Constitutional expert, lawyer and author Glen Greenwald described the bill as:
"probably the single most extremist, tyrannical and dangerous bill introduced in the Senate in the last several decades, far beyond the horrific, habeas-abolishing Military Commissions Act. It literally empowers the President to imprison anyone he wants in his sole discretion by simply decreeing them a Terrorist suspect - including American citizens arrested on U.S. soil. The bill requires that all such individuals be placed in military custody, and explicitly says that they 'may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners,' which everyone expects to last decades, at least."2And that's pretty much it, although, it's not merely at the president's discretion that all you disgruntled citizens can be detained indefinitely, but rather at the discretion of the entire psychopathic U.S. political and corporate elite. Of course, you wouldn't be called a disgruntled citizen, but rather an 'unprivileged enemy belligerent' and you would be defined as someone:
"who has engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners; or has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners"While the wording here appears to target bone fide 'terrorists', that is to say, those people who have been set up as terrorists by the US, Israeli and British governments and their affiliated Intel agencies, it is broad enough to potentially include anyone who protests, or is otherwise 'hostile' to the US government.
Have you ever felt hostile to the US government? Have you ever, perchance, marched down a street with a placard that flagrantly denounced the US government in some way? If so, you may have been 'materially supporting hostilities against the United States.'
But what interests me most is not so much that the bill was introduced (it's been a long time coming for anyone with eyes to see) but rather the string of 'homegrown terrorism' cases that have popped up in the mainstream media since. Coincidence?
You've gotta be kidding.
Homegrown Terrorist Plot Number 1
Jihad Jane - March 10th 2010
The blond blue-eyed 5ft 2" Pennsylvania resident Colleen LaRose denies the charge brought by the US government that she used the moniker 'Jihad Jane' in online postings or sent fund raising appeals for 'Jihad'.
Colleen LaRose - emotionally troubled woman and existential threat to the free peoples of the world
At age 14 LaRose married a man at least twice her age and later married another man who has numerous criminal convictions. She has several misdemeanor offenses on her record including an arrest for driving under the influence and writing a bad check.
According to her sister LaRose threatened suicide in 2005 while "highly intoxicated".
Among the crimes she is accused of is the claim that she registered an account on dailymotion.com in 2007 and posted videos of purported attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq.
In a statement that echoed the sentiment of the McCain-Lieberman bill, U.S. Attorney Michael L. Levy, said the woman was "another very real danger lurking on the Internet" and her alleged acts "shatters any lingering thought that we can spot a terrorist based on appearance."3, 4 That is to say, the US government wants to be able to identify anyone as a potential terrorist.
A former boyfriend, Kurt Gorman said "she seemed normal to me. She was a good person".5
Homegrown Terrorist Plot Number 2
Nuke Plant Worker - March 12th 2010
Sharif Mobley - nuke Plant worker and existential threat to the free peoples of the world
This was the case of the New Jersey man studying Arabic in Yemen and charged with being a member of Al Qaeda. 26 year old Sharif Mobley worked at nuclear power plants in the U.S from 2002 - 2008. After being detained he tried to escape captivity during a shoot-out with guards. One guard was killed and Mobley is still recovering from wounds in a Sana'a hospital.
A former classmate of Sharif's, Dawn Bass, said she was "shocked" to learn of the allegations against Mobley. "He was a sweetheart" who was "always showing off in the back of the classroom doing his karate moves and stuff. He was just a regular kid, he was always talking to everybody - he was not shy."6
Homegrown Terrorist Plot Number 3
Jihad Jamie - March 15th 2010
Jamie Paulin-Ramirez U.S. mother-of-one, childishly dubbed 'Jihad Jamie' by the mainstream press, was named as part of a plot to kill the Swedish cartoonist who had depicted Mohammed with a dog's body. She was arrested along with six others by Irish police in Ireland.
'Jihad Jamie' - devoted mother and existential threat to the free peoples of the world
Christine Mott, Jamie's mother, stated, "these terrorists came into my home through the internet, uninvited, and have ripped my family apart. The only thing I could think of is that they brainwashed her.7, 8
Jamie was "the kid in the class everyone picked on and made fun of," her mother said. Married three times before she left for Ireland, her first husband used to beat her. The picture of both Jihad Jane and Jamie appear to be vulnerable women who were drawn in and used as propaganda tools. But by who?
Homegrown Terrorist Plot Number 4
Pakistan Five - March 17th 2010
A Pakistani court formally charged five young Americans of plotting terrorism in the country in yet another recent case that is being used by the mainstream media to trumpet the 'danger posed by militants using the Internet.'
The students from Virginia, all in in their 20s or younger were detained in December 2009 in a town southeast of Islamabad. The main charges against them also involves the use of the internet to "contact militants" and "plot attacks".
A defense lawyer for the men, Hassan Dastagir, said the charges brought against his clients, included fundraising for terrorist acts.9
Pakistan Five - fun-loving, career-focused children, and yet, an existential threat to the free peoples of the world
Mustafa Abu Maryam, youth coordinator at the I.C.N.A. Center, an affiliate of the the Islamic Circle of North America, in Alexandria, Virginia said "I have always known these kids as fun-loving, career-focused children that had a bright future for themselves. As far as I know they were wholesome kids. Very goofy. You know, talked about girls. Very wholesome."
All five men pleaded not guilty and described the charges as "lies" and affirmed that they only wanted to provide fellow Muslims in Afghanistan with medical and financial help. The men accuse the FBI and Pakistani police of torturing and trying to frame them. The parents of all five have received letters from their children stating that they were beaten and threatened with electrocution. In one letter one of the five wrote, "they beat the hell out of me and the rest of us until we said what they wanted us to say. They even threatened to electrocute us the day before court so we don't tell the judge but we spoke out."10
Shades of Abu Ghraib, no doubt.
Homegrown Terrorist Plot Number 5
From Chicago to Mumbai - March 18th 2010
49 year old David Headley of Chicago was charged in two international terror plots, including the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India. Headley pleaded guilty recently to a dozen counts against him and now will not face a trial.
U.S. authorities said he was involved in identifying targets for the attacks in Mumbai that killed more than 160 people and planned an attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad.11
All five of these cases appeared in the press in the last two weeks yet had been ongoing for several months.
The nuke plant worker had been under FBI surveillance for a considerable period of time and was arrested in Yemen at least several weeks ago.
'Jihad Jane' was arrested 6 months ago
'Jihad Jamie' was arrested in early March but the FBI had been aware of her before that.
The Pakistan Five were arrested in December 2009
David Headley was arrested in Chicago in October 2009.
It seems reasonable therefore to suggest that the timing of the promotion of these 'homegrown terrorist' cases is no coincidence but rather a cynical maneuver by a US government whose entire ideology is based on the fabrication of an existential threat to the people in order to maintain and expand control.
In his book Political Ponerology, Polish psychiatrist Andrew Lobaczewski explained how it works:
It is a common phenomenon for a ponerogenic [psychopathic] association or group [that'll be the US government etc] to contain a particular ideology which always justifies its activities and furnishes motivational propaganda. Even a small time gang of hoodlums has its own melodramatic ideology and pathological romanticism. Human nature demands that vile matters be haloed by an over-compensatory mystique in order to silence one's conscience and to deceive consciousness and critical faculties, whether one's own or those of others.So....let's get strippin'
If such a ponerogenic union could be stripped of its ideology, nothing would remain except psychological and moral pathology, naked and unattractive.
The above-mentioned David Headley is a very special type of 'jihadist'. Last December Indian officials claimed that they believed him to be a CIA agent who 'went rogue'.
Born in Washington to a Pakistan diplomat father and an American mother, he was arrested in Chicago in October 2009. He is accused of reconnoitering targets in India and Europe for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Pakistan-based terror group behind the Mumbai attacks and of having links to al-Qaeda. He has denied the charges.
B. Raman, a former counter-terrorism chief in the Indian foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) stated, "that Headley was an agent for the DEA is known. Whether he was being used by the CIA as well is a matter of speculation, but it is almost certain that the CIA was aware of him and his movements across the subcontinent"12
David Headley - drug runner, CIA asset and patsy and more likely to be an existential threat to the free peoples of the world, along with his bosses
Headley apparently came to the attention of the US security services in 1997 when he was arrested in New York for heroin smuggling. He earned a reduced sentence by working for the US Drug Enforcement Agency infiltrating Pakistan-linked narcotics gangs. Right here we have the description of a classic 'turned agent' - someone who agreed to become an Intel asset in exchange for clemency. The reference to 'infiltrating Pakistan-linked narcotics gangs' is Intel-speak for a CIA drug runner out of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Such assets are expendable and usually end up as the fall guy, which appears to be the case with Headley, although he is being spared trial.
So let's consider what we are dealing with here. With the exception of Headley, who is almost certainly a CIA asset, we have a rag tag bunch of emotionally disturbed and/or young and naive individuals who all share the common factor that they are US citizens who, somehow or other, ended up falling into the category of 'unprivileged enemy belligerent'. Every one of them was lured into their 'jihadist' activities by way of contacts on the internet. Who those contacts are is perhaps the most intriguing and complicated aspect of this story.
You probably don't remember last year's story about the 'plot to bomb New York Synagogues', but you really should try and remember the latest development in that particular case.
Arrested in May 2009, the four men were identified as James Cromitie, 55, David Williams, 28, Onta Williams, 32, and Laguerre Payen, 27, are all residents of Newburgh in upstate New York. Their lawyer recently filed a motion to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the plot to bomb synagogues was entirely the brain child of the FBI and that the men were used by the FBI's 'professional informant' Shaheed Hussain.
'Synagogue bomb plotters' - into money and BMWs, not much inclined towards violence, yet still an existential threat to the free peoples of the world
The defendants' lawyer claimed that Hussain's job involved visting suburban mosques in an effort to find members with anti-American leanings and recruit them to join a fake terror plot supposedly funded by a Pakistan-based group. In baiting the men Hussain reportedly:
- Drove around in FBI supplied BMWs, Hummers and other cars to make him appear well-funded
- Suggested to the defendants that he could provide them with $250,000
- Attempted to incite the defendants by blaming Jews for the world's evil and telling them that attacks against non-Muslims were endorsed by Islam.
- Suggested targets that the defendants wanted to attack
- Paid for the defendants' groceries
- Bought them a gun
- Provided fake bombs and missiles
- Assembled explosive devices
- Acted as their chauffeur
This, dear readers, is the meat of the US government's case for the reality of a homegrown terror threat that necessitates the introduction of the civil-liberty squashing McCain-Lieberman bill.
Some Hapless Dudes - Revisited
Since we're on the topic, it seems pertinent to revisit the equally farcical case of the 'Miami terror cell' from 2006.
This was the case of the slightly deranged group of five Christian-Zionist-Muslim martial artist immigrants called the 'Sea of David' who were quietly living in a warehouse in Florida awaiting the fulfillment of the biblical end times prophecy, when one day an undercover FBI agent came along and:
- offered them $50,000
- initiated them into "al-Qaeda" (complete with oath swearing)
- provided them with military boots and a video camera
- suggested that they wanted to blow up certain government buildings and the Sears tower in Chicago
The Miami Seven - just some hapless dudes who also like money, and yet, pose an existential threat to the free peoples of the world
Two community activists familiar with the case and the group pointed out that the accused couldn't even afford their own cameras and that the federal government had to buy them for them. The government was also forced to rent the men the cars that they needed to get downtown in order to take the 'terror pictures'. When the men finally gave in and provided the FBI informant with a list of things they needed in order to blow up the buildings, they forgot to include any explosives or any materials which could be used to make explosives.16
Despite this, all five men were convicted on 'terrorism' charges in May 2009.
Hopefully these two examples give us a better understanding of how and why these unlikely 'homegrown jihadist' types are created - depending on how informed you are, it's either for your brainwashing or your entertainment.
The Global Game
But it would be foolish to think that this phenomenon is limited to a series of well-planned and manned FBI setups. This particular spider's web is global in nature.
David Headley, the CIA agent, is accused of contacting 'Lashkar-e-Taiba' (LET). The five teenagers arrested in Pakistan are also said to have had contacts with this shadowy group which appears to be the new "al-Qaeda" and the US governments main justification for its continued bombings of Afghanistan's civilians. So it's worth taking a brief look at LET's origins:
Founded by Muhammad Saeed in Afghanistan, LET is currently based near Lahore, Pakistan and operates several training camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Muhammad Saeed is a Pakistani Islamic scholar. During the extremist regime of General Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan in the early 80's, Saeed was sent to Saudi Arabia to take part in the US-sponsored Afghan Jihad against the Soviets which involved him recruiting and directing groups of Afghan, Saudi and Pakistani fighters.
By 1979 large quantities of American dollars had begun flowing into General Zia's coffers, and he was clearly well aware of his controlling position. What price would the US government of Jimmy Carter pay for his help in establishing what is today called the 'Taleban' and Lashkar e Taiba? When offered a $400 million 'aid' package, Zia sneered and said 'peanuts'. (Carter used to be a peanut farmer).
Overall, the US government funneled $billions to Zia, on the proviso that he used most of it to fund a bunch of feudal warlords known as the Taleban over the border in Afghanistan.
Many people still believe that the US used the Pakistani government and intelligence services to create fundamentalist Islamic groups to bog down the Soviets and give them their 'Vietnam' in Afghanistan, simply because that was what they did during the 'Cold War'. After all, there was a world-wide covert and 'noble' battle against the evils of 'Communism' right? Well, not really. While making it difficult for the Soviets was probably a consideration, the main problem for the Americans was the specter of the evils of secularism and modern liberal, progressive values taking hold in S. E. Asia, not to mention the danger that they could infect the entire region. There was also the CIA's plan to establish the world's large heroin manufacturing operation, the proceeds of which would be used to continue CIA operations around the world.
What would have become of America's rampant capitalism, national security state and self-styled role of policeman of the world if they had had to spend the last 30 years with no fundamentalist Islam to speak of, no drug money and all of the Middle East and S.E Asia enjoying the benefits of socialist governments, profitable and happy for all the world to see?
The root of the problem for the US government was that Afghanistan has recently taken a turn for the worse, at least from the CIA's perspective.
In 1973 Dr. Mohammad Daoud, an extreme conservative who ruled as absolute dictator had come to power in a coup. In response to the oppressive policy of the new regime the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, PDPA, was formed, but in 1978 Daoud's ordered the arrest of almost the entire leadership of the PDPA.
The progressive masses in Kabul saw the arrests as an attempt to annihilate the PDPA, just as Pinochet had done to the workers parties in Chile in 1973 (with US backing). An uprising by the lower ranks of the military freed the popular party leader, Nur Mohammad Taraki. Within a day, Daoud was overthrown and a revolutionary government proclaimed, headed by Taraki.
According to the CIA's own casebook on Afghanistan, before the revolution, 5 percent of Afghanistan's rural landowners owned more than 45 percent of the arable land. A third of the rural people were landless laborers, sharecroppers or tenants. Debts to the landlords and to money lenders "were a regular feature of rural life". An indebted farmer turned over half his crop each year to the money lender.
When the PDPA took power, it quickly moved to remove both landownership inequalities and usury. Decree number six of the revolution canceled mortgage debts of agricultural laborers, tenants and small landowners.
The revolutionary government set up extensive literacy programs, especially for women. It printed textbooks in many languages. "The government trained many more teachers, built additional schools and kindergartens, and instituted nurseries for orphans".
By 1985 there had been an 80-percent increase in hospital beds. The government initiated mobile medical units and brigades of women and young people to go to the undeveloped countryside and provide medical services to the peasants for the first time.
Among the very first decrees of the revolutionary regime were to prohibit bride-price and give women freedom of choice in marriage. "Historically, gender roles and women's status have been tied to property relations. Women and children tend to be assimilated into the concept of property and to belong to a male."
Before the revolution, a bride who did not exhibit signs of virginity on the wedding night could be murdered by her father and/or brothers.
After the revolution, young women in the cities, where the new government's authority was strong, could tear off the veil, freely go out in public, attend school and get a job. They were organized in the Democratic Women's Organization of Afghanistan, founded in 1965 by Dr. Anahita Ratebzada.
The revolution and the establishment of the social government under Taraki challenged the old fundamentalist Islamic order. Afghanistan was slowly being turned into a progressive and libertarian country with a somewhat secular government providing equal rights for all. 17
Of course, at the time, these measures were denounced as evidence of the spread of 'Communism' in Afghanistan which had to be stamped out, the truth however is that it was the spread of moderate and responsible government - something that the US has repeatedly fought against around the world - that concerned the architects of America's Empire.
Zbigniew Brzezinski served as US National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. In an interview in Le Nouvel Observateur Jan 15-21, 1998, p.76, he explains a few things:
Brzezinski: According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan in Dec 1979. But the reality, closely guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.The "pro-Soviet regime" mentioned here was the socialist government of Taraki that was advocating women's rights and education for all.
Question: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?The fact is that the Russians were enticed to intervene in Afghanistan because of the aforementioned aid and weaponry that the US was supplying to the feudal warlords who were seeking to overthrow the socialist government of Taraki - the one that had begun to reform and open up Afghan society. The Soviets were not necessarily interested in invading and occupying Afghanistan, but were instead responding to a threat that the US government had created by financing and arming (and therefore controlling) a large number of tribal warlords (recruited from both Pakistan and Afghanistan) right on the Soviet Empire's southern border.
Brzezinski: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
But I digress. Lashkar-e-Taiba is one element of these tribal warlords that the US government indirectly created and financed and has been controlling over since by way of the Pakistani intelligence agency.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Pakistani Intelligence (ISI) has over the years supported a number of Islamic terrorist organizations, while maintaining close links to the CIA: "Through its Interservices Intelligence agency (ISI), Pakistan provided funding, arms, training facilities, and aid in crossing borders to Lashkar-e-Taiba."18, 19
The main accusation leveled by the Pakistanis against the five US citizens mentioned above is that they were in contact with Lashkar-e-Taiba. But Lashkar-e-Taiba is essentially a paramilitary arm of Pakistani Intelligence, commonly called 'a state within the state', or Pakistan's 'invisible government',20 which in turn is, as we have seen, largely controlled by the CIA.
Things get even more farcical when we realize that David Headley, a CIA agent 'gone rogue' is accused by the US government of being involved in the Mumbai attacks last year, yet there is clear evidence that the Mumbai attacks were the work of Pakistani intelligence and therefore the CIA.21 The nature of this control is largely financial both via direct US government 'aid' and through kick-backs from the CIA-controlled Afghan heroin trade. The CIA operates a classified program that pays Pakistani Intelligence for the capture or killing of wanted militants. According to current and former US officials the payments to the ISI account for as much as one third of the CIA budget,22 which in 2003 totaled $5 billion.23 While these payments have reportedly triggered 'intense debate' among some US government officials, mainly due to the fact that it is common knowledge among many of them that the ISI is the middleman for groups like the LET and the Taleban, there is no power on Capitol Hill to do anything about it.
So how much grey matter does it take to realize that if:
the US state Department and CIA is funding the ISI which is known to support (with US tax dollars) the 'terrorists' that the US military is meant to be fighting, and is also used to capture people like the Pakistan Five, which in turn provides 'evidence' for the existence of a 'homegrown terrorist threat' and the rationale for the introduction of Orwellian legislation like the McCain-Lieberman bill that will be used to crush the remnants of free speech or the rights enshrined in the US constitution,Send your responses to president@whitehouse.gov. The winner will potentially receive an all-expenses-paid trip to a US military (or Haliburton) prison for a very long time.
how many neurons must fire before people realize that all of it is one massive, tyrannical and very complicated fabrication?
Notes
- Opencongress.org
- Glen Greenwald, Salon.org, March 17, 2010
- New Zealand Herald, March 20, 2010
- United Press International, March 10, 2010
- Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2010
- New York Daily News, March 12, 2010
- The Independent, March 15, 2010
- Examiner.com, March 13, 2010
- Reuters, March 17, 2010
- Associated Press, March 17, 2010
- CNN, March 18, 2010
- The Times, December 17, 2009
- NBC, March 17, 2010
- New York Daily News
- Duluth News Tribune
- Democracy Now, June 26, 2006
- Afghanistan, Chapter 4
- Council on Foreign Relations, Issue 135
- Council on Foreign Relations, Issue 135
- Time, April 29, 2002
- New York Times, August 12, 2008
- LA Times, November 15, 2009
- Globalsecurity.org, February 5, 2002
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