.