Scott Morrison 2011:
"The opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, urged the shadow cabinet to capitalise on the electorate's growing concerns about 'Muslim immigration', 'Muslims in Australia' and the 'inability' of Muslim migrants to integrate." (Morrison sees votes in anti-Muslim strategy, Lenore Taylor, Sydney Morning Herald, 17/2/11)
Scott Morrison 2019:
"I'm horrified by the reports I'm following of the serious shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand. The situation is still unfolding but our thoughts and prayers are with our Kiwi cousins." (Tweet @ScottMorrisonMP, 14/3/19)
Note that Morrison cannot even bring himself to use the word terrorism ("serious shooting"), or Muslims ("Kiwi cousins").
In the mold of the Norwegian white supremacist terrorist Anders Breivik, the white supremacist perpetrator of the New Zealand massacres, Brenton Tarrant, had stated in a manifesto that his aim was "to take revenge for the thousands of deaths caused by foreign invaders in European lands throughout history."
This is arguably only a matter of degrees away from the real Scott Morrison, so beautifully summed up by Sydney Morning Herald journalist Tony Wright. (Remember that, before becoming immigration minister, Morrison was the managing director of Tourism Australia, trying to persuade people to visit Australia through an international advertising campaign starring model Lara Bingle, exclaiming, 'Where the bloody hell are you?'):
"His job these days," wrote Wright, "is to persuade would-be visitors to stay away from Australia. The old tourism chief has reversed his talent for propaganda by launching an international advertising campaign warning that the boat borne will find themselves in a concentration camp in the malarial jungles of Manus Island or the sweat box of Nauru, not a Lara in sight, if they so much as think of climbing aboard a leaky craft. Being an enthusiastic Christian, he declares that his concern is for the safety of what he calls 'illegals'." (Morrison keeps House in dark, 14/11/13)
Showing posts with label terrorism industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrorism industry. Show all posts
Saturday, March 16, 2019
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Yes, Virginia, Refugees are Just Like Us
"Levi West, director of terrorism studies at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, said it was 'patently false' to suggest refugee status was a contributing factor to extremism. He said most refugees 'just become taxpayers and mortgage holders and send their kids to school'." (Experts back spy chief on refugee terror denial, Michael Koziol, Sydney Morning Herald, 31/5/17)
Dear Mr West: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends (such as Pauline, who says they have horns) say refugees are not like us. Please tell me the truth; are they just like us?
VIRGINIA, your little friends (particularly Pauline) are wrong. Yes, VIRGINIA, refugees are just like us.
Dear Mr West: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends (such as Pauline, who says they have horns) say refugees are not like us. Please tell me the truth; are they just like us?
VIRGINIA, your little friends (particularly Pauline) are wrong. Yes, VIRGINIA, refugees are just like us.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Factchecking David Kilcullen
I was listening recently to Islamic State & global terrorism: where to now? (1/6/15) on Radio National's Big Ideas program.
Presenter Paul Barclay was interviewing David Kilcullen, introduced as "a former Australian army colonel, with a PhD in insurgency movements. He has been a counterterrorist adviser to the US and worked closely with Iraq War supremo, General David Petraeus, and US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Kilcullen is critical of many aspects of the West's strategy, post 9/11, which, he argues, led to the rise of Islamic State. He warns the global terrorist threat is now the new normal. So how do we defeat ISIS?"
Nothing special. Just another of those bland, softball ABC interviews with a reliably safe subject who'll possibly go on, like other 'clanking colonels' before him, Mike Kelly (Lab) and Andrew Nikolic (Lib), to become a celebrity candidate for one or the other party. Parachuted into a safe seat would seem appropriate here.
Still, at least Kilcullen did get around to stating the bleeding obvious, namely that, "If we hadn't invaded Iraq, there wouldn't be any ISIS today."
Anyway, somewhere towards the end of the show, the interview took a somewhat more interesting turn, for me at least, when Kilcullen mentioned Israel.
He had just been telling us that the West needed to get serious about ISIS, by which he meant eliminating it. At which point Barclay wondered whether the US might not be feeling a tad war weary these days. (The US war weary? We wish!)
Kilcullen responded by asserting that, unfortunately, the price you pay for isolationism is a police state, or words to that effect. Presumably, he meant that if we didn't get stuck into ISIS over there, ISIS would be stuck into us over here. He went on:
If anyone's ever been to Israel - I have not, but I've heard from people who have, that very domestic security stuff is the price you pay for taking...
Paul Barclay: Well, you destroy democracy in order to save it.
David Kilcullen: Exactly.
Damn! I wish Barclay had let Kilcullen finish his bloody sentence, so that I don't have to infer what he was going to say. Anyway, what I imagine Kilcullen PhD meant was that poor little Israel is so menaced by Palestinian baddies that it has no choice but to erect walls and barriers and checkpoints, and flood the streets with security personnel and troops, otherwise... KABOOM!
IOW, if I've got him right, Kilcullen PhD seriously has no idea just who is menacing who in ISRAELI-OCCUPIED Palestine. Extraordinary!
And then you've got Barclay (described on RN's website as "a Walkley Award-winning journalist and broadcaster with an appetite for ideas and in-depth analysis and discussion," and is 53-years old to boot - no spring chicken in other words) invoking the word "democracy" in relation to Israel and not even hinting that what may superficially resemble a police state in Israel is actually the wherewithal needed to keep a COLONISED and OCCUPIED people down.
Anyway, Barclay continued along these lines:
I used to host a national talkback program on Radio National during the very hot period after 9/11 and you get a lot of free advice on how to deal with the global terrorist threat... and the view that I got from many, many people was that if we just gave the Palestinians back their land, let them have their own state, if America stopped roaming around the world as if it owned the place, and if you treated Muslims and their culture with the respect they deserved [we wouldn't have a problem]. What is your answer to that?
DK: First answer is to quote Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, who was asked this very question: 'What can we do that's gonna change your calculus?' And he said, 'We are not fighting so you will offer us something, we are fighting to destroy you.' Yes, there are probably people out there who you could deal with but there's still a very hard core of people who are not about some kind of deal with the West and if we just change our behaviour this can all end. These [people] are about totally redefining all human beings on the planet. So there's this element out there that's...
PB: And they're the people you say we need to annihilate?
DK: Their ability to function as a state, yes, not kill every last one.
Now if we just stop there. Kilcullen PhD has just broadcast to the planet that Hassan Nasrallah's Hezbollah is coming to get us. Seriously.
Google that quote about "...we are fighting to destroy you," and you find it's attributed not to Hezbollah's current secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, but to a dude (a word Kilcullen loves to toss around) by the name of Hussein Musawi. You also find that the word 'destroy' is replaced by 'eliminate'.
The 'Massawi' quote can be found, for example, in such fear-mongering Islamophobic rants as America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It (2006) by Mark Steyn (p 151), and Citizen-Soldier Handbook: 101 Ways Every American Can Fight Terrorism (2009) by Michael Mandaville (p 6). It is in the nature of these things, of course, that no citation or context is supplied, just the same old sentence endlessly recycled.
And what do you know? It even pops up in Kilcullen PhD's own book, Counterinsurgency (2010), followed merely by this: "Hussein Massawi, Hezbollah (2003)." (p 167)
So who is Hussein Mussawi? In Steyn and Mandaville he's described as "the former leader of Hezbollah."
But look him up in some reputable tome on the subject of Hezbollah and you'll find as follows:
Hezbollah: Born With a Vengeance (1997), Hala Jaber:
"Islamic Amal had been started by Hussein Musawi in 1982, following Nabih Berri's political stance towards the Israeli invasion. Musawi was one of the few visible radicals in the early 80s. He was one of the many militants who held America responsible for encouraging and allowing Israel to invade and occupy Lebanon. His continuous denunciations of the West and his close relations with Iranian radicals made him a prime suspect during the West's desperate search for the names behind the new, invisible Islamic phenomenon." (pp 53-4)
In the Path of Hizbullah (2004), Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh:
Hussein Mussawi is mentioned merely as the leader of Islamic Amal.
Hizbullah: The Story From Within (2005), Naim Qassem:
No mention.
Hezbollah: A Short History (2007), Augustus Richard Norton:
No mention.
IOW, Hussein Mussawi is not a leader of Hezbollah
Interestingly, if you consult Kilcullen PhD's own book, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (2009), this is what you get on Hezbollah:
"Hizballah, as a Shi'a organization that embodies elements of terrorist, insurgent, propaganda,charity, and social work, with a global reach [WTF?!], profound political influence in the Levant, and a client-proxy relationship with the Iranian regime, is a non-state instance of expanding Shi'a influence." (p 18)
There's no mention whatever here of Hezbollah's primary characteristic, namely that it is a Lebanese resistance movement born in response to the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon in 1982. Mind you, he's quite capable of describing East Timor's FRETILIN, which fought a guerilla war against Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor from 1975 to 1999, as a resistance organisation (p 208). But Hezbollah? Forget it. How could anyone possibly resist an Israeli invasion and occupation?
Kilcullen PhD resumes:
And the second is this bar fight analogy. So the situation we're in is George Bush walks into a bar and punches a bunch of people and starts a big bar fight and then hands it over to Obama who sits quietly on his bar stool, and maybe that's a great solution if you haven't already punched a bunch of guys and started a bar fight, but now we're in this fight so you gotta deal with it.
The Anglo-US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a bar fight? Seriously? What nonsense, it was a bloody home invasion!
Presenter Paul Barclay was interviewing David Kilcullen, introduced as "a former Australian army colonel, with a PhD in insurgency movements. He has been a counterterrorist adviser to the US and worked closely with Iraq War supremo, General David Petraeus, and US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Kilcullen is critical of many aspects of the West's strategy, post 9/11, which, he argues, led to the rise of Islamic State. He warns the global terrorist threat is now the new normal. So how do we defeat ISIS?"
Nothing special. Just another of those bland, softball ABC interviews with a reliably safe subject who'll possibly go on, like other 'clanking colonels' before him, Mike Kelly (Lab) and Andrew Nikolic (Lib), to become a celebrity candidate for one or the other party. Parachuted into a safe seat would seem appropriate here.
Still, at least Kilcullen did get around to stating the bleeding obvious, namely that, "If we hadn't invaded Iraq, there wouldn't be any ISIS today."
Anyway, somewhere towards the end of the show, the interview took a somewhat more interesting turn, for me at least, when Kilcullen mentioned Israel.
He had just been telling us that the West needed to get serious about ISIS, by which he meant eliminating it. At which point Barclay wondered whether the US might not be feeling a tad war weary these days. (The US war weary? We wish!)
Kilcullen responded by asserting that, unfortunately, the price you pay for isolationism is a police state, or words to that effect. Presumably, he meant that if we didn't get stuck into ISIS over there, ISIS would be stuck into us over here. He went on:
If anyone's ever been to Israel - I have not, but I've heard from people who have, that very domestic security stuff is the price you pay for taking...
Paul Barclay: Well, you destroy democracy in order to save it.
David Kilcullen: Exactly.
Damn! I wish Barclay had let Kilcullen finish his bloody sentence, so that I don't have to infer what he was going to say. Anyway, what I imagine Kilcullen PhD meant was that poor little Israel is so menaced by Palestinian baddies that it has no choice but to erect walls and barriers and checkpoints, and flood the streets with security personnel and troops, otherwise... KABOOM!
IOW, if I've got him right, Kilcullen PhD seriously has no idea just who is menacing who in ISRAELI-OCCUPIED Palestine. Extraordinary!
And then you've got Barclay (described on RN's website as "a Walkley Award-winning journalist and broadcaster with an appetite for ideas and in-depth analysis and discussion," and is 53-years old to boot - no spring chicken in other words) invoking the word "democracy" in relation to Israel and not even hinting that what may superficially resemble a police state in Israel is actually the wherewithal needed to keep a COLONISED and OCCUPIED people down.
Anyway, Barclay continued along these lines:
I used to host a national talkback program on Radio National during the very hot period after 9/11 and you get a lot of free advice on how to deal with the global terrorist threat... and the view that I got from many, many people was that if we just gave the Palestinians back their land, let them have their own state, if America stopped roaming around the world as if it owned the place, and if you treated Muslims and their culture with the respect they deserved [we wouldn't have a problem]. What is your answer to that?
DK: First answer is to quote Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, who was asked this very question: 'What can we do that's gonna change your calculus?' And he said, 'We are not fighting so you will offer us something, we are fighting to destroy you.' Yes, there are probably people out there who you could deal with but there's still a very hard core of people who are not about some kind of deal with the West and if we just change our behaviour this can all end. These [people] are about totally redefining all human beings on the planet. So there's this element out there that's...
PB: And they're the people you say we need to annihilate?
DK: Their ability to function as a state, yes, not kill every last one.
Now if we just stop there. Kilcullen PhD has just broadcast to the planet that Hassan Nasrallah's Hezbollah is coming to get us. Seriously.
Google that quote about "...we are fighting to destroy you," and you find it's attributed not to Hezbollah's current secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, but to a dude (a word Kilcullen loves to toss around) by the name of Hussein Musawi. You also find that the word 'destroy' is replaced by 'eliminate'.
The 'Massawi' quote can be found, for example, in such fear-mongering Islamophobic rants as America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It (2006) by Mark Steyn (p 151), and Citizen-Soldier Handbook: 101 Ways Every American Can Fight Terrorism (2009) by Michael Mandaville (p 6). It is in the nature of these things, of course, that no citation or context is supplied, just the same old sentence endlessly recycled.
And what do you know? It even pops up in Kilcullen PhD's own book, Counterinsurgency (2010), followed merely by this: "Hussein Massawi, Hezbollah (2003)." (p 167)
So who is Hussein Mussawi? In Steyn and Mandaville he's described as "the former leader of Hezbollah."
But look him up in some reputable tome on the subject of Hezbollah and you'll find as follows:
Hezbollah: Born With a Vengeance (1997), Hala Jaber:
"Islamic Amal had been started by Hussein Musawi in 1982, following Nabih Berri's political stance towards the Israeli invasion. Musawi was one of the few visible radicals in the early 80s. He was one of the many militants who held America responsible for encouraging and allowing Israel to invade and occupy Lebanon. His continuous denunciations of the West and his close relations with Iranian radicals made him a prime suspect during the West's desperate search for the names behind the new, invisible Islamic phenomenon." (pp 53-4)
In the Path of Hizbullah (2004), Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh:
Hussein Mussawi is mentioned merely as the leader of Islamic Amal.
Hizbullah: The Story From Within (2005), Naim Qassem:
No mention.
Hezbollah: A Short History (2007), Augustus Richard Norton:
No mention.
IOW, Hussein Mussawi is not a leader of Hezbollah
Interestingly, if you consult Kilcullen PhD's own book, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (2009), this is what you get on Hezbollah:
"Hizballah, as a Shi'a organization that embodies elements of terrorist, insurgent, propaganda,charity, and social work, with a global reach [WTF?!], profound political influence in the Levant, and a client-proxy relationship with the Iranian regime, is a non-state instance of expanding Shi'a influence." (p 18)
There's no mention whatever here of Hezbollah's primary characteristic, namely that it is a Lebanese resistance movement born in response to the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon in 1982. Mind you, he's quite capable of describing East Timor's FRETILIN, which fought a guerilla war against Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor from 1975 to 1999, as a resistance organisation (p 208). But Hezbollah? Forget it. How could anyone possibly resist an Israeli invasion and occupation?
Kilcullen PhD resumes:
And the second is this bar fight analogy. So the situation we're in is George Bush walks into a bar and punches a bunch of people and starts a big bar fight and then hands it over to Obama who sits quietly on his bar stool, and maybe that's a great solution if you haven't already punched a bunch of guys and started a bar fight, but now we're in this fight so you gotta deal with it.
The Anglo-US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a bar fight? Seriously? What nonsense, it was a bloody home invasion!
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Tony Abbott: Ramping Up the Paranoia...
"An analysis by Fairfax Media of all press releases, transcripts, speeches, interviews and YouTube videos uploaded by the Prime Minister's Office as well as Hansard reveals that Tony Abbott has used the term 'death-cult' 346 times since September. In contrast, domestic violence rated a mention just 43 times in the same period." (Abbott's 'death cult' obsession raises fears, Rachel Olding, Sydney Morning Herald, 12/5/15)
And spending like a drunken sailor:
"The government will commit a further $450 million to the fight against homegrown terrorism in the budget as it warns of a dangerous new trend towards teenagers, some as young as 14, taking up the cause of violent extremism. The new spending pushes the outlays on national security and deradicalisation programs to more than $1 billion, despite severe budgetary pressure." (Terrorism fears prompt $450m funding boost, Mark Kenny, David Wroe, Sydney Morning Herald, 12/5/15)
"The federal government will spend up to $400 million in extra funds to create a dedicated new border enforcement agency, to start operating from July 1... The extra funding means that the immigration portfolio will be the only one other than Defence to receive a boost, government sources said... The boost comes after the last budget allocated $711 million... to the creation of the Border Force." (Extra cash for armed border force, Peter Hartcher, James Massola, Sydney Morning Herald, 12/5/15)
And spending like a drunken sailor:
"The government will commit a further $450 million to the fight against homegrown terrorism in the budget as it warns of a dangerous new trend towards teenagers, some as young as 14, taking up the cause of violent extremism. The new spending pushes the outlays on national security and deradicalisation programs to more than $1 billion, despite severe budgetary pressure." (Terrorism fears prompt $450m funding boost, Mark Kenny, David Wroe, Sydney Morning Herald, 12/5/15)
"The federal government will spend up to $400 million in extra funds to create a dedicated new border enforcement agency, to start operating from July 1... The extra funding means that the immigration portfolio will be the only one other than Defence to receive a boost, government sources said... The boost comes after the last budget allocated $711 million... to the creation of the Border Force." (Extra cash for armed border force, Peter Hartcher, James Massola, Sydney Morning Herald, 12/5/15)
Monday, September 22, 2014
Knives & iPhones: The New WMD
Got the post-election blues? No more carbon tax to kick around anymore? Can't sell your dog of a budget? Popularity nosediving in the polls? The answer's simple. There's a tried and true formula: Wave the flag. Wear it even. Why not? Hang out with the top brass and the boys in blue. Wear specs. Makes you look more like a suppository of wisdom, less of a bogan thug. Strut the world stage. Tell Putin to step outside, mate. Start a war. Above all, concoct a security threat, divide and sow fear in the community. Works a treat:
"As all of you know, we live in an uncertain and changing world. I've often said that all citizens of a peaceful democracy like Australia shrink from reaching out to conflicts in other parts of the world, but what we've seen in recent times is these conflicts reaching out to us. As you all know, there are at least 60 Australians who are known to be fighting with ISIL and other terrorist groups in the Middle East. There are at least 100 Australians who are known to be supporting ISIL and other terrorist groups in the Middle East... As you know, a week ago, the terror threat level was officially raised and as I think all of you would now know, earlier this week a specific instruction came from a senior Australian ISIL operative in Syria to the local ISIL network to carry out what I've described as demonstration killings of Australian citizens. In order to disrupt this, there was a very large anti-terror event in Sydney yesterday. Some 800 police and security officials were involved, 25 premises were raided, 15 people were detained, one person has already been charged with very serious terrorist offences. Investigations are ongoing and the police expect further charges to be laid against other individuals... [T]he best way for people to respond to the threat of terror is to go about their normal lives. Terrorists want to scare us out of being ourselves and our best response is insouciantly to be fully Australian, to defy the terrorists by going about our normal business; by being the decent, peaceful, democratic, and tolerant people that Australians always have been and, as far as I am concerned, always will be... I do have to say, though, that the challenges that we face are more serious today than at any time in the past. We saw on the streets of London a year or so back the sorts of thing which some people would like to perpetrate here in this country, and it is a serious situation when all you need to do to carry out a terrorist attack is to have a knife, an iPhone, and a victim." (Tony Abbott, Joint Press Conference, Sydney, pm.gov.au, 19/9/14)
"As all of you know, we live in an uncertain and changing world. I've often said that all citizens of a peaceful democracy like Australia shrink from reaching out to conflicts in other parts of the world, but what we've seen in recent times is these conflicts reaching out to us. As you all know, there are at least 60 Australians who are known to be fighting with ISIL and other terrorist groups in the Middle East. There are at least 100 Australians who are known to be supporting ISIL and other terrorist groups in the Middle East... As you know, a week ago, the terror threat level was officially raised and as I think all of you would now know, earlier this week a specific instruction came from a senior Australian ISIL operative in Syria to the local ISIL network to carry out what I've described as demonstration killings of Australian citizens. In order to disrupt this, there was a very large anti-terror event in Sydney yesterday. Some 800 police and security officials were involved, 25 premises were raided, 15 people were detained, one person has already been charged with very serious terrorist offences. Investigations are ongoing and the police expect further charges to be laid against other individuals... [T]he best way for people to respond to the threat of terror is to go about their normal lives. Terrorists want to scare us out of being ourselves and our best response is insouciantly to be fully Australian, to defy the terrorists by going about our normal business; by being the decent, peaceful, democratic, and tolerant people that Australians always have been and, as far as I am concerned, always will be... I do have to say, though, that the challenges that we face are more serious today than at any time in the past. We saw on the streets of London a year or so back the sorts of thing which some people would like to perpetrate here in this country, and it is a serious situation when all you need to do to carry out a terrorist attack is to have a knife, an iPhone, and a victim." (Tony Abbott, Joint Press Conference, Sydney, pm.gov.au, 19/9/14)
Friday, September 12, 2014
Whipping Up Fear & Loathing in the Abbottoir
"Suspicion, scepticism, resentment. These are the sentiments that best describe the reaction of Australia's Muslim community to the news Australia's terrorist alert level is poised to go from medium to high, the first such change ever." (Muslim leaders sceptical of threat, Paul Maley, The Australian, 11/9/14)
I wonder why?
Well, wouldn't you be suspicious, sceptical and resentful after reading the following?:
"A small number of Islamic radicals have 'settled plans' to conduct terrorist attacks in Australia, bolstering the case for the nation's spy chief to recommend an increase in the terror threat level, which could happen as early as tomorrow... The move will come a day after AFP counterterrorism officers conducted raids across Brisbane, and on the 13th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the US..." (Terror attack 'plans' in place, Paul Maley/Cameron Stewart, The Australian, 11/9/14)
OMG... settled plans? Head for the hills!
But wait, what's this?:
"The Australian has been told that, while authorities are unaware of extremists 'bolting together' a bomb, ASIO and the AFP have identified a number of radicals with 'settled intentions' to perpetrate terrorist acts in Australia." (ibid)
Uh huh. No settled plans but settled intentions. Tell me more:
"A counter-terrorism source said although the sort of plans being discussed were 'vague', the intentions were becoming increasingly serious." (ibid)
I see, although the plans have been downgraded from settled to vague, the intentions have been upgraded to increasingly serious. Seriously.
"'It's like (they're saying), 'we've got to do something, we can't go to Syria',' the source said. 'It's gone beyond bravado, they are seriously talking about it'." (ibid)
You couldn't possibly, like, make this stuff up. Wait, there's an idea...
I wonder why?
Well, wouldn't you be suspicious, sceptical and resentful after reading the following?:
"A small number of Islamic radicals have 'settled plans' to conduct terrorist attacks in Australia, bolstering the case for the nation's spy chief to recommend an increase in the terror threat level, which could happen as early as tomorrow... The move will come a day after AFP counterterrorism officers conducted raids across Brisbane, and on the 13th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the US..." (Terror attack 'plans' in place, Paul Maley/Cameron Stewart, The Australian, 11/9/14)
OMG... settled plans? Head for the hills!
But wait, what's this?:
"The Australian has been told that, while authorities are unaware of extremists 'bolting together' a bomb, ASIO and the AFP have identified a number of radicals with 'settled intentions' to perpetrate terrorist acts in Australia." (ibid)
Uh huh. No settled plans but settled intentions. Tell me more:
"A counter-terrorism source said although the sort of plans being discussed were 'vague', the intentions were becoming increasingly serious." (ibid)
I see, although the plans have been downgraded from settled to vague, the intentions have been upgraded to increasingly serious. Seriously.
"'It's like (they're saying), 'we've got to do something, we can't go to Syria',' the source said. 'It's gone beyond bravado, they are seriously talking about it'." (ibid)
You couldn't possibly, like, make this stuff up. Wait, there's an idea...
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Heads He Wins, Tails We Lose
An absolute must-read from The Sunday Telegraph - that's right, Murdoch's Sunday paper - of August 17:
Why I fear the severed heads are fakes by Duncan Lay
"The carefully pixelated pictures of a young Australian boy holding up a severed head have rightly enraged people this past week. Politicians have been lining up to condemn the boy's father, Aussie-born Khaled Sharrouf, and to promise 'action' - tough penalties, new laws, and anything they can think of to appease the justified community outrage. But here's the thing. I have the horrible feeling the heads in the Sharrouf pictures, including the one with his son, are fake. I think Sharrouf is an evil fantasist, rather than evil in reality, similar to that fantasist jihadist who was caught in The Philippines while claiming to be on the front line of the war.
"Why, you may well ask? I confess I don't have a series of freshly-cut heads in my cellar to compare them against. But I have been able to see the unpixelated images and they just don't look right. Take away the black boxes the papers have been adding and you'll see that:
1) There are no necks on them. They're just heads. So what, you may ask? But it is impossible to cut off heads that close to the skull without damaging the chin. Those heads are pristine, which is also highly unlikely. Not a trace of a wound anywhere, just a disembodied head.
2) If they had been cut off while alive, there would be variety of agonised expressions, probably cries of fear and pain. The faces of these 'heads' all look asleep. They are also plump and filled out and the mouth is closed and the chin firm. Gravity alone suggests the jaw would drop down and the mouth gape open, while the loss of blood and fluid would make the cheeks look hollow. The hair would also be in disarray. None of this is happening. It's all perfect.
3) The skin colour. Dead bodies are pale, due to blood draining down to whatever side it is lying on. Obviously it's far worse in something that has been cut off. Those heads are far too ruddy.
4) No oozing. Heads are full of liquid. Even hours later, holding one up like that would cause drippage - and yet there is nothing.
5) They're too light. The boy's forearms are showing little strain. Turn to our fishing page and you'll see kids having more difficulty holding up a 2kg fish than he's showing holding an adult head. And he's holding it by the hair. Unless he's the world's strongest kid, it seems unlikely.
6) Too much fun. Kids can't fake facial expressions and he thinks what he's doing is hilarious. But if it was a real head, dripping, stinking and bloody, I can't see him cuddling it.
7) All the Sharrouf 'head' pics are like this one. All of the ones showing him and 'heads' feature these perfect, disembodied heads with no necks and no bloody mess. There's even one of him holding a 'head' by the ear showing the neck 'wound'. It's still red. Dried blood would have been brown-black by then.
"Look, they could be real. I have never seen a genuine severed head. But it feels wrong. My guess is he's using a store dummy head and photoshopping. He's trying to appeal to all the wannabes and disaffected youths out in the suburbs who think it's somehow cool and edgy, all those teenage boys filled with a mixture of rebellion and bravado.
"Now that doesn't take away the fact he's a twisted little scumbag who doesn't deserve to have kids and, if he ever lobs back in Australia, needs to be locked up and have the key thrown away. It doesn't change the fact he's seriously messed up his children. But my fear is, he now has everyone so whipped up into a frenzy that we'll rubber stamp whatever ASIO puts up. It's like a spy agency's dream. And while we must throw the book at the deluded freaks who think that killing people to create an Islamic state is great, we know that spy agencies never give up power once they have it. If we give them carte blanche now, based on a spoof, we could live to regret it. Let them explain how keeping metadata is going to stop the next generation of Sharroufs. Because if they can't keep track of these publicity-hungry nutjobs without it, we have a great deal to fear. Let's use our heads, not be used by a fake head."
Why I fear the severed heads are fakes by Duncan Lay
"The carefully pixelated pictures of a young Australian boy holding up a severed head have rightly enraged people this past week. Politicians have been lining up to condemn the boy's father, Aussie-born Khaled Sharrouf, and to promise 'action' - tough penalties, new laws, and anything they can think of to appease the justified community outrage. But here's the thing. I have the horrible feeling the heads in the Sharrouf pictures, including the one with his son, are fake. I think Sharrouf is an evil fantasist, rather than evil in reality, similar to that fantasist jihadist who was caught in The Philippines while claiming to be on the front line of the war.
"Why, you may well ask? I confess I don't have a series of freshly-cut heads in my cellar to compare them against. But I have been able to see the unpixelated images and they just don't look right. Take away the black boxes the papers have been adding and you'll see that:
1) There are no necks on them. They're just heads. So what, you may ask? But it is impossible to cut off heads that close to the skull without damaging the chin. Those heads are pristine, which is also highly unlikely. Not a trace of a wound anywhere, just a disembodied head.
2) If they had been cut off while alive, there would be variety of agonised expressions, probably cries of fear and pain. The faces of these 'heads' all look asleep. They are also plump and filled out and the mouth is closed and the chin firm. Gravity alone suggests the jaw would drop down and the mouth gape open, while the loss of blood and fluid would make the cheeks look hollow. The hair would also be in disarray. None of this is happening. It's all perfect.
3) The skin colour. Dead bodies are pale, due to blood draining down to whatever side it is lying on. Obviously it's far worse in something that has been cut off. Those heads are far too ruddy.
4) No oozing. Heads are full of liquid. Even hours later, holding one up like that would cause drippage - and yet there is nothing.
5) They're too light. The boy's forearms are showing little strain. Turn to our fishing page and you'll see kids having more difficulty holding up a 2kg fish than he's showing holding an adult head. And he's holding it by the hair. Unless he's the world's strongest kid, it seems unlikely.
6) Too much fun. Kids can't fake facial expressions and he thinks what he's doing is hilarious. But if it was a real head, dripping, stinking and bloody, I can't see him cuddling it.
7) All the Sharrouf 'head' pics are like this one. All of the ones showing him and 'heads' feature these perfect, disembodied heads with no necks and no bloody mess. There's even one of him holding a 'head' by the ear showing the neck 'wound'. It's still red. Dried blood would have been brown-black by then.
"Look, they could be real. I have never seen a genuine severed head. But it feels wrong. My guess is he's using a store dummy head and photoshopping. He's trying to appeal to all the wannabes and disaffected youths out in the suburbs who think it's somehow cool and edgy, all those teenage boys filled with a mixture of rebellion and bravado.
"Now that doesn't take away the fact he's a twisted little scumbag who doesn't deserve to have kids and, if he ever lobs back in Australia, needs to be locked up and have the key thrown away. It doesn't change the fact he's seriously messed up his children. But my fear is, he now has everyone so whipped up into a frenzy that we'll rubber stamp whatever ASIO puts up. It's like a spy agency's dream. And while we must throw the book at the deluded freaks who think that killing people to create an Islamic state is great, we know that spy agencies never give up power once they have it. If we give them carte blanche now, based on a spoof, we could live to regret it. Let them explain how keeping metadata is going to stop the next generation of Sharroufs. Because if they can't keep track of these publicity-hungry nutjobs without it, we have a great deal to fear. Let's use our heads, not be used by a fake head."
Friday, July 11, 2014
Zionist Loonies
OMG, how did this bloke get into The Australian?
"The University of Western Sydney's Michael Kennedy, a former police detective researching the force's deradicalization strategy, said he believed the Twitter accounts [of jihadist battlefront executioners Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar] should not be ignored... He said 'fundamentalists' all over the world rarely hide their beliefs. 'The people who are radicalised, they've never made any secret of it. They've always been in your face and up-front,' he said. 'Whether you look at the Zionist movement in Israel, within the Christians - especially in the US or in the Balkans, or if you look at Muslims, there's always been that fundamentalist approach. The fundamentalists have always been part of a loony group of people. They're zealots'." (Warning on jihadist Twitter war, Mark Scliebs, The Australian, 8/7/14)
"The University of Western Sydney's Michael Kennedy, a former police detective researching the force's deradicalization strategy, said he believed the Twitter accounts [of jihadist battlefront executioners Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar] should not be ignored... He said 'fundamentalists' all over the world rarely hide their beliefs. 'The people who are radicalised, they've never made any secret of it. They've always been in your face and up-front,' he said. 'Whether you look at the Zionist movement in Israel, within the Christians - especially in the US or in the Balkans, or if you look at Muslims, there's always been that fundamentalist approach. The fundamentalists have always been part of a loony group of people. They're zealots'." (Warning on jihadist Twitter war, Mark Scliebs, The Australian, 8/7/14)
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Sunday's Sermon
Seriously now, Anne Speckhard PhD and her phony mates in the 'counter-terrorism' business wouldn't know terrorism if it hit them in the face.
One American who does is my all-time favourite preacher, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Wright delivered the following sermon on Sunday, September 16, 2001, just 5 days after the terror bombings of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11. Imagine how much longer it'd be if he were delivering it today:
"Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism.
"A white man said that y'all, not a black militant - Ambassador to Iraq, Edward Peck. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised.
"He pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true - America's chickens are coming home to roost.
"We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism!
"We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism!
"We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.
"We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers.
"We bombed Qaddafi's home and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children's head against the rock.*
"We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard-working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing they'd never get back home.
"We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye.
"Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.
"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.
"Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism."
[*Psalm 137,9]
One American who does is my all-time favourite preacher, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Wright delivered the following sermon on Sunday, September 16, 2001, just 5 days after the terror bombings of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11. Imagine how much longer it'd be if he were delivering it today:
"Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism.
"A white man said that y'all, not a black militant - Ambassador to Iraq, Edward Peck. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised.
"He pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true - America's chickens are coming home to roost.
"We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism!
"We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism!
"We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.
"We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers.
"We bombed Qaddafi's home and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children's head against the rock.*
"We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard-working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing they'd never get back home.
"We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye.
"Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.
"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.
"Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism."
[*Psalm 137,9]
Saturday, July 27, 2013
The Terrorist Whisperer
Thank God for the Sydney Morning Herald's opinion editor I say. He/she knows exactly what the Herald's (dwindling) readership really wants. Namely, stirring tales of derring-do, with catchy titles such as Fanging out with vipers, or I put my head in the croc's mouth and survived... the halitosis!, or Care for a swim in shark-infested waters? Why not?
Which is why, I guess, Anne Speckhard's opinion piece, Inside the homes, heads and hearts of terrorists is both frightening and fascinating, was selected for inclusion in the opinion pages of yesterday's Herald:
"Have you wondered what it would be like to talk to a terrorist? It's hard to imagine just being in the same vicinity of one, let alone staying at their houses, eating with them and having hour-long discussions. Over the past decade, I have been researching the psychology of terrorists and extremists, their supporters, close family members and associates... One of the most common questions people are intrigued to know is: what is it like to talk to a terrorist? It's both frightening and fascinating... The truth is they started out as ordinary people just like you and me... I wanted to understand what takes normal people to put themselves on the terrorist trajectory... I overcame my fear via my fascination with their descriptions of the experiences that drove them into terrorism. In conflict zones such as Chechnya, Palestine and Iraq, many of the traumatic experiences they described were heartbreaking and I could understand (but never endorse) how they were drawn to groups that promised them the possibility of revenge and empowered them after they felt totally overwhelmed by the violence of another... When talking to the terrorists... it was always really useful to go as far as possible into the actual context of their lives... I understood that terrorists view themselves as part of a movement and as soldiers for their cause. They don't see their actions as any more wrong than our soldiers judge their killing in combat was wrong. Of course, there is a huge difference and there is never any justification for terrorism of any type; there is no cause anywhere in the world that justifies targeting and terrorising innocent civilians on its behalf."
Well, I don't know about you, but after reading that I was impressed. What a brave woman is this Anne Speckhard - sorry, Dr Anne Speckhard. I mean, it's a miracle she wasn't eaten alive!
So just who is this Wonder Woman?
According to the Herald bio, she's a professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University. But not just any old professor - she's an "adjunct associate" professor. Not just a pretty face, eh?
In fact, so impressed was I that I checked out her website and now I'm just itching to get my hands on her latest book: Talking to Terrorists: Understanding the Psycho-Social Motivations of Militants, Jihadi Terrorists, Mass Hostage Takers, Suicide Bombers & 'Martyrs'.
I swear, not since Aaron Klein's Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadis Reveal their Global Plans - to a Jew! have I been this excited! And when I'm through with that, the very next on my to-read list will have to be Dr Speckhard's Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy Seal's Journey to Coming Out Transgender.
But back to Talking to Terrorists. Just look at the reviews assembled on her website. All 5-star and all by the right people.
A mere sample:
"The embarrassing truth about Terrorism Studies is that most writers on the subject have never met a terrorist. Dr Anne Speckhard is an exception... Nobody has gotten closer to the 'heart of darkness'." - Alex P. Schmid, Director, Terrorism Research Initiative
"She has succeeded in delving into the terrorist mind." - Joe Charlaff, Journalist, Israel
"Anne goes alone and without security into the lion's den to interview her subjects who most often have blood on their hands." - Peter S. Probst, Former Assistant for Terrorism Intelligence, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations & Low Intensity Conflict (OASD/SO/LIC), Former Special Assistant for Concept Development - Office of Special Planning - Office of the Secretary of Defense and Former CIA Officer (Directorate of Operations and Directorate of Intelligence)
"Invaluable to those in the field of terrorism studies, as well as to the general public." - Yoram Schweitzer, Director of the Low Intensity Warfare & Terrorism Project and Senior Research Fellow at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies
"As advisor to Detainee Task Force 134, I watched Anne in action at Camp Cropper, the world's largest detention center. Her empathy, smile, Belgian chocolates, and paper tissues for the occasional tears worked to enlist the cooperation of even the most hard-hearted and unrepentant killers." - Rohan Gunaratna, Author, Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror
Be still, my beating heart. I think I'm in love...
Which is why, I guess, Anne Speckhard's opinion piece, Inside the homes, heads and hearts of terrorists is both frightening and fascinating, was selected for inclusion in the opinion pages of yesterday's Herald:
"Have you wondered what it would be like to talk to a terrorist? It's hard to imagine just being in the same vicinity of one, let alone staying at their houses, eating with them and having hour-long discussions. Over the past decade, I have been researching the psychology of terrorists and extremists, their supporters, close family members and associates... One of the most common questions people are intrigued to know is: what is it like to talk to a terrorist? It's both frightening and fascinating... The truth is they started out as ordinary people just like you and me... I wanted to understand what takes normal people to put themselves on the terrorist trajectory... I overcame my fear via my fascination with their descriptions of the experiences that drove them into terrorism. In conflict zones such as Chechnya, Palestine and Iraq, many of the traumatic experiences they described were heartbreaking and I could understand (but never endorse) how they were drawn to groups that promised them the possibility of revenge and empowered them after they felt totally overwhelmed by the violence of another... When talking to the terrorists... it was always really useful to go as far as possible into the actual context of their lives... I understood that terrorists view themselves as part of a movement and as soldiers for their cause. They don't see their actions as any more wrong than our soldiers judge their killing in combat was wrong. Of course, there is a huge difference and there is never any justification for terrorism of any type; there is no cause anywhere in the world that justifies targeting and terrorising innocent civilians on its behalf."
Well, I don't know about you, but after reading that I was impressed. What a brave woman is this Anne Speckhard - sorry, Dr Anne Speckhard. I mean, it's a miracle she wasn't eaten alive!
So just who is this Wonder Woman?
According to the Herald bio, she's a professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University. But not just any old professor - she's an "adjunct associate" professor. Not just a pretty face, eh?
In fact, so impressed was I that I checked out her website and now I'm just itching to get my hands on her latest book: Talking to Terrorists: Understanding the Psycho-Social Motivations of Militants, Jihadi Terrorists, Mass Hostage Takers, Suicide Bombers & 'Martyrs'.
I swear, not since Aaron Klein's Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadis Reveal their Global Plans - to a Jew! have I been this excited! And when I'm through with that, the very next on my to-read list will have to be Dr Speckhard's Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy Seal's Journey to Coming Out Transgender.
But back to Talking to Terrorists. Just look at the reviews assembled on her website. All 5-star and all by the right people.
A mere sample:
"The embarrassing truth about Terrorism Studies is that most writers on the subject have never met a terrorist. Dr Anne Speckhard is an exception... Nobody has gotten closer to the 'heart of darkness'." - Alex P. Schmid, Director, Terrorism Research Initiative
"She has succeeded in delving into the terrorist mind." - Joe Charlaff, Journalist, Israel
"Anne goes alone and without security into the lion's den to interview her subjects who most often have blood on their hands." - Peter S. Probst, Former Assistant for Terrorism Intelligence, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations & Low Intensity Conflict (OASD/SO/LIC), Former Special Assistant for Concept Development - Office of Special Planning - Office of the Secretary of Defense and Former CIA Officer (Directorate of Operations and Directorate of Intelligence)
"Invaluable to those in the field of terrorism studies, as well as to the general public." - Yoram Schweitzer, Director of the Low Intensity Warfare & Terrorism Project and Senior Research Fellow at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies
"As advisor to Detainee Task Force 134, I watched Anne in action at Camp Cropper, the world's largest detention center. Her empathy, smile, Belgian chocolates, and paper tissues for the occasional tears worked to enlist the cooperation of even the most hard-hearted and unrepentant killers." - Rohan Gunaratna, Author, Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror
Be still, my beating heart. I think I'm in love...
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
FBI Fiddles While Boston Burns
The following statement appeared in an opinion piece on the Boston Marathon bombings in the Sydney Morning Herald of April 22:
"Twelve years after the September 11 attacks the US is a transformed nation, for better and for worse. This was the first terrorism attack on US soil targeting civilians since 2001, a record that is the result of hard work and good luck. More than 45 jihadist plots have been foiled." (Freedom means life without fear)
It was penned by John Avlon, a columnist for The Daily Beast, and is basically a recycling of his September 8, 2011 piece, Forty-five foiled terror plots since 9/11.
It's obvious that Avlon hasn't bothered reading investigative journalist Trevor Aaronson's timely book The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism (2013), otherwise he wouldn't be quite so sure about either the number 45 or all that supposed "hard work," presumably a reference to the FBI.
You'll see why when you read the following Aaronson piece published today by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting: How the FBI in Boston may have pursued the wrong 'terrorist':
"Could the Boston attacks have been stopped? In the aftermath that question has gained urgency with the news that the FBI was on alleged bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev's trail more than 2 years ago. But it is further underscored by another FBI operation conducted in the Boston area during that same period - one focused on a different subject of dubious importance.
"In January 2011, when the FBI looked into the alleged Boston Marathon bomber and dismissed him as a potential threat, agents in the Boston field office pursued another person they suspected could be a terrorist. While they apparently decided to stop tracking Tsarnaev - whose 6-month trip to Russia at that time is now of prime interest to investigators - the FBI conducted a sting operation against an unrelated young Muslim man who had a fantastical plan for attacking the US Capitol with a remote-controlled airplane.
"The way in which the FBI investigated these two potential extremists may help begin to explain how the federal government failed to prevent Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhohkar from setting off lethal bombs in the streets of Boston. The task of anticipating and stopping a terrorist attack is exceedingly complicated and the full extent of what the FBI may have known about the Tsarnaev brothers remains unclear. Some congressional leaders are now seeking further explanation. But the contrast of the two cases undertaken in Boston in early 2011 raises questions about the effectiveness of the FBI's counterterrorism strategy.
"Since the devastating attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI's top priority has been to prevent a next act of terrorism. Every year the bureau spends $3.3 billion on counterterrorism, the largest portion of its $8.2 billion annual budget. (That's roughly $650 million more than it spends on investigating organized crime, its next greatest priority by funding.) A key component of the FBI's strategy has been running sting operations against would-be terrorists - in many cases going to great lengths to enable otherwise unlikely perpetrators, as I documented in my award-winning investigation published in 2011 in Mother Jones and in my subsequent book, The Terror Factory.
"The FBI has often targeted these suspects using informants and Internet surveillance. With the latter, federal agents analyze a suspect's online presence and history, looking for activity on extremist web forums, interest in militant jihadi videos, and other activity that might indicate sympathy for terrorist organizations.
"After the Boston Marathon bombings, the FBI acknowledged that in 2011 agents had interviewd the 26-year-old Tsarnaev and scrutinized his Internet history, at the request of Russian officials. Yet, despite the Russians' concerns about Tsarnaev's potential links to militant separatist groups in Chechnya, the FBI determined he was not a threat.
"Meanwhile, in an unrelated case, the bureau vigorously pursued Rezwan Ferdaus, a Northeastern University graduate who was born in Massachusetts and lived with his parents in a Boston suburb. Ferdaus came to the FBI's attention through an informant posing as an al Qaeda operative - a man who was paid $50,000 by the FBI for his efforts, while hiding a heroin addiction from his handlers.
"According to court records, Ferdaus told the informant that he wanted to destroy the golden dome of the US Capitol using a remote-controlled model airplane loaded with grenades. If that plot was far-fetched, so was the possibility that Ferdaus could even attempt it: He did not have weapons, and even if he had known where to buy explosives, Ferdaus was broke, according to court records.
"Through the informant, the FBI encouraged Ferdaus to move forward with his idea to attack the US Capitol. They dedicated significant resources to the operation, giving him $4,000 to purchase an F-86 Sabre remote-controlled model airplane and providing him with 'explosives' - 25 pounds of fake C-4 and 3 inert grenades. In May 2011, Ferdaus travelled to Washington, D.C., to scout out locations from which to launch his weapon - all while being secretly recorded by FBI agents. Finally, on Sept. 28, 2011, after a 9-month sting operation, FBI agents arrested Ferdaus, charging him with, among other offenses, attempting to destroy a federal building and providing material support to terrorists.
"Ferdaus pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 17 years in prison, though no evidence indicated that he could have built and launched a weapon were it not for the FBI providing the money and materials.
"Since the 9/11 attacks, the FBI has arrested more than 175 alleged terrorists using operations like the one in Boston that nabbed Ferdaus. In these expensive and elaborate stings, the targets often are men on the fringes of Muslim communities; many are economically desperate and some are mentally ill, and they are easily manipulated by paid informants and undercover agents.
"But in the years since 9/11, several operational terrorists in the United States have gone unnoticed or have been overlooked by the FBI... And despite the FBI's initial interest in Tsarnaev, the same became true with him and his younger brother in Boston."
Now contrast Avlon's "45 foiled jihadist plots" with the following data from Aaronson's book:
"By August 2011, with nearly 10 years of terrorism prosecutions since 9/11, we had a database of 508 defendants whom the US government considered terrorists. The way the data broke down was illuminating. Of the 508 defendants, 243 had been targeted through an FBI informant, 158 had been caught in an FBI terrorism sting, and 49 had encountered an agent provocateur. Most of the people who didn't face off against an informant weren't directly involved with terrorism at all, but were instead Category II offenders, small-time criminals with distant links to terrorists overseas. Seventy-two of these Category II offenders had been charged with making false statements, while 121 had been prosecuted for immigration violations. Of the 508 cases, I could count on one hand the number of actual terrorists, such as failed New York City subway bomber Najibullah Zazi, who posed a direct and immediate threat to the United States." (The Terror Factory, p 15)
Finally, consider the use of sting operations against similar windbags and sadsacks here in Australia. The following item, for example, appeared in The Australian on 9 April:
"A man charged with terrorism-related offences engaged in 'jihadist chanting' and discussed how to make weapons and start bushfires with bombs, according to covert telephone recordings... He discussed making a bomb that would ignite a bushfire in Australia and said he had been trying unsuccessfully to buy a gun." (Accused terrorist faces court)
Now I know nothing of this case other than what is provided in this one brief report, including whether a paid informant was involved, but seriously, this particular boofhead sounds like he wouldn't even know which end of a match to strike on a matchbox.
[See my 25/2/12 post The Devil & David Irvine.]
"Twelve years after the September 11 attacks the US is a transformed nation, for better and for worse. This was the first terrorism attack on US soil targeting civilians since 2001, a record that is the result of hard work and good luck. More than 45 jihadist plots have been foiled." (Freedom means life without fear)
It was penned by John Avlon, a columnist for The Daily Beast, and is basically a recycling of his September 8, 2011 piece, Forty-five foiled terror plots since 9/11.
It's obvious that Avlon hasn't bothered reading investigative journalist Trevor Aaronson's timely book The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism (2013), otherwise he wouldn't be quite so sure about either the number 45 or all that supposed "hard work," presumably a reference to the FBI.
You'll see why when you read the following Aaronson piece published today by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting: How the FBI in Boston may have pursued the wrong 'terrorist':
"Could the Boston attacks have been stopped? In the aftermath that question has gained urgency with the news that the FBI was on alleged bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev's trail more than 2 years ago. But it is further underscored by another FBI operation conducted in the Boston area during that same period - one focused on a different subject of dubious importance.
"In January 2011, when the FBI looked into the alleged Boston Marathon bomber and dismissed him as a potential threat, agents in the Boston field office pursued another person they suspected could be a terrorist. While they apparently decided to stop tracking Tsarnaev - whose 6-month trip to Russia at that time is now of prime interest to investigators - the FBI conducted a sting operation against an unrelated young Muslim man who had a fantastical plan for attacking the US Capitol with a remote-controlled airplane.
"The way in which the FBI investigated these two potential extremists may help begin to explain how the federal government failed to prevent Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhohkar from setting off lethal bombs in the streets of Boston. The task of anticipating and stopping a terrorist attack is exceedingly complicated and the full extent of what the FBI may have known about the Tsarnaev brothers remains unclear. Some congressional leaders are now seeking further explanation. But the contrast of the two cases undertaken in Boston in early 2011 raises questions about the effectiveness of the FBI's counterterrorism strategy.
"Since the devastating attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI's top priority has been to prevent a next act of terrorism. Every year the bureau spends $3.3 billion on counterterrorism, the largest portion of its $8.2 billion annual budget. (That's roughly $650 million more than it spends on investigating organized crime, its next greatest priority by funding.) A key component of the FBI's strategy has been running sting operations against would-be terrorists - in many cases going to great lengths to enable otherwise unlikely perpetrators, as I documented in my award-winning investigation published in 2011 in Mother Jones and in my subsequent book, The Terror Factory.
"The FBI has often targeted these suspects using informants and Internet surveillance. With the latter, federal agents analyze a suspect's online presence and history, looking for activity on extremist web forums, interest in militant jihadi videos, and other activity that might indicate sympathy for terrorist organizations.
"After the Boston Marathon bombings, the FBI acknowledged that in 2011 agents had interviewd the 26-year-old Tsarnaev and scrutinized his Internet history, at the request of Russian officials. Yet, despite the Russians' concerns about Tsarnaev's potential links to militant separatist groups in Chechnya, the FBI determined he was not a threat.
"Meanwhile, in an unrelated case, the bureau vigorously pursued Rezwan Ferdaus, a Northeastern University graduate who was born in Massachusetts and lived with his parents in a Boston suburb. Ferdaus came to the FBI's attention through an informant posing as an al Qaeda operative - a man who was paid $50,000 by the FBI for his efforts, while hiding a heroin addiction from his handlers.
"According to court records, Ferdaus told the informant that he wanted to destroy the golden dome of the US Capitol using a remote-controlled model airplane loaded with grenades. If that plot was far-fetched, so was the possibility that Ferdaus could even attempt it: He did not have weapons, and even if he had known where to buy explosives, Ferdaus was broke, according to court records.
"Through the informant, the FBI encouraged Ferdaus to move forward with his idea to attack the US Capitol. They dedicated significant resources to the operation, giving him $4,000 to purchase an F-86 Sabre remote-controlled model airplane and providing him with 'explosives' - 25 pounds of fake C-4 and 3 inert grenades. In May 2011, Ferdaus travelled to Washington, D.C., to scout out locations from which to launch his weapon - all while being secretly recorded by FBI agents. Finally, on Sept. 28, 2011, after a 9-month sting operation, FBI agents arrested Ferdaus, charging him with, among other offenses, attempting to destroy a federal building and providing material support to terrorists.
"Ferdaus pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 17 years in prison, though no evidence indicated that he could have built and launched a weapon were it not for the FBI providing the money and materials.
"Since the 9/11 attacks, the FBI has arrested more than 175 alleged terrorists using operations like the one in Boston that nabbed Ferdaus. In these expensive and elaborate stings, the targets often are men on the fringes of Muslim communities; many are economically desperate and some are mentally ill, and they are easily manipulated by paid informants and undercover agents.
"But in the years since 9/11, several operational terrorists in the United States have gone unnoticed or have been overlooked by the FBI... And despite the FBI's initial interest in Tsarnaev, the same became true with him and his younger brother in Boston."
Now contrast Avlon's "45 foiled jihadist plots" with the following data from Aaronson's book:
"By August 2011, with nearly 10 years of terrorism prosecutions since 9/11, we had a database of 508 defendants whom the US government considered terrorists. The way the data broke down was illuminating. Of the 508 defendants, 243 had been targeted through an FBI informant, 158 had been caught in an FBI terrorism sting, and 49 had encountered an agent provocateur. Most of the people who didn't face off against an informant weren't directly involved with terrorism at all, but were instead Category II offenders, small-time criminals with distant links to terrorists overseas. Seventy-two of these Category II offenders had been charged with making false statements, while 121 had been prosecuted for immigration violations. Of the 508 cases, I could count on one hand the number of actual terrorists, such as failed New York City subway bomber Najibullah Zazi, who posed a direct and immediate threat to the United States." (The Terror Factory, p 15)
Finally, consider the use of sting operations against similar windbags and sadsacks here in Australia. The following item, for example, appeared in The Australian on 9 April:
"A man charged with terrorism-related offences engaged in 'jihadist chanting' and discussed how to make weapons and start bushfires with bombs, according to covert telephone recordings... He discussed making a bomb that would ignite a bushfire in Australia and said he had been trying unsuccessfully to buy a gun." (Accused terrorist faces court)
Now I know nothing of this case other than what is provided in this one brief report, including whether a paid informant was involved, but seriously, this particular boofhead sounds like he wouldn't even know which end of a match to strike on a matchbox.
[See my 25/2/12 post The Devil & David Irvine.]
Monday, October 29, 2012
Hm, Hasmi... Harakat... Hamas...
... I think we may be on to something here, inspector.
Last night's SBS Television's World News was the occasion for a brief outburst of hilarity in this household.
Hot on the heels of the prime minister discoursing earnestly on her new 'Australia in the Asian Century' white paper (which highlighted the need for Australians to learn one of the major Asian languages) came a report on the foiling by Indonesian police of a new "terror plot" aimed at the US embassy in Jakarta.
There was SBS reporter Marion Ives busy telling us that "Indonesian authorities say a new militant group called Hasmi is behind the plot," when the report cut suddenly to an unidentified, shaven-headed, forty-something Australian male (presumably a spokesman for the Australian Federal Police or ASIO, or one of their proliferating band of counterterrorism 'experts') discoursing earnestly on the ideological intricacies of the alleged Hasmi plot. Caught in mid-sentence, this genius was recorded saying:
"... and the attacks it was about to carry out are believed to be the first ones it had organised. It's almost certainly a successor organisation to Gema [his pronunciation] Islamiyah and similar groups which have a long history in Indonesia. The other is that the first part of its name is Harakat and that is a name of a number of militant Islamic organisations including Hamas, Al-Shabaab..."
Ergo, Hasmi must be directly related to Hamas. Not!
Allow me to explain. 'Haraka' is simply the Arabic word for 'movement', as in 'political movement'. It has no religious connotations whatever. Hamas' official name in Arabic is thus 'harakat al-muqawama al-islamiya' (Islamic Resistance Movement). Likewise, Hamas' secular Palestinian rival, Fatah's official name is 'harakat at-tahrir al-watani al-filastiniya' (Palestinian National Liberation Movement).
It's precisely this kind of cluelessness that has me wondering yet again about our bloated security apparatus, which is based on legislation which, according to the Law Council of Australia, is "contrary to the most fundamental principles of our criminal justice system,"* and costs us over a billion dollars annually. (See my posts Beautiful Sets of Figures (31/1/12) and Behind the ASIO Assessment (23/11/10).)
[*Terrorist laws 'go too far', Harriet Alexander, Sydney Morning Herald, 26/10/12.]
Last night's SBS Television's World News was the occasion for a brief outburst of hilarity in this household.
Hot on the heels of the prime minister discoursing earnestly on her new 'Australia in the Asian Century' white paper (which highlighted the need for Australians to learn one of the major Asian languages) came a report on the foiling by Indonesian police of a new "terror plot" aimed at the US embassy in Jakarta.
There was SBS reporter Marion Ives busy telling us that "Indonesian authorities say a new militant group called Hasmi is behind the plot," when the report cut suddenly to an unidentified, shaven-headed, forty-something Australian male (presumably a spokesman for the Australian Federal Police or ASIO, or one of their proliferating band of counterterrorism 'experts') discoursing earnestly on the ideological intricacies of the alleged Hasmi plot. Caught in mid-sentence, this genius was recorded saying:
"... and the attacks it was about to carry out are believed to be the first ones it had organised. It's almost certainly a successor organisation to Gema [his pronunciation] Islamiyah and similar groups which have a long history in Indonesia. The other is that the first part of its name is Harakat and that is a name of a number of militant Islamic organisations including Hamas, Al-Shabaab..."
Ergo, Hasmi must be directly related to Hamas. Not!
Allow me to explain. 'Haraka' is simply the Arabic word for 'movement', as in 'political movement'. It has no religious connotations whatever. Hamas' official name in Arabic is thus 'harakat al-muqawama al-islamiya' (Islamic Resistance Movement). Likewise, Hamas' secular Palestinian rival, Fatah's official name is 'harakat at-tahrir al-watani al-filastiniya' (Palestinian National Liberation Movement).
It's precisely this kind of cluelessness that has me wondering yet again about our bloated security apparatus, which is based on legislation which, according to the Law Council of Australia, is "contrary to the most fundamental principles of our criminal justice system,"* and costs us over a billion dollars annually. (See my posts Beautiful Sets of Figures (31/1/12) and Behind the ASIO Assessment (23/11/10).)
[*Terrorist laws 'go too far', Harriet Alexander, Sydney Morning Herald, 26/10/12.]
Sunday, March 13, 2011
The Return of the Witch-Hunter
Islamophobia, unlike the proverbial shit, doesn't just happen. A lot of money and work go towards making it happen.
In his enormously insightful essay, The Return of the Witch-Finder (10/3/11), prompted by Republican (NY) congressman Steve King's current hearing into the 'Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community & that Community's Response', antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo exposes the re-emergence of a same old, same old industry dedicated exclusively to the whipping up of fear and hysteria among the ignorant and the gullible. Here's my abridged version of Raimondo's superb and timely analysis:
"During the cold war era... [n]umerous right-wing groups sprang up whose only apparent function was to catalogue and 'expose' manifestations of the Commie Menace operating in our midst... [These] professional anti-communists, many of them ex-Communists of one sort or another, created a cottage industry out of their disillusionment: they wrote books, went on lecture tours, set up a multitude of organizations, and made lucrative careers out of the cause. Their ultimate goal, to get on the government payroll, was achieved in all too many instances. The national security apparatus, which was then beginning to burgeon into its present bloated size, was primed to absorb them, with such ex-leftists as Jay Lovestone, former national secretary of the Communist Party, going to work for the CIA. The anti-Communist propaganda apparatus that sprang up in the wake of the cold war deployed platoons of embittered ex-communists and former Trotskyites and gave gainful employment to an entire generation of embittered ex-leftist intellectuals who, otherwise unemployable, would have ended their days sitting in the corner bar, drowning their memories of disillusion and betrayal in drink. Those who didn't manage to weasel their way into government jobs were taken in by right-wing think-tanks, and magazines such as National Review - whose chief editorial contributors, from the very beginning, were recruited from among this league of tattle-tales and turncoats.
"With the sudden implosion of the Soviet Empire, all these people were out of business: like many real estate agents in the wake of the housing bust, these former 'experts' in a field that no longer had much money in it had to find other work - a new bubble, and a new scam, with which to entice a fresh crop of suckers/customers. The first years of the post cold-war era were not promising, and they were indeed lean years for the witch-hunters. There was no enemy, no Satan-with-a-sword, with enough stature or menace to constitute a credible threat - and, therefore, no internal 'fifth column' to vilify, hunt down, and prosecute. What's a witch-hunter to do? The 9/11 terrorist attacks solved that problem for them quite neatly. The new Enemy: Muslims. The Fifth Column: the many Muslim organizations, and the several thousand mosques in the US, along with the entire Muslim-American population. The witch-hunt was back on, and there was more money in it than ever. An entire 'homeland security' industry grew like kudzu, fed and carefully nurtured with lucrative government contracts and the post 9/11 hysteria that gripped the nation and validated a veritable flood of federal dollars poured into projects with little or no congressional oversight. The industry is still growing by leaps and bounds, perhaps the only sector of the economy which is experiencing a boom at this point.
"Most of these corporate entities are involved with the development of various high-tech snooping devices, 'cyber-warfare', and recruiting mercenaries, but a vital and growing subset are the propaganda outfits. These often assume an air of semi-objectivity, like Steven Emerson's 'The Investigative Project on Terrorism', whose very name combines the imagery of both journalism and law enforcement. Others are openly ideological, like the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, whose founder and director, Dr Zuhdi Jasser, was Rep. Steve King's star witness at the anti-Muslim show hearings which opened on Thursday. In his testimony, Dr Jasser singled out his rivals among the various Muslim groups as little more than a jihadist fifth column... This is always the method of the Grand Inquisitors: create a fifth column within the alleged 'fifth column'... While repeating his talking points, he kept coming back to one particular point: how 'we' (ie the government) have to come up with the 'resources' (ie tax dollars) to conduct the 'war of ideas' against the Bad Guys... Give us the 'resources', give us the 'drive' and a 'platform' - and that is precisely what the King hearings aim at, aside, of course, from instilling in the public the idea that Muslims are a dangerous fifth column who may one day have to be interned and at the very least closely watched...
"As in the past, foreign influences and interests figure in the witch-hunt. Dr Jasser, besides being Rep. King's star witness, was the star of a film entitled The Third Jihad, which purports to 'prove' that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated all aspects of American life, and poses a serious threat of installing an Islamic government in the United States, with shariah law as the law of the land. The film, along with another one, Obsession, was financed by the Clarion Fund, a 'charity' run by Aish HaTorah, which Nation writer Sarah Posner describes as 'one of Orthodox Judaism's most successful outreach programs'. The group, international in scope, has its headquarters in Jerusalem, where the Israeli government has awarded it 40% of the land facing the Western Wall. On one of its websites, dedicated to preventing intermarriage between Jews and people of other faiths, Aish HaTorah notes: 'As one Israeli official explained why Aish HaTorah was chosen to receive these two prestigious locations, 'Unless we get today's youth to identify with our heritage, who will make Aliyah, who will buy Israeli bonds, who will support the Federation drives? Aish HaTorah is doing the job!' The Israeli government funds Aish HaTorah's extensive 'outreach' programs, as well as its international headquarters, including its propaganda activities in the US. No doubt the extremist government now in power in Tel Aviv considers the anti-Muslim sentiment stoked by Jasser and his ideological bedfellows to be a fertile field indeed, to be harvested for all it's worth. The King hearings are a propaganda triumph for the Israeli government, and the Israelis are in the background of this movement, encouraging and even indirectly funding it, as in the case of the Aish HaTorah-Clarion Fund connection. In this way, some of the $3 billion a year we ship to Israel is being used to shape American public opinion and government policy. What with the Park 51 controversy and the recent uptick in anti-Muslim rhetoric by such finger-in-the-wind opportunists as Newt Gingrich (whose film, America at Risk, also featured Dr Jasser), the witch-hunt has been gathering steam in recent days. The King hearings are the culmination of a well-planned and well-financed campaign by foreign interests to foist a ridiculous conspiracy theory on the American public - a conspiracy theory, I'm sad to say, that has resonance with all too many Americans."
In his enormously insightful essay, The Return of the Witch-Finder (10/3/11), prompted by Republican (NY) congressman Steve King's current hearing into the 'Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community & that Community's Response', antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo exposes the re-emergence of a same old, same old industry dedicated exclusively to the whipping up of fear and hysteria among the ignorant and the gullible. Here's my abridged version of Raimondo's superb and timely analysis:
"During the cold war era... [n]umerous right-wing groups sprang up whose only apparent function was to catalogue and 'expose' manifestations of the Commie Menace operating in our midst... [These] professional anti-communists, many of them ex-Communists of one sort or another, created a cottage industry out of their disillusionment: they wrote books, went on lecture tours, set up a multitude of organizations, and made lucrative careers out of the cause. Their ultimate goal, to get on the government payroll, was achieved in all too many instances. The national security apparatus, which was then beginning to burgeon into its present bloated size, was primed to absorb them, with such ex-leftists as Jay Lovestone, former national secretary of the Communist Party, going to work for the CIA. The anti-Communist propaganda apparatus that sprang up in the wake of the cold war deployed platoons of embittered ex-communists and former Trotskyites and gave gainful employment to an entire generation of embittered ex-leftist intellectuals who, otherwise unemployable, would have ended their days sitting in the corner bar, drowning their memories of disillusion and betrayal in drink. Those who didn't manage to weasel their way into government jobs were taken in by right-wing think-tanks, and magazines such as National Review - whose chief editorial contributors, from the very beginning, were recruited from among this league of tattle-tales and turncoats.
"With the sudden implosion of the Soviet Empire, all these people were out of business: like many real estate agents in the wake of the housing bust, these former 'experts' in a field that no longer had much money in it had to find other work - a new bubble, and a new scam, with which to entice a fresh crop of suckers/customers. The first years of the post cold-war era were not promising, and they were indeed lean years for the witch-hunters. There was no enemy, no Satan-with-a-sword, with enough stature or menace to constitute a credible threat - and, therefore, no internal 'fifth column' to vilify, hunt down, and prosecute. What's a witch-hunter to do? The 9/11 terrorist attacks solved that problem for them quite neatly. The new Enemy: Muslims. The Fifth Column: the many Muslim organizations, and the several thousand mosques in the US, along with the entire Muslim-American population. The witch-hunt was back on, and there was more money in it than ever. An entire 'homeland security' industry grew like kudzu, fed and carefully nurtured with lucrative government contracts and the post 9/11 hysteria that gripped the nation and validated a veritable flood of federal dollars poured into projects with little or no congressional oversight. The industry is still growing by leaps and bounds, perhaps the only sector of the economy which is experiencing a boom at this point.
"Most of these corporate entities are involved with the development of various high-tech snooping devices, 'cyber-warfare', and recruiting mercenaries, but a vital and growing subset are the propaganda outfits. These often assume an air of semi-objectivity, like Steven Emerson's 'The Investigative Project on Terrorism', whose very name combines the imagery of both journalism and law enforcement. Others are openly ideological, like the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, whose founder and director, Dr Zuhdi Jasser, was Rep. Steve King's star witness at the anti-Muslim show hearings which opened on Thursday. In his testimony, Dr Jasser singled out his rivals among the various Muslim groups as little more than a jihadist fifth column... This is always the method of the Grand Inquisitors: create a fifth column within the alleged 'fifth column'... While repeating his talking points, he kept coming back to one particular point: how 'we' (ie the government) have to come up with the 'resources' (ie tax dollars) to conduct the 'war of ideas' against the Bad Guys... Give us the 'resources', give us the 'drive' and a 'platform' - and that is precisely what the King hearings aim at, aside, of course, from instilling in the public the idea that Muslims are a dangerous fifth column who may one day have to be interned and at the very least closely watched...
"As in the past, foreign influences and interests figure in the witch-hunt. Dr Jasser, besides being Rep. King's star witness, was the star of a film entitled The Third Jihad, which purports to 'prove' that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated all aspects of American life, and poses a serious threat of installing an Islamic government in the United States, with shariah law as the law of the land. The film, along with another one, Obsession, was financed by the Clarion Fund, a 'charity' run by Aish HaTorah, which Nation writer Sarah Posner describes as 'one of Orthodox Judaism's most successful outreach programs'. The group, international in scope, has its headquarters in Jerusalem, where the Israeli government has awarded it 40% of the land facing the Western Wall. On one of its websites, dedicated to preventing intermarriage between Jews and people of other faiths, Aish HaTorah notes: 'As one Israeli official explained why Aish HaTorah was chosen to receive these two prestigious locations, 'Unless we get today's youth to identify with our heritage, who will make Aliyah, who will buy Israeli bonds, who will support the Federation drives? Aish HaTorah is doing the job!' The Israeli government funds Aish HaTorah's extensive 'outreach' programs, as well as its international headquarters, including its propaganda activities in the US. No doubt the extremist government now in power in Tel Aviv considers the anti-Muslim sentiment stoked by Jasser and his ideological bedfellows to be a fertile field indeed, to be harvested for all it's worth. The King hearings are a propaganda triumph for the Israeli government, and the Israelis are in the background of this movement, encouraging and even indirectly funding it, as in the case of the Aish HaTorah-Clarion Fund connection. In this way, some of the $3 billion a year we ship to Israel is being used to shape American public opinion and government policy. What with the Park 51 controversy and the recent uptick in anti-Muslim rhetoric by such finger-in-the-wind opportunists as Newt Gingrich (whose film, America at Risk, also featured Dr Jasser), the witch-hunt has been gathering steam in recent days. The King hearings are the culmination of a well-planned and well-financed campaign by foreign interests to foist a ridiculous conspiracy theory on the American public - a conspiracy theory, I'm sad to say, that has resonance with all too many Americans."
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Behind the ASIO Assessment
An example of the obscenity which is Australia's treatment of asylum seekers:
"Sumathi Rahavan never predicted the Kafkaesque situation that awaited her young family when she boarded the Australian Customs boat, Oceanic Viking, last year. The [Tamil] Sri Lankan has given birth as an immigration detainee, been branded a national security risk by [the] Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and now faces 24-hour surveillance with 3 guards watching over her family, which is being held in detention indefinitely. Her husband, Yogachandran Rahavan, [is] also declared a national security threat by the spy agency... The saga began when Mrs Rahavan decided to join her husband in Australia, bundling their daughter Atputha, 6, and son Abinayan, 3, on to what was to become the most politically charged boatload of asylum seekers under the Rudd government. In its haste to end a diplomatic stand-off with Indonesia, the Australian government offered all refugees on Oceanic Viking a special resettlement deal. As refugees, the government cannot return the Rahavans to possible danger in Sri Lanka. But because ASIO assesses them a security risk, the family cannot be settled in Australia... The reasons ASIO has for its suspicions may never be revealed. The agency's decisions in immigration matters are not reviewable. Mr Rahavan adamantly denied he was involved with the Tamil Tigers separatist group and said he did not know why he could be considered a risk... At Villawood [Detention Centre], the Rahavans are watched 24 hours a day. Emails are blocked and phone calls must go through immigration staff who type in 'approved' numbers and confirm who is on the line before passing the phone over. 'There's all the time - 24/7 - two officers inside the house', Mr Rahavan said. 'There is a Serco vehicle and officer, who watches us 24/7 through the window'. Some family members are authorised to visit and others not." (ASIO ruling puts asylum seekers in no man's land, Yuko Narushima, Sydney Morning Herald, 22/11/10)
You can be sure that lurking somewhere behind ASIO's non-reviewable assessment of these Tamil victims of Sri Lankan genocide is a 'terror expert'. My guess is the ubiquitous Rohan Gunaratna (See my 20/10/09 post Exporting Zionism 2).
James Petras' penetrating analysis of the breed is hard to beat:
"The Terrorist Experts (TE) project the violence of the rulers, their conquistadorial ambitions, their greed to seize land and resources, and their savage destructive impulses onto their victims while the responses of the victims, the survivors, are clothed in the rhetoric of pathological behaviour. The really clinical pathologies are to be found, however, in the minds of the verbal assassins - who cannot decipher the causal relation between the repeated rapes and tortures committed by their patron-states and the desperate cries and attempts at self-defence of the excluded, displaced, and exploited, or arrive at any appropriate moral conclusion. Almost all the terror experts have a chronic psychological blindness to the systematic and comprehensive violence inflicted by the West and Israel on particular groups. Today it is the 'Arabs'; at other times it is all insurgents who respond to imperial violence with violence." (The Power of Israel in the United States, 2006, pp 148-149)
"The TE simply pronounce their diagnosis of the armed resistance fighters: incurable psychopaths, extremely dangerous when at large. The politicians dictate the commands: capture, confine, torture, or kill. The Special Forces break through doors in the middle of the night, cut throats, or take prisoners. The prison commandants establish the rules of 'interrogation'. The guards torture. This is a very coherent international division of labor, in which the TE play an important part in elaborating the rationale. They ply a mortally and scientifically justified war-unto-death of the 'untermensch', the 'inferior' peoples, the 'fundamentalist Arab Muslims', the 'suicide bombers', the 'Terrorists'. A common language is spoken between the TE and their state patrons, and then promoted in and by the mass media." (ibid p 152)
"Sumathi Rahavan never predicted the Kafkaesque situation that awaited her young family when she boarded the Australian Customs boat, Oceanic Viking, last year. The [Tamil] Sri Lankan has given birth as an immigration detainee, been branded a national security risk by [the] Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and now faces 24-hour surveillance with 3 guards watching over her family, which is being held in detention indefinitely. Her husband, Yogachandran Rahavan, [is] also declared a national security threat by the spy agency... The saga began when Mrs Rahavan decided to join her husband in Australia, bundling their daughter Atputha, 6, and son Abinayan, 3, on to what was to become the most politically charged boatload of asylum seekers under the Rudd government. In its haste to end a diplomatic stand-off with Indonesia, the Australian government offered all refugees on Oceanic Viking a special resettlement deal. As refugees, the government cannot return the Rahavans to possible danger in Sri Lanka. But because ASIO assesses them a security risk, the family cannot be settled in Australia... The reasons ASIO has for its suspicions may never be revealed. The agency's decisions in immigration matters are not reviewable. Mr Rahavan adamantly denied he was involved with the Tamil Tigers separatist group and said he did not know why he could be considered a risk... At Villawood [Detention Centre], the Rahavans are watched 24 hours a day. Emails are blocked and phone calls must go through immigration staff who type in 'approved' numbers and confirm who is on the line before passing the phone over. 'There's all the time - 24/7 - two officers inside the house', Mr Rahavan said. 'There is a Serco vehicle and officer, who watches us 24/7 through the window'. Some family members are authorised to visit and others not." (ASIO ruling puts asylum seekers in no man's land, Yuko Narushima, Sydney Morning Herald, 22/11/10)
You can be sure that lurking somewhere behind ASIO's non-reviewable assessment of these Tamil victims of Sri Lankan genocide is a 'terror expert'. My guess is the ubiquitous Rohan Gunaratna (See my 20/10/09 post Exporting Zionism 2).
James Petras' penetrating analysis of the breed is hard to beat:
"The Terrorist Experts (TE) project the violence of the rulers, their conquistadorial ambitions, their greed to seize land and resources, and their savage destructive impulses onto their victims while the responses of the victims, the survivors, are clothed in the rhetoric of pathological behaviour. The really clinical pathologies are to be found, however, in the minds of the verbal assassins - who cannot decipher the causal relation between the repeated rapes and tortures committed by their patron-states and the desperate cries and attempts at self-defence of the excluded, displaced, and exploited, or arrive at any appropriate moral conclusion. Almost all the terror experts have a chronic psychological blindness to the systematic and comprehensive violence inflicted by the West and Israel on particular groups. Today it is the 'Arabs'; at other times it is all insurgents who respond to imperial violence with violence." (The Power of Israel in the United States, 2006, pp 148-149)
"The TE simply pronounce their diagnosis of the armed resistance fighters: incurable psychopaths, extremely dangerous when at large. The politicians dictate the commands: capture, confine, torture, or kill. The Special Forces break through doors in the middle of the night, cut throats, or take prisoners. The prison commandants establish the rules of 'interrogation'. The guards torture. This is a very coherent international division of labor, in which the TE play an important part in elaborating the rationale. They ply a mortally and scientifically justified war-unto-death of the 'untermensch', the 'inferior' peoples, the 'fundamentalist Arab Muslims', the 'suicide bombers', the 'Terrorists'. A common language is spoken between the TE and their state patrons, and then promoted in and by the mass media." (ibid p 152)
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