DHS raids investigative journalist; seizes confidential list of whistleblowers

DHSForceThe first thing she remembers hearing on the morning of August 6th, 2013, was the sound of her dogs barking. It was approximately 4:30 a.m., it was dark outside, and she had been sleeping. Moments later, approximately seven gun-wielding men wearing body armor entered her home and began searching the personal belongings contained within.

This is the dirty stuff that the ubiquitous Homeland heroes defending us on tv do not show. 

 

Ostensibly, the federal investigators and Maryland State Police were raiding the home to determine if Hudson’s husband, Paul Flanagan, owned any weapons. Mr. Flanagan cannot legally be armed, as he has a record from the mid-1980s of breaking gun control laws; subsequently placing him among the growing list of Americans suffering under lifelong infringement of their inalienable rights. Police justified the 2013 raid by claiming that they suspected that he might have owned a “potato gun.”

No guns were recovered from the home, and Mr. Flanagan was not charged with any crimes. Yet investigators took their time to examine his wife’s personal documents.

Since Mr. Flanagan was an employee of the U.S. Coast Guard, that agency — under the Department of Homeland Security — was present during the raid.

One federal agent, USCG investigator Miguel Bosch, began asking whether Ms. Hudson was the same “Audrey Hudson” who had written “the Air Marshal stories” for The Washington Times. The stories he was remembering was a series of articles that Ms. Hudson wrote in the mid-2000s exposing holes in the Air Marshal program. Of course, Mr. Bosch — a former Air Marshal — surely knew whose home he had conspired to enter.

“I now know why he [Miguel Bosch] was spending so much time in my upstairs office,” Ms. Hudson later remembered. “They had pulled out every box from my closet.”

Following the raid, it became clear that the agents were rooting through her private files related to her journalism work. Among the boxes were handwritten notes and lists explicitly naming the whistleblowers who had helped her expose problems in the federal government. These individuals had spoke under conditions of anonymity to protect themselves from retaliation. Yet, using a warrant that expressly stated “guns” as the reason for the search, Ms. Hudson’s private documents were carted away and placed into the hands of the federal government.

Judging from the way investigators conducted the search, the documents seemed to have been more important to them than the guns that they supposedly sought.

Some of Audrey Hudson's personal documents confiscated by DHS. (Source: Daily Caller)

“They tore my office apart more than any other room in my house,” she told the Washington Times.

“Horrified doesn’t even begin to describe — but this shook me to my core, I was almost paralyzed,” Hudson told The Blaze. “I never in my wildest dreams thought something like that could happen in this country.”

Ms. Hudson expressed fear that this type of government tactic could place a chilling effect on those who might come forward in the future to expose government corruption.

“I feel sick to my stomach everyday since the incident,” Hudson said. “It’s not just about what happened to me – it’s about our nation, our rights and freedom. How can we be the watchdogs when our government has now crossed the line. Who’s going to trust us when we can’t protect our sources?”

“They came into my house, they stole my notes, they’ve exposed my sources,” she explained. “It was clearly intimidation. We can’t just have the government coming into your house on a minor warrant and walking out with whatever files they please.”

* * * * *

FOLLOW-UP:

Audrey Hudson went on to sue the federal government over the improper seizure of her documents — “confidential notes, draft articles, and other newsgathering materials.”

In late September, 2014, she walked away with a victory of sorts. The Department of Homeland Security agreed to pay her a paltry $50,000 and promised not to do it again. The agency also paid $25,000 to the Washington Times.

The settlement payments “cover just a fraction of the legal bills we accrued,” said Larry Beasley, the president and CEO of the Washington Times.

While it was an economic loss for the plaintiffs, Ms. Hudson and the Times view it as a victory for journalists. After all, DHS promised that it would review the Privacy Protection Act. And she was assured that agents did not make any copies of her whistleblower information.

However, the settlement was so small — less than the annual salary of one agent — that it would not even be noticeable to the behemoth agency. And its promises are hollow.

There have been no reports of any accountability on the part of the agents that participated in the criminal behavior. Special Agent Miguel Bosch remains employed with the Coast Guard Investigative Service and neither he, nor any of his cohorts in the raid, have been fired or criminally charged after stealing Ms. Hudson’s documents.

Originally published at Police State USA.



Police crack down on renewed protests in Ferguson, Missouri

Ferguson protests continue, aggravated by more police provocations. [click to enlarge]

Ferguson protests continue, aggravated by more police provocations. [click to enlarge]


[learn_more caption=”Prefatory Note by John P. Stoltenberg”]

Below is the very interesting Thursday, September 25, 2015 World Socialist Web Site article titled “Police crack down on renewed protests in Ferguson, Missouri” by Eric London.  In my opinion, the social unrest in Ferguson, Missouri is a very small part of the enormous powder keg of political and social unrest in America.

This national scale powder keg could explode at any time. Also, in my opinion, the sociopaths live in fear of the unrest because they do not have any solutions for the dysfunctional and failing capitalist economic system which has caused, and is causing, the unrest. Therefore, not being able to maintain their  economic/financial/military/police/political power on the basis of solving the problems in their dysfunctional and failing capitalist economic system, and their disintegrating capitalist social order, they are resorting to maintaining their power via an ever more brutal fascist capitalist military/police state.

Isn’t capitalism wonderful!

Look at all it is doing for us! —John P. Stoltenberg, N8362 State Highway 67 P.O. Box 596, Elkhart Lake, WI 53020-0596 920-876-2184 | jpstolten@frontier.com

POSTCRIPTS

PS #1: The original definition of fascism by the Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile is as follows: Fascism, a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.

The definition of fascist in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is as follows: Fascist, a person who advocates or practices fascism. By extension the term fascist also applies to governments that advocate or practice fascism.

PS#2: The beauty of these two definitions of fascism is they directly tie fascism with its creator which is capitalism. Notice, a mass movement is not required to create a fascist state. 

PS #3: WARNING: Due to former Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security Agency may have read this email without warning, warrant, or notice. They may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. You have no recourse nor protection.

PS #4: The link to the definition of sociopath and the definition are as follows:

http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=sociopath

  • [1][2]) is a personality disorder whose hallmark is a lack of empathy. Researcher Robert Hare, whose Hare Psychopathy Checklist is widely used, describes psychopaths as “intraspecies predators[3][4] who use charisma, manipulation, intimidation, sexual intercourse and violence[5][6][7] to control others and to satisfy their own needs. Lacking in conscience and empathy, they take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without guilt or remorse”.[8] “What is missing, in other words, are the very qualities that allow a human being to live in social harmony.”[9][/learn_more] 

Police crack down on renewed protests in Ferguson, Missouri

By Eric London, wsws.org

[D]ozens of police officers from multiple departments across Missouri descended on the city of Ferguson last night in a coordinated attack on demonstrators. Video of the crackdown shows police dragging demonstrators on the asphalt to jail-bound police vehicles. At least five arrests were made in the most recent police attack in the beleaguered suburb.

The renewal of protests was literally caused by a spark, laying bare the fragile state of social relations in the United States. A street memorial for Michael Brown—the victim of last month’s police murder—caught fire Tuesday morning, prompting widespread outrage. Residents said that the police delayed a firefighter team from responding so that the neighborhood could watch the memorial burn.

The 200 people who gathered in protest on Tuesday evening gave expression to the failure of the Obama administration’s best efforts to sweep social tensions under the rug. Neither the repeated police crackdowns nor the duplicity of professional identity politicians like Al Sharpton has succeeded in stamping out popular indignation toward decades of extreme social inequality, widespread poverty, and regular police repression.
ferguson1

Police claim the evening crackdown that injured several protesters was justified by allegations that a handful of people broke into a nearby beauty store as the demonstrations were taking place.

Speaking at a Wednesday morning press conference, Missouri State Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson said “there were several individuals who attempted to take the cash register” from the building.

Johnson said he gave the green light for the assault not because the police were under attack, but because demonstrators were making threatening remarks toward officers and were invading officers’ “personal space.”

After police began moving against the demonstration, some protesters attempted to defend themselves by throwing rocks at the advancing officers. Four officers were injured in the course of their attack. Police also claim that an officer was shot at from an apartment building near the burnt remains of Michael Brown’s memorial.

The crackdown is part and parcel of the Obama administration’s two-pronged response to demonstrations in the wake of the August 9 police shooting of Michael Brown.

The first prong involves the administration’s full support for the use of violence against demonstrators through repeated police attacks, the imposition of de facto martial law, and the mobilization of the National Guard.

The second prong is made up of an effort to paint the events in Ferguson as primarily a racial issue.

As demonstrations grew in the days following the shooting, the administration quickly dispatched charlatans like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to urge demonstrators to give up their nightly protests and register to vote for the Democratic Party. The Obama administration also supported Democratic Governor Jay Nixon’s decision to appoint Johnson, a black police captain, to oversee the police crackdown.

Attorney General Eric Holder, also African-American, was sent to Ferguson in order to sooth tensions and protect Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Michael Brown dead. Wilson, for his part, remains free of custody on paid leave.

Attorney General Holder, who the Washington Post described as “the most outspoken member of the Obama administration when it comes to matters of race issues in America,” made remarks Tuesday at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice that exemplified the administration’s use of identity politics to hide the class character of the shooting and the subsequent crackdown.

“As an African American man who has been stopped and searched by police in situations where such actions are not warranted,” Holder said, “I also carry with me an understanding of the mistrust that some citizens harbor toward police.”

As demonstrations grew in the days following the shooting, the administration quickly dispatched charlatans like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to urge demonstrators to give up their nightly protests and register to vote for the Democratic Party.

 

 

The nation’s head prosecutor delivered these remarks the day after the Department of Justice announced that the media would be banned from attending town hall meetings in Ferguson.

Justice Department spokeswoman Dena Iverson said that the decision was justified by a statutory mandate issued under Title X of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Section 2000g of Title X established a “Community Relations Service” (CRS) under the Department of Justice, the express purpose of which is to “provide conciliation assistance” during periods of social strife.

According to the statute, “[t]he Service may offer its services in cases of such disputes, disagreements, or difficulties whenever, in its judgment, peaceful relations among the citizens of the community involved are threatened thereby” and in order to prevent events “which affect or may affect interstate commerce.”

The activities of this “service” take place in total secrecy. The statute reads: “The activities of all officers and employees of the Service in providing conciliation assistance shall be conducted in confidence and without publicity,” and “[a]ny officer or other employee of the Service, who shall make public in any manner whatever any information in violation of this subsection, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and liable for up to a year’s imprisonment.”

By placing town hall meetings under the auspices of the Community Relations Service, the Obama administration is carrying out a violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

The decision to ban the press from meetings was made less than two weeks after the last public city council meeting erupted in chaos as residents voiced their opposition to the police and local government, shouting “What about Michael Brown?” and “Shut it down!”

The move is further proof that the ruling class is afraid that anger over the shooting of Michael Brown might develop into a broader opposition to the militarization of American society on a national scale. The government cannot afford to have the images of angry residents at town hall meetings shown on national television.

It should be noted that the same administration that is carrying out an attack on democratic rights in Ferguson is waging permanent war abroad.

During a speech yesterday before the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama made reference to the “problem” of Ferguson, Missouri while defending America’s military ambitions in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere. Obama noted that the events in Ferguson showed that “we have our own racial and ethnic tensions.”

“But we welcome the scrutiny of the world,” Obama continued. “Because we hold our leaders accountable, and insist on a free press and independent judiciary. Because we address our differences in the open space of democracy.…”

As Obama’s remarks and actions show, the justifications for war abroad contain the same amount of truth as those for repression at home: precisely, none.



Goon Thugs and Gullible Conservatives

Where are the class action suits?

ows-policeBaton-long

Paul Craig Roberts

[R]eports, such as this one http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/louise-milan/ , are routine occurrences that happen many times each day. Gratuitous police violence in America is totally out of control. Every day police murder 1.4 Americans, and beat, taser, body slam, and break into the homes of many others. Ferguson made it into the news, but Americans suffer police violence every day.

In response to the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, apologists for police brutality concocted every possible excuse imaginable in order to justify Brown’s killing. Yet, we know for a fact that unprovoked police violence is routine and apparently unavoidable. The willingness of “law and order conservatives” to give the police the benefit of the doubt in the face of all evidence to the contrary is inexcusable.

In the story reported in the above link, a 68-year old woman and her adopted daughter were attacked in their home by a goon thug SWAT team that destroyed their unlocked front door, threw stun grenades into the home blowing out the windows, ordered the women to the floor with rifles pointed at their heads, handcuffed them and paraded them out of the house in front of neighbors.

What was it all about? More stupid incompetence and outrageous behavior by our goon thugs.

Other than the endless wars cooked up in Washington by the neoconservative warmongers, the police are the greatest threat that Americans face.

The women’s wireless internet signal was not protected by a password, and a neighbor used it to post a silly message that read as a threat to the Evansville police. The police followed the IP address to the women’s home and terrorized them.

Before the police were militarized, detectives would have arrived at the house with a search warrant to inspect cell phones and computers for evidence of the threatening message. None would have been found, and the detectives would have realized that someone nearby was operating on the women’s wireless signal. The search would have been expanded and the matter resolved without violence.

The violence inflicted on the women and their home was totally unnecessary and totally unjustified. Luckily, the women did not have a pet dog or it would have been shot by the goon thugs. The trauma gratuitously inflicted on the two women is experienced by Americans many times each day. Our taxes are used not to protect us but to traumatize us and to inflict property damage on us. The Federal Reserve reports that 52% of American households cannot raise $400 in cash, which is about the cost of replacing a shattered door and door frame.

Other than the endless wars cooked up in Washington by the neoconservative warmongers, the police are the greatest threat that Americans face. The police do not protect anyone. They get their jollies murdering, beating, and tasering American citizens. We would be much safer without the police.

The SWAT team assault on the women’s home demonstrates that police lack sufficient judgment and humanity to be trusted with weapons and authority of any kind. The police behave in brutally mindless ways for which no justification exists. Moreover, they seldom tell the truth about their brutal encounters with the public. Nevertheless, the “law and order” conservatives can always be counted on to believe whatever tale the goon thugs tell and, indeed, to add to the exculpatory tale themselves.

It has long been known that power attracts bullies and psychopaths and that the less accountable power is the more unrestrained its use will be. Given this fact, it is impossible to comprehend the stupidity of government that gave the go ahead to the militarization of the police. The police are taught that their lives are so important–exceptional lives–that no risk whatsoever must be taken with them, even when confronting elderly women and children.

The consequence of this training is to elevate the role of violence in police encounters. The police are trained to ensure that the citizen bears all the risks of a police confrontation even in instances in which citizens are incapable of harming the police.

In my opinion, it was a felony to train police to abuse their authority and the public. We need to find out who is responsible and to bring class action suits seeking restitution against the criminals who trained the police to become a deadly threat to the public.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.


The Boston Bombing Web of Lies

Articles you should have read the first time around, but missed
Presenting here a complete dossier, as prepared by Global Research‘s Associate Editor Julie Levesque

Fraternalsite

This is a repost due to enduring topical relevancy.
Originally: Global Research, April 02, 2014
truthis Dead-disinformation

[I]n recent developments,  United States Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that “federal authorities will seek the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev if he is found guilty of the Boston Marathon bombing last April.” Below is a GR’s Julie Levesque’s analysis and selection of GR articles published in the immediate wake of the April 2013 bombings

As with many “terrorism” related events since 9/11, the Boston bombing official narrative proves to be a web of lies as important facts are revealed. It turns out that the FBI has lied about its knowledge of the alleged suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, already being presented as guilty not only in the mainstream press but by the President himself.

According to the suspects’ mother, the FBI had been following them for years:

The FBI originally feigned ignorance over the identity of the two Boston bombing suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as they appealed to an unwitting public to help them “identify” and “find” the suspects. […]

Russia Today, in an article titled, “‘They were set up, FBI followed them for years’- Tsarnaevs’ mother to RT,” stated of the suspects’ mother:

But her biggest suspicion surrounding the case was the constant FBI surveillance she said her family was subjected to over the years. She is surprised that having been so stringent with the entire family, the FBI had no idea the sons were supposedly planning a terrorist act.

She would say of the FBI to Russia Today:

They used to come [to our] home, they used to talk to me…they were telling me that he [the older, 26-y/o Tamerlan] was really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him. They told me whatever information he is getting, he gets from these extremist sites… they were controlling him, they were controlling his every step…and now they say that this is a terrorist act! Never ever is this true, my sons are innocent!

[…] The FBI would then be forced to concede that indeed it had interviewed the suspects, in 2011, two years before the Boston bombings.  (Tony Cartalucci Boston Bombing Suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev Reported Killed, Was Alive When Detained: Tamerlan’s Aunt, Global Research, April 22, 2013.)

We were also told that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in an exchange of gunfire after he and his brother had robbed a 7-Eleven:

When the shootout ended, one of the suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, a former boxer, had been shot and fatally wounded. He was wearing explosives, several law enforcement officials said. (Katharine Q. Seelye, William K. Rashbaum and Michael Cooper 2nd Bombing Suspect Caught After Frenzied Hunt Paralyzes Boston, The New York Times, April 19, 2013.)

With a bomb strapped to his chest, one of the Boston Marathon suspects was killed early Friday after he and his accomplice brother robbed a 7-Eleven, shot a police officer to death, carjacked an SUV and hurled explosives in an extraordinary firefight with law enforcement, authorities told NBC News. (Pete Williams, Richard Esposito, Michael Isikoff and Erin McClam, NBC News, One Boston Marathon suspect killed; second suspect, his brother, on loose after firefight, NBC News, April 19, 2013.)

The events surrounding Tamerlan’s death reported by the media are simply not true. It turns out that Tamerlan’ aunt identified him as a  “naked, cuffed, clearly alive and well detainee seen in video aired by CNN”:

Tamerlan Tsarnaev in custody

Was Tamerlan Assassinated?

The Boston Globe confirmed that Marathon Bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was in custody, contradicting earlier reports that he had been killed in crossfire. If he was in custody and is now dead, does that not suggest that he might have been the object of  an extrajudicial assassination? The circumstances of his death remain to be clarified.

Moreover, the 7-Eleven robbery was actually unrelated to the Tsarnaev brothers:

There was a 7-Eleven robbery in Cambridge last night, but it had nothing to do with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.

Margaret Chabris, the director of corporate communication at 7- Eleven, says the surveillance video of the crime was not taken at a 7-Eleven and that the suspect that did rob the 7-Eleven does not look like Tamerlan or Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

“The suspect in the photos for that particular 7-Eleven robbery looks nothing like the suspects,” Chabris says. “The police or someone made a mistake. Someone was confused.”

[…] Again, they might be guilty. But as notes:

The overarching principle here should be that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is entitled to a presumption of innocence until he is actually proven guilty. As so many cases have proven – from accused (but exonerated) anthrax attacker Stephen Hatfill to accused (but exonerated) Atlanta Olympic bomber Richard Jewell to dozens if not hundreds of Guantanamo detainees accused of being the “worst of the worst” but who were guilty of nothing – people who appear to be guilty based on government accusations and trials-by-media are often completely innocent. Media-presented evidence is no substitute for due process and an adversarial trial. (Washington’s Blog, Boston Terror Narrative Starts Falling Apart, Global Research, April 23, 2013)

On April 19 Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested and brought to a hospital. According to Reuters, “Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was wounded during at least one of two gun battles with police on Friday, suffering gunshot wounds to his head, neck, legs and hand […]“. On April 24, the Huffington Post reported:

Two U.S. officials say the surviving suspect in the Boston bombings was unarmed when police captured him hiding inside a boat in a neighborhood back yard.

Authorities originally said they had exchanged gunfire with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for more than one hour Friday evening before they were able to subdue him. (Adam Goldman and Pete Yost, Boston Bombing Suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Reportedly Unarmed When Arrested In Boat, Officials Say, Huffington Post, April 24, 2013.)

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was unarmed and obviously brutalized by police 

We still don’t know what really happened in Boston and who committed the attacks even though the mainstream media report that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has admitted being guilty. What we know for sure is that the official Boston bombing narrative is filled with lies and that since 9/11 and in the context of the fictitious “War on Terror”, Western governments, intelligence agencies and mainstream media have proven to be untrustworthy sources of information on alleged “terrorist attacks” or “foiled terrorist plots”.

Canada’s Complicity in the War on Terror

Three days after Boston was locked down, invaded by a colossal police-military apparatus on a surreal “teenagehunt”, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police made a very timely announcement: they had foiled a terrorist plot targeting a Via Rail passenger train. Or so they say.

In a very absurd press conference where three RCMP officers repeatedly answered questions with “we cannot comment as the investigation is ongoing”, the only information they seemed very eager to disclose was that the suspects “received guidance from Al-Qaeda in Iran”.

RCMP press conference

While the Canadian mainstream media take these RCMP allegations at face value, independent news outlets suspect hidden political motives behind the highly publicized announcement:

Neither the police nor government have given any reason as to why, after allowing the accused to remain at large for months, they were suddenly arrested Monday afternoon and in a very high-profile manner. […]

Speaking Tuesday after Jaser’s arraignment in a Toronto court, his lawyer, John Norris, drew attention to the timing of the police-government announcement that they had uncovered Canada’s first “al-Qaeda-sponsored” terror plot. Said Norris, “The timing of the arrest is a bit of a mystery and certainly I would like to hear the RCMP’s explanation for that. They have been very clear that there is no risk of public safety and it is surprising to say the least that this arrest would be made now, close on the heels of what happened in Boston and timed perfectly with what was happening in the House of Commons yesterday.”

On Friday, the Conservative government announced that it was changing the House of Commons’ agenda, scheduling third and final reading of its “Combating Terrorism Act” (Bill S-7) to begin Monday and conclude this week. Bill S-7 gives the state vast new powers. These include: the right to hold terrorism suspects for 72 hours without charge, to convene “investigative hearings” at which those believed to have information about an imminent terrorist attack are stripped of their right to remain silent, and the power to place restrictions for up to a year on the movements and rights of persons deemed by the state to be terrorist suspects but against whom they have insufficient evidence to lay charges. […]

US authorities have been quick to trumpet the Canadian claims of a thwarted terrorist attack—claims that boost their own efforts to portray North America as under siege from terrorists and justify a vast expansion of the national-security apparatus and coercive powers of the state. The US ambassador to Canada, David Jacobson, issued a statement Monday saying the arrests of Esseghaier and Jaser “were the result of extensive cross-border cooperation” and had underscored “that we face serious and real threats.” […]

At Monday’s press conference, the RCMP asserted that Esseghaier and Jaser had acted under the “direction and guidance” of “al-Qaeda elements located in Iran.”

The RCMP said that they had no evidence of Iranian government involvement. […]

The Harper Conservative government, which has declared itself Israel’s strongest ally and has expanded Canada’s decades’ old military-strategic alliance with Washington, broke off diplomatic relations with Teheran last summer. In justifying this action, Conservative Foreign Minister John Baird labeled Iran “the most significant threat to global peace and security in the world today.” (Keith Jones Canadian Government unveils “Terror Plot” as it Adopts Draconian New Law, World Socialist Web Site, April 24, 2013.)

We may recall a “terrorist plot” revealed in late November 2001. According to mainstream reports, Ahmed Ressam, who was convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in 1999, had also planned to bomb a Montreal area with “the most visible concentration of Jews in Canada — a vibrant area of some 5,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews who stand out because of their traditional outfits of black coats and hats for men, long skirts and wigs for women. » (Ingrid Peritz,Montreal’s brush with terror, The Globe and Mail, November 30, 2001.)

The Globe stated further:

Members of the Hasidic community in Outremont responded with shock after hearing that Mr. Ressam and Samir Ait Mohamed wanted to detonate a bomb in the area because it was predominantly Jewish.

The stated choice of explosives — a bomb on a gasoline truck — evoked the detonating power of the fuel-laden planes that ripped through the World Trade Center. (Ibid.)

Samir Aït Mohamed happened to be a fake Algerian refugee and “an informant for Canadian law-enforcement authorities [RCMP].” (Mike Carter, Montreal bomb plot revealed in Ressam case documents, Seattle Times, November 30, 2001.)

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) was also involved in a terrorist plot. Joseph Gilles Breault, a.k.a. Youssef Mouammar or Abou Djihad, had threatened to attack the Montreal metro with a biochemical weapon in 1998. He was a CSIS agent.

With that in mind, the latest RCMP “exploit” raises even more questions on this revived Al-Qaeda threat focused on Iran. Who’s behind Al-Qaeda in Iran?:

As the FBI reels from what now appears to be revelations it was directly involved in the Boston Marathon bombings, a deluge of FBI “success” stories have been “serendipitously” splashed across Western headlines. Among them was an allegedly “foiled” terror attack in Canada, reported to be the work of terrorists supported by “Al-Qaeda operatives in Iran.” The Globe and Mail, in its report, “Canada joins U.S. in alleging al-Qaeda has operatives based in Iran,” states:

[…] The Sunni-based al-Qaeda and Shia Iran belong to different branches of Islam that have been at odds historically. But in recent years U.S. officials have formally alleged that Iran has allowed al-Qaeda members to operate out of its territory.”

[…] Hersh in his 2008 New Yorker piece titled, “Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran,” spelled out a damning indictment of US involvement in bolstering, arming, and funding terror organizations, not linked to, but described as actually being Al Qaeda […]:

One of the most active and violent anti-regime groups in Iran today is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People’s Resistance Movement, which describes itself as a resistance force fighting for the rights of Sunnis in Iran. “This is a vicious Salafi organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists,” Nasr told me. “They are suspected of having links to Al Qaeda and they are also thought to be tied to the drug culture.” The Jundallah took responsibility for the bombing of a busload of Revolutionary Guard soldiers in February, 2007. At least eleven Guard members were killed. According to Baer and to press reports, the Jundallah is among the groups in Iran that are benefiting from U.S. support. (Tony Cartalucci, Who is Behind “Al Qaeda in Iran”?, Global Research, April 23, 2013.)

Otherwise the brothers’ links to Chechen terrorists makes very little sense, since the latter, like many other terrorist groups and/or so-called freedom fighters depending on the strategy of the day, have been supported by the US:

What is abundantly clear is that the US government is not committed to fighting terrorists.

Quite the opposite. US intelligence has been recruiting and grooming terrorists for more than thirty years, while at same time upholding the absurd notion that these terrorists, who are bona fide CIA “intelligence assets”, constitute a threat to the American Homeland.  These alleged threats by “An Outside Enemy” are part of a propaganda ploy behind the “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT).

[…] The development of an Islamist terrorist militia in different countries around the World is part of an intricate US intelligence project.

While the Tsarnaev brothers are casually accused without evidence of having links to Chechen terrorists, the important question is who is behind the Chechen terrorists?

In an utterly twisted logic, the protagonists of the ‘Global War on Terrorism” directed against Muslims are the de facto architects of “Islamic terrorism.” (Michel Chossudovsky, BOSTON TRUTH: The “Chechen Connection”, Al Qaeda and the Boston Marathon Bombings, Global Research, April 22, 2013.)

Even former US Ambassador Craig Murray says the “Chechen Connexion” story is surreal:

We are asked to believe that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was identified by the Russian government as an extremist Dagestani or Chechen Islamist terrorist, and they were so concerned about it that in late 2010 they asked the US government to take action. At that time, the US and Russia did not normally have a security cooperation relationship over the Caucasus, particularly following the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008. For the Russians to ask the Americans for assistance, Tsarnaev must have been high on their list of worries.

In early 2011 the FBI interview Tsarnaev and trawl his papers and computers but apparently – remarkably for somebody allegedly radicalised by internet – the habitually paranoid FBI find nothing of concern.

So far, so weird. But now this gets utterly incredible. In 2012 Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who is of such concern to Russian security, is able to fly to Russia and pass through the airport security checks of the world’s most thoroughly and brutally efficient security services without being picked up.

He is then able to proceed to Dagestan – right at the heart of the world’s heaviest military occupation and the world’s most far reaching secret police surveillance – again without being intercepted, and he is able there to go through some form of terror training or further Islamist indoctrination. He then flies out again without any intervention by the Russian security services.

That is the official story and I have no doubt it did not happen. I know Russia and I know the Russian security services. Whatever else they may be, they are extremely well-equipped, experienced and efficient and embedded into a social fabric accustomed to cooperation with their mastery.

This scenario is simply impossible in the real world. (Craig Murray, The Boston Bombings and the FBI: “Official Tsarnaev Story Makes No Sense”, 21st Century Wire, April 22, 2013.)

The idea that Tamerlan was, in fact, a US intelligence asset seems closer to the truth, since according to a Russian newspaper, he attended a US-sponsored workshop in the Caucasus, the goal of which was to destabilize southern regions of Russia:

Today, Russian newspaper Izvestia alleges that the older Boston Tamarlan bombing brother attended a workshop – sponsored by an American organization – on destabilizing the Russian satellite states:

At the disposal of “Izvestia” has documents Counterintelligence Department Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, confirming that the Georgian organization “Fund of Caucasus” [here’s their website], which cooperates with the U.S. non-profit organization “Jamestown” (the board of directors of NGOs previously entered one of the ideologists of U.S. foreign policy, Zbigniew Brzezinski), was engaged in recruiting residents North Caucasus to work in the interests of the United States and Georgia.

According to the reports of Colonel Chief Directorate Counterintelligence Department Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia Gregory Chanturia to the Minister of Internal Affairs Irakli Garibashvili, “Caucasian fund” in cooperation with the Foundation “Jamestown” in the summer of 2012 conducted workshops and seminars for young people of the Caucasus, including its Russian part. Some of them attended Tsarnaev Tamerlane, who was in Russia from January to July 2012.

“Caucasian fund” writes Tchanturia was established November 7, 2008, just after the Georgian-Ossetian conflict, “to control the processes taking place in the North Caucasus region.” Accordingly, the Department of the Interior Ministry counterintelligence case was brought intelligence operations called “DTV”. Main purpose is to recruit young people and intellectuals of the North Caucasus to enhance instability and extremism in the southern regions of Russia. (Washington’s Blog, Was Boston Bomber “Radicalized” at a U.S. Sponsored Counterterrorism Workshop, Global Research, April 24, 2013.)

Overall, the Boston tragedy is clearly and sadly being exploited to revamp the “War on terror”, justify the police state apparatus in the US and other Western countries such as Canada, and legitimize attacks on our rights and liberties.

Global Research brings to the attention of its readers a list of articles on this very important topic.

SELECTED ARTICLES

Boston Truth: Both FBI & CIA Watched Boston Bombing Suspects for Years, Tony Cartalucci, April 26, 2013

The Roots of Terror: FBI’s Fingerprints All Over the Boston Bombings, Bill Van Auken, April 24, 2013

“Boston on the Tigris”: Iraq’s Unreported Terror Event. Twenty-six Car Bombs…, Dirk Adriaensens, April 23, 2013

Terrorists “R” Us, Stephen Lendman, April 23, 2013

Martial Law in Boston: American Democracy in Shambles, Barry Grey, April 23, 2013

Boston Truth: The Suspects – Who Is Behind al Qaeda?, Bonnie Faulkner and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, 

Canadian Government unveils “Terror Plot” as it Adopts Draconian New Law, Keith Jones, April 24, 2013

Was Boston Bomber “Radicalized” at a U.S. Sponsored Counterterrorism Workshop, Washington’s Blog, April 24, 2013

Political Opportunism. The Boston Marathon Tragedy Used as a Pretext To Extend the “Global War on Terrorism”, Colin Todhunter, April 24, 2013
The Roots of Terror: FBI’s Fingerprints All Over the Boston Bombings, Bill Van Auken, April 24, 2013

Terrorists “R” Us, Stephen Lendman, April 23, 2013

Who is Behind “Al Qaeda in Iran”?, Tony Cartalucci, April 23, 2013

Martial Law in Boston: American Democracy in Shambles, Barry Grey, April 23, 2013

Boston Terror Narrative Starts Falling Apart, Washington’s Blog, April 23, 2013

The European Homeland Security State. EU Anti-Terror Drills and Fear Campaigns, R. Teichmann, April 23, 2013

The Boston Bombings and the FBI: “Official Tsarnaev Story Makes No Sense”, Craig Murray, April 22, 2013

Boston Bombing Suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev Reported Killed, Was Alive When Detained: Tamerlan’s Aunt, Tony Cartalucci, April 22, 2013

In the Wake of the Boston Bombings: America’s War on Islam 2.0, Stephen Lendman, April 22, 2013

Chechen Terrorists and the Neocons, Coleen Rowley, April 22, 2013

Boston Bombers: Role of CIA in Chechen Terror, Kurt Nimmo, April 22, 2013

BOSTON TRUTH: The “Chechen Connection”, Al Qaeda and the Boston Marathon Bombings, Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 22, 2013

Boston Bombings Suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev “Has No Rights” and Should be Categorized as an “Enemy Combatant”, Patrick Henningsen, April 21, 2013

19 Year Old Student in Custody: President Obama has already delivered a Guilty Verdict to Suspected Boston Bomber, Patrick Henningsen, April 21, 2013

Boston Suspect Arrested Stripped Naked so WHEN was he shot and killed?, Global Research News, April 21, 2013

Boston Black Ops: Manufacturing Terror?, Stephen Lendman, April 21, 2013

Boston Bombing Suspects: It was a Set Up. They were Framed by the FBI, Global Research News, April 20, 2013

Boston Bombing Suspects Were on FBI Radar for Years, Tony Cartalucci, April 20, 2013

19 year Old Boy Suspect: Why does Boston Celebrate Martial Law with Chants of ‘USA, USA’?, Patrick Henningsen, April 20, 2013



The Latin Americanization of U.S. Police Forces

A Warning

Guatemala's "civil police"

Guatemala’s “civil police”

by COSME CAAL

Guatemala City.

[F]rom Guatemala City I have been keeping up with the events in Ferguson, Missouri and my heart goes out to those United States citizens who are actively resisting a brutal local police state. I sit awake at night and contemplate how one of the greatest nations in the world has become militarized and despotic. Impunity is now normalized in most police departments across the United States and in the minds of many Americans. I did not know I would live to see this phenomenon, yet, the more I peruse online news feeds, the more evident it is to me that Americans, especially minorities, are in great danger of militarized suppression as a matter of state policy.

From our experience in half a century in Latin America I can tell you that, once the human rights of a minority are compromised, it is only a matter of time before they are compromised for an entire nation. From that same experience I can tell you it will take decades before they can be regained. Militarized police forces take on a life of their down, at the expense of the society’s well-being. The social contract that gives the state the duty to organize police forces itself becomes obsolete, almost a joke. Citizens begin to obey agents of the state not out of respect or cooperation, but out of fear of those sworn to protect them. Eventually, the militarized power of the police reaches such magnitude that political leaders lose all ability to rein them in. We experienced this USA-backed militarized transformation of the police in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Chile, and Colombia. What the U.S. helped do to Latin America, it is now doing to itself.

Even when there will officers who want to adhere to the law, militarized policing organizations become an unstoppable and despotic force. The very ideologies that give them life become obsolete, as do all existing laws that protect citizens. Central American dictatorships backed and armed by the United States government in the 1970’s built police forces, outfitted them with military gear, and allowed them to brutalize and kill with impunity. The murder or incarceration of progressive democratic leaders who resisted this transformation was sanctioned by United States intelligence agencies.

I call out to white United States citizens, and those police officers that believe in democracy and the rule of law, to unite with racial minorities who are now being suppressed, and to resist the catastrophic militarization of police forces across the United States. For white Americans to think that their race makes them immune to police brutality is a mistake that cannot be afforded. Central American urban mestizo masses ignored the genocide of hundreds of thousands of indigenous peoples. They saw these massacres as not their problem. Today we all suffer militarized suppression. Racial division was our greatest weakness.

We must not shy away from the reality of a racialized United States of America. We must face our racial diversity, embrace its beauty, and unite as one democratic and leading nation. We are not divided at heart or by nature. Media pundits play with our emotions by telling divisive stories of racial conflict. Recently they have trained many white Americans to fear Central Americans who have courageously made it to our borders, escaping undeclared and unstoppable internal conflicts. These are murderous conflicts born out of the very militarization of Central American nation-states by the United States. In Guatemala alone more than 800,000 citizens have been murdered since the peace accords were signed in 1996, after a thirty-six year internal militarized conflict.

But militarized police are not the only problem. Since the 1980’s, government, from Washington D.C. to the states and cities, has been poisoned with inept and cynical politicians who play a racist card to keep Americans divided. And this is a necessary part of a militarized state equation. In fact, 21st century United States politics follows a developing path in place in much of Latin America for half a century. I call it the Latinamericanization of the United States. This path includes politicians selling society to the highest bidder, eradicating laws that protect civilians against poverty, disease, job insecurity, and police brutality.

In Guatemala, for example, politicians have no economic or politics training, or educational experience to hold powerful and influential government office. Social breakdown is such that the average citizen is in danger of death by warring gangs, extortion mafias, or the police. Politicians have carved out the legislative and executive branches in such a way that the military and the police state serves their safety, and that of their families and friends. The police also guard the great fortunes and economic interests. Everyone else must suffer insecurity, poverty, prison, and sometimes, random death. Protests are now officially terrorist acts. Meanwhile the United States continues to provide weapons and military training to these Guatemalan elites.

We can no longer argue that the United States is a country where civil liberties and human rights are protected. While an elite class remains immune to political and police corruption and militarization, this does not hold truth for the majority.

Part of my family escaped to the United States in the 1980’s. We escaped Guatemala’s poverty, racism, and a raging internal conflict, in hopes of a better life. Our story is not new; it is the same story told millions of times over in the last two centuries by earlier migrants. We ended up in Los Angeles, California. I was blessed with my mother’s support to educate myself while she toiled away in underpaid jobs. That did not matter to her. It did not matter to me. We Mayans have been toiling at staying alive for the last five centuries. We are the continuation of that struggle for survival.

I was taught to love the United States by my teachers, and to work hard to contribute to a nation that held so much promise. I did. With great effort and dedication I became a sociologist and historian. I wanted to understand the social fabric that sustains us as Americans and sustains me as a survivor of genocide.

Although pockmarked with racism, my experience in graduate school was one of support by white professors, fellow graduate students, and my beloved students. I learned to have hope in the white American society. I strove to teach my students to understand and take advantage of their privilege to help us make of the United States a better racial democracy.

But living in South Los Angeles in the last decade also revealed to me the parallels of militarized Latin America to many pockets of the United States, and it gave me front row seat to observe the fast militarization of police departments in the United States. African Americans and Latin@s are on lock down in that part of Los Angeles. LAPD will kill anyone in South LA with impunity. Their impunity is now part of the Californian political structure, just as in Latin America. No overseeing agency, citizen watchdog or Californian political coalition can realistically reform the LAPD. For decades people have been suffering. The LA riots of 1992 were an example of that suffering.

In the Rampart scandal police officers sworn to crack down on gangs became a murderous gang themselves. This is a familiar pattern seen across Latin America, where police forces were encouraged to take on tougher tactics to combat the products of mass poverty and severe inequality. Extortion mafias now have Guatemala and El Salvador societies on their knees. Their militarized police forces are riddled with corruption, ineptitude, and seemingly ubiquitous violence. Violence is everywhere. America seems to be heading this way.

Let us not think we will not experience this in the United States. The footage from Ferguson shows the frightening militarization of police officers, playing war against civil society. They will not stop. The governor of Missouri will not stop them. Perhaps he can’t.

I call out to all white Americans, to unite with suppressed minorities who are incarcerated daily, killed in the streets, and who hold little political power against these militarized police forces. It is in their utmost interest to understand that, just as in Latin America, when the white peoples, the mestizos of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, stood aside as indigenous peoples were massacred, subjugation for all is certain once militarized monsters awaken, learn to walk, and find their own developmental path.

Cosme Caal is a community activist and scholar from the Americas. His interests include political mobilization of Mayans in Guatemala and Los Angeles, and the Pachakutik indigenous political organization in the Andean region.

SOURCE: Counterpunch