Category: Terrorism

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The Department of Murder

When did Obama become the head of Murder Incorporated?

Malcolm X got raked by the media when he commented, in reference to the Kennedy assassination, that “the chickens have come home to roost”. He was referring to the role of the U.S. in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, and the history of violent racial oppression in the American South.

How exactly does the U.S. condemn murder and assassination when it has adopted– enthusiastically– the exact same policy when dealing with whomever it chooses to define as an enemy?

The U.S. will proclaim loudly to itself– when the chickens once again, inevitably, come home to roost– that it is outraged, outraged, I say, that so-called civilized nations would resort to murder and assassination as tools of foreign policy! How dare they!

And within it’s own borders, Americans will purr contentedly that all of the mayhem they sow in revenge if justified by the angels because we are such a good, virtuous nation….

And the rest of the world will see that for exactly what it is: the rankest hypocrisy. You did it too! You’ve been bombing and droning and murdering for years, and now you’re upset that other nations said, okay, we get the idea.

Does Obama mind? You can’t be a priss, after all. Americans will forgive many things in a leader– fecklessness, moral turpitude, inconsistency– but never that he failed to show a willingness to kill on our behalf, a facility with mayhem, a willingness to converse with unspeakable cruelty, always, always, oh always, with the illusion of moral rectitude.

The fervor with which Americans indulge in patriotic pageants and parades would lead one to believe … what? Not that there’s any courage in it. All it took to get America to give up its treasured civil liberties and the principle of rule by law was one attack in one city. Most of the country went into paranoid hysterics and hasn’t recovered since. George Bush said, if I provide you with the illusion of safety will let me listen in on your phone messages without a warrant, and America said yes, yes, please yes, anything to keep us safe.

Obama said, will you re-elect me if I take it upon myself to kill people who frighten our intelligence agencies, and America said yes! And Romney said, I will save you from the Russians. And so far, America says, what?

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The Supreme Strippers

The Supreme Court, featuring the immortal Clarence Thomas, has just ruled– 5-4, of course, (Republican Appointees vs. Democratic Appointees), that the police may strip search an individual even if he has only been charged with the most trivial crime. And that is not an exaggeration: the justices were explicit. Overdue speeding ticket? Walking a dog without a leash? Litter? Literally, even the slightest offense.

I am amazed that five adults could conclude that the a strip search is a rather trivial price to pay for a procedure of dubious efficacy applied to people who just don’t seem likely to be much of a threat to law and order. Again, the justices were explicit: the police don’t have have to have any particular reason for believing that a suspect might be in possession of a weapon or other contraband. They can just do it. For fun, if you will.

The internet is a creative conduit for civil discourse: there really ought to be a group created to monitor the Supreme Court justices at all times. It should be coordinated on Facebook or a private website. People can volunteer and take turns following the five justices around, taking pictures and video (which can then be posted to the internet) to make sure they aren’t doing anything illegal. These volunteers should absolutely observe the letter of the law. Hoo haw! Make way for the new “reasonable”!

At what point do you think a Justice might complain that he doesn’t like being followed or observed or recorded or spied on? What right would they have to complain? It is perfectly reasonable to infringe a little on someone’s privacy in order to accomplish a greater good. It is clearly in the interests of the citizens of the United States to make sure that their Supreme Court Justices are not doing anything to besmirch the reputation of the courts.

One of the rationales for this ruling is that the court should not interfere in the practice of law enforcement unless absolutely necessary because that would be “judicial activism”. Like repealing legislation enacted by a duly elected congress. Like Obamacare.

Another reason given– this one is a real gem– is that any of these people arrested and strip searched might turn out to be Timothy McVeigh or one of the 9/11 hijackers. And…. so, a strip search might have revealed that McVeigh was packing 2 tons of explosive fertilizer? He might have been planning to blow up the prison? A strip search would have stopped him?

Or Mohammed Atta might have had a box-cutter hidden under his scrotum?

And he might have littered or jay-walked just prior to boarding the aircraft?

That would surely have tipped authorities off to the plot…

It should surprise no-one that Chief Justice John Roberts ruled the way he did: this is the man who ruled that it is not unreasonable for a large policeman to take down a child and handcuff her for eating a French Fry on a subway platform.

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America’s Secret Police

Do not mention to the public or the media the use of cell phone technology or equipment used to locate the targeted subject,” the Iowa City Police Department warned officers in one training manual. It should also be kept out of police reports, it advised. NY Times, April 1, 2012

For all the screeching and wailing about government oppression in the form of an insurance mandate for health insurance, why are those freedom-loving, liberty-cherishing, gun-hugging Americans so utterly placid and spineless about the massive government intrusion into their personal lives through the routine abuse of police powers as described in the New York Times on April 1?

Apparently the police, even in small, rural towns, routinely go to cell phone companies and demand the locations of particular phones, or the content of text messages. Some of these police departments have even acquired their own equipment to do it without having to pay– or possibly arouse the antipathy of– private cell phone companies.

Where’s all the outrage? Where’s the placards, the effigies, the righteous indignation, the groveling, tearful references to the Constitution, the swelling, yelling, enraged marches?

The most sacred rights are being systematically disemboweled and we hear not a whimper from the so-called patriots.

It’s all a lie and America is a giant fraud. It’s time to hold a grand public ceremony and officially burn the Constitution in a steel barrel and then roll it off the docks somewhere near Wall Street and the “Freedom Tower”, and time for all the flag-draped Patriots to just get over it: you are liars.

Retroactive Immunity: John Ashcroft’s wet kiss to the Telecoms

I will note that I was completely wrong about consequences of Ashcroft’s actions, primarily because Obama has completely and totally capitulated to the forces of darkness in the American intelligence community and has, indeed, joined in the Constitution-defying American Jihad against suspected American enemies everywhere with his own program of assassinations and mayhem.

I would like to say that I predict that it will be the thing Obama will be sorriest about in ten or twenty years. But he won’t be, because the American public will adore him for killing people on their behalf. The more, the better. The bigger and more spectacular, the better. The bloodier, the lovelier. In foreign lands or, hell, why not, here on American soil. Arrest them, torture them, kill them remotely: our religion is an angel, a drone, with a gift of shredding.

If there were no enemies out there to kill, I strongly suspect we would make them up. No military or intelligence community would ever willingly acknowledge that they are not really needed, or that they do more damage, in the long term, than good.

And if you think that is preposterous, you should ask yourself how we got here: Obama, the “yes we can” guy, in the embrace of a Hellfire missile.

[added July 17, 2012]

Did you know that about 98%– no exaggeration — of criminal court proceedings in the U.S. end with a plea bargain? Is this good? Bad? Terrible?

What we have is district attorneys with enormous power bullying defendants into giving up their constitutional rights by threatening to lay more serious charges than are called for (which could result in a far more severe sentence) if the defendant doesn’t please guilty to “lesser” charges.

Now, did you know that District Attorney’s are allowed to demand a “waiver” as part of these agreements, wherein the defendant gives up his right to appeal his sentence later, if he happened to, say, discover exculpatory evidence somewhere, or that his own lawyer was a dunce? Furthermore, his own lawyer is likely to push him to agree to these terms because part of the waiver excludes his own attorney from any culpability for incompetence or negligence resulting in a more severe sentence than might be reasonably expected?

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96%

96% of federal criminal cases are resolved by plea bargain.

That means that 96% of the time no judge or jury hears the evidence and makes a decision about whether or not a person deserves to be punished and how severe the punishment should be.

That means that 96% of the time a suspect is confronted with this choice: take a sure conviction of a lesser offense and less prison time, or take a chance on a trial for a more serious crime and, possibly, a much longer prison sentence.

As you are thinking it over, consider this: juries in the U.S. absolutely love to convict. They just love, love, love it. They will convict you in the morning, convict you in the night; they will convict you based on nothing, except the word of a law enforcement officer or prosecutor who just feels very, very sure that you are guilty, and the identification of a distant blind witness who saw you from 300 meters away on a dark night in the rain and picked you out of a police lineup because you were the only one complaining about being in a police lineup.

We know the system often fails because of the all the convictions that have been reversed based on DNA evidence. But as long as most of those convictions are of black men, our society doesn’t care.

We have the opportunity to go back and re-examine those cases to try to figure out why these men were convicted in the first place. The answer– aside from the obvious– is: it’s hard to tell.

You might believe that prosecutors and police are honorable, ethical professionals who never let personal ambition sway their decisions about how to handle a criminal case. I think you would be wrong. There are too many examples of prosecutors or police who were more interested in a conviction than in the reputation of the criminal justice system. Exculpatory evidence is often hidden from the defense. Dubious “expert” witnesses testify about fibers or chemicals or traces of substances found on the victim that could “only” have come from the suspect’s car or closet, to the exclusion of all other possible suspects or cars or closets even though no other suspects or cars or closets were examined.

There is no justice system;  There is a system for processing black men into prisons at the lowest cost possible.

It only took only took 9 years for the U.S. to badger Majiid Khan into confessing to numerous terrorist activities, including conspiracies with the mad Sheik Khalid Mohammed and Osama Bin Laden, whom he has never met.  And he must also confess to the bombing in Jakarta in 2003, though he was in custody five months before it happened. When Mr. Khan mentioned something about the agreement meaning he couldn’t sue the CIA for mistreatment, the live video feed was cut off.

Is this some kind of joke? Why do people take these plea bargains seriously? If the U.S. had evidence against Khan, why would they accept an 18 year sentence? If he was really co-responsible for the deaths of 50 people in Jakarta– would they not have sought the death penalty?

There is only one reason why they would not: they have no evidence.

And if you have no evidence, it may take 9 years, but you will get a plea bargain, if that’s what you want.

Because the alternative, for Majiid Khan, is forever.

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A Conspiracy of One

There is a practical advantage to bringing the case in New York State court: state prosecutors said they were allowed to charge Mr. Pimentel with a conspiracy, even if he were acting with just the informant; federal law does not permit charging such a conspiracy. NyTimes, November 21, 2011

!!!

So federal law takes the view that if a police informant makes a plot with an individual– and no one else– the individual should not be charged with conspiracy.

That makes sense to me. I had always thought a basic principle of common law was that a person could not be charged with a crime if he would not have committed it but for the help of a police informant.  Do you see the problem?  If police informants are going to choose a “suspect” and then assist and encourage them to take part in a criminal conspiracy, then the police are choosing individuals to make them criminals.  Then you would have to apply this approach to everyone equally.   It’s entrapment.

If that isn’t a real principle of common law, it should be. It absolutely should be. Would a crime have been committed if not for the actions of the police informant?

The FBI declined to participate in the laying of “conspiracy” charges against Jose Pimentel, for various interesting reasons. One reason was the conspiracy bit. Another reason was the fact that the police informant and Mr. Pimentel liked to smoke a little weed together while they bounced around suggestions for terrorist conspiracies.

I haven’t heard this but I’ll bet another reason is that Mr. Pimentel, like many of the other so-called terrorists arrested, charged, and convicted, couldn’t conspire his way out of a paper bag without the help of his trusty police informant.

That’s was passes for heroic law enforcement these days.

It should tell you a lot that Mr. Pimentel has become representative of the war on terror, in my view: we can’t catch the real terrorists in spite of the billions and billions and billions of dollars we are spending, so we damn well better catch somebody, and damn well better make it look good.

Try to tell your friends that a man was charged with conspiracy even though his only co-conspirator was a police informant. They’ll think you’re exaggerating.

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Invaluable Intelligence

The first development concerned the alleged plot by Iran to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States. American officials disclosed that “several hours after his arrest” they had advised the Iranian-American defendant, Mansour J. Arbabsiar, of his Miranda rights. He waived those rights, as well as a right to be quickly presented to a judge, and spent nearly two weeks providing “extremely valuable intelligence,” officials said. New York Times, 2011-10-13.

Wow. Mr. Arbabsiar, you will know, has been widely reported to be kind of a nut case. His neighbors and friends say he is basically incapable of organizing his way out of a paper bag. And be it noted that he was caught by the usual American strategy now that the constitution doesn’t apply to anything: an FBI informant led him on for two months. Hey, do you hate America? I hate America. Hey, Mansour– you know what I’d really like to do? Kill the Saudi ambassador. I hate him. What do you think, Mansour? Do you hate the Saudi ambassador? What’d’ya’say?

But you can’t tell Americans the truth about all this for obvious reasons. So you talk about this “invaluable intelligence” you are getting. From someone who, I take it, has been talking and talking and talking. Because he’s not very smart. But when your intelligence agencies fervently believe that there are an infinite number of conspiracies out there but you just don’t know about them all yet, you will have invaluable intelligence.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation

Americans put on a fabulous show. They LOVE their constitution and their flag and freedom and liberty and they love proclaiming that they would die for their freedoms and no government is ever going to deprive them of their glorious rights as citizens of the greatest country in the history of the universe.

Truly one of the great disappointments of my life is how little the Americans really value their constitution and freedoms. All it takes to get them to give up those rights is a little fear. You would almost think they can’t possibly believe in it themselves, but they do.

Some conservatives are arguing that terror suspects need not be advised of their Miranda Rights.

Until the 1930’s, some states routinely tortured prisoners to obtain a confession (yes indeed– you can look it up). After courts began rejecting these confessions, the police resorted to more subtle techniques, like questioning a suspect for 36 hours straight without allowing him any contact with anyone outside of the police. Courts ruled that these actions amounted to a denial of a citizen’s right to not incriminate himself. So these conservatives are essentially arguing that the a key element of the constitution simply be ignored.

And now, let’s sing that national anthem again, with our hands over our hearts and our teary eyes fixed upon Mitch McConnell’s unblinking oblivious vacant eyes.

 

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The Un-War

I have said before that there is no “war” on terror. It’s not a war. It’s a series of random skirmishes. But, as I have also observed before, the Republicans would prefer to keep America in a perpetual state of war and they have now succeeded. The Republicans love to say, “sure, in normal times we could respect the constitution, but this is a time of war” or “sure, normally we don’t torture, but this is a time of war…” or ” sure, normally we try to have a fair tax system, but in a time of war, the rich should not have to pay taxes”.  Or how about, normally we don’t steal a nation’s oil reserves, but Iraq wasn’t using them for anything anyway.

There’s a brilliant mind at work here. If you can justify otherwise outrageous policies on the basis of war, why not have a perpetual war. But wouldn’t that be a bad thing? Only if it was a real war. But then how do you get people to believe we are war when we’re not? Simple. There are always terrorists and always criminals. Simply redefine “war” so it looks like something that is always going on. Bingo.

How does it serve their interests? Fear is the Republicans’ best friend. It is through fear that they can abrogate your civil rights, examine your book-borrowing records, scan you naked at airports. It is through fear that they can channel billions of dollars to their friends in the military and the defense industries. It is through fear that they can hide: our enemies cannot be permitted to know how much we spend on security– as if it would make any difference to them– and so, neither can you.

This “war” is not going to end. Obama can’t end it because the Republicans will roast him for being “soft” on terror if he does, and he doesn’t have the guts to take a chance on that. It will not end because there has never not been terrorists and there probably will never not be terrorists, and the Republicans know that perfectly well. They have their dream position. They know that they are sonsofbitches and as long as they can keep America afraid they are confident that Americans will trust them to wield the big stick and do to our enemies what we consider monstrous when they do it to us.

This war is forever. Patriotism, flag-waving, bigotry prevails for now. Trillions will be spent on fighting the phantom menace, ineffectually in the end, because the very definition of terrorism is random violence.

I don’t when or if Americans will ever realize how they have been conned.

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Extraordinarily Lavish Survivor Benefits: Why?

The average family of a victim of the 9/11 terrorist attacks received about $3 million from insurance companies and the federal government of the United States. Altogether, the governments kicked in about $16 billion in compensation. (Insurance Companies kicked in about the same amount.) The government enacted legislation limiting the liability of governments, airports, airlines, and other agencies or companies, in exchange for the settlements produced by the 9/11 fund.

[2011-09-26 I just reread that and I couldn’t believe it. So I double-checked. Yes, $16 billion. And I’m sure lots of people watching it all unfold on TV thought to themselves, boy, they can’t pay them enough.

Yes they can.

You just want the theatrical moment in your mind when you well up with tears and awesomeness at how

As the Rand Corporation pointed out, the government’s actions here establish some precedents for compensation for the victims of a terrorist attack. Politically, it was impossible to stand up to the families of the victims of 9/11: all they had to do was go on TV and complain about “unfair” treatment and politicians of all stripes would fall over themselves to grant their every wish. They even demanded the right to censor any entertainments eventually provided in facilities at the new World Trade Center.

There were concerns that litigation would go on forever, would cost far more than the roughly $30 billion offered by the government, and make everybody feel really, really bad.

The lawsuits would have been a grave thing– what jury could resist giving a huge award to someone who lost a loved one because the airlines and the airports didn’t check for box-cutters? But no one, of course, was going to be able to sue the people actually responsible for the disaster: Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.. Instead, you sue whoever happens to be nearby, with large wallets. The government is always handy, even if we say we don’t want them intruding on our lives. Then, when the Bush Administration couldn’t get Bin Laden, they followed a similar strategy of diffusion: let’s kill Saddam. You sue or kill the most convenient target or the target with deep pockets.

The victims of Hurricane Katrina, of course, were not so lavishly compensated for their losses. Of course, you couldn’t sue Katrina herself either. And for some reason, the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and the remarkably inept government response, didn’t have nearly the political sway the victims of 9/11 had.

Does that have anything to with the economic status or colour of the victims?  You decide.

There was something about the hatred and bitterness and vindictiveness of the 9/11 Families that seemed to have nothing or little to do with perceived or real injustice. It was not pleasant to watch. It caused me personally to begin to lose sympathy for them thought they had suffered real losses.

It’s a lot of money. I think you should only be able to sue for that kind of money if you could clearly demonstrate that there was reckless disregard for the safety of the individuals working in the towers. How reckless were they, compared to all the other towers in Manhattan, most of which are equally vulnerable to this kind of attack?

Not the Empire State Building: it was designed differently. A plane did crash into it once — it met an immovable object. The Empire State Building is far, far safer than the World Trade Center because the builders spent enough money to make sure it was safe. That’s all there is to it.

It is a known fact that no fire above the 37th floor of building in New York City can be fought by fire-fighters.  Nobody cares– not when a billion dollars of office space is just sitting there to be cashed in on.  Buildings are required to have a water tank on the top floor: the World Trade Centre safety equipment did not work.  The door to the roof was locked and could not be opened.

It probably would have cost a lot less than $30 billion to have built the World Trace Center to the standards.

On the 9/11 compensation fund.

9/11 was a genuine act of savagery and a genuine tragedy. One is tempted to forget that, in the face of the relentless, incessant, over-bearing monumentalism going on in the U.S. right now.

U.S. payback was overwhelming, disproportionate, and wildly misguided. And it was payback. Will there be a moment at which the U.S. finally announces that they are even?

On 3/20 will the Iraqis hold a memorial to the 100,000 innocent people who died in the American invasion? (We’re talking about women and children and non-combatants here). Will they solemnly read off the names of the 100,000 at the site of the one of the bombed out neighborhoods? Will the families of the 100,000 sue whoever is nearby with a fat wallet for “compensation”?

We know they won’t get a penny. They just happened to be in the way.

About $3 billion was given to the 9/11 fund from charities.

 

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Deportees

On January 29, 1948, the New York Times ran a story about a plane crash in California in which 32 people died, 28 Mexicans, and four Americans. The four Americans were identified by names and professions. The Mexicans were merely identified as “deportees”.

Woody Guthrie read the article and thought about those Mexicans. He thought about their wives and children and girlfriends, and about the way they risked their lives at times to cross over into the U.S. illegally to try to make some money to send home to their families. He thought about how they were often exploited and cheated by their “coyotes” (guides), and sometimes abandoned to die in the dessert. He thought that they deserved to have names.

He wrote the lyrics for “Deportee (Plane Crash at Los Gatos Canyon)” and recited the piece at some performances. Ten years later, a school teacher named Martin Hoffman took Guthrie’s poem and wrote a melody for it. Pete Seeger covered it and it became a hit.

It’s a beautiful song. It’s flawed (that last didactic verse isn’t necessary)– like the faces of many great beauties– but it has a zen-like clarity to it that entrances. It builds slowly, laying out the scene, literally and metaphorically, and then hammering home it’s point with

We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died ‘neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.

“Both sides of the river, we died just the same” may the most eloquent summation of a liberal, progressive attitude that I have ever seen. This is not about war between illegals and native sons, or Mexicans and Americans, or the owners and the dispossessed. It’s about how we treat each other as human beings. It’s about the dignity of the laborer, and the hypocrisy of a culture that openly hates illegal immigrants but depends on them to harvest their crops, look after their children, and wash their cars.

One measure of the greatness of a song is its enduring appeal. Is there another song that has retained such a high degree of relevance? Up to 500 Mexicans die every year trying to cross the border illegally to do work that Americans won’t do, for willing employers. In return, they are treated like “outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves”.

How do I acknowledge 9/11? With this tribute to “Deportees”.

In 2005, more than 500 Mexicans died trying to cross over into the U.S. illegally.

Deportee on Wiki

Best version? I have an ensemble version that I adore that is attributed to “Woody Guthrie”– obviously, the song-writer– with no further information about the performers. Sounds like early Weavers, but it’s not them. Lists of songs performed and recorded by the Weavers do not list “Deportee”.

Dolly Parton did a version, on her album “9 to 5”. I will remind you that she was quite a good singer before the industry got their fangs into her style.

The only “tribute” to 9/11 I could really stomach to watch was the curious performance of Paul Simon, at Ground Zero, of “The Sounds of Silence”. As he sang,

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.

the camera cut to a shot of the American flag draped on a nearby office tower. Very curious. Simon didn’t change a word– good man!– so we were left with an image of the “words of the prophets” written on the subway walls and tenement halls.

We know from another Paul Simon’s songs (“A Poem on the Underground Wall”) what one of those words was.

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Brandon Darby

The narrative: 8 dangerous anarchists from Austin, Texas travel to Minneapolis in August 2008 intending to sew chaos, destruction, and mayhem during the Republican National Convention. Thank God a trusted, patriotic FBI informant was among the radicals to help the police and FBI intervene in the nick of time, saving property and lives, and preserving the safety and security of Sarah Palin.

It’s a simple, comprehensible narrative. And American justice is about narratives, not facts, not truth. The narrative is compelling to frightened American juries and judges. You can’t be too careful. The two boys, who did not commit a crime– at least nothing that was defined as a crime before 9/11– were convicted, locked up for two and four years.

The truth is more complex. Yes, the boys assembled some Molotov cocktails at the house they stayed in in Minneapolis during the Republic National Convention in 2008. But they never used them. It’s not clear that they ever had any serious intent of using them. In a rational world, they never broke the law. They no more broke the law with their assembled bombs than any member of the NRA broke the law by carrying a concealed handgun. Is a concealed handgun alarming? Only to a rational person.

But what role did FBI informant Brandon Darby play in all this? Would they have ever even build the Molotov Cocktails if he hadn’t organized the trip to Minneapolis in the first place. Did he hector them, tirelessly trying to persuade them that the depths of depravity they saw in Minneapolis– and it was depraved (police phalanx, tear gas, batons)– called for something stronger than a protest sign.

PBS– the only U.S. network that does any serious journalism anymore– aired a documentary recently– “Better This World”– that offered a compelling glimpse of the dynamics of homeland insecurity, paranoia, manipulation, and the use of informants by the FBI. Brad Crowder and David McKay come off as youthful, passionate, and naïve.

Brandon Darby, the informant, is cynical, manipulative, and dishonest. The results are appalling.