Category: Terrorism

Your bin Laden Update

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The most interesting bit is the dog that did not bark, one of the red flags that tipped off the CIA was the fact that a rather expensive, on the order of $1 million, but there were no phone lines or internet connectivity.

After the Moonie Washington Times revealed that we were monitoring his satellite phone in the 1990s, we went old school on his communications, using only couriers, and so, when he set up his homestead a mile from the Pakistani military academy (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!?) he was having none of telecommunications thing, and that lack marked him.

On the truly weird side, it turns out that the raid was life tweeted by someone (@ReallyVirtual) who was unaware of the raid, and was just complaining about the helicopters late at night.

There is a bigger picture, but that’s the next post.

Pass the Popcorn, Wikileaks Again

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Wikileaks has now released about 700 documents on what is going on in the Guantánamo Bay gulag, and the picture is one of a completely incompetent and immoral process.

Cases in point:

Given the totality it’s not the documentation, it’s not surprising that the New York Times strongly condemned the whole process:

The internal documents from the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, published in The Times on Monday were a chilling reminder of the legal and moral disaster that President George W. Bush created there. They describe the chaos, lawlessness and incompetence in his administration’s system for deciding detainees’ guilt or innocence and assessing whether they would be a threat if released.

(emphasis mine)

It is refreshing to see the editorial page of the “paper of record” excoriate our gulag in the Caribbean, but unfortunately, they don’t go further, and ask why there have been no prosecutions of the lawless incompetent torturers.

Republican Terrorists Blow Up Police Officer

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OK, it’s Irish Republican Terrorists who did this.

This is the first of a continuing series Fox News Headlines.

Seriously, have you ever spent 5 minutes reading their headline ticker?

I do not mean to diminish the senseless and tragic death of Ronan Kerr, nor the impact on Omaugh, which saw a horrific bombing by the so-called “Real IRA” 13 years ago, but I was waiting for service with a channel tuned to Fux Snooze today, and it got me pissed off.

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I’m hoping that this is some sort of elaborate hoax, but I fear that it isn’t:

Al-Qaeda has launched a magazine for women that not only offers beauty and fashion tips but also gives advice on suicide bombings.

The front cover of the glossy magazine, called ‘Jihad Cosmo’, features the barrel of a sub-machine gun next to a picture of a woman in a veil, reports the Daily Mail.

There are exclusive interviews with martyrs’ wives, who praise their husbands’ decisions to die in suicide attacks.

The slick, 31-page Al-Shamikha magazine – meaning The Majestic Woman – has advice for singletons on ‘marrying a mujahideen’.

Stop the world, I need to get off.

Nothing to See Here, Move Along…

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The National Academy of Sciences has reviewed the FBI’s forensic claims regarding Bruce Ivins and the Anthrax mailing investigation, and has politely called bullsh%$ on this:

The National Academy of Sciences is just out with a 190-page review [1] of the forensic science behind the FBI’s investigation of the 2001 anthrax letter attacks. The takeaway: Some of the evidence cited to identify Army microbiologist Bruce E. Ivins as the perpetrator isn’t as conclusive as the FBI has claimed.

In particular, the panel of experts said it “did not definitively demonstrate” that the source of the anthrax was spores taken from a flask controlled by Ivins, a microbiologist who did vaccine research at the U.S. Army Institute for Medical Research of Infection Diseases in Maryland. Nor did scientific data generated for the FBI “rule out other sources” for the anthrax, the panel’s report says.

Considering the record on the investigation, the you can review their tactics to the prior “person of interest” in this situation (Stephen Hatfill, who was exonerated and received a cash settlement) and be rather surprised that he didn’t top himself as well.

God Bless The Onion

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Don’t be drinking anything when you read the rest of This:

U.S. Authorities Can’t Really Fault Al-Qaeda For Deadly Bombing Of Carnival Cruise Ship
‘Those Things Represent Everything That’s Wrong With America,’ Officials Say

February 9, 2011 | ISSUE 47•06

WASHINGTON—Following Monday’s deadly terrorist attack on a Carnival Cruise Line ship, U.S. officials have had difficulty issuing a stern condemnation of the incident, saying that while any act of terrorism is inexcusable, they couldn’t completely blame al-Qaeda for wanting to blow up what is essentially a giant, floating symbol of everything that is truly god-awful about America.

………

OMFSM, this is funny!

Russia

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The bombing is clearly a horrible thing, but I don’t have much to add, though I would suggest that you look at Mark Ames article on Russian stoicism.

The Russian reaction may seem cold, or even heartless, in their reaction, but consider the alternative:

As appalling as it might seem, let’s remember what America’s far more sentimental reaction to 9/11 got us: two disastrous wars, tens of thousands of deaths, and the sorts of police-state measures once thought unimaginable. The difference may be more in our sentimentality than in our brutality.

By simply soldiering on, and letting it roll off your back, it makes it much more difficult for the Terrorists to win.

Republicans Are So F%$#ing Classy

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Wouldn’t you know it, “Jesse Kelly, the ex-Marine Tea Partyer who challenged Gabrielle Giffords,” is looking into the possibility of gearing up for a special election:

Kelly, if you don’t already know, has been taking heat since Giffords’ shooting for sponsoring a campaign event last year in which supporters joined him in shooting a “fully automatic M-16.” “Get on target for November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office,” the event’s announcement read.

It’s true that the M-16 event had no direct connection with Giffords’ shooting, and claims that it indirectly helped create a “climate” conducive to the shooting are dubious at best. Still, to many people, Kelly is now best known as the guy who encouraged supporters to shoot M-16s in the name of defeating a member of Congress who was, several months later, nearly shot to death. Politically, the association is toxic, and Kelly faces a formidable — maybe impossible — task in repairing the damage.

Thus, stories about him quietly looking into whether there might soon be a special election for Giffords’ seat are particularly damaging for him. Sure, the inquiry his campaign apparently made wasn’t actually that unreasonable. There were, after all, reports earlier this week that Arizona state law requires that Giffords’ seat be declared vacant if she’s incapacitated for more than 90 days. All Kelly may have done is make a discreet inquiry about whether this is true. (It isn’t; only the House itself can declare a seat vacant.) But, especially in the wake of the M-16 controversy, it looks terrible for Kelly to be seen making political calculations right now.

Actually, it doesn’t look terrible.

It’s par for the course for the ‘Phants.  It took them about 12 hours to politicize 911, after all.

Domestic Terrorism in Spokane

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I’m not sure why the press isn’t covering this, but someone planted a relatively sophisticated road-side bomb along the route of the Spokane Martin Luther King Day parade:

A backpack found along the route of the Martin Luther King Jr. march in Spokane contained a bomb “capable of inflicting multiple casualties,” the FBI said Tuesday, describing the case as “domestic terrorism.”

The FBI said the Swiss Army-brand backpack was found about 9:25 a.m. PST on Monday on a bench at the northeast corner of North Washington Street and West Main Avenue in downtown Spokane.

In an interview on msnbc cable’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Spokesman-Review reporter Thomas Clouse said confidential sources told him that the device was equipped with a remote control detonator and contained shrapnel.

There are two things that are very concerning here:

  • The FBI is being very loquacious about this, and I don’t mean, “FBI is offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of people responsible for placing the device.” Considering how legendary the FBI is about keeping its cards close to its chest, this implies that they are very spooked by this.
  • Spokane is smack dab in the middle of any number of any number of white supremacist encampments, and has already seen Aryan Nation inspired bombings and robberies.

I think that the FBI has some intel indicating that more than one person has some sort of ongoing plans for a series of actions.

What is odd here is that Maddow seems to be the only national media figure who is paying any attention.

It’s Because He’s Black…

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No, it’s not because he supported McCain in the primaries

No, not Barack Obama, but rather Arizona legislative district 20 Republican Party chairman Anthony Miller, who has been harassed by the teabeggers and has resigned:

A nasty battle between factions of Legislative District 20 Republicans and fears that it could turn violent in the wake of what happened in Tucson on Saturday prompted District Chairman Anthony Miller and several others to resign.

Miller, a 43-year-old Ahwatukee Foothills resident and former campaign worker for U.S. Sen. John McCain, was re-elected to a second one-year term last month. He said
constant verbal attacks after that election and Internet blog posts by some local members with Tea Party ties made him worry about his family’s safety.

People are not upset at him because he supported McCain, who, after all demolished J.D. Hayworth in the primary, so he had broad based support from the party.

The problem here is that the Teabaggers think that his skin color clashes with the Arizona Republican Party, though they probably use a 2 word phrase beginning with “uppity”.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

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Barack Obama and His Evil Minions™ are drawing up plans for the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay:

The White House is preparing an Executive Order on indefinite detention that will provide periodic reviews of evidence against dozens of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, according to several administration officials.

The draft order, a version of which was first considered nearly 18 months ago, is expected to be signed by President Obama early in the New Year. The order allows for the possibility that detainees from countries like Yemen might be released if circumstances there change.

But the order establishes indefinite detention as a long-term Obama administration policy and makes clear that the White House alone will manage a review process for those it chooses to hold without charge or trial.

The law here is clear.

If we are at war, and I understand the argument that the authorization for the use of force might constitute this, then you can detain people without access to the legal process, as prisoners of war, with all the rights pertaining to that status.

This is not about prisoners of war.  This is about the king throwing people in jail on nothing but his word, and it is antithetical to American founding principles, which should be obvious to everyone, except perhaps for the worst constitutional law professor ever.

Trials Work

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Ahmed Ghailani, accused of being complicit in the embassy bombings in Africa 19 1998, was acquitted of all but one of the almost 300 charges against him:

White House officials said Thursday that the acquittal of Ahmed Ghailani on all but one of more than 280 criminal charges in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa would not undermine their effort to try former Guantanamo detainees in civilian court, even as the mixed verdict reignited debate over that policy.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Ghailani – the first former detainee to be tried in federal court – will receive a lengthy prison sentence for his conviction on one count of conspiracy.

Of course, it lazy investigators had not tortured him at Guantanamo in the first place, and instead used their brains and skills, they probably would have gotten dozens of convictions, but even with the sloppy work, the get a conviction.

There is no need for torture of military kangaroo courts. We can use our judges and our laws, right here in the United States.

Of course, we won’t because Barack Obama and Eric “Place” Holder are to wimpy to stand up for our values.

Ford Field In Detroit Evacuated!

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Practice at the Detroit Lions stadium was delayed after a player reported finding an unknown white powdery substance on the ground. After a complete analysis, forensic experts determined that the white substance, unfamiliar to most of the players, was in fact, the goal line. Practice will resume tomorrow after Police and Homeland Security decided the team was unlikely to encounter the substance again.*

*No clue as to who came up with this in the first place, but it’s funny.

So they Torture a Little Boy, Admit the Testimony Thereby Extracted, Use it to Coerce a Confession, and Sentence Him to 40 Years in Prison

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Only he will actually be out in less than 3 years, since Omar Khadr will be transferred to Canada, and released for time served:

A United States military commission at Guantánamo Bay has sentenced a former child soldier for Al Qaeda to 40 years in prison for war crimes — but he might be released in less than three years, the Defense Department said.

A panel of seven military officers at the American military base in Cuba determined on Sunday that the child soldier, Omar Khadr, 24, should be imprisoned — for terrorism-related offenses he committed in Afghanistan when he was a teenager — until he nearly reaches retirement age.

But that sentence was theoretical. Under the terms of a plea agreement, Mr. Khadr will serve no more than eight years. Moreover, after one year, Mr. Khadr, a Canadian citizen, is likely to be transferred to a prison in Canada, where he would be eligible to apply for parole after serving two years and eight months.

Seriously.

The was a show trial, with a predetermined result specifically to allow face saving on the idea of military commissions.

The proceedings are a travesty of the law and basic decency, and every individual up the chain of command who allowed this case to proceed is guilty of conspiracy to violate both US anti-torture statutes and international treaties to which the United States is a signatory.

Not feeling hopey changey right now.

I Don’t Know What to Make of This

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But it appears that someone in Yemen was attempting to send letter bombs to the United States:

Security officials in Britain and Dubai intercepted parcel bombs being sent from Yemen to the United States in a “credible terrorist threat,” President Barack Obama said on Friday.

He said the parcels were bound for “two places of Jewish worship in Chicago.”

Suspicion fell on al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, which took responsibility for a failed plot to blow up a U.S. passenger jet on Christmas Day in 2009.

“Initial examinations of those packages has determined that they do apparently contain explosive material,” Obama told reporters in a televised briefing, calling it “a credible terrorist threat against our country.”

The White House said earlier that “both of these packages originated from Yemen” and that Obama was notified of the threat on Thursday night.

This is clearly an attempt at electioneering, even in Yemen, one would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to know of the election, but, unlike bin Laden’s statement just prior to the 2004 election, where he was clearly trying to throw the race to Bush, the intent here is unclear.

Some questions:

  • Is this an attempt to favor Democrats or Republicans?
  • Why were synagogues chosen?
  • Did the perps expect to succeed of fail?

Damned if I know.

Despicable……

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So the military commissions have secured another confession, Omar Khadr.

They shoot a 15 year old, torture and threaten confessions out if him, allow his confessions to be admitted anyway, and now they have coerced a confession out of him by throwing bogus charges at him:

This morning I sat in a U.S. military commissions courtroom in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and watched the first child soldier charged by a Western nation since World War II plead guilty to crimes he was never even accused of. If the guilty plea of Omar Khadr this morning was a face-saving effort by the U.S. government, it was a sad day for the rule of law in the United States.

Omar Khadr is the 24-year-old Canadian who’s spent a third of his life in U.S. custody without trial after being accused of helping his father’s al Qaeda associates build improvised explosive devices when he was just 15. He was taken to Afghanistan from Canada by his father at the age of nine. The lone survivor of a 2002 U.S. assault on an Afghan compound, Khadr was accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier.

But as he entered his guilty plea this morning — after the government agreed he’d serve just one more year at Guantanamo Bay, and an as-yet-unspecified number of years in Canada — it was clear that prosecutors had taken the opportunity to throw the kitchen-sink-full of charges at him – including far more crimes than he’d even been charged with. Most importantly, Khadr pled guilty to the murder of two Afghan soldiers who accompanied U.S. forces in the 2002 assault on the compound. The government has never presented any evidence whatsoever that Khadr was responsible for that.

…………

This is more than morally repugnant.

This sort of treatment of a child forced into battle by adults is is a war crime, and everyone involved in the trial, up to and including the commander-in-chief, Barack Obama are guilty.

Of course, there will never be an accounting, for even the worst of them.

After all, the two greatest mass murderers of the 20th century, Stalin and Mao, died of natural causes while remaining in power.

Judge Says Torture Evidence Inadmissible

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Actually, he did not say torture, he said “harsh interrogation”, but he also said that any information arising from the CIA’s torture of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was inadmissible.

I believe that the term is “fruit of the poisoned tree,” and by harsh, he does not mean what Jon Steward did to Jim Cramer, he means torture:

In the months since Mr. Ghailani was brought to New York from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of United States District Court in Manhattan has rejected defense requests to dismiss the case because of violations of Mr. Ghailani’s right to a speedy trial and because of accusations he was tortured.

But just as the trial was to begin on Wednesday, Judge Kaplan ruled that he would not allow the witness to testify. He noted that the government had acknowledged that it had identified and located the witness through interrogation of Mr. Ghailani when he was earlier held in a secret overseas jail run by the Central Intelligence Agency. His lawyers have said he was tortured there.

Judge Kaplan said he was “acutely aware of the perilous nature of the world in which we live.”

“But the Constitution is the rock upon which our nation rests,” he went on. “We must follow it not only when it is convenient, but when fear and danger beckon in a different direction. To do less would diminish us and undermine the foundation upon which we stand.”

It really is remarkable how the torture fetish of Bush and His Evil Minions™ continues to f%$# up everything that it touches to this day.

This is why we need prosecutions of both the torturers and those who authorized torture, because when this sh%$ goes down, it hurts all of us, and without consequences for the criminals, more people will be encouraged to break the law.