They hate us for our occupations.

George Bush famously claimed of terrorists that, "they hate our freedoms", which many of us thought was ludicrous. If they hated our freedoms, why weren't they attacking Sweden or Norway?

Glenn Greenwald highlights a 2004 report, commissioned by Donald Rumsfeld, which addresses the question of, "Why do they hate us?" It concludes:

"Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies": specifically, "American direct intervention in the Muslim world" through our "one sided support in favor of Israel"; support for Islamic tyrannies in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and, most of all, "the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan".

Does that conclusion surprise anyone? I mean, seriously? I well remember after 7-7, the government of Tony Blair attempted to argue that there was no link between that terrorist atrocity and our involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I found that claim ludicrous at the time.

Now, Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political science professor and former Air Force lecturer, is to present his findings on Capitol Hill arguing that suicide terrorism around the world since 1980 has had a common cause: military occupation.

"We have lots of evidence now that when you put the foreign military presence in, it triggers suicide terrorism campaigns, ... and that when the foreign forces leave, it takes away almost 100 percent of the terrorist campaign," Pape said in an interview last week on his findings.

Pape said there has been a dramatic spike in suicide bombings in Afghanistan since U.S. forces began to expand their presence to the south and east of the country in 2006. While there were a total of 12 suicide attacks from 2001 to 2005 in Afghanistan when the U.S. had a relatively limited troop presence of a few thousand troops mostly in Kabul, since 2006 there have been more than 450 suicide attacks in Afghanistan — and they are growing more lethal, Pape said.

Deaths due to suicide attacks in Afghanistan have gone up by a third in the year since President Barack Obama added 30,000 more U.S. troops. "It is not making it any better," Pape said.

That strikes me as blindingly obvious. In our culture we celebrate the men who made up Dad's Army; a group of decent old British men who were prepared to fight Hitler with pitchforks if necessary. Why should it be surprising that there are Muslims who share our genuine outrage at the thought of being occupied?

And why, for so long, were most of the western media allowing George Bush to peddle his nonsensical claim that "they hate our freedoms"?

Click here for Greenwald's article.

Tags: 9-11, 7-7, terrorism, Iraq war, Afghanistan

Obama: U.S. not at war with Islam; 'sorry band of men' hit us on 9/11.

Has there ever been a more divisive 9-11 memorial day?

New York City woke up yesterday to a 9/11 anniversary like no other. Blue skies hummed with the buzz of helicopters as police conducted a major operation to patrol two rival midday protests about Park51, the planned Islamic centre close to Ground Zero. The noise of the aircraft mingled with the sound of church bells ringing across Manhattan, marking the exact time that the first plane struck the World Trade Centre.

Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who threatened to burn Qur'ans outside his church, the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville, had arrived in the city overnight. Supposedly seeking a meeting with backers of the so-called "Ground Zero mosque", he told NBC's Today Show, "We have decided to cancel the burning. We will definitely not burn the Qur'an."

The protesters against the Islamic centre later gathered to hear the right-wing blogger Pamela Geller, who has spearheaded the drive against the project, as well as a host of Republican politicians.

Meanwhile the march in support of Park51, proclaiming the virtues of religious tolerance, wound its way from near City Hall to close to Ground Zero itself. The duelling demonstrations were in stark contrast to the official remembrance ceremony where relatives of the dead talked solemnly about the lives lost.

The one thing I will say about George Bush is that he was always careful to emphasise that the war on terror was not a war against Islam and that Islam is a religion of peace.

Since Bush stood down the American right wing have utterly forgotten the distinction which Bush was always very careful to make, and have started to openly protest against Islam itself.

Obama attempted to remind them of what this anniversary represents:

President Obama stressed that America was not at war with Islam as he decried the "sorry band of men" who attacked the nation nine years ago in memorial ceremonies at the Pentagon on Saturday.

"The perpetrators of this evil act didn't simply attack America; they attacked the very idea of America itself -- all that we stand for and represent in the world," Obama said. "And so the highest honor we can pay those we lost, indeed our greatest weapon in this ongoing war, is to do what our adversaries fear the most -- to stay true to who we are, as Americans; to renew our sense of common purpose; to say that we define the character of our country, and we will not let the acts of some small band of murderers who slaughter the innocent and cower in caves distort who we are."

And, of course, the Pamela Geller's of this world are doing just that. They are forgetting that, in America, all religions have the right to practice freely. They have decided that their war is against Islam, rather than against what Obama called the "sorry band of men" who have distorted Islam for their own purposes.

Shorn of Bush's insistence of whom this battle is against, the American right are wallowing in intolerance and scaremongering. It is a pathetic thing to witness.

Terry Jones, a minor preacher in Florida, managed to create a major furor by scheduling a ritual burning of the Koran for Sept. 11. Alarmed by hyperbolic news coverage, the top general in Afghanistan, the secretary of defense, the State Department and the president warned that such a bonfire would endanger Americans and American troops around the world.

It was bad enough to see a fringe figure acting out for cable news and Web sites, but it was deeply disturbing to hear John Boehner, the Republican leader in the House, equate Mr. Jones’s antics with the Muslim center.

In both cases, he told ABC News, “Just because you have a right to do something in America does not mean it is the right thing to do.” The Constitution does, indeed, protect both, but they are not morally equivalent. In New York City, a group of Muslims is trying to build something. Mr. Jones and his supporters are trying to tear down more than two centuries of religious tolerance.

I never thought Bush was a great leader. And yet, when I look at where the Republican party are heading without his influence, I can see that he did very well for many years to protect that party from the worst of it's own infantile world view. Bush's world view was overly simplistic - good versus evil, us versus "them" - but, in retrospect, I can see that the vision he offered is actually a good deal more nuanced than the one currently being embraced by the party he once led, where hatred has become what unites them, and fear of others is almost a rallying cry.

Obama is trying to encourage Americans to reach for what is best in themselves as a nation, to remember that it is diversity which gives the US it's strength. But the Boehner's, the Palin's and the Gingrich's are behaving like lunatic hucksters, encouraging Americans to see what is different about some of their fellow citizens, demanding that some citizens show that they are "decent" and "peaceful" by giving up their First Amendment rights.

What they are engaging in is simply hateful.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Obama, 9-11, Palin, Gingrich, Boehner, Park 51 mosque

Nine years, two wars, hundreds of thousands dead – and nothing learnt.

On this ninth anniversary of that dreadful day, Robert Fisk notes the irony of Palin and Gingrich objecting to the building of a mosque in lower Manhattan. They are arguing, "as if 9/11 was an onslaught on Jesus-worshipping Christians, rather than on the atheist West."

He is right, of course. It is our secularism which they abhor, rather than our religiosity.

But both sides have been quick to bring God into the equation, arguing that they are fighting on His side.

And God? Where does he fit in? An archive of quotations suggests that just about every monster created in or after 9/11 is a follower of this quixotic redeemer. Bin Laden prays to God – "to turn America into a shadow of itself", as he told me in 1997 – and Bush prayed to God and Blair prayed – and prays – to God, and all the Muslim killers and an awful lot of Western soldiers and Dr (honorary) Pastor Terry Jones and his 30 (or it may be 50, since all statistics are hard to come by in the "war on terror") pray to God. And poor old God, of course, has had to listen to these prayers as he always sits through them during our mad wars. Recall the words attributed to him by a poet of another generation: "God this, God that, and God the other thing. 'Good God,' said God, 'I've got my work cut out'." And that was just the First World War...

Just five years ago – on the fourth anniversary of the twin towers/Pentagon/Pennsylvania attacks – a schoolgirl asked me at a lecture in a Belfast church whether the Middle East would benefit from more religion. No – less religion! – I howled back. God is good for contemplation, not for war.

Bin Laden sits in his cave 100% sure that he is carrying out the work of God, just as Palin is convinced that she is doing the same. And Pastor Terry Jones awaits His signal on whether or not he should burn the Qur'an.

What did God ever do to deserve so many idiots to be the interpreters of His wishes?

How, nine years after 9-11, do we end up listening to Palin and Gingrich bloviating about a mosque in lower Manhattan, yet ignore what all of this is actually about?

And of course, the one taboo subject of which we must not speak – Israel's relationship with America, and America's unconditional support for Israel's theft of land from Muslim Arabs – also lies at the heart of this terrible crisis in our lives. In yesterday's edition of The Independent, there was a photograph of Afghan demonstrators chanting "death to America". But in the background, these same demonstrators were carrying a black banner with a message in Dari written upon it in white paint. What it actually said was: "The bloodsucking Zionist government regime and the Western leaders who are indifferent [to suffering] and have no conscience are again celebrating the new year by spilling the red blood of the Palestinians."

The message is as extreme as it is vicious – but it proves, yet again, that the war in which we are engaged is also about Israel and "Palestine". We may prefer to ignore this in "the West" – where Muslims supposedly "hate us for what we are" or "hate our democracy" (see: Bush, Blair and a host of other mendacious politicians) – but this great conflict lies at the heart of the "war on terror".

To point that out, of course, is almost heresy. It is the link which one is not allowed to make.

Nine years after 9-11, nine years in which hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and maimed, it is still considered bad form to point out any link between the events of that day and Israel's colonial mission to steal Palestinian land.

It is ironic in the extreme that the United States, the country which recognised Britain's colonialism as the evil which it was, now finds itself the world's greatest supporter of this planet's last colonial project.

And it's not as if bin Laden has hidden his motivations:

"The reason for our dispute with you is your support for your ally Israel, occupying our land in Palestine."

And yet, as Obama seeks to bring a final reconciliation between both Israel and Palestine - the one thing which even Tony Blair admitted might do more than anything else to bring this madness to an end - we see American politicians lining up to insist that Obama is being "counter productive" and insisting that he must seek peace, but seek peace only "on Israel's terms."

Nine years on, we have learnt nothing.

Click here for Fisk's article.

Tags: Robert Fisk, 9-11, Israel, Palestine

Bonfire of one man's vanity.

This story gets stranger by the day.

Pastor Terry Jones now states that he will not go ahead with his Burn a Qur'an Day, because he has been promised that the Park 51 mosque will be moved to another location. And then the people at Park 51 state that there has never been any such promise given to Jones and that they have no intention of ever moving the mosque.

So, Jones now says that he has not cancelled his planned Burn a Qur'an Day, but that he has merely suspended it.

Jones also claimed he was planning to fly to New York to discuss the proposed cultural centre's new location with the New York imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.

But the imam, in a statement issued last night, said he had not spoken to Jones.

"I am glad that Pastor Jones has decided not to burn any Qur'ans. However, I have not spoken to Pastor Jones," he said. "I am surprised by their announcement. We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter."

There was a collective sigh of relief worldwide as Jones announced at a press conference that he was dropping his plan to set fire to 20 copies of the Qur'an. The burning had been planned to coincide with the ninth anniversary tomorrow of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Perhaps Jones is simply looking for a face saving way to back out of this, by claiming to have a deal for the mosque to be moved. For, as I argued yesterday, there is simply no equivalence between the two events.

But we should be thankful that, for whatever reason, this strange little man is not going to go ahead with his act of incitement.

UPDATE:



Here's how Palin and Boehner led him by the hand to make this connection.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Terry Jones, Burn a Qur'an Day, 9-11

Rep. Nadler: We Do Not Put the Bill of Rights and Religious Freedom to a Vote.

The cynicism of the Republicans pushing this debate is breathtaking. Notice how, when Nadler points out that the United States was not attacked by Islam, but by extremists within that religion, Peter King is quick to question whether or not that is true.

That's a disgraceful stance to take.

Nadler does well here to point out that there is a Mosque in the Pentagon, where innocents also died on 9-11, but the Republicans aren't calling for that to be closed or removed. He also points out that it would be much easier to have sympathy for the sincerity of the Republican position if they were to vote to give healthcare to first responders to 9-11, which most Republicans voted against.

NADLER: Well, I certainly appreciate the sensitivities of some of the families of 9/11. There are others who have expressed support for it. The press has concentrated on those who have opposed it. But frankly, ground zero is hallowed ground. Two blocks away, first of all, is not so hallowed ground. Second of all, we should not -- government officials should not be in a position of pressuring people where to build their mosque or their church or whatever.

Third of all, as much as I respect the sensitivities of people, there is a fundamental mistake behind it, and that is how can you -- and I can quote any number of some of the people who have commented on it, and what they are saying essentially is how can you put a mosque there when, after all, Muslims attacked us on 9/11, and this is ripping open a wound?

Well, the fallacy is that Al Qaida attacked us. Islam did not attack us. Islam, like Christianity, like Judaism, like other religions, has many different people, some of whom regard other adherents of the religion as heretics of one sort or another.

It is only insensitive if you regard Islam as the culprit, as opposed to al Qaeda as the culprit. We were not attacked by all Muslims. And there were Muslims who were killed there, there were Muslims who were killed there. There were Muslims who ran in as first responders to help. And we cannot take any position like that.

[...]

NADLER: I am not going to comment on that, because I don't think it's proper for any government official to pressure them in any way. And if I were to say that I think it's a good idea for them to do it, since I am a government official, that would be government pressuring them.

But it's up to them. If they want to do that, they're certainly free to do it.

But I want to point out several things. One, there is a mosque in the Pentagon, which is also hallowed ground. No one objects to that. Second, the people who want to build this facility, which is partially a mosque and partially a community center, have a mosque a few blocks away from there, which no one has objected to.

And thirdly, objecting to this mosque would be as objectionable if you wouldn't object to a church or a synagogue in the same place because that's blaming all Islam and you can't blame an entire religion.

And finally, I would take the sincerity of many of the Republican critics of this, Peter King very much accepted, much more -- I would understand the sincerity much more if they were supporting, as Peter is, but very few other Republicans are, the bill to give health care coverage to the 9/11 heroes and responders which all but 12 Republicans voted against in the House last week.

[...]

NADLER: Well, I did not say they were playing politics. I said I would respect their sincerity more.

But we do not put the Bill of Rights, we do not put the religious freedom to a vote. The reason we have a Bill of Rights is that you have your religious rights, your right to freedom of speech for the press et cetera, whether majorities like you or not, frankly.

I hope that people will understand that government has no role in this. Peter has now said this. Many of the people who have been saying this -- who have been on the other side have not been willing to say that. Peter has, I appreciate that.

As to whether the imam wants to have the mosque somewhere else, that's up to them, and government should not pressure them one way or the other.

I am sure that there are some Republicans, and some families of those who lost their lives on 9-11, who are being perfectly sincere in their objections to this development.

But one can't help but feel that many Republicans are also using this as a wedge issue with which to hit a very loud anti-Islamic drum. It's distasteful and ugly. And it is ignoring one of the fundamental principles on which America was built.

Tags: Lower Manhattan mosque, 9-11

NYT On The So-Called Ground Zero Mosque.

This New York Times piece on the protests regarding the Ground Zero mosque is simply remarkable.

Adam Serwer skilfully takes it apart:

The Times report, however, descends into a kind of "liberal" media known-nothingism when it comes to how this became a controversy, suggesting that " a combination of arguable naïveté, public-relations missteps and a national political climate in which perhaps no preparation could have headed off controversy." This is a remarkable formula that manages to place the blame everywhere except where it belongs -- on a right-wing smear machine that went into overdrive in an effort to portray Rauf and Khan as terrorist sympathizers, an experience no one outside of contemporary partisan politics could have possibly been prepared for. The conservative media lied about the location of the project, they lied about Rauf's background, they lied about the project's funding, they lied about when the project would be built, and they lied about Rauf's political beliefs. And it would have been one thing if it had just been a small group of people lying, but they had an entire cable news station to lie for them, and politicians who were willing to amplify their smears. This controversy isn't about the "political climate." It's the fruit of a conscious, deliberate, and sustained effort.

I'm sure that the intensity of emotion shared by some of the projects' opponents are sincere. But where they hold Muslims collectively responsible for the actions of a few extremists, they are mistaken, and where their feelings are the result of falsehoods spread by the conservative media, they are misguided, and where they believe the First Amendment does not extend to American Muslims, they are simply wrong.

Why do so called "liberal" newspapers embrace so much right wing bullshit and feel the need to lay out their case as if it has validity? Why was it the responsibility of the people proposing building the mosque - not to build bridges with Christian and Jewish groups, which they did - but to negotiate what they were proposing with "likely opponents"?

Does the New York Times seriously believe that one can ever find common ground with the Palin's and the other right wing loons noisily arguing that religious freedoms should not extend to the Islamic community?

Their position is an extremist one. The notion that the builders of the mosque should have consulted them is simply preposterous.

Although the Times do leave themselves a get out clause by stating "perhaps no preparation could have headed off controversy", nevertheless the article does indulge in what Serwer rightly sees as '"liberal" media known-nothingism", which seeks to avoid attaching the blame where it rightly belongs.

It's the exact same thing which their article on Abbas does.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Ground Zero Mosque, New York Times, 9-11

Why did no one object to the "Pentagon mosque"?

As Sarah Palin, Pamela Geller, and other right wingers continue their ridiculous anti-Islamic rants about a "triumphal mosque" close to Ground Zero, they appear to be engaging in a very selective form of outrage.

For there was another place attacked on 9-11 and they haven't made a peep about a mosque there.

The "ground zero mosque" story seems to be dying down, but nothing lays bare the absurdity of what we've just lived through quite so much as this Washington Times story, quoted above, from 2007.

Yes, Muslims have infiltrated the Pentagon for their nefarious, prayerful purposes -- daring to practice their religion inside the building where 184 people died on Sept. 11, 2001. They haven't even had the sensitivity to move two blocks, let alone a mile, away from that sacred site.

This is the proof that the Ground Zero mosque controversy was nothing other than Fox right wingers looking for a wedge issue.

Will they now call for the Pentagon mosque to be closed down out of respect for the people who died there? Will they ask that it be moved "further down the road" to avoid appearing "triumphalist"? Or, will they simply do what they always do, ignore the facts and carry on searching for the next wedge issue that they can feign outrage over?

Click here for full article.

Tags: Ground Zero mosque, Palin, Hannity, Geller

Michael Bloomberg delivers stirring defense of mosque.

Mayor Bloomberg has made a stirring speech in defence of the building of a mosque near to ground Zero. Surrounded by religious leaders of several faiths, he called this "[as] important a test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes."

The simple fact is, this building is private property, and the owners have a right to use the building as a house of worship, and the government has no right whatsoever to deny that right. And if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.

This is what makes the right wing objections to this mosque so very strange. Usually, conservatives would find themselves making Bloomberg's argument, and it is only because of a virulent anti-Muslim bias since 9-11 that they find themselves making the very opposite one.

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that."

The Palin's and the Limbaugh's have not thought this one through. They are seeking to be populist and to play on people's fears and prejudices, but, in doing so, they are betraying what are supposed to be their own principles.

And no organisation has sold out it's principles more than the ADL.

Once the ADL was an organization of heroes. No more. Now when bigots call for a lynch mob to form out of fear and religious intolerance, the ADL no longer stands in the way. Now they call on their members to grab a rope and join the rampage.

Peter Beinart has a post up that helps to explain how the ADL went down the hate spiral of Wingnutopia. He makes a good case for how an important organization destroyed its credibility in an effort to appease the powerful and the extremists in their network.

Foxman is trying to justify his intervention by claiming this:

But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain—unnecessarily—and that is not right.

Now, he appears to define the ADL's purpose as to look protect the sensitivities of survivors, rather than to ensure “civil rights” and “democratic ideals” which was what his organisation was ultimately formed to ensure.

The ADL now find themselves on the side of the mob attempting to remove the rights of one group of citizens. That's shameful.

Bloomberg:

"Political controversies come and go, but our values and our traditions endure, and there is no neighborhood in this city that is off-limits to God's love and mercy, as the religious leaders here with us can attest."

Bloomberg is to be applauded for a wonderful principled speech.

UPDATE:

Daily Beast:

The ADL’s rationale for opposing the Ground Zero mosque is that “building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain—unnecessarily—and that is not right.” Huh? What if white victims of African-American crime protested the building of a black church in their neighborhood? Or gentile victims of Bernie Madoff protested the building of a synagogue? Would the ADL for one second suggest that sensitivity toward people victimized by members of a certain religion or race justifies discriminating against other, completely innocent, members of that religion or race? Of course not. But when it comes to Muslims, the standards are different.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Ground Zero Mosque, ADL, Foxman

Giuliani falsely claims "[w]e had no domestic attacks under Bush".

Rudy Giuliani reveals a staggering memory loss regarding terrorist attacks which took place under the presidency of George W Bush:

Giuliani: What he (Obama) should be doing is following the right things that Bush did -- one of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We've had one under Obama.

No domestic attacks under Bush? Let's leave aside the most glaring one of all, which was 9-11, and have a look at some of the others which slipped Rudy's memory:

2001 anthrax attacks. A March 2004 State Department report on "Significant Terrorist Incidents, 1961-2003" quotes then-Attorney General John Ashcroft saying of the letters containing anthrax mailed to various targets: "When people send anthrax through the mail to hurt people and invoke terror, it's a terrorist act." Five people were killed as a result of those letters in the autumn of 2001.

2001 shoe bomber attempted attack. In June 2008, then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff described Reid's December 2001 attempt "to blow up a trans-Atlantic plane with a shoe bomb" as an attempt to "carry out terrorist operations for Al-Qaeda."

2006 UNC SUV attack. In March 2006, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill graduate Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar drove an SUV into an area of campus, striking nine pedestrians. According to reports, Taheri-azar said he acted because he wanted to "avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world." Taheri-azar also reportedly stated in a letter: "I was aiming to follow in the footsteps of one of my role models, Mohammad Atta, one of the 9/11/01 hijackers, who obtained a doctorate degree."

The Republicans repeat this lie so often that one could be forgiven for thinking that they actually believe this nonsense.



Giuliani has since stated that he was talking about the attack at Ford Hood when he inferred there had been an attack under Obama's presidency:

BLITZER: And then you said this, though, and it needs some clarification. "We've had one under Obama," meaning a terrorist attack.

What -- what specific -- which specifically are you...

GIULIANI: I would...

BLITZER: ...which attack are you referring to?

GIULIANI: I would consider the one -- well, I mean the -- the -- the attack on Christmas Day was an attempted attack. I was talking about Fort Hood. Fort Hood was clearly an Islamic terrorist attack. The man who was shooting off the guns and killing those people was yelling out ara -- Islamic phrases when he was doing it -- Allah Akbar and things like that. He was clearly under the influence of Islamic terrorism.

I wondered at first if Media Matters were being picky when they listed what they regarded as "terrorist attacks", but if Rudy is talking about Ford Hood then they are completely valid examples.

How can Fort Hood be a "terrorist attack" and the actions of Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar be deemed not to be the same? After all Reza Taheri-azar was clearly, as Rudi would put it, "under the influence of Islamic terrorism."

Tags: Giuliani, 9-11, Obama, Bush, terrorist attacks

Rumsfeld let Bin Laden escape in 2001, says Senate report.

A new Senate report has found that Donald Rumsfeld failed to capture or kill Osama bin Laden when he was trapped at Tora Bora and that this failure has left the US more vulnerable to terrorism.

The report by the Senate foreign relations committee is damning of the way George Bush's administration conducted the aftermath of its bombing campaign in Afghanistan, saying it amounted to a "lost opportunity". It states that as a result of allowing the al-Qaida leader to flee from his Tora Bora stronghold into Pakistan, Americans were left more vulnerable to terrorism, and the foundations were laid for today's protracted Afghan insurgency. It also lays blame for the July 2005 London bombings on a failure to kill the al-Qaida leaders at Tora Bora.

Republican critics are likely to dismiss the report as a partisan work designed to deflect the current military troubles in Afghanistan away from President Barack Obama and on to his predecessor. The committee is Democratic-controlled.

But the report contains a mass of evidence that points towards the near certainty that Bin Laden was in the Tora Bora district of the White Mountains in eastern Afghanistan, along with up to 1,500 of his most loyal al-Qaida fighters and bodyguards, in late November 2001, shortly before the fall of Kabul.

Further evidence came from al-Qaida suspects detained at Guantánamo and, most authoritatively, from the official history of the US special operations command, which confirms bin Laden's presence at Tora Bora.

"Osama bin Laden's demise would not have erased the worldwide threat from extremists," it concludes. "But the failure to kill or capture him has allowed Bin Laden to exert a malign influence over events in the region."

The Republicans make much of the fact that the US was not attacked (again) during the presidency of George W Bush, often ignoring the fact that Bush was warned that al Qaeda intended to attack inside the United States and that he took no steps of any kind to prevent or even inquire into how one could work to prevent 9-11.

Warnings about al Qaeda began to pour in. The Bush Administration was repeatedly warned by both the U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies that al Qaeda was planning an attack. In his testimony before the independent 9-11 commission, Richard Clarke asserted that both he and Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George Tenet "tried very hard to create a sense of urgency by seeing to it that intelligence reports on the Al Qaida threat were frequently given to the president and other high-level officials." Clarke further stated that "President Bush was regularly told by the director of Central Intelligence that there was an urgent threat...He was told this dozens of times in the morning briefings that George Tenet gave him." The White House has confirmed that, on August 6, 2001, President Bush's Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) specifically focused on al Qaeda's intent to attack the United States, and specifically warned that airplane hijackings could be involved. According to press reports, the PDB included a fresh report from British intelligence warning that al Qaeda was planning multiple hijackings.

The Associated Press reported that "President Bush's national security leadership met formally nearly 100 times in the months prior to the Sept. 11 attacks yet terrorism was the topic during only two of those sessions, officials say..

And now we find that bin Laden was at Tora Bora, surrounded by US troops, and yet, somehow, he managed to get away.

When it comes to the subject of terrorism, it has always seemed to me that it matters more to the Republicans (and their supporters) that they talk tough, rather than that their actions actually be effective.

That's why they advocate torture, even though most people say it is highly ineffective. It's why they always advocate sending other people's children to war rather than attempting any kind of diplomacy, because at all times it matters more to them that they are seen to be making "tough" choices than actually being effective.

Click here for full article.

Tags: bin Laden Tora Bora, al Qaeda, Rumsfeld, Bush

Perino: ‘We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.’

The alternative universe that is Fox News:

PERINO: And we had a terrorist attack on our country. And we should call it what it is. Because we need to face up to it so that we can prevent it from happening again.

HANNITY: I agree with you. And why won’t they say what you just so simply said?

PERINO: They want to do all of their investigations. I don’t know. All of the thinking that goes into it. But we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term. I hope they’re not looking at this politically. I do think we ought it to the American people to call it what it is.

Really? I thought 9-11, the most horrific terrorist attack in American history, occurred during Bush's presidency. But Republicans like to airbrush that out of history. Maybe, by pointing this out, I am displaying a pre-9/11 mentality.

Tags: Perino, 9-11, terrorist attacks, Fox News

Kruathammer: Giving KSM the rights of an American Citizen is Unconscionable.

The inevitable right wing noise machine has kicked into action, decrying Obama for treating KSM and others as "ordinary criminals". I notice that Kruathammer identifies "ordinary criminals" as burglars etc. Of course, ordinary criminals are sometimes serial killers, rapists, and worse. In Austria recently we had the case of Josef Fritzl, a man who kidnapped his own daughter and repeatedly raped her for years whilst keeping her locked in his own cellar. I know that this crime is much more serious than burglary, but the seriousness of the crime is reflected in the sentencing; the venue for the hearing - a court of law - does not change because some crimes are more horrific than others.

So, I am with Karl Levin, KSM should be treated like the common terrorist criminal that he is. Kruathammer appears to buy into the Republican notion that one can't be a criminal and a terrorist. As if the fact that KSM and others declared war on the United States gives them the powers of a state and elevates them above the position which I think they deserve, which is deluded narcissist.

Timothy McVeigh also declared a sort of war against his own country, but no-one argued that, as a terrorist, he must be treated outside of the United States legal system.

Individuals who declare war on country's are usually regarded as nutcases and tried in criminal courts.

Kruathammer and the Republicans seem determined to give these guys a status which they simply do not deserve. I find it truly baffling that they would wish to elevate these people into warriors.

UPDATE:



I am glad that Cenk feels the exact same way that I do about this. This has nothing to do with KSM, this is about American defining her values.

UPDATE II:

Booman has a very interesting theory as to why right wingers are so up in arms over all this.

The right is afraid that these folks will be convicted and sentenced to death for a crime that can proven without resorting to torture. And, then, what will be left of their justification for despoiling our country's reputation for upholding human rights?

Their continued expression of fear at the prospect of having these terrorists present on American soil is pathetic. They ought to spend the rest of their days huddling in their 1950's-built nuclear bombshelters. The only thing they fear more than terrorist attacks is having to face up to the pointlessness of what has been done with their support.

I think that is a very well made point.

Tags: Kruathammer, Republicans, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Obama, trials

'NY trial' for key 9/11 suspects.

This is very good news.

Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be sent from Guantanamo Bay to New York for trial in a civilian court, reports say.

Citing unnamed government officials, the reports said he would be transferred from the US prison camp in Cuba with four other suspects. US Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to announce the decision later, the officials say. Mr Mohammed has admitted planning the 9/11 attacks, the US military says.

I never understood the reticence of the Bush administration to put these guys on trial. I mean, apart from the obvious fact that they tortured them to get them to confess, but one would hope that they have more evidence than simply a confession obtained in such an immoral way.

Obama is doing what should have been done years ago. And it's astonishing that the Republicans, the party who usually lead the "Hang them, flog them" brigade, in this instance didn't even want to go near a court of law.

As I say, that's probably because they felt sure that their torture methods would be revealed in a court of law, but that's an irrelevance now that we have all found out what they were up to anyway.

The decision to try them in a New York court appears to be part of Mr Obama's efforts to close Guantanamo by 22 January 2010.

His administration says it will try some detainees in US courts and repatriate or resettle others who are not perceived as a threat.

I've always felt that the Bush regime gave these guys a status which they have never deserved. They are not an army and they are not soldiers. They are criminals. And they should be prosecuted and sent down like the common criminals they are, not held up as warriors.

Click here for full article.

Tags: 9-11, New York trial, Obama, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Glenn Beck: Health-care reform is just like the 9/11 attacks. And my followers are standing up before it hits.

His insanity increases with each and every day that passes. Now Glenn Beck is comparing healthcare reform to the 9-11 attacks.

Beck: On 9/11, we experienced a feeling we had never had before -- when the buildings and the markets and our economy came falling down around our ears, we realized -- 'Oh my gosh. Our country isn't unsinkable.'

We came, on that day, to the understanding that this Republic is fragile. Here we are now, a decade later. I'm on the air again, warning you that our America cannot sustain our governments massive spending. The system will collapse if we continue down this progressive path.

Ten years ago, I could have shouted every single day about Osama bin Laden and his wacky, crazy threats to kill Americans in New York. And no one would have been willing to stand in line two hours while some security officers made grandma take her shoes off. No one would have done it.

But don't you see -- while the government is still not willing to do these things, today, America is different. America has changed. Washington, we're not going to let you get away with it anymore.

Look, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Conservatives are awake. 912ers are willing to do the hard things. We know what this means. We're taking time out of our busy lives, taking time away from their families, they're attending town-hall meetings -- you think they wanna do that? They are calling their representatives -- how many times do we have to be yelled at by your people in Washington?

They are reading 2,000-page health-care bills on the weekend. They 912ers are willing to stand in line and take our shoes off before the plane actually hits the tower.

He seems convinced that his gaggle of 9-12ers represent the new force in American politics. In actual fact they are a group of unhinged right wingers who are dragging the Republican party towards the abyss.

The simple fact is that Beck and his enraged right wingers are simply furious that the rest of the country chose to elect Obama. All of this whining is simply Beck's inability to accept the result of the electoral process.

But to compare healthcare reform to 9-11 really is going off the rails big time. But then, we already know how little respect Beck actually has for the people who lost loved ones on that dreadful day.

Tags: Glenn Beck, healthcare reform, 9-11

Top Bush-era lawyer 'can be sued'.

When a regime like the one of George W. Bush are in power, they can rip up the law and carry out the most egregious assaults on the Constitution, and it appears as if there is nothing anyone can do to stop them.

But, it is always at the moment when they lose power, that their chickens come home to roost.

A former US attorney general can be sued by an American citizen held as a witness suspected of having information in a terrorism case, a court has ruled.

Abdullah al-Kidd accuses John Ashcroft, attorney general from 2001 to 2005, of violating his constitutional rights in 2003, when he was held for 16 days.

The court said detention of witnesses without charge after the 9/11 attacks was "repugnant to the constitution".

The US Department of Justice said it was reviewing the court's order.

A three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals also said the government's policy was "a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history."

Mr al-Kidd was detained in 2003 because the government thought he had information in a computer terrorism case against fellow University of Idaho student Sami Omar al-Hussayen.

He was never charged with a crime, and Mr al-Hussayen was acquitted after a trial.

The suspension of Habeas Corpus was, for me, one of the most outrageous acts which the Bush regime indulged in. The notion that the president, on his word alone, had the power to rob individuals of their liberty - without giving them any access to courts, or any right to be judged by a jury of their peers - was the most outrageous claim he made, during a presidency of many outrageous claims of power.

It was, as the court itself now appears to recognise, "repugnant to the constitution".

Mr al-Kidd filed the lawsuit against Mr Ashcroft and other officials in 2005.

He said his detention was part of an illedgal government policy to arrest and detain people - particularly Muslim men and those of Arab escent - as material witnesses if the government suspected them of a crime but had no evidence to charge them.

That last sentence contains everything which was wrong about the way the Bush regime reacted in the aftermath of 9-11. American courts and the entire legal system have always operated on what can be proven. It is incumbent on the prosecution to "prove beyond reasonable doubt" the case they sought to make against a defendant.

Bush changed all of that and, in doing so, ripped up hundreds of years of jurisprudence.

I honestly don't think I am exaggerating when I say that Bush gave himself the powers of a King.

People could be jailed on his word and his word alone, and they had no recourse to any courts to hear their side of the story. The judges are right to refer to this period as, "some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history."

This was, as even David Broder now admits, "one of the darkest chapters of American history".

I care not whether the case against Ashcroft succeeds, that matters not a jot. What is important is that the blatant illegality of the Bush regime is finally accepted as the stain on America's conscience that it was.

"It's a very big ruling, because qualified immunity is ordinarily a very robust form of protection," said Richard Seamon, a professor at the University of Idaho College of Law and a former assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General. "To overcome that immunity, you have to show that the defendant almost deliberately acted unconstitutionally to violate someone's rights – no innocent mistakes."

Click title for full article.

Tags: Bush, Ashcroft, 9-11, Habeas Corpus

EVERYBODY HAS FORGOTTEN 9/11!

The way Fox panels bend over backwards to defend every action of the Bush administration borders on the fantastical.

And, once again, we are being told that we are only concerned about the Bush regime's criminality because we have forgotten about 9-11. Anyone concerned with the criminality of the Bush regime is supposedly living with what Cheney and chums used to call, "a pre-9-11 mentality".

You see, it's childish and aiding al Qaeda to ask that war criminals be held to account.

Tags: september 11, 11th, 9/11, 911, bush, cheney, war criminal, crime, torture, iraq

Cheney & The Republicans Are Positioning Themselves For Another Terrorist Attack On America!

It's astonishing that the Republican party should be pushing a new version of the 1964 "Daisy" ad, in response to Obama's decision to close Guantanamo Bay.

I mean, seriously? It seems to me that this is a continuation of Cheney's point that Obama is making the US left safe. At first it was only Cheney making the argument that any future attack on the would be the fault of Obama but, with the release of this advert, it now appears that this is actually the position of the entire GOP.

That's a shameful position for a political party to find itself in. It now appears as if the only hope of redemption the Republicans have is hoping that the US might be attacked again.

I really hope the American people can see through this shameless cynicism. I mean, seriously, closing Gitmo is akin to a nuclear attack? These guys are off their bloody heads.

Tags: bush, cheney, war criminal, crime, torture, waterboard, gitmo, national security speech

Torture? It probably killed more Americans than 9/11.

The leader of a crack US interrogation team has said that US treatment of foreign detainees in it's custody has probably resulted in more US deaths - as a consequence - than even the number of Americans killed on 9-11.

"The reason why foreign fighters joined al-Qa'ida in Iraq was overwhelmingly because of abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and not Islamic ideology," says Major Matthew Alexander, who personally conducted 300 interrogations of prisoners in Iraq. It was the team led by Major Alexander [a named assumed for security reasons] that obtained the information that led to the US military being able to locate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qa'ida in Iraq. Zarqawi was then killed by bombs dropped by two US aircraft on the farm where he was hiding outside Baghdad on 7 June 2006. Major Alexander said that he learnt where Zarqawi was during a six-hour interrogation of a prisoner with whom he established relations of trust.

And Major Alexander was especially scathing about the results obtained by using torture and the ticking bomb argument often used by torture proponents to justify it's use:

Major Alexander's attitude to torture by the US is a combination of moral outrage and professional contempt. "It plays into the hands of al-Qa'ida in Iraq because it shows us up as hypocrites when we talk about human rights," he says. An eloquent and highly intelligent man with experience as a criminal investigator within the US military, he says that torture is ineffective, as well as counter-productive. "People will only tell you the minimum to make the pain stop," he says. "They might tell you the location of a house used by insurgents but not that it is booby-trapped."

In his compelling book How to Break a Terrorist, Major Alexander explains that prisoners subjected to abuse usually clam up, say nothing, or provide misleading information. In an interview he was particularly dismissive of the "ticking bomb" argument often used in the justification of torture. This supposes that there is a bomb timed to explode on a bus or in the street which will kill many civilians. The authorities hold a prisoner who knows where the bomb is. Should they not torture him to find out in time where the bomb is before it explodes?

Major Alexander says he faced the "ticking time bomb" every day in Iraq because "we held people who knew about future suicide bombings". Leaving aside the moral arguments, he says torture simply does not work. "It hardens their resolve. They shut up." He points out that the FBI uses normal methods of interrogation to build up trust even when they are investigating a kidnapping and time is of the essence. He would do the same, he says, "even if my mother was on a bus" with a hypothetical ticking bomb on board. It is quite untrue to imagine that torture is the fastest way of obtaining information, he says.

But right wingers tend not to care whether or not something is effective or not, they really only care that they are seen to be "doing something" and that no-one is allowed to push them around.

They have an astonishingly adolescent world view, especially when they perceive that they are being made to look weak. In such circumstances they always favour whichever route is the most violent one, with preferably someone's else's kids doing the fighting.

But the most interesting thing Major Alexander says is that most Americans are being hideously misinformed about why foreign fighters are rushing abroad to fight them in the first place.

In the case of foreign fighters – recruited mostly from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen and North Africa – the reason cited by the great majority for coming to Iraq was what they had heard of the torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. These abuses, not fundamentalist Islam, had provoked so many of the foreign fighters volunteering to become suicide bombers.

For Iraqi Sunni Arabs joining al-Qa'ida, the abuses played a role, but more often the reason for their recruitment was political rather than religious. They had taken up arms because the Shia Arabs were taking power; de-Baathification marginalised the Sunni and took away their jobs; they feared an Iranian takeover.

The sooner someone is held responsible for a policy which is immoral, inhumane and simply doesn't work, the better.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Major Matthew Alexander, Iraq war, war on terror, torture, war crimes

O'Reilly Exploits 9/11 Victims To Gain Support For Torture!

I am not sure where this poll that Bill quotes comes from, or whether or not it represents a change in American public opinion. It's certainly at odds with other polls which I have come across.

Even as Americans struggle with two wars and an economy in tatters, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds majorities in favor of investigating some of the thorniest unfinished business from the Bush administration: Whether its tactics in the "war on terror" broke the law.

Close to two-thirds of those surveyed said there should be investigations into allegations that the Bush team used torture to interrogate terrorism suspects and its program of wiretapping U.S. citizens without getting warrants. Almost four in 10 favor criminal investigations and about a quarter want investigations without criminal charges. One-third said they want nothing to be done.

But for Bill to bring on victims of 9-11, and to use them as proponents of torture, really is a new low. Now, if one opposes torture, you are disrespecting the victims of 9-11? Is that really the argument which Bill is now seeking to make?

Tags: bush, cheney, war criminal, crime, torture, waterboard, waterboarding, gitmo, september 11, 11th, 9/11, 911

Did Bush Keep America Safe?

So, Obama goes to the CIA, where we have been told that agents are worried that his recent actions have made them vulnerable to prosecution, and yet he gets a reaction which is described as, "boisterous and raucous".

It's hard to square that reaction to the stories which we have been hearing about the CIA reaction to his decision to release these memos.

And I note that the female Bush defender here -the person who thinks Bush kept the US "safe for nine years"? - is quick to, once again, state that Obama is endangering Americans by refusing to torture. I swear to God it's almost as if these buggers want to see the US attacked again so they can lay the blame at his door.

And the fact that they can peddle the notion that "Bush kept the US safe" when, in actuality, he was president during the greatest terrorist attack on US soil in history, shows the extent to which these buggers will twist facts.

Tags: bush, cheney, war criminal, crime, torture, memos, waterboard, waterboarding, gitmo, september 11, 11th, 911, 9/11