Tag: Terrorism
And They Had Nothing to Do with 9/11
A big thank you to ProseBeforeHos for sending us the link to this amazing graph.
More facts, and sourcing, are on the site.
A Burning Question
Is it right to burn the Quran
Just because the First Amendment says you can?
And if in response Muslim fanatics
Pull some mean terrorist antics,
Should you consult your Bible for an exit plan?
Terror Trend? Christianist Church Killings, Like Islamicist Mosque Attacks, Could Lead to Increased Security at Church Doors
Screenshot of anti-Tiller webpage that provides the name, address and phone number of Dr. Tiller’s church
Two attacks in churches by right-wing Christianist terrorists in the last 10 months may not yet qualify as a trend, but there is an undeniable resonance between these attacks and the practice of right-wing Islamic terrorists to attack in mosques. The attacks also raise questions about the need for security at churches — or at least liberal churches — during Sunday morning services.
According to news reports yesterday, Scott Roeder, the suspected right-wing terrorist who killed Dr. George Tiller, one of only three providers of late-term abortions remaining in the United States, in Tiller’s church in Wichita, Kan., on Sunday, was obsessed with hatred for the U.S. government as he was opposed to abortion.
In the mid-1990s, Roeder went to prison for violating parole after he was convicted of possessing explosives, which were found after police stopped him for having an illegal license plate on his car that said, “sovereign private property.” Later, his wife left him and took full custody of their son because of his manias:
“The anti-tax stuff came first, and then it grew and grew. He became very antiabortion,” [Lindsey Roeder] told the Associated Press. “That’s all he cared about is antiabortion. ‘The church is this. God is this. Yadda yadda.’ “
CNN is reporting this morning that Roeder belonged to the Freeman militia movement.
Last July, right-wing terrorist Jim Adkisson opened fire during a children’s musical performance in a Unitarian Church in Knoxville, Tenn., killing two and injuring seven adults. An investigator’s report noted that Adkisson targeted the church “because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country’s hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets.”
Cheney Would be More at Home on al Qaeda’s Team
“And remember, one of al Qaeda’s goals — it’s not just to attack the United States. It’s to prove that we’re hypocrites, that we don’t live up to American principles. So when we use torture and abuse, we’re playing into one of their stated goals.”
RNC Pelosi/Pussy Galore Video: Fail
On the one hand, you can see why any comparison on the Republican National Committee’s part between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and James Bond character Pussy Galore would be just…yucky.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah): “I thought it was reprehensible, irresponsible and unpersuasive.”
After viewing an RNC video that juxtaposed the speaker with the James Bond
villainess, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told POLITICO Saturday:“I thought it was reprehensible, irresponsible and unpersuasive. If we’re going to regain the credibility of the American people, we’re going to have to stop with silly antics like that. It may get a snide chuckle inside the Beltway, but it offends most people. We have to get away from the politics of personal destruction,” he said of the video.
The RNC declined repeatedly to explain the Pelosi/Galore connection, saying only that the video was about the speaker’s “lack of leadership.”
On the other hand, the video itself is so lame that it’s hard to get too worked up. Showing Robert Gibbs looking good? O.K. Showing Leon Panetta giving a blanket defense of the CIA without any clue what happened six years before he came on board? O.K. Showing Nancy Pelosi getting lost in her notes? Whoo. Now I get it! She’s just like Pussy Galore.
I suggest whoever came up with this video take it down and try again. This time, show some evidence the CIA briefed Pelosi specifically on waterboarding. Then we’ll pay attention.
Obama: Cheney Cabal Believes U.S. Legal System ‘Not Up to the Task’ of Dealing with Terrorism
From Pres. Obama’s interview on “60 Minutes” last Sunday:
“The whole premise of Guantanamo promoted by Vice President Cheney was that somehow the American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists.”
– Pres. Obama
– Pres. Obama
STEVE KROFT: A week ago Vice President Cheney said essentially that your willingness to shut down Guantanamo and to change the way prisoners are treated and interrogator — interrogated — was making America weaker and more vulnerable to another attack. And that — the interrogation techniques that were used at Guantanamo were essential in preventing another attack against the United States.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I fundamentally disagree with Dick Cheney. Not surprisingly. You know, I think that Vice President Cheney has been at the head of a movement whose notion is somehow that we can’t reconcile our core values, our Constitution, our belief that we don’t torture, with our national security interests. I think he’s drawing the wrong lesson from history.
The facts don’t bear him out. I think he is — that attitude, that philosophy has done incredible damage — to our image and position in the world. I mean, the fact of the matter is after all these years how many convictions actually came out of Guantanamo? How many — how many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn’t made us safer. What it has been is a great advertisement for anti-American sentiment. Which means that there is constant effective recruitment of Arab fighters and Muslim fighters against U.S. interests all around the world.
STEVE KROFT:
Some of it being organized by a few people who were released from Guantanamo.
PRESIDENT OBAMA:
Well there is no doubt that we have not done a particularly effective job in sorting through who are truly dangerous individuals that we’ve got to make sure are not a threat to us, who are folks that we just swept up. The whole premise of Guantanamo promoted by Vice President Cheney was that somehow the American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists.
I fundamentally disagree with that. Now, do these folks deserve Miranda rights? Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter down the block? Of course not.
STEVE KROFT:
What do you do with those people?
PRESIDENT OBAMA:
Well, I think we’re going to have to figure out a mechanism to make sure that they not released and do us harm. But– do so in a way that is consistent with both our traditions, sense of due process, international law. But this is — this is the legacy that’s been left behind. And, you know, I’m surprised that the Vice President is eager to defend a legacy that was unsustainable let’s assume that we didn’t change these practices. How — how long are we going to go? Are we going to just keep on going until, you know, the entire Muslim world and Arab world despises us? Do we think that’s really going to make us safer? I — I don’t know a lot of thoughtful thinkers, liberal or conservative, who think that that was the right approach.
At Last, a Political Use for Pink Underwear
There’s a great campaign going on in India against a very, very bad campaign. It takes as its symbol the pink “chaddi,” or “underwear” in several Indian languages, and seeks to fight the Taliban-style oppression by both Hindus and Muslims that leads to things like the recent Mumbai massacre. Sourahb Mishra explains.
Right-wing Hindu organizations have, over the last few years, taken on the role of moral authority, policing against what they perceive to be activities going against the grain of Indian and Hindu culture. This moral policing often takes on the form of vigilantism, which is a sure-fire recipe for media coverage. They typically target young couples in parks and beaches, and the smaller shops selling Valentine’s Day-related merchandise. They physically intimidate these soft-target victims, usually after giving sufficient notice to the press and TV channels, to ensure that the cameras are there to put them in the news.
The latest such incident took place on Jan. 24. Hooligans claiming to be from a little known right-wing Hindu outfit called Shri Ram Sena attacked a pub in the coastal city of Mangalore and mercilessly beat up the young men and women spending a Saturday afternoon there.
Enter the Pink Chaddis, via Facebook.
A bunch of agitated people, mainly women, created a group called “A Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women” and launched the “pink chaddi campaign,” which exhorts everyone to send the Ram Sena a pink chaddi on Valentine’s Day, “because chaddis are forever.”
The Pink Chaddis plan to do more than mail as many pairs of pink underwear as they can to the Sri Ram Sena on Valentine’s Day, although that holiday is when they’ve chosen to fire the first shot.
On Valentine’s Day we do a Pub Bharo action. Go to a pub wherever you are. From Kabul to Chennai to Guwahati to Singapore to LA women have signed up. It does not matter if you are actually not a pub-goer or not even much of a drinker. Let us raise a toast (it can be juice) to Indian women. Take a photo or video. We will put it together…and send this as well to the Sri Ram Sena.
And after that?
After Valentine’s Day we should get some of our elected leaders to agree that beating up women is ummm…AGAINST INDIAN CULTURE.
I hear you, sista.
Gonzales: Torture, Waterboarding, Attorney Firings Were “Little Negatives”
Oh man. I see why no one wants to give former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a job. His memory, missing in action during his testimony to Congress on Justice Department malfeasance, is back. And the way he remembers it, he did a heckuva job. In an interview with CNN’s Campbell Brown, Gonzales was just amazing.
- His overall record at Justice: “I hope history will reflect the fact that during my tenure both at the White House and at the Department of Justice we did a tremendous job in protecting our country and also as attorney general we focused on protecting our kids from sexual predators, we focused on making our neighborhoods safe from guns and drugs…so many people are focused on the little negatives that occurred.”
- Firing attorneys because of party affiliation: “I’ve already testified, as I’ve indicated before and spoken to the American public about wishing that I had done things differently with respect to the removal of the U.S. attorneys. But I think you need to look at the overall record of the department during my tenure and the good things that we accomplished.”
- Lobbying Attorney General John Ashcroft in the hospital, hours after major surgery, to O.K. illegal wiretapping: “Andy Card and I were sent on behalf of the president of the United States to talk to General Ashcroft. It was an announced visit. We were sent there on behalf of the president to inform the attorney general of a very important meeting that we had just had at the White House with congressional leadership about probably the most important intelligence collection program for the United States government.”
- Approving waterboarding and other forms of torture: “Clearly there is no disagreement about the principle of not torturing. That is something that President Bush announced that his administration would follow that principle, which we tried to do. The issue of coercive interrogation to gather information from dangerous crim– dangerous terrorists to help protect our country is one that we clearly wrestled with.”
- His future prospects: “I can understand in a very tough economy, some employers are going to be very hesitant about bringing someone like me on when you have ongoing investigation…I am anxious to move on to the next phase of my life. I feel like I still have a lot to contribute to our community and to our country and I want to do so.”
How’s about you don’t, Alberto, and we just say you did?
Republicans Have Hijacked the Stimulus Message
Joan Walsh at Salon says Republicans are winning the media war over the economic stimulus package.
This had merely been a stupid GOP talking point until 10 minutes ago; now it’s becoming a stupid media talking point. Funny how that works.
…the stimulus fight is tougher than it should be for Democrats. Clearly the best ally the Republicans have is the economic illiteracy of the pundit class in America. I’m watching NBC’s Chuck Todd say the Democrats have lost the “message war” over the stimulus, because it’s now just seen as a “spending bill.” There’s no way for a stimulus bill not to be a spending bill…This had merely been a stupid GOP talking point until 10 minutes ago; now it’s becoming a stupid media talking point. Funny how that works.
Walsh says timing is bad for Democrats, with the failures of the TARP bailout all over the news. The question is, why isn’t this bad for the Republicans? That bill was passed under Bush and managed by his Republican administration. It was their idea to take away taxpayer oversight of how the funds were distributed.
It’s not good that we’re debating how to spend the second “tranche” of the awful TARP program at the same time as we’re having the stimulus debate; I think the inequities and inefficiencies of TARP are smogging the atmosphere for the as-yet-unfinished stimulus bill. We all heard about a desperately needed $700 billion bailout bill a few months ago — it rewarded bad behavior and, worst of all, it didn’t work. So why should Americans be any more optimistic about the separate (and it’s hard to keep straight that it is separate) stimulus bill Obama has championed?
Walsh offers a good suggestion on how to salvage the media battle and get the right message to the citizenry.
…Obama and the Democrats need to break three or four categories of spending out of the bill, and crusade for them daily, in real-life, real-job, real-money terms. This mess is complicated, and I’m not suggesting that Obama demagogue or exaggerate, but what the plan will accomplish is getting lost in debate over tax cuts and tax credits, shovel-ready vs. forward-looking projects, and confusion over the stimulative role of direct grants to the states. There is so much confusion and ignorance at work here, only some of it willful. Obama has an enormous educational and not merely political task in front of him this week, and he can’t expect much help from most of the media.
