Category: Uncategorized

The new face of neo-conism in America


Look carefully.  This is the man who wants to lead America into another war, based on his lies that he has peddled to the press about Iran. He has managed to put himself in a position of influence who when things go haywire WILL NOT be held accountable by we the People or by the government.  He is David Albright, one who has started a group with a really impressive sounding name, intent on fleecing the government out of as money as he can convince them to give him and fight a war only he thinks is worth fighting. Check out his latest piece of work

The report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published by a Washington think tank Tuesday repeated the sensational claim previously reported by news media all over the world that a former Soviet nuclear weapons scientist had helped Iran construct a detonation system that could be used for a nuclear weapon.

But it turns out that the foreign expert, who is not named in the IAEA report [.pdf] but was identified in news reports as Vyacheslav Danilenko, is not a nuclear weapons scientist but one of the top specialists in the world in the production of nanodiamonds by explosives.

In fact, Danilenko, a Ukrainian, has worked solely on nanodiamonds from the beginning of his research career and is considered one of the pioneers in the development of nanodiamond technology, as published scientific papers confirm.

It now appears that the IAEA and David Albright, the director of the International Institute for Science and Security in Washington, who was the source of the news reports about Danilenko, never bothered to check the accuracy of the original claim by an unnamed “Member State” on which the IAEA based its assertion about his nuclear weapons background.

This was a characteristically sloppy piece of lying as far as neo-cons are concerned, but it was good enough a decade ago to get people to invade another perceived enemy for reasons that turned out to be a lie.  If you check out the page for Albright’s group, Institute for Science and International Security, you’ll even see they have their own Ahmed Chalabi like enabler, Mahdi Obeidi to add legitimacy to an otherwise faulty premise that Iran has switched their nuclear program into a nuclear weapons program.  This meme however has been repeated since the 90s, with each tale telling of the end of the world after Iran obtains nuclear weapons in the next several weeks or months.  Twenty years on, the status quo still prevails,but that doesn’t stop warmongers like Albright from peddling their stories of an imminent end of western civilization when Iran’s nuclear program produces its first atomic weapon.

For now, and hopefully because of how sloppy he was, Albright’s tale hasn’t passed the smell test.  Americans and Israelis seem to want to choose restraint and diplomacy over beating the war drums, perhaps as a way of saying they’re not inclined to believe the neo-con line just now.  Albright should no longer have an ear anywhere in the halls of government.  He’s an embarrassment; and to paraphrase Col. Lawrence Wilkerson’s characterization of Douglas Feith another neo-con, ‘seldom have I seen…………..a dumber man.’

The death of two great sports heroes


Smoking Joe Frazier died on November 7, 2011 of cancer.  He was professional boxing’s model of a fighter in the ring and out, a no frills kind of competitor known especially for his confrontations with Muhammad Ali.  He was also a gentleman, as far as boxers go, who upon retirement lived his life away from the public eye in a rather unspectacular, yet civil manner that a lot of people haven’t been able to do.  The greatest tragedy is that Frazier died at 67, a relatively young age of cancer, that scourge of a disease that we have yet to find a cure.  I don’t know if it’s because of ineptitude, indifference, a sense of being overwhelmed by other more pressing medical issues that prevents us from finding a cure, but it’s high time, in the second decade of the 21st century that we find a cure.

Years ago, then president John Kennedy issued a challenge to America and its government that we land on the moon, saying no single project will be more impressive to mankind.  I wish Barack Obama would make a similar challenge to today’s America to find a cure for cancers backing that challenge up, as Kennedy did, with the full force and weight of the American treasury.  I know that Obama doesn’t have the same compliant members of Congress that Kennedy had when he made his speech on May 25, 1961 and that’s another tragedy that marks Frazier’s death.  Too many Americans, humans of all walks of life, have died from a disease that should be, could be curable were we to put our collective hearts, minds and resources into finding that cure.  Why we don’t is the biggest tragedy of all.

The second death to occur in sports was that of innocence after the shocking news that a former Penn State football coach had been indicted on 4o counts of alleged sexual abuse of young boys, men, in his care as founder of The Second Mile charity.  The allegations are sordid, and Jerry Sandusky is presumed innocent, but the death of trust by a society so sports drenched to depend on athletic authorities to make the right decisions for athletes has been cemented with this latest news about Sandusky and by extension the Penn State football program.  His indictment has taken down the athletic director, the head football coach, the longest serving coach in division A athletics and Penn State’s president. It’s also an awful indictment of how careless, cavalier and indifferent  people in positions of authority in athletics towards those who they were responsible for.  No parent, nor any athlete should ever look at a coach or sports administrator in the same way after this news; perhaps Charles Barkley was right when he eschewed the notion that he or any other athlete is a role model.  Sandusky has proven they can be just as vile as any other citizen.  Now might be the time for people to be responsible for themselves and their loved ones and not delegate that responsibility to athletic heroes.

 

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Israel’s misplaced priorities


According to those who know, the folks pictured here are more of an existential threat to Israel than Iran.

Ynet reports (fuller Hebrew version) that Ephraim Halevy, a former Mossad director, said yesterday that Iran poses no “existential threat” to Israel and that attacking it must truly be a last resort.  Anyone considering such a strike must realize that it would impact not just Israel, but the entire region for the next 100 years.  If this was all Halevy said it would be important, but mere reinforcement of views already expressed forcefully by Meir Dagan, the most recent past Mossad chief.  What renders the former’s views even more interesting is that he identifies what he considers an even greater existential threat to Israel: the Haredim

Unfortunately such dire talk of the consequences of war with Iran and the more likely internal threat, much like what we face here in America, of a fifth column so ideologically extreme that it is parasitic in nature is not enough to scare Israeli leadership from wanting to go to war with Iran.  Now that America is planning to withdraw from Iraq, some see the vacuum such a withdrawal brings as a golden opportunity to start another war.  The war drums being beaten have reached a crescendo even as the world awaits word from the IAEA about Iran’s nuclear intentions, which has previously signaled a nuclear inert Iran.  Of course, Israel would love America to fight its battles; that has always been the way of business for the client state.

The present American administration, facing an increasingly rabid and conservative opposition from the GOP and always on the defense to prove its bona fides to a suspecting and doubtful electorate, might find itself easy  prey to the idea of invading another Muslim country in order to secure the American homeland as well as the Israeli one.  It’s not surprising Israel is beating the war drums; it always has and always will.  What’s surprising is that anyone, after the last decade, is listening to them. What anyone who does needs to tell them the Israelis they need to get their own house in order.

 

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Terror from within


At the moment America is too consumed with news about Herman Cain’s sexual predilections to hear or be interested in the the latest terror plot. It seems, sex sells even better than terror, or at least good enough to obscure news about terror. The fact that the defendants are not the types we like to associate with terror, although they are of the demographic that is more likely to be terrorists here in America than any Muslim, makes our fascination with their case even more fleeting if not downright non existent.  Four men in their 60s and 70s have been charged with offenses that could only be considered terrorism given what it was they were accused of doing.

Federal authorities said the men held clandestine militia meetings, beginning in March, in which they discussed using toxic agents and assassinations to undermine federal and state government…

This will never get the play in the media that foreigners or foreign sounding terrorist names would get in the face of such revelations and that is one of the many problems with the politicization of terrorism in today’s America.  The four defendants aren’t just some  cranky old men hatching another isolated incident of terror inspired violence on America, they are a side of America which has always been around and views change as violent and necessarily so.

During the 60s and 70s people of similar mindset were paraded in front of our televisions and on the front pages of our newspapers as threats to our society, and politicians made their political fortune denouncing the likes of the Black Panthers, SDS, SNCC, SCLC and other alphabet soup organizations that we were told posed an imminent threat to our democracy.  These organizations and the people that participated in their activities bore the full brunt of an enraged federal government and its police agencies that trampled on their rights, spied on and at times even killed them because some one said it was necessary and the right thing to do and very few of us flinched nor protested. Rather we cheered on and elected those politicians who said such actions were necessary in order to preserve the social order.  That was the same response we had to the cries from neocons about the clash of civilizations meme.

Somehow we are not quite able to see the threat the same way when it’s presented to us in the form of four senior citizen white males who are members of groups we’ve been told since the beginning of the Obama Administration were equally vicious and threatening to the American fabric. (On a side note, I wonder how vociferous  would our denunciation be if Obama decided to unilaterally send a drone attack over one of the meetings these four defendants had to hatch their plots and  killed them and any of their relatives?)  Our minds still seem to be  focused only on the dark, seedy,murderous, savage fundamentalist Muslims who want to destroy what we stand for because they are unable to reach the greatness that is America.  Such imagery when attached to anything evokes a response of horror and disgust, revulsion and abject rejection even when that thing is notable and essential to the life of our Nation.  How else can we look at our indifference to the various  Occupy movements spreading across the country, and the hostility they face from political leaders and members of the media who conjure up images of opponents of a bygone era or radical associations of a more recent time.

This is the story that will probably not receive the attention it deserves, not because these men wanted to overthrow the country….they couldn’t, or not because they are symptoms of a wider problem, they are but we are a country of over 300 million people and we’ve got a lot of problems.  This story deserves attention because there are too many people who believe that in order to defend this country they have to go out and kill somebody to do it. How did we get to this point that people like 73 year old Frederick Thomas think, ‘when it comes to saving the Constitution, that means some people gotta die.”  Perhaps, his time would have been better spent joining #OccupyWallStreet in Atlanta where he could have affected real change rather than plotting acts of terror that would only lead, as it has, to his own ruin.

 

No Comment


 

….the true and authentic teachings of Islam promote the sanctity of human life, dignity of all humans, and respect of human, civil and political rights. Islamic teachings uphold religious freedom and adherence to the same universal moral values which are accepted by the majority of people of all backgrounds and upon which the US Constitution was established and according to which the Bill of Rights was enunciated.

……we the members of FCNA (Fiqh Council of North America) believe that it is false and misleading to suggest that there is a contradiction between being faithful Muslims committed to God (Allah) and being loyal American citizens. Islamic teachings require respect of the laws of the land where Muslims live as minorities, including the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, so long as there is no conflict with Muslims’ obligation for obedience to God. We do not see any such conflict with the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. The primacy of obedience to God is a commonly held position of many practicing Jews and Christians as well.
We believe further that as citizens of a free and democratic society, we have the same obligations and rights of all US citizens. We believe that right of dissent can only be exercised in a peaceful and lawful manner to advance the short and long term interests of our country.

The Fiqh Council of North America calls on all Muslim Americans and American citizens at large to engage in objective, peaceful and respectful dialogue at all levels and spheres of common social concerns. We call upon all Muslim Americans to be involved in solving pressing social problems, such as the challenge of poverty, discrimination, violence, health care and environmental protection. It is fully compatible with Islam for Muslims to integrate positively in the society of which they are equal citizens, without losing their identity as Muslims (just as Jews and Christians do not lose their religious identity in doing the same).

 

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No Comment…..sorta


Saw this map on a tweet made by Glen Greenwald where he states, rhetorically I can only assume, how much of a threat Iran is to the US.  Certainly he doesn’t mean to the “homeland” but it’s hard to imagine who else Iran is threatening with the demographics illustrated above.  I’m sure we can find someone who will be scared enough to insist America use its peace dividend gained by a withdrawal from Iraq to fight a war with Iran.  Stay tuned.

Gaddafi is dead


and this is all you need to know about that

A Libyan, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, was found guilty of the bombing [of Pan Am flight 103] by a Scottish court in the Hague, his co-defendant, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, being acquitted. At long last there was going to be some kind of closure for the families.

So what’s wrong with this picture?

What’s wrong is that the evidence against Megrahi was stretched thin to the point of transparency. Indeed, the court verdict might be dubbed Supreme Court II [a reference to the Bush v. Gore decision that put George W. Bush in the White House], another instance of non-judicial factors clouding judicial reasoning.

The key charge against Megrahi — the sine qua non — is that he caused a suitcase with explosives to be loaded at Malta airport and tagged it so it would pass through Malta, Frankfurt and London airports without an accompanying passenger and without being detected.

That by itself would have been a major feat and so unlikely to happen that any terrorist with any common sense would have found a better way. But aside from anything else, we have this — as to the first step, loading the suitcase at Malta: there is no witness, no video, no document, no fingerprints, no forensic evidence of any kind linking Megrahi — or anyone else — to such an act.

And the court admits it: “The absence of any explanation of the method by which the primary suitcase might have been placed on board KM180 [Air Malta] is a major difficulty for the Crown case.”

in other words because of the political winds of the time, not evidence, Libya had to be implicated in an act of terror that they most likely had nothing to do with.  It’s important to keep in mind, as Robert Parry says,

As Americans turn to their news media to make sense of the upheavals in the Middle East, it’s worth remembering that the bias of the mainstream U.S. press corps is most powerful when covering a Washington-designated villain, especially if he happens to be Muslim.

The other thing you need to know about Gaddafi’s death is this tidbit from South Carolina US senator Lindsey Graham who said

Let’s get in on the ground. There is a lot of money to be made in the future in Libya. Lot of oil to be produced. Let’s get on the ground and help the Libyan people establish a democracy and a functioning economy based on free market principles.

I hope the Libyans see this guy coming before he gets there and hoodwinks them much like he has their counterparts here in America.

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Viva la Tunisia


Tunisia was the birthplace of the Arab spring, and it seems its fervor hasn’t diminished one bit.

Sara Besbes, Tunis and Africa’s fencing champion, Tuesday refused to play against an Israeli player during the 2011 World Fencing Championship in Catania, southern Italy, according to Panorama.It website.

It said Besbes, who comes from a family of great fame in fencing, reached the final round where she had to play against an Israeli player. However, she stood still on the platform, pointing her sword toward the ground and refusing to move as a sign she was boycotting the Israeli athlete but without officially announcing it to avoid punitive measures by the judges.

The Never-ending Terror Threat


By Ivan Eland

Now that the big kahuna — Osama bin Laden — has been killed, the “War on Terror” is much less exciting.

Even before Osama’s demise, experts sent chills through the massive post-9/11 U.S. government anti-terrorism bureaucracies by concluding that the threat from al-Qaeda had been much weakened by the group’ s own bloody excesses against civilians, many of whom were Muslims.

Yet the way government works, every agency needs a threat to hype to keep the cash flowing in from scared taxpayers. So the anti-terrorism agencies need to keep the threat, however declining, fresh in the public mind and publicize their efforts to successfully combat the danger.

Recently, two incidents illustrate the extent of the government’s refrain that the “terrorists are (still) coming, the terrorists are (still) coming!”

As the public has tired of drawn-out, muddled and costly (in blood and treasure) counterinsurgency wars in faraway places that seem to have only a tangential relationship to battling insidious terrorists, technology has ridden to the rescue.

Now any U.S. president can kill potential terrorists with pilotless drone aircraft much more cheaply and without casualties from putting troops on the ground. For example, the U.S. is using such technology in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen to take out alleged Islamic terrorists.

Recently, an American drone successfully assassinated Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who spoke fluent English and was inspiring Islamist militants with charismatic speeches. U.S. authorities also made vague allegations that he was operationally involved in the BVD (underwear) bombing and a plot to blow cardboard boxes on cargo planes out of the sky.

Even disregarding the obvious problem of what legal authority the United States used to justify violating the Fifth Amendment’ s prohibition on taking life, liberty or property without due process — the Justice Department’ s legal memo justifying Awlaki’ s killing is classified, and Awlaki doesn’ t seem to be covered by the post-9/11 authorization for war, which only approved military action against those who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks or harbored the attackers — the U.S. government clearly hyped the threat that Awlaki posed.

Awlaki was little known in the Middle East, and one knowledgeable scholar termed him “a-dime-a-dozen cleric.” Thus, his importance to the war on terror was largely a creation of the American government and media.

Seeing the opportunity for some free publicity — what terrorists crave — al-Qaeda then pushed Awlaki further into the manufactured limelight.

And now that the U.S. has made him a martyr by assassinating him on the basis of secret criteria, vague allegations, and no due process, the State Department had to put out a worldwide travel alert to American citizens warning of retaliatory attacks to avenge Awlaki’s death.

Also as part of the post-9/11 terrorism hype, the government has created a terrorist watch list containing 420,000 names, with no public disclosure of the criteria used to put that many people on it and no due process for such persons to answer the allegations. If only a fraction of that massive and wildly inflated list is trying to do harm to the United States, we are all in trouble.

In sum, in the war on terror, the U.S. government hypes the threat to justify expanding anti-terrorism efforts and budgets, argues that war is the only means to effectively combat the inflated threat (instead of using low-key intelligence and law enforcement measures, which don’t generate more terrorists by poking the hornet’s nest), and creates a wider retaliatory threat by using such draconian military action.

This wider danger is used to justify the need for even harsher military action, and the action-reaction cycle escalates. In sum, the government is creating the demand for its own services; private businesses should be in awe of such ability.

And not only is the government hyping the terrorist threat, it is creating it.

Like the hapless BVD bomber, who didn’t even have a bomb big enough to bring down the airliner, a graduate student the FBI recently arrested for plotting to blow up the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol with hobbyists’ remote-controlled aircraft would have been foiled by the fact that the planes just couldn’t carry enough explosives to do the job.

The student, a U.S. citizen, got very different treatment than Awlaki. Instead of being assassinated, he was arrested, but before that, the U.S. government purposefully helped him. The government, in order to entrap him, gave him money and grenades, assault rifles, C-4 plastic explosives, and even the remote-controlled aircraft to carry out the attack.

Without all this money and equipment, the student would have likely been no threat at all. In fact, according to The New York Times, Carmen M. Ortiz, the U.S. attorney in Boston, admitted, “The public was never in danger from the explosive devices.”

This is not an isolated case. In similar cases, the FBI has provided the means to carry out terrorist attacks but then arrested the alleged plotter. Such entrapment provides opportunities for people to do what they otherwise would not or could not do.

And Muslims have complained that the FBI is targeting their community with such “gotcha” tactics.

Such governmental hyping of the terrorist threat, or actual creation of it, to justify greater federal coercive action makes one wonder whether to fear more the low probability of a successful terrorist attack or the massive, expensive and intrusive government efforts to combat it.

What a difference a year makes


Last year about this time there were demonstrations in New York city in opposition to the building of a community center which would feature a mosque, among other places of worship, at Park 51.  Islamophobes whipped up anti Islamic fervor and garnered a lot of media attention surrounding their racist rants.  We were inundated, regaled with news articles like this and this and this. One could make the case that such constant exposure in the media was an incitement to the mosque’s opponents to continue their assault against the First amendment to the Constitution.  The New York city demonstrations were duplicated in other cities across the country, taking the form of “anti-sharia” protests, intimating that as the number of mosques grew in America the possibility of Americans being ruled by Islamic law would increase too.  Faulty assumptions built on racial prejudice, that were never called that and magnified under the  full light of America’s media and gobbled up by America’s darkside, the Ground Zero mosque debacle was fully embraced by America.  One year later and Park 51 mosque has opened, people are praying there, life is still being lived and America is no worse for that event taking place as it should have.  It is correct to point out, albeit more pointedly than a writer here that the furor over the Park 51 mosque was indeed racist, fueled by a racist media, and particularly FoxNews, that journalistic anathema  that has soiled the American conscious.

A year later and what has changed is this, there is a ground swell against the nefarious activity of Wall Street bankers who have profited greatly at the expense of  the American economy through business transactions which solely benefited them.  What has also changed is the American media’s ignoring these protests which have been equally vociferous and as well attended but which have far more impact on the lives of every American than the building of a place of worship in New York city.  Media some say  serves as a source of intelligence for the public about what is or should be important to them but it has failed miserably in the two instances for this piece, over emphasizing Park 51 demonstrators while ignoring Occupy Wall Street protestors.  It appeared media’s intent was to neglect the protests in hopes they would fizzle out, disperse and quietly go away.  That hasn’t happened, I’m sure much to the chagrin of a lot of hand wringing execs in news rooms who must now cover these protests.

If you want to know what are the goals of these demonstrations, why are they being held and what it is the people taking part in them want, you can find that information below.

 

Cause and effect


First this,

Jerusalem to punish Erdogan: Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has decided to adopt a series of harsh measures in response to Turkey’s latest anti-Israeli moves, Yedioth Ahronoth reported

Another planned Israeli move is the facilitation of cooperation with Turkey’s historic rivals, the Armenians. During Lieberman’s visit to the United States this month, the foreign minister is expected to meet with leaders of the Armenian lobby and propose anti-Turkish cooperation in Congress.

Lieberman is also planning to set meetings with the heads of Kurdish rebel group PKK in Europe in order to “cooperate with them and boost them in every possible area.” In these meetings, the Kurds may ask Israel for military aid in the form of training and arms supplies, a move that would constitute a major anti-Turkish position should it materialize.

then there was this

A powerful car bomb explosion has rocked the Turkish capital, Ankara, killing three people and injuring 15 others, at least five seriously.

The bomb exploded Tuesday near government buildings and a secondary school, damaging cars and shops in the surrounding area and starting a fire.

Turkish officials say the blast appears to have been a terrorist attack. Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said the intent was to inflict as much harm as possible as the blast occurred in an area of heavy car and pedestrian traffic.

No groups or individuals have claimed responsibility for the blast.

Kurdish rebels are fighting for their autonomy in the region and have escalated their attacks on Turkish targets. Turkish officials are threatening an incursion by ground forces against Kurdish rebel bases operating in northern Iraq.

and no one wants to see the connection between the two? Even Ray Charles can see that Israel is intimidating and threatening Turkey with such moves.  Would Israel accept a Turkish pronouncement that it would possibly provide military assistance to Israel’s Arab population or even to Palestinians?  And if you think Israel has nothing to do with internal Turkish politics, remember Lieberman’s last word on the matter

“We’ll exact a price from Erdogan that will prove to him that messing with Israel doesn’t pay off. Turkey better treat us with respect and common decency.”

World War III is at your doorstep America, courtesy of your only ally in the Middle East. Aren’t you tired of war yet?  Can we afford more war?

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The FBI steps in it again!


The Seal of the United States Federal Bureau o...
Image via Wikipedia

New Evidence of Anti-Isla

 

An excerpt

Following months of denials, the FBI is now promising a “comprehensive review of all training and reference materials” after Danger Room revealed a series of Bureau presentations that tarred average Muslims as “radical” and “violent.”

But untangling the Islamophobic thread woven into the FBI’s counterterrorism training culture won’t be easy. In addition to inflammatory seminars which likened Islam to the Death Star and Mohammed to a “cult leader,” Danger Room has obtained more material showing just how wide the anti-Islam meme has spread throughout the Bureau.

The FBI library at Quantico currently stacks books from authors who claim that “Islam and democracy are totally incompatible.” The Bureau’s private intranet recently featured presentations that claimed to demonstrate the “inherently violent nature of Islam,” according to multiple sources. Earlier this year, the Bureau’s Washington Field Office welcomed a speaker who claimed Islamic law prevents Muslims from being truly loyal Americans. And as recently as last week, the online orientation material for the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces included claims that Sunni Islam seeks “domination of the world,” according to a law enforcement source.

“I don’t think anyone with half a brain would paint 1.2 billion people of any ethnic or religious persuasion with a single brushstroke,” Mike Rolince, an FBI counterterrorism veteran who started Boston’s JTTF, tells Danger Room. “Who did they run that curriculum by — either an internal or outside expert — to get some balance?”

The FBI declined to respond directly to such questions from Danger Room. But what’s clear is that the anti-Islam sentiment in the FBI’s training and orientation isn’t the marginal problem that the Bureau portrayed in its previous public statements and press releases. It’s not a historical problem, it’s ongoing. And it will require substantial effort to root out. Not even a July warning from the office of a powerful senator was able to spur the Bureau to purge itself of its anti-Islam material.

One example is found in the mandatory orientation material for the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces, or JTTFs. Those task forces are a nationwide partnership between the FBI, intelligence analysts and state and local police. As of late last week, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the program, new members or those needing a belated orientation saw this description of Sunnism — the largest branch of Islam — as part of their online training course:

Sunni Muslims have been prolific in spawning numerous and varied fundamentalist extremist terrorist organizations. Sunni core doctrine and end state have remained the same and they continue to strive for Sunni Islamic domination of the world to prove a key Quranic assertion that no system of government or religion on earth can match the Quran’s purity and effectiveness for paving the road to God.

That paragraph is contained in orientation material, known as the Joint Terrorism Task Force Orientation v2 course, distributed online through a secure intranet for every member of the JTTFs. That’s approximately 4,400 officials, according to FBI figures, all charged with stopping terrorism. The orientation course is mandatory for every member of the task force.

The passage is especially odd because most of the orientation consists of practical, mundane information, such as the proper forms to fill out during an inquiry or FBI standards for investigations, according to the source. It consists of five sections, one of which is about Islam, Muslims and Arab culture. The supervisor of each JTTF has to certify that all his or her personnel have completed the online orientation course, and then must pass that certification up to FBI Headquarters’ Counterterrorism Division.

The FBI would neither confirm nor deny the existence of the JTTF orientation material.

The excerpt from the JTTF orientation material was provided to Danger Room by a concerned law enforcement official, who says the material contains 20 paragraphs about Islam in a similar vein. Several Bureau and law enforcement officials who spoke to Danger Room on condition of anonymity believe that such instructions are detrimental to uncovering and thwarting terrorist plots, and that the FBI continues to be less than forthright with the press and the public about the extent of its teaching that Islam is at the root of the menace of terrorism. Evidence for this continuing belief can be found in Quantico, Virginia, at the FBI’s elite training academy.

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Jay Kimbrough’s abuse of the law


I’m still reeling over Tony Bennett’s apology, that he didn’t nor shouldn’t have made, so I’m naturally upset to read where an adviser to Rick Perry who was fired from a top position in the Texas university system pulls out a knife and threatens people with it before leaving his office, or that he had to be escorted from the campus by campus police.  What gives here?

I’ve written before about the in-your-face politics of today’s America and this is just another example of that.  Jay Kimbrough released, let go, fired, pink slipped, whatever you want to call it, feels perfectly justified in pulling a knife that is considered a lethal weapon and showing it to people at a time when he was asked to leave his offices on a public university campus.  Both the brandishing of a weapon and criminal trespassing are offenses for which one can be arrested, as well as the assault he made on campus police, yet Kimbrough in his explanation of things seemed to gloss over these offenses as if they were  no big deal, a joke and that’s the rub.  When the Right gets caught engaging in clear criminal behavior every excuse is made and accepted for why they are not responsible for their crimes, however, when even the poorest and in some cases the innocent are charged (Troy Davis) many in society expect the full weight of the law to be exacted against them.

Kimbrough is a friend of Rick Perry and has worked with him closely for some time.  Most likely the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree; in other words absent a clear denouncement of Kimbrough’s behavior, Perry acquiesces if not downright agrees with how the former carried himself, which begs the question, do we want a President like this?  I assert, in today’s political climate most Americans do.  We have become so collectively deranged we wish death upon the least of us and expect expiation for the strongest of us, no matter how egregious the offense.  It is a path the country has chosen to go down and it will certainly lead to its destruction.  We won’t lose our greatness because we’ve embraced diversity, but rather because we’ve abandoned compassion and the rule of law.  The lights we see in the tunnel of darkness we’re presently in is from the mirror and they are our lights.

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Derek Reeve and his dog


Meet Derek Reeve, an elected  representative of Orange County city council in California.  That state is known for doing some wacky things, so Reeve’s claim to fame is consistent with his state’s reputation.

Reeve has decided to test the waters of free speech in America by naming his dog after the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, even going so far as to say his dog is a ‘”bitch” for his other two dogs.   Reeve is perfectly within his rights to do so, but that he should hoist himself on his petard when there are far more pressing things which need to be publicly addressed shows the immaturity and sophistry of this elected official not to mention the people who elected him.   His city’s Muslim population is ranked 5th among the 10 religious affiliations found here, which means Reeve should probably be out of a job when he’s next up for re-election in 2014.  However, that potentiality won’t stop him from seeking the notoriety he wants with such racist behavior.  He has already twitted about his name appearing on that equally incendiary Bill O’Reilly of dirty talk and lootfah fame, and you can be sure he’s going to make the circuit of right wing talk radio and television who will want to make a martyr out of him.  CAIR, the Islamic advocacy group has already called on him to “apologize” for his remarks……..a really inappropriate response to Reeve in this writer’s opinion, and that will only further to inflame him and his supporters to greater heights of idiocy and racism.

The point is however that Reeve wants to inflame public opinion, and especially that of Muslims worldwide in order to point to them as  the wrong kind of element for America which needs somehow to be censored or worse.  Would that CAIR had gone on record by saying they regret Reeve’s inflammatory application of “free speech”, but supported his right to it, this would have been a non issue and Reeve would have returned to the obscurity which probably drove him to the heights of such idiocy.  In a multi-cultural society like America purposely  inflaming passions by abusing the religious symbols of any member is not only stupid but counter productive to good citizenship, while yes still being legal.  Generally for such people who are so inclined we isolate them mentally and socially from having any real impact on the public discourse, while keeping an “eye” on them.  Today’s America, however, revels in the ‘in your face’ arrogance which is so typical of politicians today and so such due diligence will probably not be seen, especially when it comes to people who are different than the likes of Reeve and O’Reilly.  Look to Reeve to get a lot of play from the haters and race baiters, and even from Muslims.  It’s too bad people keep falling into these traps.

Tony Bennett’s apology


Tony Bennett, a free and law abiding citizen of the United States and a veteran of World War II, was thrust into the public eye after making these comments

“But who are the terrorists? Are we the terrorists or are they the terrorists? Two wrongs don’t make a right. They flew the plane in, but we caused it. Because we were bombing them and they told us to stop.”

The malestorm that ensued caused Bennett to make an apology, which he should not have done, but one can see why he did it.  The above comments were made on Howard Stern’s show, the shock jock of American airwaves, when Bennett appeared there to promote his recently released album and  upcoming tour.  Sensing a  reaction reminiscent of what happened to the Dixie Chicks at the start of Bush’s illegal war in Iraq  Bennett issued his retraction.

What Bennett was talking about however is blowback, and the idea that America bears some responsibility for the international community’s opinion of us is nothing new.  In fact the term has been in widespread use within government circles for at least the last 25 years, or maybe even longer.  Ron Paul has brought the word and the concept to the forefront during his two presidential election campaigns and even before seeking that office.  Here is the definition of blowback

Blowback is the espionage term for the violent, unintended consequences of a covert operation that are suffered by the civil population of the aggressor government. To the civilians suffering the blowback of covert operations, the effect typically manifests itself as “random” acts of political violence without a discernible, direct cause; because the public—in whose name the intelligence agency acted—are ignorant of the effected secret attacks that provoked revenge (counter-attack) against them.

and this is exactly what Bennett was talking about.  Notice in the definition that in order for the aggressor government to get the most out of blowback…….casus belli, the population must remain ignorant or rather uninformed about the clandestine operations being done in their name by their imperial government, which is why Bennett’s remarks had to come under immediate scathing, scurrilous attack. Too many people are saying the same thing as Bennett and that makes it increasingly difficult for escape the judicial remedies necessary to correct this should the ground swell continue.   It didn’t help Bennett’s cause any that a tour and a new album have been released or are  imminent.  The attribution of his remarks with the attending negative publicity would spell doom for a man used to the adulation and depending on it for a livelihood.  The ‘powers that be’ know that, which is why they jumped on him so quickly.  Bennett’s original comments however were right on the mark….sort of, if you believe bin laden was responsible for 911.  Here’s is another view, however

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More No Fly List news


Michael Migliore an American citizen who was put on the no-fly list by US authorities possibly because he refused to talk to the FBI without a lawyer had to end his way to Italy by train from the West Coast and then by boat to England.  The story doesn’t end there however, he was detained by authorities before the boat he was in even made it to port in Suffolk, England.

Migliore was responsible enough to make his way to Europe by 19th century means because of how the US government categorized him, but it seems that “brand” followed him to England as well which underscores the pernicious nature of the no-fly lists.  Migliore’s crime seems to be  being Muslim, knowing  someone who was charged with terrorism and not talking  to the FBI about that relationship without a lawyer (something any seasoned lawyer would advise and which he has the right to do).  What this says is the federal government wants to rescind the right to have someone present when authorities talk to you AND the government wants to punish you for exercising your right to freedom of religion.  That a 21 year old university graduate has to fight this fight against the two greatest powers in the world, the US and the UK, is shameful and disgusting.  That no one or very few people in America is up in arms about this violation of Migliore’s inalienable rights is further indication of  how close this  country is to abandoning the principles of its Founding Fathers.

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More News to Scare you or maybe not!


You’ve gotta wonder how many of the ‘terror threats’ are just as baseless as the two highlighted below are.  Indeed, just a week before the 10th anniversary of 911, we the public were regaled with news about an unsubstantiated terror threat that could possibly interrupt the 10th anniversary celebrations.  Nothing happened to get in the way of our post 911 angst  except our own fears.

Local and federal law enforcement officials had told ABC News Sunday initial reports of “suspicious behavior” by multiple passengers that prompted the emergency call for F-16s was suspected of being a couple “making out” in the plane’s lavatory mid-flight. When the flight landed, the plane was taken to a remote area for security screening and three passengers were briefly taken into custody.

In the course of their investigation, the FBI found that one of the passengers, who felt sick, happened to get up and head to the bathroom at approximately the same time as another passenger. None of the three people taken into custody knew each other, the FBI said.

Of course we’ve been all conditioned to say the response of authorities was appropriate and not comical, which was really the case.   We’ve also been conditioned to look the other way when people who disrupt the transportation industry are not our typical view of what a terrorist should look like.

A Long Island woman worried about her mom and brother flying to New York on the eve of 9/11 was busted for trying to ground their flight — by twice phoning in false bomb threats against the Southwest Airlines plane they were taking from Arizona, the feds said today.

The loony Saturday morning stunt by ex-con Mary Purcell, 37, of Lake Ronkonkoma, sparked a massive security response at Tucson Airport — where a horde of police, bomb-experts and explosive-sniffing dogs quickly swarmed around Flight 2475 to re-screen luggage and passengers as a security alert for the entire airport was elevated.

“We felt that it was a credible threat,” said John Ivanoff, chief of the Tuscon Airport Authority Police. “We were already at a heightened state of alert [because of the 9-11 anniversary Al Qaeda threats], but more manpower was needed.”

Purcell, a convicted felon, doesn’t fit our image of a terrorist, but America doesn’t seem to be upset that a lot of resources were wasted on her ‘threat’ or that Americans somewhere in the transportation system of our country were inconvenienced or maybe had their rights as citizens of this Republic abridged because of the actions of a loony and an over responsive federal government.

Finally, there’s the story of the American teenager who was found driving around in his city alone without a drivers license BUT with an AT4 rocket launcher in the back seat of the SUV.  It’s clear this boy’s name is not Arabic or his religion Islam, for had it been, he, his father and brother, who are connected to the US military, would be linked to al-Qaida, conspiracies hatched and foiled and headlines proclaim how Islam is trying to take over the country and establish sharia. The young man was not named because he’s underage, but driving around during school hours with blaring music is a sure way to draw attention to ones self.  As far as the press is concerned, however, it’s just another teenage prank.

So, while we were informed of security alerts surrounding the 10th anniversary of 911 based on unsubstantiated  information that cannot be verified, the two news items above barely scratched the attention of the Nation and were strictly a local event……as they should have been.   However, we should not have been frightened with alerts that really had no basis in fact but which served a political purpose for the party(ies) in power.  Don’t we deserve better than that?

The Republican Refrain of Dissin’ the President


Official presidential portrait of Barack Obama...
Image via Wikipedia

We’ve written extensively here on Miscellany101 about how the GOP is the obstructionist/racist party of today’s America.  It’s really bad however when their partisanship interferes with their governance and what’s good for the public they say they serve.  Why anyone would  accept the declaration of their party’s titular head and one of its stalwarts that it wants to pursue a strategy to soil a sitting president’s term, even if it means pursuing goals that prove detrimental to the country is astonishing, to say the least.  Especially when this president, Obama, has  in cases of foreign policy, almost mirrored the stance taken by George Bush, in effect saving a lot of Bush appointees from the embarrassing specter of being tried for high crimes and misdemeanors, the Republican’s position is meant to humiliate Obama and the country too for electing him.

It’s particulary bad however when former conservatives call the GOP out on their racist tendencies, like this one here

So, Boehner, using the phony excuse that Congress wouldn’t be back in session until 6:30 p.m.—as Roger Simon points out Congress was technically never out of session, a move designed to keep Obama from making recess appointments—essentially did what Massa Rush said to do and he put the uppity Negro in his place.

There you have it, all you doubters about the motives of these guys.  Straight from the mouth of the de facto chairman of the Republican Party.  John Boehner put Obama “in his place.” The President of the United States got “smacked down,” as he “attempted to force his way to the front of the line.”

and no one blinks an eye.  But we’re not done……..

Democratic Governors Association Chair and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said Thursday that Republicans were opposed to any plan proposed by President Barack Obama that could lead to job creation.

“I firmly believe that Republicans in Congress, driven by a concerted group, have decided that it is not in their party’s political interest to have the president succeed at creating any jobs,” he said at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. “And I believe therefore they will do their very best to deny him any victories that could lead to job creation or a speedier recovery.”

“I don’t think there is another rational explanation for much of their opposition,” O’Malley added.

There’s is another explanation, and it lies in the comments of Limbaugh and his ditto heads. It’s about putting the black guy in his place.  The GOP has taken a decidedly antagonistic position in American politics…an ‘in your face’ approach to its opponents and the American people.  We vote for them…….we can NOT vote for them the next time they come up for reelection!

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FBI interrogator: 9/11 could have been prevented | Raw Replay


A manufactured crisis which has driven our country to near bankruptcy, the war on terror should have never been waged had America lived up to her ideals and not allowed itself to be used by power hungry politicians and greedy pols with axes to grind!
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