Old News: The USA Has Been A Police State Since 1787

Last week the FBI raided the homes of anti-war activists in multiple states simultaneously, prompting Paul Craig Roberts to write a searing column called "It Is Official: The US Is A Police State".

I caught excerpts from Roberts and comments on his work from Chris Floyd, in "Domestic Disturbance: FBI Raids Bring the Terror War Home".

I don't disagree with anything Roberts or Floyd wrote about this story, and I would recommend both columns. But neither of these very fine writers approached the idea that struck me hardest when I saw Roberts' headline.

What's new about the USA being a police state? Why is it suddenly official now?

That the USA is a police state has been, if not officially official, then at least totally bloody obvious, for my entire life -- and the same is true of Roberts, and Floyd, and you (dear reader), and your parents, and their parents. For all our lives, we have lived in a police state that calls itself a democracy, and the cover story has been so effective that even some of our leading dissident writers are now just discovering the truth behind it.

Lest we forget: Forty years ago, in the midst of another generation's undeclared, unjustified, unwinnable and unpopular war, unarmed anti-war protesters were gunned down in broad daylight in public, and not one of the shooters who committed the crime was even tried.

In the decade leading up to those shootings, four civic and political leaders, all of whom posed threats to the established order, were also gunned down in public. The victims included a sitting President and a US Senator, yet no justice was ever served for any of these murders.

During the same period, countless civil rights activists and anti-war protesters were viciously assaulted, and some of them were also killed. Sometimes the crimes were committed by "law enforcement officials" themselves; at other times the crimes were committed with the silent approval of  "the law".

From the 1930's through the late 1950's, the nation's "law enforcement" officers brutally crushed anyone they could find who had sympathy for communism, socialism, or any other "-ism" that didn't begin with "capital". None of this is secret. None of it is news.

All through our history, Americans whose skin wasn't quite white enough have been hassled, assaulted and ruthlessly murdered, often by the police whose lives depend on the taxes we all pay, and who are supposed to be protecting all of us. Most of the perpetrators of these crimes have never been brought to justice.

This pattern of official injustice -- supported more often than not by the police themselves -- has been going on for as long as you care to look. It runs as deep as American history itself. Though it may be pleasant to forget it, the USA is nation whose history includes -- nay! is a nation that was built upon -- genocide, slavery, lynching, and other forms of public terror, all with the open support of "the authorities".

A careful reading of American history shows that the basic problem here is not the current administration's disregard of the Constitution, nor the disdain for the Constitution shown by previous administrations. As Jerry Fresia points out in "Toward An American Revolution", the problem is the Constitution itself.

The Articles of Confederation, by which the "United States of America" came into being, guaranteed direct democratic representation at the national level, in a government which could be swept from power quite easily when and if the voters of the country were displeased. The most powerful men in the land -- slaveholders, mostly -- found their riches, their status and their privilege in jeopardy, and feared for what they were pleased to call "an excess of democracy".

So they banded together and wrote the Constitution, which set up our current system of "representative" government, under which the President is elected by an Electoral College chosen by the State legislators, rather than directly by the people; under which it takes three election cycles to change the entire Senate; under which countless federal officials -- including every justice on the Supreme Court -- are appointed by the President and approved by the Senate, with nary a word from the House of Representatives, which is, at least in theory, the only part of the federal government over which the voters are meant to have any immediate influence.

Then, through a series of incidents that today would be called "terrorist attacks" (as long as they were perpetrated by Muslims), the authors of the Constitution inflamed enough other powerful men to ensure the ratification of the new Constitution -- quite against the wishes of the "common people" of the day -- setting the course which we now travel, and which the best of us (including Chris Floyd and Paul Craig Roberts) rightfully despise.

Rather than guaranteeing direct democratic representation and fair and equal rights to all citizens, the Constitution set up a federal government with the power to put down "insurrections", and a mandate to protect interstate and international "commerce". In our present-day terms, it empowers a deeply entrenched government running a police state at home to support a commercial empire abroad.

Those who support the Constitution, who pine for a return to "Constitutional law", who rail against one administration after another for taking "un-Constitutional actions" and passing "un-Constitutional laws", have a legitimate point. Life in the United States would certainly be better for a very large number of people if the civil rights granted in the Constitution -- limited tough they may be -- were strictly observed.

But we would still have the same problem. The federal government would still be owned by the most powerful men in the country, and would still be geared to putting down "insurrections" at home while supporting a "commercial" empire abroad.

That was the whole point of the Constitution in the first place. This is why we are where we are today. As Chris Floyd pointed out some time ago, "the purpose of a system is what it does". And what our current system does, its purpose, is still congruent with the wishes of the "Founding Fathers".

I fear that, if our leading dissident writers continue to miss this point, the best we could possibly accomplish -- even if we all stood together against the abomination that is our federal government -- would be a reversion to the root cause of our current problems.

And that's not going to be good enough.

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Chris Floyd: Bitter Laugh

I haven't been able to blog lately and I apologize for my absence. I still can't blog much but I wish to share with you the newest music video from Chris Floyd -- "Bitter Laugh" -- which has entered my Top 10 list at Number One.

Bitter Laugh

Death the great deceiver
Whispers to the soldier
That the love he bears his comrade
Is the greatest he will know
It sets a mist around him
A force field of emotion
A cloud of blood and hormones
That makes monstrous the foe

And when his friend is wounded
When his life pours out in battle
And his spirit leaves his body
Like smoke rising from a flame
The soldier's gripped by madness
The berserker rage of Ares
And he swoops down like a fury
To savage all within his aim

Then falls the grieving mother
Then falls the aged father
Then fall the little children
Who cannot escape the blast
And when the fever's broken
And the soldier stares in horror
He can hear the ghostly echo
Of the Deceiver's bitter laugh

Now far-off stand the leaders
The commanders in their glory
With the profiteers who ply them
With the gold they wring from blood
But alone you'll find the soldier
In a labyrinth of sorrow
In a never-ending darkness
That has drowned him in its flood

If the embedded video above won't work for you, try it at at youtube.

You can see the post in its original context here. You might consider leaving a word of thanks for the artist, and/or throwing a coin into his virtual hat.

In my opinion you should bookmark Chris Floyd's blog site, Empire Burlesque, and visit it often.

In my further opinion, you should also check out Chris Floyd's music page, where you will find some very good material. I don't think any of it is as good as "Bitter Laugh", but that would be almost too much to ask ... even of Chris!

I hope to be able to blog again soon, even if only a little bit.

Best wishes to all my online friends.

And thanks again to Chris Floyd, for telling such horrible truths in such beautiful ways.

Home Improvement, Post-9/11; Part I: Wood Chips Tell A Sad Story

I've just finished helping a friend set up some new flower beds and trim them with a border of wood chips.

It's a good way to mulch, with recycled organic matter blotting out weeds on the way to becoming plant food.

We used 12 cubic yards of chips. That's not a lot by industrial standards, but it took us two days to put those chips where we wanted them.

And while we were doing that, I was playing around with a few numbers...

There are 3 feet in a yard and therefore there are 3x3x3 = 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard. We moved 12 cubic yards or 12x27 = 324 cubic feet of wood chips.

That's enough to cover a path 3 feet wide, 4 inches thick, and 324 feet long.

On a football field, such a path would extend from one end zone to the other.

There are 12 inches in a foot and therefore there are 12x12x12 = 1728 cubic inches in a cubic foot.

We moved 324 cubic feet or 324x1728 = 559,872 cubic inches of wood chips.

That's about half a million cubic inches of chips.

Picture a cubic inch: it's about the size of a golf ball. You can hold it between your thumb and forefinger. You can put it in your shirt pocket.

Remember that cubic inch; hold on to that image. Now let's get hypothetical...

If each cubic inch of wood chips were worth two dollars, the chips on that path -- three feet wide, four inches thick, from one end zone to the other -- would be worth about a million dollars. Even with inflation, a million is still a very large number.

If each cubic inch of wood chips were worth a million dollars, the chips on that path would be worth about $500 billion, which is roughly the size of the Pentagon's annual operating budget, not including black-budget programs or additional appropriations for actual wars, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Think of this: A million dollars per cubic inch. Three feet wide; four inches thick. One end zone to the other. Year after year after year. And that's just for standard operations.

Clandestine acts of terrorism and overt wars of aggression cost extra, of course.

How much extra? Look at it this way: If each cubic inch of wood chips were worth two hundred thousand dollars, the chips on that path would be worth about $100 billion, roughly as much as congress just approved to keep the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan going until the end of September!

And that's just the cost to America. It's a pittance compared to the cost borne by the rest of the world.

And how much is that? Consider Iraq:

If each cubic inch of wood chips represented three people killed, at least six others injured, and nine more refugees, the chips on that path -- four inches thick, three feet wide, from one end zone to the other -- would show just some of the damage we have done to Iraq.

The people of Iraq, if you recall, never attacked us, never intended to attack us, and never could have done us any damage even if they had wanted to. That didn't matter to the president who started the war, it doesn't matter to the president who is continuing it, and it doesn't matter to the Americans who support it.

We are talking about mass murder of innocent people as a matter of state policy. And there's no reason for it, none at all ... except:

If each cubic inch of wood chips were two million barrels of oil...

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please help to put this article on Scoop's front page!

Come, Let Us Celebrate The Best Of America, Living And Dead

To honor America and observe Memorial Day, let us now savor a few words from an anonymous AP stenographer, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times:

Obama marks Memorial Day with tribute at Arlington

In brief remarks after he laid the wreath and observed a moment of silence at Arlington, Obama saluted the men and women of America's fighting forces, both living and dead, as "the best of America."

"Why in an age when so many have acted only in pursuit of narrowest self-interest have the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines of this generation volunteered all that they have on behalf of others?" he said. "Why have they been willing to bear the heaviest burden?"

"Whatever it is, they felt some tug. They answered a call. They said 'I'll go.' That is why they are the best of America," Obama said. "That is what separates them from those who have not served in uniform, their extraordinary willingness to risk their lives for people they never met."

What kind of people are willing to risk their lives -- and throw away their souls! -- for the likes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, or Bill Clinton, or George H. W. Bush, or any of their predecessors?

Obama called them "the best"; he forgot to mention that they're also "the brightest".

Obama said he can't know what it's like to walk into battle or lose a child.

"But I do know this. I am humbled to be the commander in chief of the finest fighting force in the history of the world," he said to applause.

This is beneath derision, and it went down swimmingly, of course. I understand completely.

Let's all have big parades to honor our professional and patriotic mass murderers, living and dead!

Let us line the streets to watch the psychopaths and fools -- and those who support the psychopaths and fools -- march by.

Let us complain about how nothing much has changed since the election, how Barack Obama shows the same chicken-hearted reluctance to move that ruined the second Bush-Cheney administration, and how -- despite years of furtive planning -- we still haven't got off our butts and righteously obliterated Iran.

Let us join together and decry the incompetence in the Beltway, which explains why we haven't won yet in Iraq or Afghanistan, and why we may not make any real progress there until after the next election.

Let us weep for the "victims" of the seemingly endless series of "government accidents" which have got us involved in "the wrong wars" at "the wrong times".

But let us never say a word word about the millions of people our heroes have killed over the years; the tens of thousands our heroes have incarcerated and tortured; the tens of millions whose homes and families our heroes have destroyed; the hundreds of millions whose homelands our heroes have violated, overtly or otherwise, and in whose nations "democratic institutions" are allowed to exist only if the "duly elected representatives" find it politically expedient to toe the line.

That's our line, by the way.

So let us celebrate that line, just as we celebrate the psychopaths and fools who enforce it.

Let us wave our flags for those extroardinary people who have made sure -- on our behalf -- that the kids in these pictures, and millions of others just like them, never had a chance.

After all, we wouldn't want to be anti-American, would we?

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If It's Not Corporate TV, Then What Is It?

What is it, indeed? It's Not Corporate TV, a sharp new set of interlocking video blogs, with interesting entries in each of the following categories:

Project For The New American Century
911
Iran, Iraq, the Petrodollar
Bogus Terror Propaganda
John Pilger Documentaries
Mainstream Corporate Media and Propaganda
Electronic Voting

For instance, on the "Bogus Terror Propaganda" page, you can watch a piece called The Origin and Myth of 'Al Qaeda'. It's an excerpt from the BBC series The Power Of Nightmares, and it's well worth the ten minutes it will take you to watch it.

That's just one example, and there's much more, including links to some very fine blogs! It's nothing like the corporate TV you're used to, if you're used to corporate TV. And that's why it's Not Corporate TV -- bright, honest, and very well done!

Ha ha! One for the good guys!!

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All You Need To Know

As you know: In the face of public outrage over -- and House rejection of -- the Bush administration's attempt at a $700 billion extortion -- a "gift" of your money to the very same people who have caused a global financial crisis -- administration hacks reacted in predictable fashion, throwing in another $100 billion worth of bribes in a shameless bid to get the bill passed.

Then the Senate approved, by a 3-1 margin, a thrown-together 450-page bill that few of them could have had time to read, much less consider.

Consider? No other options were considered at all, or even deemed worthy of consideration. And suddenly all the pressure was on the House.

The phones were ringing off the hook in the offices of "our" "Representatives", with public sentiment more or less equally divided between "NO!" and "HELL, NO!"

But the House passed the bill anyway.

This tells you all you need to know.

They don't care what you think. They don't have to. You're only a voter. There's a good chance that they can control the way you think, and thus the way you vote. And even if they can't do that, they can still control the way your vote is counted. Ever since they learned how to do these two things -- perception management and election rigging -- they haven't had to care about you one way or the other. Not that they ever did. They never cared about you -- not a bit. The difference now is that they don't even have to pretend anymore.

Meanwhile, very quietly, Congress allocated at least $448 billion (or maybe even $615 billion) of your money for another year of death and destruction -- anywhere, anytime, and preferably by remote control, if the monsters-in-command have their way.

We don't want this. Some of us have never wanted this; others have just recently realized that they've had enough. But our "elected" "representatives" don't care. They don't have to. And they don't even mind if you know it.

We have no money for health care. We have no money for education. We have no money to fix our roads and bridges, and we especially have no money for the people who have lost everything they owned, to hurricanes or predatory lending schemes or medical bills. And yet we have hundreds of billions every year for killing people, and hundreds of billions more for ... for what, exactly?

Except that we don't have the money; we'll be borrowing all that money just to give it away, and paying interest on it forever. It's an enormous "gift" from us and our children and their children, a gift we have been (or will be) forced to "give".

And the rich will get richer, and the poor will get slaughtered, and if you are an American taxpayer, you will pay for it. That's the New American Deal -- the economic setup for the New American Century.

Comparisons have been made between this "financial crisis" and the "terrorist attacks" of 9/11 -- and rightly so, in some cases. But 9/11 was simply the opening move of the GWOT, and this "crisis" is more like 9/11 than like the GWOT itself. In other words, the fallout from this "rescue" will almost certainly make the original crisis look like just another drop in the ocean -- an ocean of blood and pain and death.

The point is: both were inside jobs, perpetrated with full assistance of the national media by people who know exactly what they're doing, and how to exploit all the ignorance and fear that they were creating, and how to do it again -- whenever they want to.

As far as I can tell, we have three choices: get rid of it, get used to it, or get out.

Getting rid of it would require forces which do not currently exist, aligning themselves in ways that would never be permitted. This option is theoretical at this point, and getting more so all the time -- unless I am very wrong, which I once dared to hope I might be.

Getting used to it ... well, people can adapt to a remarkable variety of conditions, if they want to, or if they are forced to.

Getting out: When I was a kid, the people protesting against the war in Vietnam were always taunted with the chant "Love It Or Leave It!" I thought that was pretty good advice at the time, and I still do.

Just coincidentally [?] I've been re-reading "The Selling of the President 1968", by Joe McGinniss. It's an inside look at the advertising campaign that got Richard Nixon elected president, and I will probably write more about it soon. But for now I want to leave you with a conversation between McGinniss and Eugene Jones, the film-maker who was hired to make Nixon look like the answer to America's troubles 40 years ago.

Joe McGinniss:

One night, toward the end of the campaign, as he sat in his office, Gene Jones said, "Look, I get it from my friends, too. I go to a party and the first thing everybody wants to know is, how can you work for that fascist bastard."

He shrugged.

"I'm a professional. This is a professional job. I was neutral towards Nixon when I started. Now I happen to be for him. But that's not the point. The point is, for the money I'd do it for almost anybody."

"My one qualm about Nixon," Gene Jones said, "is that I'm not sure he's got the sensitivity he should. To Appalachia, to the slums, to the poverty and destitution that reside there. I don't know whether as a human being he's actually got that sensitivity.

"I hope he has, because it's really awful, when you think of all the things wrong inside this country now. The hatred, the violence, the cities gone to hell. And the war. All our kids getting killed in that goddamned war."

He stood, ready to go upstairs, to the third-floor production room, to touch up one of the final spots.

"What are you going to do when this is all over?" I said.

"Move out."

"Yes, I know you're leaving this studio, but I mean where are you going to work next, what are you going to do?"

"No, I didn't mean move out of the studio," he said. "I mean move out of the country. I'm not going to live here anymore."

"What?"

"I've bought myself some land in the Caribbean -- on the island of Montsarrat -- and that's where I'm going as soon as this is over."

"Permanently?"

"Yes, permanently," he said. And then he talked about the direct plane service from Montsarrat to New York, Toronto, and London, and how America was no place to bring up kids anymore. And all this against the background of the commercials he had made: with the laughing, playing children and the green green grass and the sunsets and Richard Nixon saying over and over again what wonderful people we all were and what a wonderful place we lived in.

"... I really don't see any choice," Gene Jones said. "I mean, I don't want my kids growing up in an atmosphere like this."

Then he excused himself and went upstairs.

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Split Indecision: Canada Surges In Multiple Directions Simultaneously

There's a federal election coming in Canada, and the anti-war "third parties" (New Democrats [NDP] and Greens) are gaining ground fast on the pro-war "major parties" (Liberals and Conservatives), according to a recent survey quoted in the Toronto Star's "NDP surge in cities as Liberals languish: Poll".

The Star spins it in a different way, of course, never mentioning that the Conservatives are languishing too, remaining silent on the obvious point that the war in Afghanistan is the major difference between the parties that are surging and the others, and casting the surge of support for the anti-war parties as a threat to the Liberals and a boon to the Conservatives.

To read it in the Star, it's as if too much support for the Greens and the NDP would necessarily lead to a Conservative victory, rather than a Conservative defeat (or, what's more likely, a heavily fragmented minority government).

That's almost the same way they spin it in the US, although in this case it comes with a northern accent.

But the anti-war surge, led by outspoken NDP leader Jack Layton [photo], comes against the backdrop of a long-term American-inflected surge in government militarization, somewhat similar to the English version which was recently described by John Pilger and highlighted by Chris Floyd.

The transformation of Canada has been almost American in style, complete with transparent propaganda from a minority government openly in contempt of the press, the other parties, and the rule of law, presenting a huge increase in military spending as urgently needed for national defense -- against the will and contrary to the needs of the people, who must be propagandized as thoroughly as possible, of course -- and in true American military style, the whole thing is done with the backroom collaboration of the "opposition".

Most recently, the Canadian government announced plans to rent and purchase attack helicopters and drones -- weapons which the government says are necessary for the defense of the country. The drones will defend Canada by flying around Afghanistan. The helicopters will defend Canada by moving Canadian troops around inside Afghanistan.

Never mind that Afghanistan poses no threat to Canada. Never mind that Canada requires no defense against Afghanistan.

And never mind, especially, that the war in Afghanistan would be entirely unjustified, even if the official story of 9/11 were true, which it obviously isn't.

Forget all that. This is the post-9/11 world, which means when our governments say "defense", they really mean "attack". Telling the truth, calling a spade a spade: that's September 10th thinking. We're past that now.

The purchase and rental agreements are part of a massive new spending package sneakily announced in June. Details of the package were made public by virtue of being posted on the government's website late one Thursday night.

The spending package budgets $490 billion to be spent over the next 20 years -- and it was put together by a government that wasn't destined to last three more months in power.

In February, it was announced that the helicopters and drones were essential to the continuation of the Canadian "mission" in Afghanistan.

In true American style, this imperial mission had been criticized "from the left" as being done "on the cheap", so the inevitable commission was set up and it reached the most predictable conclusion: Canada must either spend a lot more money to do it "right" or else abandon the war crime they call a "mission" altogether.

So the Canadian Prime Minister, neocon Bushist Stephen Harper, announced that he would no longer approve an Afghan mission being run "on the cheap", and the "opposition" forced a "compromise" by which the war crime would be continued, but at a much greater burden to the taxpayers.

This was reminiscent of the means by which the most recent bill funding the war crime in Iraq was passed by a supposedly opposition US congress. Bush threatened to veto an increase in funding for medical care for veterans, but the Democrats insisted, and eventually the "two sides" reached a "compromise" under which the war crime would be continued indefinitely with no restrictions on the president but at a greater cost to the taxpayers than previously.

Just as in the USA, there's a level beyond which Canadian national politics is (worse than) a farce, made especially tragic when it's left to "the two party system". So, in many ways, the Canadian election is not about the Conservatives against the Liberals with the third parties in the background. It's about the Conservatives and the Liberals against the third parties.

But the major media are all Conservative with Faux Liberals in pocket, so they will never present an analysis of national politics that runs this way, even though the fault lines are clearly visible. So the voters have to figure it out for themselves.

And therefore, from a foreign policy point of view (and in many other ways) this election will boil down to whether the Canadian people are smart enough to reject the Bush-Harper, Conservative-Liberal, Star-Globe-National Post propaganda surge with sufficient force.

Which surge will win? The stakes are huge and I'm not optimistic.

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Updates: Amy Goodman Charged And Released / DN! Producers Face Felony Charges / Russians Protest Yevloyev Murder

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and her two detained colleagues have been released from police custody in Minnesota, but their "legal" troubles are only beginning.

Goodman has been charged with obstruction of a "legal process" and interference with a "peace officer".

And her two colleagues, DN! producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, face felony rioting charges!

Kouddous and Salazar were detained while covering a street protest; Goodman was arrested when she sought their release.

There's a bit more at DN! (and, they say, much more coming soon).

The folks at DN! note that

During the demonstration in which the Democracy Now! team was arrested, law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force against protesters and journalists. Several dozen demonstrators were also arrested during this action, including a photographer for the Associated Press.

OpEdNews has a huge piece from Mark Crispin Miller and Rady Ananda called "Thugs with Badges: Crackdown in Minneapolis" which describes what else has been happening there.

Late Tuesday night, at 2:00 a.m. on August 27th, Minneapolis police arrested members of the Glassbead Collective, and searched their rooms, as a pre-emptive measure against protest at the Republican National Convention. Glassbead is a New York City group that documents police misconduct and First Amendment activity around the United States.

Vlad Teichberg, a journalist from Glassbead, reports being detained at 2 am in Minneapolis on August 27th. Notes, computers, cameras, cell phones, clothing, and money were confiscated by police.

Democracy Now! stresses that the arrests of Goodman and the two producers were "unlawful". But that's a horribly quaint and outmoded concept in the post-9/11 world.

This is the GWOT, remember? The Global War on the Rule of Law.

The OpEdNews piece quotes Vlad Teichberg:

... police are manufacturing accusations. This particular problem can undermine the very essence of our democracy. It is fundamentally un-American and threatens the very fabric of our existence, because if the people who are told to enforce the laws are free to violate those laws, there can be no rule of law. And what do we have? We have a society run by a bunch of thugs with badges.

I must respectfully disagree with Vlad Teichberg.

The very essence of our democracy is electoral integrity, and that is already gone. There is nothing left to undermine. Both major parties and the mainstream media are complicit in a vast array of crimes, and they have sufficient power, especially over the echo chamber and the election machinery, to make sure we can't vote one war criminal out of office without voting another one in.

This police action is fundamentally American. It defines the very fabric of our existence. The people who are told to enforce the laws are indeed free to violate those laws. They do it as a matter of course in the name of protecting us. And their so-called supervisors won't even risk perjuring themselves by telling Congress otherwise.

The rule of law is a thing of the past. The law is now nothing more than a political weapon. If you think it's there to protect you ...

~~~

Here's a follow-up on the "accidental" murder-by-police of the dissident Russian journalist and website owner Magomed Yevloyev, from Reuters in the International Herald Tribune via Larisa:

1,000 protest killing of journalist in Ingushetia

More than 1,000 people gathered in Russia's troubled Ingushetia region Monday to protest the death of Magomed Yevloyev, a leading journalist and opposition leader who was shot over the weekend while in police custody.

Yevloyev, owner of the opposition Internet site www.ingushetiya.ru, was the most high-profile Russian journalist to be killed since the investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya was shot outside her Moscow apartment in October 2006.

The police said he had been shot by accident when he tried to grab an officer's gun.

His supporters and human rights groups said they did not believe that version of events.

Yevloyev had often clashed with Ingushetia's Kremlin-backed leader, Murat Zyazikov, and officials had tried to close down his Internet site.

Protesters gathered Monday in a central square of Nazran, Ingushetia's biggest city, around a truck that was carrying Yevloyev's coffin.

"They killed our colleague in a dastardly and open way," Magomed Khazbiyev, a protest organizer, told the crowd. "If the federal authorities do not intervene in what is happening, we have the right to demand Ingushetia's secession from Russia."

The protesters responded with loud shouts of "Allahu Akbar," or "God is Great." About half of them left when Yevloyev's body was taken for burial. About 500 people remained and said they would not leave until Zyazikov had left his post.

It's kind of funny, isn't it? -- how Reuters and the IHT will give us detailed reports about a grievous offense against freedom of the press in Russia, but none of the major media have anything to say about what's been happening in Minneapolis-St. Paul, or Denver before that!

Not funny-haha, you understand. Funny-treasonous.

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Amy Goodman And Two Democracy Now! Producers Arrested At RNC

Journalist Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! was arrested in St. Paul, Minnesota, this afternoon, apparently for seeking the release of two of her DN! colleagues who had been detained earlier.

Video of Amy Goodman's arrest is embedded below. More details from DN! follow.

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested her. [...]

Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being [unlawfully] detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman’s crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.

Ramsey County [Sheriff] Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul.

Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman’s office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).

Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First [Amendment] rights of these journalists.

During the demonstration in which [Kouddous and Salazar] were arrested law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force. Several dozen others were also arrested during this action.

Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism’s top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar is a transparent attempt to intimidate journalists from the nation’s leading independent news outlet.

Democracy Now! is a nationally-syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.

How much police state do you feel like tolerating?

If you've had enough and you feel like doing something about it, you might want to call Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman’s office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0), and politely but firmly demand the immediate release of the journalists Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar.

If that prospect doesn't thrill you, it could be because the USA has turned into a militarized police state and there's nothing you or anyone else can do about it anymore. And in this case you might want to prepare yourself for the inevitable by reading "The Gulag Archipelago".

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Feds Wage Pre-Emptive War Against Political Dissent In Minnesota

To celebrate our freedom and the Republican National Convention, SWAT teams in Minnesota have attacked peaceful, law-abiding people who might or might not have been planning to exercise some of their First Amendment rights. Instead, they got a dose of the New American Century, with militarized police invading their homes, holding them at gunpoint, and seizing -- without a warrant -- their computers, notebooks, and other personal effects.

This extremism in defense of our liberty comes on the heels of last week's news about similar things happening in Colorado in celebration of our freedom and the Democratic National Convention. All cold patriots must applaud such even-handedness in defense of our liberty, mustn't they?

Glenn Greenwald has more and more and Chris Floyd has more too including more from Arthur Silber, all of which is all well worth reading, in my cold opinion.

On second thought, and after reading through those links again (especially Chris and Arthur), perhaps I was mistaken. It could be that the Feds aren't celebrating our freedom at all, only defending a corrupt system which feeds them and pays their mortgages.

And here we come to one of the bedrock dichotomies (read: lies) of modern American politics: the politicians and pundits tell us that our freedom is dependent on political stability, but in fact political stability (or at least the kind they care about) can only be maintained at the expense of freedom -- your freedom.

It's the old "we had to destroy it in order to save it" argument again, only this time we're not talking about a hamlet half a world away, but about your future, and the future of your children.

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Local And State Police To Be Granted New Spy Powers

According to Spencer Hsu and Carrie Johnson in the Washington Post,

The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.

The proposed changes would revise the federal government's rules for police intelligence-gathering for the first time since 1993 and would apply to any of the nation's 18,000 state and local police agencies that receive roughly $1.6 billion each year in federal grants.

Quietly unveiled late last month, the proposal is part of a flurry of domestic intelligence changes issued and planned by the Bush administration in its waning months. They include a recent executive order that guides the reorganization of federal spy agencies and a pending Justice Department overhaul of FBI procedures for gathering intelligence and investigating terrorism cases within U.S. borders.

Taken together, critics in Congress and elsewhere say, the moves are intended to lock in policies for Bush's successor and to enshrine controversial post-Sept. 11 approaches that some say have fed the greatest expansion of executive authority since the Watergate era.

They're kidding, right? "Some say"? "Since the Watergate era"?

No, they're not kidding. This is post-democratic American simulated journalism at its finest -- which is to say, get used to it!

They can't (or won't) say it, but I can:

These moves are intended to lock in policies for Bush's successor and to enshrine the greatest expansion of executive authority ever!

This is much, much worse than Watergate -- which was considered a national disgrace, remember? ... which was resisted by the Democrats and by the press, remember? ... including a couple of young "reporters", one of whom was actually an intelligence officer, and as we found out years later, the whole thing was a great big charade, designed to oust the by-then completely crazy Richard Nixon and leave the reins of power in the hands of the much more pliable long-time FBI asset, Gerald Ford ... Do you remember that?

And much of this simulated national drama was played out in the editorial offices of ... [drum roll] ... the Washington Post! Do you remember that, too?

We're not supposed to remember anything anymore, apparently. Or not much, anyway. So for the the next several paragraphs, our esteemed authors give us the point of view of government supporters, and they say things like this:

Supporters say the measures simply codify existing counterterrorism practices and policies that are endorsed by lawmakers and independent experts such as the 9/11 Commission. They say the measures preserve civil liberties and are subject to internal oversight.

WOW! Really?? Did somebody actually type the phrase "independent experts such as the 9/11 Commission"? Or did the editors simply copy and paste it in, like I did?

How could you type such a thing? How could such a thought even enter your head?

Actually, it makes as much sense as "internal oversight", doesn't it?

Here's the rub:

Under the Justice Department proposal for state and local police, published for public comment July 31, law enforcement agencies would be allowed to target groups as well as individuals, and to launch a criminal intelligence investigation based on the suspicion that a target is engaged in terrorism or providing material support to terrorists. They also could share results with a constellation of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and others in many cases.

And that's not all.

On the day the police proposal was put forward, the White House announced it had updated Reagan-era operating guidelines for the U.S. intelligence community. The revised Executive Order 12333 established guidelines for overseas spying and called for better sharing of information with local law enforcement. It directed the CIA and other spy agencies to "provide specialized equipment, technical knowledge or assistance of expert personnel" to support state and local authorities.

And last week, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said that the Justice Department will release new guidelines within weeks to streamline and unify FBI investigations of criminal law enforcement matters and national security threats. The changes will clarify what tools agents can employ and whose approval they must obtain.

With the FBI having recently refused to assure Congress it wasn't protecting violent criminal informants, and in the wake of one transparent "terrorist" entrapment fiction after another, it's tough to imagine that "streamlining" the FBI's investigations could possibly be a good thing for anybody -- except the FBI.

And it's not even possible to imagine Michael Mukasey -- who wouldn't even admit that waterboarding is torture -- doing anything to protect your Constitutional rights, especially at the expense of the radical "unitary executive".

As even the Washington Post notes:

The recent moves continue a steady expansion of the intelligence role of U.S. law enforcement, breaking down a wall erected after congressional hearings in 1976 to rein in such activity.

Some other interesting points from the same article:

The push to transform FBI and local police intelligence operations has triggered wider debate over who will be targeted, what will be done with the information collected and who will oversee such activities.

To these three easy questions, the answers are: [1] Everybody, especially YOU. [2] Anything they want to do, and [3] Nobody whose interests correspond with yours.

The Post notes that

Many security analysts faulted U.S. authorities after the 2001 terrorist attacks, saying the FBI was not combating terrorist plots before they were carried out and needed to proactively use intelligence.

But rather than following up on the next logical question, namely: "Why didn't they use the intelligence they were gathering?", Spencer Hsu and Carrie Johnson protect their paychecks (certain lines must not be crossed, wink wink!, nudge nudge!), although they do admit that

civil liberties groups and some members of Congress have criticized the administration for unilaterally expanding surveillance and moving too fast to share sensitive information without safeguards.

But as always in post-democratic American simulated-journalism, nobody's allowed (or sufficiently courageous -- what's the difference?) to state a clear fact without putting it in the mouth of a speaker who is easily dismissed as "political". Thus

Critics say preemptive law enforcement in the absence of a crime can violate the Constitution and due process. They cite the administration's long-running warrantless-surveillance program, which was set up outside the courts, and the FBI's acknowledgment that it abused its intelligence-gathering privileges in hundreds of cases by using inadequately documented administrative orders to obtain telephone, e-mail, financial and other personal records of U.S. citizens without warrants.

This technique hides the obvious fact that "preemptive law enforcement in the absence of a crime" is not law enforcement at all.

It does violate the Constitution and it obliterates due process.

But the authors can't (or won't) say that; instead they attribute a watered-down version of the obvious truth in the words of anonymous "critics" and move on to quote a 9/11 cover-up insider -- sorry: independent expert -- Jamie Gorelick:

Former Justice Department official Jamie S. Gorelick said the new FBI guidelines on their own do not raise alarms. But she cited the recent disclosure that undercover Maryland State Police agents spied on death penalty opponents and antiwar groups in 2005 and 2006 to emphasize that the policies would require close oversight.

"If properly implemented, this should assure the public that people are not being investigated by agencies who are not trained in how to protect constitutional rights," said the former deputy attorney general. "The FBI will need to be vigilant -- both in its policies and its practices -- to live up to that promise."

It's beyond laughable, really. Gorelick blames the state police, emphasizes the need for oversight, and winds up with a conditional recommendation: "If properly implemented".

That's a good one. If my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle. But the Washington Post can't say that either.

To its credit, the Post article does include some critical quotes attributed to a named individual, who hits at least one nail on the head:

[Michael] German, an FBI agent for 16 years [and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union], said easing established limits on intelligence-gathering would lead to abuses against peaceful political dissenters. In addition to the Maryland case, he pointed to reports in the past six years that undercover New York police officers infiltrated protest groups before the 2004 Republican National Convention; that California state agents eavesdropped on peace, animal rights and labor activists; and that Denver police spied on Amnesty International and others before being discovered.

"If police officers no longer see themselves as engaged in protecting their communities from criminals and instead as domestic intelligence agents working on behalf of the CIA, they will be encouraged to collect more information," German said. "It turns police officers into spies on behalf of the federal government."

But one former FBI officer's opinion doesn't carry much weight against the advancing twin waves of horse manure and tyranny:

Mukasey said the changes will give the next president "some of the tools necessary to keep us safe" ... [and that] the new guidelines will make it easier for the FBI to use informants, conduct physical and photographic surveillance, and share data in intelligence cases, on the grounds that doing so should be no harder than in investigations of ordinary crimes.

If there's one thing we don't need, it's new rules to "make it easier for the FBI to use informants".

And if there's one thing we do need, it's a complete understanding of what it means when "law enforcement" officials claim that collection of intelligence in the absence of a crime should be "no harder" than a criminal investigation.

But the Washington Post can't tell you that, either.

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Raiding The Vault -- Part III: "Burn"

I almost managed to laugh back in January when I saw that the Washington Post had published a piece called "Democracy Activists Disappointed in Bush", because I knew the democracy activists in question must be foreigners.

Democracy activists in the USA have long been "disappointed" with Bush -- especially with the way in which he was supposedly twice elected -- but the Washington Post has hardly shown any interest in such stories.

As it turned out (mark the calendar!) I was correct; Bush had just ended a tour of the Middle East and some of the people there were none too happy with his failure to bring democracy to their countries.

Hisham Kassem, an Egyptian political activist who last year received a U.S. National Endowment for Democracy award, was left dispirited by Bush's tour. The year 2005 "was the best year in my life, politically. ... Our hopes were way up there," Kassem said. "But -- it was just another story."

Anger grew in his voice. "Bush, as far as American foreign policy vis-a-vis democracy, civil rights, is right back to square one," Kassem added. "This trip marks it."

Hisham Kassem amazes me with his assertion that Bush's pro-democracy rhetoric was "just another story". The amazing part is that it's taken him three years since Bush's second inaugural address to figure it out.

Bush wasn't the only salesman peddling the lies, of course.

In 2005, Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice helped create as much of a democratic fervor as the Middle East had ever seen, democracy activists said. Rice vowed support for "the democratic aspirations of all people."
...

Middle East democracy activists these days say they wonder whether the United States has returned to the formula that Rice renounced in 2005: valuing the stability of autocratic Arab governments over the uncertainty of elected ones.

They're still wondering? Terry Jones figured it out three years ago, and he said so in an interview with Mother Jones:

What amazes me about [Bush's second inaugural address] is he’s basically just declared war on the rest of the world. But nobody seemed to really notice. He said it in a very nice way, so maybe they missed what he was talking about. Basically, he said that America can take out any government it doesn’t like and do whatever it likes. It’s stunning. It’s people’s reaction to it that’s been extraordinary to me, that nobody’s taken notice of what he’s actually saying.

Terry Jones was wrong on one point; somebody did notice what he was saying.

Chris Floyd noticed, too -- he noticed that something was very wrong, and saw what it was, and wrote an amazing piece to mark the occasion. Please read all of "Tongues of Flame: Strange Doings at the Inauguration", not just this introduction:

"Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked." – Exodus 23:7

There was something strange – passing strange – about the sumptuous carnival mounted to celebrate George W. Bush's chokehold on power this week.

Go ahead -- read it all! But don't forget to come back for another piece from the cold vault: a horrified look at exactly what the twice-unelected president said on the occasion of his second inauguration.

"Burn"

It was billed as a giant party. It was presented as a celebration. But in reality it was an act of war. And its centerpiece was a cold-blooded declaration.

George Bush's declaration of war wasn't phrased in conventional terms. But nobody in his administration has ever done anything in conventional terms. They have never said what they meant. We have always been required to read between the lines.

But the meaning of Bush's second inaugural address was crystal-clear, for those who can interpret the code-words. This speech featured two code-words in particular: Freedom and Democracy.

Please read it all, especially all you democracy activists, and don't be disappointed anymore.

It was always just a story.

A Short Discourse On Military Recruiting And Freedom Of Speech

If recruiters tell your kids packs of clever lies to get them to sign up for some kill-or-be-killed, that's their right.

It's too bad for the kids, of course, but if they're lucky they won't be killed; they will simply be brainwashed and dehumanized, forced to commit the most heinous acts imaginable, and then sent home to live the rest of their lives with post-traumatic stress.

But what happens to your kids is no concern of the recruiters. They don't care. They don't have to care. They're simply exercising their freedom of speech.

But if a city council passes a resolution condemning those recruiters for the lies they tell and the lives they ruin, that's not freedom of speech at all; it's treasonous. It's despicable. And it deserves to be punished.

So if lawmakers in state and national capitals choose to retaliate against the city for trying to protect its young people, that's their right; they're only exercising their power of the purse.

If they want to deprive the kids in that city of funding for their lunches, that's their right. And if they want to deprive that city's policemen of funding for their equipment, that's their right, too.

These are not only their rights but also their duties. After all, they must do what they were elected to do -- even if it means getting your kids killed in pursuit of global empire.

So let the little bastards starve! Let the cops call for their backup with tin cans and string!

But let us never disrupt the greatest killing machine ever built.

San Jose Mercury News:

A pre-dawn confrontation broke out this morning in Berkeley between peaceniks and pro military groups, more than 12 hours before the City Council [meets to consider rescinding] its statement telling the U.S. Marines they're unwelcome [...]

Sacramento-based Move America Forward and a handful of other pro-military organizations are set to have several hundred protesters in front of council chambers starting at 5 a.m. [...]

Move America Forward is already unhappy with what council members are not planning to do - rescinding four other items the council passed that are seen as a swipe at the Marines. Those items asked the city attorney to investigate whether the Marines are violating city law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation; urged people to 'impede' the recruiting work of the Marines in Berkeley; and gave Code Pink a free parking space and sound permit to protest once a week in front of the recruiting station.

The proposal by council members Betty Olds and Laurie Capitelli to rescind the item sending the Marines a letter asking them to leave is No. 25 of 28 items on tonight's agenda, and could come up for debate near midnight. What's more, pro-military supporters will have to sit through another item likely to make them seethe: urging Canada to provide sanctuary for U.S. military war resisters. [...]

"This violent reaction of the pro-war forces shows how threatened they are by a small group of people working against recruitment," [Code Pink activist Zanne] Joi said. "They claim the Marines fought for our freedom of speech, and how dare we use our freedom of speech against them."

CNN:

The pro-military demonstrators were met by anti-war protesters who had camped out overnight, setting the stage for a dramatic showdown late in the day when the City Council is to discuss whether to revoke its previous vote.

"Their treasonous action, especially at this time of war right now, is not acceptable," said Mary Pearson, a spokeswoman for the group Move America Forward.

"It's very, very important for everyone to stand united ... to give our Marines and all of our military the greatest respect and honor that they deserve."

Before the sun was even up, about 300 demonstrators -- both pro-military and anti-war -- were already standing toe-to-toe in downtown. Many traded jeers and sneers.

"Code Pink doesn't stand for us," one sign said, held by a man in military fatigues. Signs held by anti-war activists read, "End the War" and "Bring the troops home now."

The City Council is to meet at 7 p.m. PT on whether to take back its previous measure urging the Marine recruiters to leave town.

Anti-War On The Left Coast: Berkeley vs. Military Recruiters

The California city of Berkeley has been giving military recruiters a hard time, as CNN reports:

City Council approved a measure last week urging the Marine recruiters to leave their downtown office.

"If recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders," the item says.

It goes on to say the council applauds residents and organizations that "volunteer to impede, passively or actively, by nonviolent means, the work of any military recruiting office located in the City of Berkeley."

How about that?

And do you want to know why?

Berkeley's declaration, which was introduced by the city's Peace and Justice Commission, accuses the United States of having a history of "launching illegal, immoral and unprovoked wars of aggression and the Bush administration launched the most recent of those wars in Iraq and is threatening the possibility of war in Iran."

It adds, "Military recruiters are salespeople known to lie to and seduce minors and young adults into contracting themselves into military service with false promises regarding jobs, job training, education and other benefits."

In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, you have to be pretty damned Brave to act as if you're Free enough to do something like this, and the chickenhawks in congress are having none of it.

In Washington, a group of Republican lawmakers have introduced the Semper Fi Act of 2008 -- named after the Marine motto -- to rescind more than $2 million of funds for Berkeley and transfer it to the Marine Corps.

"Like most Americans, I really get disturbed when taxpayer money goes to institutions which proceed to take votes, make policy or make statements that really denigrate the military," said Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana, a co-sponsor of the bill.

He told CNN he believes the bill will pass. "I think it's going to have significant support."

The bill's co-sponsor, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, said in a written statement, "Berkeley needs to learn that their actions have consequences."

Consequences. As if the actions of the American military haven't had any serious consequences. As if cutting off funds -- taxes paid by the working people of the country, money headed back to some of those same people -- is an appropriate reaction when people express their beliefs; as if they are not entitled to those beliefs; as if they are not entitled to express them.

Really Disturbed. As if nobody gets disturbed when hundreds of thousands of times more taxpayer money goes to hired killers who roam the world on behalf of ... oh, why bother? They're fighting for our freedom, remember?

... in their imagination!

The reaction of the GOP lawmakers is telling; it says that in their opinion, the function of American cities is to deliver their young people into the maw of the great beast; to offer them up for murder and sacrifice; to swallow every bit of heinous propaganda whole; to be subservient to Empire; and to enjoy it.

Bogus Terror: Feds Wage War Against The Rule Of Law

The Other Osama

Shahawar Matin Siraj [photo] was a young man when his family moved from Pakistan to the United States. The family had been persecuted in Pakistan because they were "too secular", and they came to the US looking for religious freedom. But they found something else again.

Matin Siraj was working in his father's store when Osama Eldawoody walked in. Eldawoody talked up Siraj, a doe-eyed dolt who was barely competent to sell Islamic books. Eldawoody found out that Siraj lived across the city, and that he rode the subway a lot. Eldawoody started offering Siraj rides home from work. The two would talk in the car.

The much older Eldawoody established a surrogate-father relationship with the innocent and gullible youngster, taught him about violent jihad, told him that to be "true" to Allah he had to attack the Americans, and got him to draw a map of the Herald Square subway station. This crude drawing would be used against Siraj at trial, after Eldawoody "blew the whistle" on Siraj and his plans.

Unknown to Siraj -- or to an alleged accomplice, James Elshafay -- Eldawoody was working for the NYPD counter-terrorism unit.

He had been assigned to visit mosques and write down the plate numbers of the cars in the parking lots, to visit the Islamic bookstores looking for a likely mark. He couldn't have found a better one than Siraj, who had never had a violent thought in his life -- until Eldawoody took the young man "under his wing", so to speak.

Eldawoody [photo] led Siraj along by the nose, or at least he tried to. At one point Eldawoody asked Siraj if he was ready to attack and Siraj replied that he had to ask his mother.

Hi Mom, it's me. I was wondering, well, actually one of my friends was wondering, would it be OK if me and some friends blew up the subway station? Puh-leeze!

Siraj was arrested in August of 2004 and charged with plotting to bomb the Herald Square station. He was convicted in 2005, even though he had no bombs, no bomb-making materials, no knowledge of bomb-making, and even more importantly, no desire to hurt anyone. In January of 2006 he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, and at that point his family, who had been quiet thus far, started talking about entrapment.

The next day -- early the very next morning -- his entire family was arrested and taken into custody, charged with immigration violations. After a lengthy publicity battle, the government allowed Matin's mother and sister out on bond, and now they work in the store, while Matin serves his time ... and the father is still in prison, more than a year later.

It's not about immigration. It's about entrapment. The word must not be uttered.

Heavy Pieces

In the Terror War against the Rule of Law, the heavy pieces are beginning to move into place, and quite visibly, too: even the so-called alternative media are starting to get a vague idea about some of it. Their coverage comes way too late, and it's too fragmented to do any of us much good, in my opinion. But then again, I've been wrong before. I would love to be wrong about this.

As I was saying: a couple of long and relevant pieces have appeared recently in the quasi-dissident media, both with good points, both with gaping holes. At least they complement each other.

Mother Jones has a heavily annotated piece by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella called "Don't Even Think About It" which describes the crackdown on your civil rights that's sure to come as more and more resources are devoted to striking at "the roots of terrorism". Unfortunately for you, the striking is being done by people who have no idea where the roots of terrorism lie, and/or no intention of finding out, and they certainly wouldn't share that information with you even if they did have it. Oh well.

At Rolling Stone, Guy Lawson's "The Fear Factory" delves into the world of fabricated terror, shining a spotlight on William "Jameel" Chrisman [photo right], the former FBI asset who entrapped Derrick Shareef [sketch below].

Lawson also points out that the FBI counter-terrorists have no intention of sharing any information with you, either.

Neither piece does a very good job at showing the "big picture", but they both show parts of that picture fairly well.

The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces

Lawson's piece focuses on the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces, about which he observes:

Since 9/11, the number of such outfits across the country has tripled. With more than 2,000 FBI agents now assigned to 102 task forces, the JTTFs have effectively become a vast, quasi-secret arm of the federal government, granted sweeping new powers that outstrip those of any other law-enforcement agency. The JTTFs consist not only of local police, FBI special agents and federal investigators from Immigration and the IRS, but covert operatives from the CIA. The task forces have thus effectively destroyed the "wall" that historically existed between law enforcement and intelligence-gathering. Under the Bush administration, the JTTFs have been turned into a domestic spy agency, like Britain's MI5 -- one with the powers of arrest.

Lawson questions the practice of instigating terror plots, and points out it tends to produce the "victories" in the war on terror that are so essential to the continuation of the war.

He mentions a series of famously "foiled" "terror plots", all of which were set up by law-enforcement agents who had "infiltrated" groups of wannabe terrorists, or recruited such groups themselves, after which they served as agents-provocateur, organizing the alleged wannabes to work on an impossible plot for which they could then be busted.

Lawson provides a host of frightening insights into the mentality of the people who are supposed to be protecting us. One of my favorites: a telling exchange with Sgt. Paul DeRosa of the Chicago Police Department:

Chicago has one of the largest Muslim populations in the country -- some 400,000, DeRosa estimates. "Experts say that between five and ten percent of Muslims are extremists. So you take it down to one percent. What's one percent of 400,000? Forty thousand? Technically there could be 40,000 —"

"You mean 4,000," I say.

DeRosa pauses. "Right," he says. "Four thousand." He forges on. "Most people who come to America who are Middle Eastern come for a good reason. But there's still a percentage that may be here that don't like us. They are with the extremists."

Aside from the obvious difficulty with easy math -- if that's what it was -- the question begs to be raised: If there are 4,000 extremists in Chicago alone, why aren't any of them attacking?

The Circular Dance

Ask a question such as this in a JTTF context, and you can go around in circles forever, as illustrated by the following conversation between Lawton and Special Agent Robert Holley, a JTTF Counterterrorism Squad supervisor

When I ask what kinds of cases his CT squad has made, Holley cites the example of a local cab driver who came up on the JTTF's radar some time back —he won't say how or why. The man was East African, Holley says, a suspected Islamic extremist "connected to known bad guys overseas." After being interviewed by the JTTF, the cabbie decided to leave the country. Nothing criminal had occurred, and no charges were laid. The cab driver had simply come to the attention of the JTTF, and that in itself was enough to dispose of the matter.

"Can we consider that a success because we didn't put him in jail?" Holley asks. "Absolutely. This guy is no longer here. He is not a threat to one person in the United States."

"Was he ever a threat?" I ask.

"We opened up an investigation."

"But isn't that a circular argument?"

"Was he a bomb-thrower?" Holley concedes. "Probably not. Did he want to go into a mall and attack? No."

And that's just the beginning of the circular dance.

The next morning, I meet with three members of the Field Intelligence Group. [...] None of the three analysts in the FIG have Arabic-language skills or extensive experience in the countries they are supposed to monitor. To keep informed, they read newspapers and intelligence reports. They then issue bulletins to police departments about perceived threats.

"What is the biggest threat?" I ask.

There is a long pause.

"I think it's very dangerous if we start to identify that," an analyst named Julie Irvine says.

"The enemy is listening," Assistant Special Agent in Charge Gregory Fowler adds later. "I drill that into my people's heads every day. Foreign-intelligence agencies and terrorists are listening. The FBI is on a war footing."

When I express skepticism at the nature of the cases being brought by the JTTF, and the wild-goose chases that seem to occupy its time, Fowler says people don't understand the "threat stream" facing the nation. [...]

"The public is never going to see the evidence we have," Fowler says. "We don't want to reveal our hand or tip our sources. You cannot judge the nature of the terrorist threat to the United States based on the public record."

"But with such strictures," I ask, "how does a citizen become informed about the threat?"

"I have access to the information," Fowler says. "I have a lot of faith in the judgment of the common citizen. A lot of people understand the nature of the threat."

Are you dizzy yet? People don't understand the "threat stream" facing the nation but they do understand the nature of the threat. Yeah, right!

And that's good enough for you because DON'T ASK QUESTIONS!

In one of the more chilling passages, Lawton portrays the coming crackdown as a planned reaction to the next terrorist attack:

Despite the rapid and widespread proliferation of JTTFs, very little has been reported about what goes on inside the War on Terror's domestic front. The FBI building that houses the JTTF for the Northern District of Illinois has been moved from the middle of the city to a more spacious, fortresslike building on the industrial west side of Chicago, a place out of the city's Loop, literally and figuratively. The glass tower is surrounded by a tall metal fence, and layers upon layers of security inside and out add to the sense of siege. When Special Agent Robert Holley, who supervises the JTTF's Squad Counterterrorism 1, offers to escort me to his office on the eighth floor, we are stopped by his superior before we even reach the hallway. The entire floor, the supervisor declares, is considered secure -- there are classified documents on desks -- and therefore off-limits to outsiders.

Holley, an ex-military type who is built like a bullet, rolls his eyes but complies. There is no problem finding another room for a meeting. There are acres of empty offices and cubicles in the eerily futuristic building, the premises far larger than current requirements dictate but ready for expansion should the need arise with another terrorist attack.

And so on. It's fairly good work given the circumstances, and well worth checking out, despite its many deficiencies.

Deficiencies? For starters, it provides no annotations, it neglects some easily available relevant material, and it gives no sense of the shoe that's about to drop on us next.

Lawson even manages a somewhat hopeful -- and, to my mind, thoroughly pointless -- conclusion:

There are signs, however, that judges and jurors are getting fed up with such concocted "threats." In December, the prosecution of the "Liberty City Seven" ended in one acquittal and a hung jury for the rest of the accused. The supposed cell was accused of preparing a "full ground war" against America by bringing down the Sears Tower and other buildings. At trial, however, it emerged that the men had no operational abilities, that the plots were dreamed up at the exhortation of two paid FBI informants while smoking dope and that the group had been provided its camera, military boots and warehouse by the JTTF.

Despite 15,000 surveillance recordings of the men, including one in which they swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden, the jury refused to convict. "This was all written, produced, directed, choreographed and stage-designed by the United States government," Albert Levin, an attorney for one of the accused, said in his closing argument.

Undeterred, the government is taking six of the men back to court. The retrial was scheduled to begin on January 22nd.

This is my main criticism of Lawson's piece: The conviction or otherwise of the knuckleheads recruited by the counter-terrorists in this particular bogus foiled "terror plot" is not the point! The point is that the publicity generated by the arrest (forget the hearings if any, the trial if any, and the sentencing if any) is enough to "justify" the crackdown on radicalization.

The Crackdown Is Coming

For more on the coming crackdown, Mother Jones provides a resource although its piece also has serious limitations.

To wit: even though it gives a good picture of how The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act is going to take away a lot of your freedom (and that of your children, and theirs...), and even though it provides many important links, it gives no hint that the bulk of the "terror" being invoked to "justify" the new legislation was bogus.

Nonetheless, it does report:

After a couple of hearings—described by OMB Watch as "primarily one-sided, with the bulk of the witnesses representing law enforcement or federal agencies"—the bill went to the House floor, where it was it passed with only six members voting against it—three Democrats and three Republicans. (Twenty-two others were absent.) Currently, a nearly identical version of the bill awaits a vote in the Senate's Committee on Homeland Security, where it has a supporter in chair Joseph Lieberman. Committee member Barack Obama has gone on record as being undecided on the bill (after an earlier email to constituents that seemed to indicate support)—but no presidential candidate is likely to cast a vote that could be seen as soft on terrorism.

The legislation would create a National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism composed of 10 members whose vaguely defined job would be to "examine and report upon the facts and causes of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence," and to "build upon and bring together the work of other entities" including various federal, state, and local agencies, academics, and foreign governments. The commission is charged with issuing a report after 18 months. It also directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to set up a center to study "violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism" at a U.S. university, and to "conduct a survey" of what other countries are doing to prevent homegrown terrorism.
...

The bill raises the potential for government encroachments on civil rights in part through the way it defines some basic terms. The text of the bill says that "the term 'violent radicalization' means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change." It gives no clue as to what would qualify, under this law, as an "extremist belief system," leaving this open to broad interpretation according to the prevailing political winds.

In addition, simply by designating the "process of adopting or promoting" belief systems as a target for government concern or control, the bill moves into dangerous territory. The director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office, Caroline Fredrickson, said in a statement on the bill, "Law enforcement should focus on action, not thought. We need to worry about the people who are committing crimes rather than those who harbor beliefs that the government may consider to be extreme."

We also need to worry about any bill that raises the potential for government encroachments on civil rights.

Worrying About The Wrong Stuff, On Purpose

And there's the rub. We've got bogus terror on one hand, instigated by agents of the rapidly coalescing law-enforcement military complex ("lawfare", as Lawson points out). On the other we have a drastic new law that will enable all sorts of unwarranted surveillance, not to stop terrorism per se, but to "study" the process of "radicalization".

But this study will never work, can never work -- not for the purpose for which it was ostensibly designed -- because it's based on bogus analyses of bogus terror plots, by which I mean the analyses are stripped of any indication that the plots were bogus. As a rookie computer programmer I was taught the inviolable GIGO rule (Garbage In, Garbage Out). It applies to more than computers, of course. But clearly the designers of this process don't care whether garbage comes out. All they want is output!

Mother Jones again:

In his book on terrorism, Unconquerable Nation: Knowing Our Enemy, Strengthening Ourselves, [Brian Michael Jenkins, of the Rand Corporation] wrote, "In their international campaign, the jihadists will seek common grounds with leftist, anti-American, and anti-globalization forces, who will in turn see, in radical Islam, comrades against a mutual foe." Once a terrorist is defined by thought and word rather than deed, there will be room for all of us in the big tent.

In other words, we're all losing our rights -- rights to privacy and security, among others; rights that our ancestors fought and died for -- as a pre-planned "reaction" to the arrests of bogus "terrorist cells" which were actually recruited, inspired, funded and supported in numerous other ways by agents of the lawfare state. How quaint!.

All this power-grabbing is clearly based on false pretexts, and that's becoming increasingly obvious, which is another problem (for another day, perhaps).

Much of the so-called "justification" for the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act comes from a report compiled by the New York Police Department. One of the "featured terrorists" in this report is Shahawar Matin Siraj, the so-called Subway Bomber.

The NYPD entrapped him, the feds jailed his family, and a bogus tale regarding his "violent radicalization" is being used to drive acceptance of a draconian new law.

Even the world's best marketers couldn't sell this "lawfare" nonsense unless they had a pile of stories to hang it on -- so who cares whether the stories are true or false as long as they sell?

Rolling Stone again:

There is considerable skepticism in local police departments in northern Illinois about the nature and extent of the threat posed by terrorism. There are 415 local law-enforcement agencies in the district, many of which remain unconvinced that the threat is as dire as the JTTF maintains. Many departments refuse to allocate even one or two officers to spend four hours on basic terror training. Rather than consider the idea that the cops closest to the ground might have a better perspective on their communities, the JTTF addressed the problem by forming a TLOC —Terrorism Liaison Officer's Committee. The point is to merchandise the menace of terrorism to the police.

"It's a matter of marketing strategy," says Mark Lundgren, a special agent who oversees the TLOC. "These terrorism acts are trending toward the homegrown, self-activated, self-radicalized — the sort of thing that could literally pop up in your back yard. The typical things we would use to detect terrorism don't work, because these people are off the charts, so to speak. Nine times out of ten, for the next decade, it's going to be the local cop who stops the terror attacks."

Lundgren, who resembles a young Gary Busey, fairly glistens with certainty about the value of his work. "What are you trying to sell to the local police departments?" I ask.

"Awareness. Motivation," he says. "It's a very hard sell. You walk into a chief of police in a crime-ridden district. The first thing he's going to tell you is, 'The guys in this area are killing people. The guys you're telling me about —it's not make-believe, I understand that — but they haven't killed anyone lately in my district.' "

"Or ever," I say.

"Exactly."

They do an aggressive sales job. It's a tough sell. But it's necessary if we're going to be safe!

Except it's all hogwash!

Well, there you go. That's my story, at least for the moment.

Sadly, no major American media type is interested in putting the pieces together. The best they can do is throw out a few pieces at a time. Oh well. Thanks for the pieces. But that's not the most amazing thing.

The most amazing thing to me is that the American public doesn't seem to care very much. And that's a shame, because in the long run, the destruction of the Rule of Law is going to hurt us and our descendants much more than the destruction of our national "honor", not to mention our military, in Iraq.

~~~

The problem of fabricated bogus terror is not restricted to the United States.

See also: Inadequate Deception: The Impossible Plots Of The Terror War.