MattyP1's blog

The U.S.'s sordid history in the "war on terror"

By Any Measure, the U.S. Is the Largest Sponsor of Terror

Preface: As a patriotic American – I was born here, lived here all of my life, and love this country – I want the best for the U.S.  

Lawless actions are tearing my country apart.  I want my country to regain its vision, strength and moral compass.  Thomas Jefferson said that “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism”.  I criticize my country because I know we are better than this … and that if enough people know how far we have fallen, we can start to pull ourselves back and reclaim our greatness.

Many Countries Sponsor Terror … But America Is the Worst

The director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan – Lt. General William Odom said:

By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation.

(audio here).

The Washington Post reported in 2010:

The United States has long been an exporter of terrorism, according to a secret CIA analysis released Wednesday by the Web site WikiLeaks.

The head and special agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office said that most terror attacks are committed by our CIA and FBI.

How Hollywood and the DoD peddles propoganda on the war on terror in there latest creation "Zero Dark Thirty"

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/15403-zero-dark-thirtys-torture-lie

Zero Dark Thirty's Torture Lie

By Naomi Wolf, Guardian UK

05 January 13

By peddling the lie that CIA detentions led to Bin Laden's killing, you have become a Leni Riefenstahl-like propagandist of torture

he Hurt Locker was a beautiful, brave film; many young women in film were inspired as they watched you become the first woman ever to win an Oscar for directing. But with Zero Dark Thirty, you have attained a different kind of distinction.

Your film Zero Dark Thirty is a huge hit here. But in falsely justifying, in scene after scene, the torture of detainees in "the global war on terror", Zero Dark Thirty is a gorgeously-shot, two-hour ad for keeping intelligence agents who committed crimes against Guantánamo prisoners out of jail. It makes heroes and heroines out of people who committed violent crimes against other people based on their race - something that has historical precedent.

In 9/11's wake, 'war on terror' in perpetuity

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/04/war-on-terror-endless-johnson

The 'war on terror' - by design - can never end

As the Pentagon's former top lawyer urges that the war be viewed as finite, the US moves in the opposite direction

Last month, outgoing pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson gave a speech at the Oxford Union and said that the War on Terror must, at some point, come to an end:

"Now that efforts by the US military against al-Qaida are in their 12th year, we must also ask ourselves: How will this conflict end? . . . . 'War' must be regarded as a finite, extraordinary and unnatural state of affairs. We must not accept the current conflict, and all that it entails, as the 'new normal.' Peace must be regarded as the norm toward which the human race continually strives. . . .

"There will come a tipping point at which so many of the leaders and operatives of al-Qaida and its affiliates have been killed or captured, and the group is no longer able to attempt or launch a strategic attack against the United States, that al-Qaida will be effectively destroyed."

9/11 Consequences and TSA's grip on travel

Sunday, December 16 2012 - 9/11 Consequences
TSA'S Grip on Internal Travel is Tightening

APPLICATION TO MAKE U.S. INTO AN AIRPORT SCREENING ZONE
by Wendy McElroy
The Dollar Vigilante

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is tightening its grip on domestic travcel. I don't mean the random, unpredictable security checks at bus, subway and train stations which already exist. I mean a coordinated and systematic police control of internal travel within America. Groundwork is being laid.

The application was tucked away on page 71431 of Volume 77, Number 231 of the Federal Register (November 30). It was surrounded by soporific references to forwarding “the new Information Collection Request (ICR) abstracted below to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA).”

Guantanamo's continuing legacy 11 years later and President Obama's second term

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/defense-bills-guantanamo-bay-provisions-have-human-rights-groups-ups...

Defense bill’s Guantanamo Bay provisions have human rights groups upset with Obama

By Peter Finn, Published: January 3

With President Obama’s second term about to begin, one of his administration’s first promises, that it would close the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, looks all but abandoned after he signed a defense bill late Wednesday that includes an array of tough restrictions on the transfer of detainees out of the facility.

Obama had threatened to veto the $633 billion National Defense Authorization Act but signed it, as he did last year, with a statement criticizing sections of the bill that he said are “unwarranted restrictions on the executive branch’s authority” by Congress.

The American Government's manufactured scapegoat after 9/11

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-we-hate-them-arabs-in-western-eyes/

January 02, 2012
The American Conservative

Why We Hate Them: Arabs in Western Eyes
A new PBS documentary reveals how films and other media have shaped an anti-Muslim narrative.

By Philip Giraldi

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

9/11 and the state of emergency 11 years later

January 4, 2013
The Guardian (UK)

The 'war on terror' - by design - can never end
As the Pentagon's former top lawyer urges that the war be viewed as finite, the US moves in the opposite direction

If you were a US leader, or an official of the National Security State, or a beneficiary of the private military and surveillance industries, why would you possibly want the war on terror to end? That would be the worst thing that could happen. It's that war that generates limitless power, impenetrable secrecy, an unquestioning citizenry, and massive profit.

Glenn Greenwald

Last month, outgoing pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson gave a speech at the Oxford Union and said that the War on Terror must, at some point, come to an end:

"Now that efforts by the US military against al-Qaida are in their 12th year, we must also ask ourselves: How will this conflict end? . . . . 'War' must be regarded as a finite, extraordinary and unnatural state of affairs. We must not accept the current conflict, and all that it entails, as the 'new normal.' Peace must be regarded as the norm toward which the human race continually strives. . . .

9/11 and the re-introduction of the feudal state

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/01/how-obama-decides-your-fate-if-he-thinks-youre-a-terrorist/266419/

How Obama Decides Your Fate If He Thinks You're a Terrorist

Jan 3 2013, 7:52 AM E

Over the past two years, the Obama administration has begun to formalize a so-called "disposition matrix" for suspected terrorists abroad: a continuously evolving database that spells out the intelligence on targets and various strategies, including contingencies, for handling them. Although the government has not spelled out the steps involved in deciding how to treat various terrorists, a look at U.S. actions in the past makes evident a rough decision tree.

"Chicken and Egg" NDAA and 9/11

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/01/president-obama-signs-the-ndaa-2013/

President Obama Signs the NDAA 2013

By Benjamin Wittes
Thursday, January 3, 2013 at 8:11 AM

Told you so. President Obama has signed this year’s NDAA–along with a meek kind of signing (whining?) statement. Here is the statement’s discussion of the detention-related provisions–an account of which can be found in my previous post:

FBI classified information about OWS assassination plot

http://rt.com/usa/news/fbi-assassination-ows-sniper-227/

FBI classified information about OWS assassination plot

Published: 02 January, 2013, 21:29
Edited: 03 January, 2013, 20:30

Only one month into the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations last year, plans were formulated to identify key figures in the movement and execute them with a coordinated assault using sniper rifles, new documents reveal.

The revelation — discussed in a heavily redacted FBI memo unearthed late last month through a Freedom of Information Act request — reveals that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was aware of plans for a violent assault on the peaceful protest movement but stayed silent on rumors of an assassination attempt only until now.

Information on the alleged plot to kill off protesters appears on page 61 of the trove of documents obtained recently by a FOIA request filed by the Partnership For Civil Justice Fund. On the page in question, marked “SECRET,” the FBI acknowledges:

The zenith of hypocrisy in the global war on terror and gun confiscation by the U.S. Government

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/government_violence_the_missing_link_in_the_g...

Government Violence: The Missing Link in the Gun Control Debate

By John W. Whitehead
January 02, 2013

“We need to look more closely at a culture that all too often glorifies guns and violence.”—President Barack Obama

It didn’t take long for the tragedy of the Newtown, Connecticut shootings, which left 20 schoolchildren and six adults dead, to be co-opted by politicians and special interest groups alike, all eager to advance their ideas about how to prevent another deranged madman from taking innocent lives. President Obama is calling on Congress to issue gun control legislation that would limit access to assault weapons. The National Rifle Association (NRA) wants armed guards patrolling every school in America. Legislators in several states, including Florida, want to allow teachers to carry guns on school grounds. Others are clamoring for a lockdown of the schools, complete with metal detectors and guard dogs.

FISA after 9/11 and the vacuum it created

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2013/01/public_accountability.html

Intelligence Oversight Steps Back from Public Accountability
January 2nd, 2013 by Steven Aftergood

The move by Congress to renew the FISA Amendments Act for five more years without amendments came as a bitter disappointment to civil libertarians who believe that the Act emphasizes government surveillance authority at the expense of constitutional protections. Amendments that were offered to provide more public information about the impacts of government surveillance on the privacy of American communications were rejected by the Senate on December 27 and 28.

Beyond the specifics of the surveillance law, the congressional action appears to reflect a reorientation of intelligence oversight away from public accountability. The congressional intelligence committees once presented themselves as champions of disclosure. They no longer do so.

Following 911 still the debate over whether torture should be allowed by our Government

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vincent-warren/zero-dark-thirty-torture_b_2340967.html

Does Torture Work? Wrong Question!
Posted: 12/21/2012 11:27 am

The premier in New York and Los Angeles this week of the movie Zero Dark Thirty, about the hunt for and killing of Osama bin Laden, has touched off a national debate about the appropriateness of torture. Alarmingly, the conversation has revolved around when to torture, rather than whether to torture.

The film's opening 45 minutes feature U.S. intelligence officers torturing a prisoner at a CIA black site, until he gives up the clue that births an ultimately-successful hunt for bin Laden. For some the message is simple: "No waterboarding, no Bin Laden." Zero Dark Thirty, laments Adam Serwer in Mother Jones, "may do what Karl Rove could not have done with all the money in the world: embed in the popular imagination the efficacy, even the necessity, of torture." Meanwhile, others insist that #ZD30, as the film was quickly hashtagged, "leave[s] audiences to decide for themselves whether torture was necessary to stop al Qaeda."

Why, exactly, are we deciding whether torture was "necessary" to capture bin Laden?

After 911 it was Anwar al-Awalaki and his son -now it's for the rest of us

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/opinion/the-dawning-of-domestic-drones.html

Editorial
The Dawning of Domestic Drones
Published: December 25, 2012

The drones are coming to a neighborhood near you.

The unmanned aircraft that most people associate with hunting terrorists and striking targets in Pakistan are on the brink of evolving into a big domestic industry. It is not a question of whether drones will appear in the skies above the United States but how soon.

Congress has ordered the Federal Aviation Administration to quickly select six domestic sites to test the safety of drones, which can vary in size from remote-controlled planes as big as jetliners to camera-toting hoverers called Nano Hummingbirds that weigh 19 grams.

The drone go-ahead, signed in February by President Obama in the F.A.A. reauthorization law, envisions a $5 billion-plus industry of camera drones being used for all sorts of purposes from real estate advertising to crop dusting to environmental monitoring and police work.

In a Post 911 World - No Longer are Americans "secure in their houses, papers and effects"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/29/us/politics/senate-votes-to-extend-electronic-surveillance-authority-under-fisa.html?_r=2&

Federal Power to Intercept Messages Is Extended
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: December 28, 2012

WASHINGTON — Congress gave final approval on Friday to a bill extending the government’s power to intercept electronic communications of spy and terrorism suspects, after the Senate voted down proposals from several Democrats and Republicans to increase protections of civil liberties and privacy.

The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 73 to 23, clearing it for approval by President Obama, who strongly supports it. Intelligence agencies said the bill was their highest legislative priority.

Critics of the bill, including Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Democrat, and Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican, expressed concern that electronic surveillance, though directed at noncitizens, inevitably swept up communications of Americans as well.

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