Category Archives: Terrorism
TSA Agent Smacks Congressman in the Testicles !!
This was around the same time as Senator Rand Paul’s Run in with the TSA.
Yahoo News: White House Defensive Over Benghazi Memo; Draft revised 12 times
President Barack Obama’s standoff with congressional Republicans over Benghazi escalated on Friday as the White House rebuffed House Speaker John Boehner’s demand that it turn over unclassified internal emails linked to the deadly Sept. 11, 2012, attack.
Press secretary Jay Carney rejected the request and again accused Republicans of trying to milk the tragic death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans for political gain.
“They’re asking for emails that they’ve already seen, that they were able to review and take extensive notes on, apparently provide verbatim information to folks,” Carney told reporters.
His comments came hours after ABC News reported that talking points crafted by the administration to explain the attack to the public underwent extensive revisions at the State Department’s request and with copious White House oversight.
“The fact that the very people who’ve reviewed this and probably leaked it–generally speaking, not specifically–are asking for something they’ve already had access to I think demonstrates that this is what it was from the beginning in terms of Republican handling of it which is a highly political matter,” the spokesman said.
Carney noted that key Republicans had been given access to internal emails in which officials discussed the drafting of the talking points. Lawmakers were able “to review them, take notes, spend as much with with them as they liked,” Carney said. (The lawmakers were were not allowed to make copies or take the documents out, which is known as an “in camera” review. )
“There is a long precedent here for protecting internal deliberations. This is across administrations of both parties,” he said. House Republicans have hinted they may try to subpoena the emails if the administration does not cooperate.
“From the hours after the attack, beginning with the Republican nominee’s unfortunate press release, and then his statements the day after, there has been an effort to politicize a tragedy here, the deaths of four Americans,” Carney said, referring to Mitt Romney’s poorly received response to the attack.
“The administration wouldn’t allow our staff to keep any emails or make copies,” Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck told Yahoo News. “We believe the American public should be able to see the contents, and we continue to call on the president to live up to his promise of cooperation and release them publicly.”
Meanwhile, senior administration officials, briefing reporters at the White House on condition that they not be named or quoted, offered a detailed timeline of the administration’s efforts to draft the talking points, which the House Intelligence Committee had requested. And they sought to explain away one email from a senior State Department official, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, who seemed to urge an edit to spare the department from attacks by congressional Republicans.
Much of the latest controversy has centered on a handful of meaningful changes to the original CIA-produced draft, which ABC reported underwent 12 revisions:
– The very first draft, from 11:15 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 14, refers to “the attacks in Benghazi.” And it asserts “we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qaida participated in the attack.” It suggests that the extremist group Ansar al-Sharia may be involved.
– By 4:42 p.m. on Friday, they are “demonstrations in Benghazi” that “evolved into a direct assault.” The al-Qaida reference is gone.
– A few edits later, at 8:59 p.m., “we do know” has become “there are indications that.” And Ansar al-Sharia is gone.
As is well known, the ultimate version linked the onslaught in Benghazi to Muslim anger at an Internet video denigrating Islam — which had sparked a violent demonstration and attack on the U.S. embassy in Cairo. There was no such demonstration in Benghazi.
Nuland’s email in particular has drawn scrutiny. She objected to an early draft’s reference to CIA warnings in the months leading up to the attack on grounds that such language “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either? Concerned …”
One senior administration official described Nuland’s concerns as consistent with worries expressed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which leads the ongoing investigation into the attack, and the Department of Justice. The official said Nuland also made the case that the administration should not suggest that Congress point to Ansar al-Sharia when administration officials were waiting to do so until the results of the investigation.
Another official said the FBI had objected to the “we do know that Islamic extremists” participated phrasing.
“I think the overriding concern of everyone involved in that circumstance is always to make sure that we’re not giving, to those who speak in public about these issues, information that cannot be confirmed, speculation about who was responsible, other things like warnings that may or may not be relevant to what we ultimately learn about what happened and why,” Carney said at his public briefing later.
The officials also insisted that Carney had not meant to mislead reporters when he contended that the White House had only made one “stylistic” change — altering the description of the ransacked facility from a “consulate” to a “diplomatic post.” They said he had been referring to the process that unfolded after the interagency debate on the talking points, once the deputy director of the CIA had drafted a would-be final draft on Saturday morning, September 15th. The documents obtained by ABC showed that the White House oversaw the early back-and-forth among the agencies concerned.
The officials also tackled another issue that has drawn scrutiny: Why, after lumping Benghazi in with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 as “acts of terror,” did the president and other top aides shy from calling it “terrorism”? The officials said that there was never any doubt that the attack was terrorism, but that they avoided the label because they were not certain who carried out the attack or whether it was spontaneous or pre-planned.
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Click here to read the article on the Yahoo News website:
TSA molests mom, brings her to tears
After a woman was allegedly sexually harassed by TSA agents at Sky Harbor International in Phoenix, AZ, her son documented the aftermath as the TSA, Southwest Airlines and Phoenix Police threaten him with arrest for filming the ordeal. Officials seem more concerned with the video than with the woman brought to tears at the security checkpoint.
TSA Wants to Touch Your Kids, To Hell With Parents’ rights!
Hannity and Rumsfield Try To Justify the Need to Police the World
Adam VS The Santorum Sweater Vest
NY Times: U.S. Engaged in Torture After 9/11, Review Concludes
A nonpartisan, independent review of interrogation and detention programs in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks concludes that “it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture” and that the nation’s highest officials bore ultimate responsibility for it.
The sweeping, 600-page report says that while brutality has occurred in every American war, there never before had been “the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after 9/11 directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody.” The study, by an 11-member panel convened by the Constitution Project, a legal research and advocacy group, is to be released on Tuesday morning.
Debate over the coercive interrogation methods used by the administration of President George W. Bush has often broken down on largely partisan lines. The Constitution Project’s task force on detainee treatment, led by two former members of Congress with experience in the executive branch — a Republican, Asa Hutchinson, and a Democrat, James R. Jones — seeks to produce a stronger national consensus on the torture question.
While the task force did not have access to classified records, it is the most ambitious independent attempt to date to assess the detention and interrogation programs. A separate 6,000-page report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s record by the Senate Intelligence Committee, based exclusively on agency records, rather than interviews, remains classified.
“As long as the debate continues, so too does the possibility that the United States could again engage in torture,” the report says.
The use of torture, the report concludes, has “no justification” and “damaged the standing of our nation, reduced our capacity to convey moral censure when necessary and potentially increased the danger to U.S. military personnel taken captive.” The task force found “no firm or persuasive evidence” that these interrogation methods produced valuable information that could not have been obtained by other means. While “a person subjected to torture might well divulge useful information,” much of the information obtained by force was not reliable, the report says.
Interrogation and abuse at the C.I.A.’s so-called black sites, the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba and war-zone detention centers, have been described in considerable detail by the news media and in declassified documents, though the Constitution Project report adds many new details.
It confirms a report by Human Rights Watch that one or more Libyan militants were waterboarded by the C.I.A., challenging the agency’s longtime assertion that only three Al Qaeda prisoners were subjected to the near-drowning technique. It includes a detailed account by Albert J. Shimkus Jr., then a Navy captain who ran a hospital for detainees at the Guantánamo Bay prison, of his own disillusionment when he discovered what he considered to be the unethical mistreatment of prisoners.
But the report’s main significance may be its attempt to assess what the United States government did in the years after 2001 and how it should be judged. The C.I.A. not only waterboarded prisoners, but slammed them into walls, chained them in uncomfortable positions for hours, stripped them of clothing and kept them awake for days on end.
The question of whether those methods amounted to torture is a historically and legally momentous issue that has been debated for more than a decade inside and outside the government. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel wrote a series of legal opinions from 2002 to 2005 concluding that the methods were not torture if used under strict rules; all the memos were later withdrawn. News organizations have wrestled with whether to label the brutal methods unequivocally as torture in the face of some government officials’ claims that they were not.
In addition, the United States is a signatory to the international Convention Against Torture, which requires the prompt investigation of allegations of torture and the compensation of its victims.
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Click below for the full article.
Infowars: Man Sues TSA For $5 Million Following Peanut Butter Arrest
24 hours in a cell for joking about sandwich spread
An Arizona man who was arrested at the behest of the TSA, following a wisecrack over a jar of peanut butter is suing the federal agency for $5 million.
Frank Hannibal, 50, was detained and dragged from LaGuardia Airport recently by police after a run-in with TSA agents over the jar of gourmet sandwich spread.
“The liquid oil that separated from the peanut butter had them baffled,” Hannibal told the New York Daily News.
Hannibal then commented to his wife and children that “They’re looking to confiscate my explosives,” as TSA agents inspected the 16-ounce jar of “Crazy Richards” chunky peanut butter.
TSA screener Edwin Sanchez, overheard Hannibal’s remark, did not see the funny side, and immediately called the cops, according to the court complaint.
Hannibal spent the next 24 hours in a cell, during which time he was fed a peanut butter sandwich by cops who later charged him with the felony of “falsely reporting an incident”.
“It sounds laughable now but at the time to be led out of there like a terrorist was unbelievable,” Hannibal tells the Daily News. “My whole life was up in the air. It was a nightmare. My children were overwhelmed. It was crazy.”
Hannibal has brought a $5-million-dollar lawsuit against the TSA worker and the Port Authority officer who arrested him, all over a $7 confectionary which was returned to him upon his release from jail.
“It’s a sorry state of affairs in this country when sarcasm is considered a felony,” his attorney, Alan D. Levine of Queens, noted, adding that TSA agents need to act with common sense in such situations.
This is not an isolated incident. The TSA has a history of concentrating on looking out for cakes and pies, as well as sauces, oils and vinegars.
The Homeland Security agency has also instituted a crack down on candy and cupcakes.
At the same time, people are routinely waltzing through security lines with swords, knives, explosives and guns. Many agents are too busy groping women and searching old people’s diapers to bother checking passports and flight passes.
Still, it’s good to know that the government is keeping Americans safe from sandwich wielding jokers.
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Click below to read Steve Watson’s article on infowars.
http://www.infowars.com/man-sues-tsa-for-5-million-following-peanut-butter-arrest/
Steve Chapman of the Washington Examiner: Stay out of Syria
With the Iraq war behind us and our departure from Afghanistan underway, the United States could be entering a well-earned respite from fighting. But even before peace can take hold, hawks are singing the old country song: “I’ve enjoyed as much of this as I can stand.”
They see a way to escape in Syria, where rebels have been fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad for more than two years. For most of that time, Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have been leading the call for U.S. military intervention — and President Barack Obama has been declining the invitation.
His critics, however, think they now have him where they want him. Obama earlier said that any use of chemical weapons by Assad would be a “game changer,” and last week, the White House said it thinks he’s used sarin gas, though it said further investigation would be needed.
Obama was careful in his Tuesday news conference to emphasize the uncertainties: “What we now have is evidence that chemical weapons have been used inside of Syria, but we don’t know how they were used, when they were used, who used them.”
So far he’s settled for a minimalist response: possibly sending weapons to the insurgents. He added that as a result of the gas attacks, “there are some options that we might not otherwise exercise that we would strongly consider.”
Strongly consider? My advice is to consider them till the cows come home — just don’t actually adopt them. The options at hand are generally dangerous, ineffectual or both.
Graham says the United States has to act because “the greatest risk is a failed state with chemical weapons falling in the hands of radical Islamists.” In reality, the greatest risk is putting our troops into a civil war where they could end up targeted by both sides, as we ingeniously arranged in Iraq. As we showed there, removing a dictator can unleash endless sectarian conflict. Fortunately, even McCain says he doesn’t favor American boots on the ground.
The preferred instrument of hawks is air power — to enforce a no-fly zone against the regime or destroy military assets. But it’s a lot easier said than done.
To begin with, Syria has one of the best air defense systems in the world, built with help from Russia. “Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, frequently singles out Mr. Assad’s air-defense prowess as the biggest single obstacle to U.S. intervention,” reports The Wall Street Journal. Casualty-free intervention, a la Libya, is not a realistic possibility in Syria.
Taking out Assad’s anti-aircraft batteries — or tanks, trucks and infantry — would inflict heavy casualties on the people we’d like to help. Much of the fighting takes place in cities, where civilians are dangerously exposed.
Even precision bombs launched from drones, notes University of Chicago scholar Robert Pape, author of “Bombing to Win,” have a blast radius of up to 50 feet, and their shock waves can easily bring down neighboring buildings. Our drone strikes in rural Pakistan do enough collateral damage to sow deep anger among the locals. In urban Syria, civilian fatalities would be far higher.
U.S. bombing might backfire by inducing the regime to make full use of its chemical weapons while it can. Air power also can’t head off the danger of those supplies falling into the hands of Islamic radicals. Bombing chemical weapons sites, even if we could identify them, would mean spewing deadly nerve agents over a wide area — which sort of resembles the outcome we’re trying to prevent.
But securing them from militants would require ground forces — as many as 75,000, according to the Pentagon. Transporting the stockpiles out of the country or destroying them would take a lot of troops and time. “There is no exit strategy with this option either,” says Michael Desch, a national security scholar at the University of Notre Dame.
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Click below for the full article.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/steve-chapman-stay-out-of-syria/article/2528663