Source: BreitBart

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Syed Fahad Hashmi can tell you about the dark heart of America. He knows that our First Amendment rights have become a joke, that habeas corpus no longer exists and that we torture, not only in black sites such as those at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan or at Guantánamo Bay, but also at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Lower Manhattan. Hashmi is a U.S. citizen of Muslim descent imprisoned on two counts of providing and conspiring to provide material support and two counts of making and conspiring to make a contribution of goods or services to al-Qaida. As his case prepares for trial, his plight illustrates that the gravest threat we face is not from Islamic extremists, but the codification of draconian procedures that deny Americans basic civil liberties and due process. Hashmi would be a better person to tell you this, but he is not allowed to speak.

This corruption of our legal system, if history is any guide, will not be reserved by the state for suspected terrorists, or even Muslim Americans. In the coming turmoil and economic collapse, it will be used to silence all who are branded as disruptive or subversive. Hashmi endures what many others, who are not Muslim, will endure later. Radical activists in the environmental, globalization, anti-nuclear, sustainable agriculture and anarchist movements–who are already being placed by the state in special detention facilities with Muslims charged with terrorism–have discovered that his fate is their fate. Courageous groups have organized protests, including vigils outside the Manhattan detention facility. They can be found at www.educatorsforcivilliberties.org or www.freefahad.com. On Martin Luther King Day, this Jan. 18 at 6 p.m. EST, protesters will hold a large vigil in front of the MCC on 150 Park Row in Lower Manhattan to call for a return of our constitutional rights. Join them if you can.

The case against Hashmi, like most of the terrorist cases launched by the Bush administration, is appallingly weak and built on flimsy circumstantial evidence. This may be the reason the state has set up parallel legal and penal codes to railroad those it charges with links to terrorism. If it were a matter of evidence, activists like Hashmi, who is accused of facilitating the delivery of socks to al-Qaida, would probably never be brought to trial.

Hashmi, who if convicted could face up to 70 years in prison, has been held in solitary confinement for more than 2½ years. Special administrative measures, known as SAMs, have been imposed by the attorney general to prevent or severely restrict communication with other prisoners, attorneys, family, the media and people outside the jail. He also is denied access to the news and other reading material. Hashmi is not allowed to attend group prayer. He is subject to 24-hour electronic monitoring and 23-hour lockdown. He must shower and go to the bathroom on camera. He can write one letter a week to a single member of his family, but he cannot use more than three pieces of paper. He has no access to fresh air and must take his one hour of daily recreation in a cage. His “proclivity for violence” is cited as the reason for these measures although he has never been charged or convicted with committing an act of violence.

“My brother was an activist,” Hashmi’s brother, Faisal, told me by phone from his home in Queens. “He spoke out on Muslim issues, especially those dealing with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His arrest and torture have nothing to do with providing ponchos and socks to al-Qaida, as has been charged, but the manipulation of the law to suppress activists and scare the Muslim American community. My brother is an example. His treatment is meant to show Muslims what will happen to them if they speak about the plight of Muslims. We have lost every single motion to preserve my brother’s humanity and remove the special administrative measures. These measures are designed solely to break the psyche of prisoners and terrorize the Muslim community. These measures exemplify the malice towards Muslims at home and the malice towards the millions of Muslims who are considered as non-humans in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The extreme sensory deprivation used on Hashmi is a form of psychological torture, far more effective in breaking and disorienting detainees. It is torture as science. In Germany, the Gestapo broke bones while its successor, the communist East German Stasi, broke souls. We are like the Stasi. We have refined the art of psychological disintegration and drag bewildered suspects into secretive courts when they no longer have the mental and psychological capability to defend themselves.

“Hashmi’s right to a fair trial has been abridged,” said Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Much of the evidence in the case has been classified under CIPA, and thus Hashmi has not been allowed to review it. The prosecution only recently turned over a significant portion of evidence to the defense. Hashmi may not communicate with the news media, either directly or through his attorneys. The conditions of his detention have impacted his mental state and ability to participate in his own defense.

“The prosecution’s case against Hashmi, an outspoken activist within the Muslim community, abridges his First Amendment rights and threatens the First Amendment rights of others,” Ratner added. “While Hashmi’s political and religious beliefs, speech and associations are constitutionally protected, the government has been given wide latitude by the court to use them as evidence of his frame of mind and, by extension, intent. The material support charges against him depend on criminalization of association. This could have a chilling effect on the First Amendment rights of others, particularly in activist and Muslim communities.”

Constitutionally protected statements, beliefs and associations can now become a crime. Dissidents, even those who break no laws, can be stripped of their rights and imprisoned without due process. It is the legal equivalent of preemptive war. The state can detain and prosecute people not for what they have done, or even for what they are planning to do, but for holding religious or political beliefs that the state deems seditious. The first of those targeted have been observant Muslims, but they will not be the last.

“Most of the evidence is classified,” Jeanne Theoharis, an associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College who taught Hashmi, told me, “but Hashmi is not allowed to see it. He is an American citizen. But in America you can now go to trial and all the evidence collected against you cannot be reviewed. You can spend 2½ years in solitary confinement before you are convicted of anything. There has been attention paid to extraordinary rendition, Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib with this false idea that if people are tried in the United States things will be fair. But what allowed Guantánamo to happen was the devolution of the rule of law here at home, and this is not only happening to Hashmi.”

Hashmi was, like so many of those arrested during the Bush years, briefly a poster child in the “war on terror.” He was apprehended in Britain on June 6, 2006, on a U.S. warrant. His arrest was the top story on the CBS and NBC nightly news programs, which used graphics that read “Terror Trail” and “Web of Terror.” He was held for 11 months at Belmarsh Prison in London and then became the first U.S. citizen to be extradited by Britain. The year before his arrest, Hashmi, a graduate of Brooklyn College, had completed his master’s degree in international relations at London Metropolitan University. His case has no more substance than the one against the seven men arrested on suspicion of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower, a case where, even though there were five convictions after two mistrials, an FBI deputy director acknowledged that the plan was more “aspirational rather than operational.” And it mirrors the older case of the Palestinian activist Sami Al-Arian, now under house arrest in Virginia, who has been hounded by the Justice Department although he should legally have been freed. Judge Leonie Brinkema, currently handling the Al-Arian case, in early March, questioned the U.S. attorney’s actions in Al-Arian’s plea agreement saying curtly: “I think there’s something more important here, and that’s the integrity of the Justice Department.”

The case against Hashmi revolves around the testimony of Junaid Babar, also an American citizen. Babar, in early 2004, stayed with Hashmi at his London apartment for two weeks. In his luggage, the government alleges, Babar had raincoats, ponchos and waterproof socks, which Babar later delivered to a member of al-Qaida in south Waziristan, Pakistan. It was alleged that Hashmi allowed Babar to use his cell phone to call conspirators in other terror plots.

“Hashmi grew up here, was well known here, was very outspoken, very charismatic and very political,” said Theoharis. “This is really a message being sent to American Muslims about the cost of being politically active. It is not about delivering alleged socks and ponchos and rain gear. Do you think al-Qaida can’t get socks and ponchos in Pakistan? The government is planning to introduce tapes of Hashmi’s political talks while he was at Brooklyn College at the trial. Why are we willing to let this happen? Is it because they are Muslims, and we think it will not affect us? People who care about First Amendment rights should be terrified. This is one of the crucial civil rights issues of our time. We ignore this at our own peril.”

Babar, who was arrested in 2004 and has pleaded guilty to five counts of material support for al-Qaida, also faces up to 70 years in prison. But he has agreed to serve as a government witness and has already testified for the government in terror trials in Britain and Canada. Babar will receive a reduced sentence for his services, and many speculate he will be set free after the Hashmi trial. Since there is very little evidence to link Hashmi to terrorist activity, the government will rely on Babar to prove intent. This intent will revolve around alleged conversations and statements Hashmi made in Babar’s presence. Hashmi, who was a member of the New York political group Al Muhajiroun as a student at Brooklyn College, has made provocative statements, including calling America “the biggest terrorist in the world,” but Al Muhajiroun is not defined by the government as a terrorist organization. Membership in the group is not illegal. And our complicity in acts of state terror is a historical fact.

There will be more Hashmis, and the Justice Department, planning for future detentions, set up in 2006 a segregated facility, the Communication Management Unit, at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. Nearly all the inmates transferred to Terre Haute are Muslims. A second facility has been set up at Marion, Ill., where the inmates again are mostly Muslim but also include a sprinkling of animal rights and environmental activists, among them Daniel McGowan, who was charged with two arsons at logging operations in Oregon. His sentence was given “terrorism enhancements” under the Patriot Act. Amnesty International has called the Marion prison facility “inhumane.” All calls and mail–although communication customarily is off-limits to prison officials–are monitored in these two Communication Management Units. Communication among prisoners is required to be only in English. The highest-level terrorists are housed at the Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, known as Supermax, in Florence, Colo., where prisoners have almost no human interaction, physical exercise or mental stimulation, replicating the conditions for most of those held at Guantánamo. If detainees are transferred from Guantánamo to the prison in Thomson, Ill., they will find little change. They will endure Guantánamo-like conditions in colder weather.

Our descent is the familiar disease of decaying empires. The tyranny we impose on others we finally impose on ourselves. The influx of non-Muslim American activists into these facilities is another ominous development. It presages the continued dismantling of the rule of law, the widening of a system where prisoners are psychologically broken by sensory deprivation, extreme isolation and secretive kangaroo courts where suspects are sentenced on rumors and innuendo and denied the right to view the evidence against them. Dissent is no longer the duty of the engaged citizen but is becoming an act of terrorism.

Chris Hedges, whose column is published on Truthdig every Monday, spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. He has written nine books, including “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” (2009) and “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” (2003).

Source: Truthdig and Chris Hedges

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Yes, Yemen has oil.

The Middle Eastern nation – in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, bordering the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Red Sea – has been exporting a couple of billion dollars worth of crude oil per year.

But it’s oil supplies are shrinking rapidly, and may be totally depleted within 10 years.

As the Yemen Observer notes:

Yemeni crude oil exports decreased to $1.5 billion during the fiscal period from January –October of 2009, compared with $4.2 billion during the same period of 2008, a decrease of $2.7 billion, the Central Bank of Yemen reported.

And the World Tribune points out:

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said Yemen was rapidly losing its crude oil reserves.

In a report, Carnegie said Yemeni oil exports, a key source of foreign currency, declined from 450,000 barrels per day in 2003 to 280,000 in early 2009, Middle East Newsline reported.

“Barring any major new discoveries, energy experts generously estimate that Yemen’s oil exports will cease in 10 years,” the report, titled “Yemen: Avoiding a Downward Spiral,” said.

Source: Washington’s Blog

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CNN Airs Eyewitness Testimony that ‘Well-Dressed’ Indian accomplice helped Abdulmutallab board without passport and that man on plane filmed entire flight and bombing attempt

Aaron Dykes
Infowars
December 29, 2009

Evidence is emerging that clearly indicates Abdulmutallab was more than just a Nigerian extremist carrying out his anger through an ill-conceived plot to ignite a powdery explosive substance on-board a flight to the United States. Eyewitness testimony pointing to a man helping the accused terrorist board without a passport, along with an unusual cameraman documenting the attempted attack on board the plane raise more than red flags– they point towards an intelligence operation, run as a drill, meant to conjure up public support for a number of fronts in the continuing ‘War on Terror.’

CNN interviewed key flight witnesses during their Dec. 28 program who raised these very points, making clear that the full story is still emerging and that wider-connections to

THE SHARP-DRESSED MAN

Kurt Haskell and his wife, who were witnesses on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 saw Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab receiving assistance from a well-dressed, wealthy-looking Indian man at the boarding gate in Amsterdam. Haskell told CNN that the accused bomber appeared strikingly ‘poor’ next to the well-dressed man. According to Haskell, that man did the talking for him, explaining to the flight personnel at the gate that Abdulmutallab needed to board without a passport, claiming that he was a Sudanese refugee. Haskell told CNN:
“Laurie and I were sitting near the boarding gate, sitting on the floor, there weren’t any seats to sit in. And I saw two men. They caught my eye because they seemed to be an odd pair. One was what I would describe as a poor-looking black teenager around 16 or 17, and the other man, age 50-ish, wealthy looking Indian man. And I was just wondering why they were together– kinda strange. And I watched them approach what I would call the ticket agent, the final person that checks your boarding pass before you get on the plane. And I could hear the entire conversation. The only person that spoke was the Indian man, and what he said was: ‘This man needs to board the plane, but he doesn’t have a passport.’ And the ticket agent responded, ‘Well, if he doesn’t have a passport, he can’t get on the plane.’ To which the Indian man responded back, ‘He’s from Sudan. We do this all the time.’ And the ticket agent said, ‘Well, then you’ll have to go and talk to my manager.’ And she directed them down a hallway. And that was the last time I saw the Indian man, and the black man I didn’t see again until he tried to blow up our plane hours later.”
The gate attendee referred the odd-couple to the manager. Haskell said that was the last he saw of the wealthy man, but later recognized Abdulmutallab after the incident occurred on the plane. That’s when he says he put two and two together about the unusual connection.
His wife, Laurie, said she found it ‘odd’ that authorities have not yet followed up on their witness account, as they were the only ones known to have witnessed Abdulmutallab with the ‘Indian’ man prior to boarding the flight.
THE CAMERAMAN
If he had help getting on the flight with no passport after having been reported to U.S. authorities by his own father, what is the true explanation for the man seen filming the entire flight? Another witness on board the flight, Richelle Keepman, said she noticed the mysterious cameraman at the beginning of the flight, believing the man might have been simply excited about a first flight, or etc. Later when the ‘bombing’ incident took place, she says the cameraman was the only one standing up, and intently filming the entire incident.
ADDULMUTALLAB AND THE WIDER WAR ON TERROR
Put this together with new focus on Yemen ‘in the fight against Al Qaeda’, including calls from Sen. Lieberman to pre-emptively attack, the media’s immediate hype of the event, and the ready-made Body Scanners and other ‘enhanced’ Airport security, it is clear that this is a contrived incident intentionally unleashed to goad renewed support for ever-expanding terrorism-related warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan and now Yemen.

Just like after 9/11, airport travelers are again prepared to accept greater violations of their liberties and privacy for supposed security. Yet patsies and watchlist-subjects alike have repeatedly been allowed to bypass security clearance and been proven to have ties to the intelligence community.
The latest accused ‘terrorist’ Abdulmutallab was very likely the fall-guy in a pattern-drill– handled by wealthy, mismatched associates, allowed to board without required credentials, and videotaped by a cameraman with an unknown connection. Was Abdulmutallab involved with these figures through a drill which ended with an intentionally-failed bombing meant to incite great fear of terrorism?

Continued at Infowars

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Did America slip into a semiliterate, polarized, pre-fascist state over the past decade or so, allowing greedy oligarchs and corporate elites to run the government? Two books I recently read offer reasonably persuasive evidence and arguments that the country did, and a third suggests that dictatorial mindsets could besiege Americans, with an assist from the Internet, if they don’t come to their more deliberative senses. Each of the books offers an informed diagnosis of the dangers that widespread ignorance and ideological polarization pose for American democracy, though none offers a comprehensive treatment for the malaise.

I read the three books in less than two weeks; friends ask how that was possible. The trick is to avoid not only Facebook and Twitter but also: celebrity news, cable news, Oprah, Jerry Springer, American Idol, The Swan, other reality-TV shows, professional wrestling, violent pornography, positive psychology and right-wing Christian fundamentalism.

The latter list includes some of the spectacularly mind-numbing American pursuits that Chris Hedges examines in Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. Hedges submits that while they mesmerized large portions of the American citizenry, CEOs being paid millions of dollars a year to run companies that feed on taxpayer money usurped our government — with the help of elected officials bought by campaign contributions and tens of thousands of corporate lobbyists who now write many of the nation’s laws.

“Those captivated by the cult of celebrity do not examine voting records or compare verbal claims with written and published facts and reports,” Hedges writes. “The reality of their world is whatever the latest cable news show, political leader, advertiser, or loan officer says is reality. The illiterate, semiliterate, and those who live as though they are illiterate are effectively cut off from the past. They live in an eternal present. They do not understand the predatory loan deals that drive them into foreclosure and bankruptcy. They cannot decipher the fine print on credit card agreements that plunge them into unmanageable debt. They repeat thought-terminating clichés and slogans. They seek refuge in familiar brands and labels. … Life is a state of permanent amnesia, a world in search of new forms of escapism and quick, sensual gratification.”

Of course, they did not get into this clueless state by themselves. They were manipulated by “agents, publicists, marketing departments, promoters, script writers, television and movie producers, advertisers, video technicians, photographers, bodyguards, wardrobe consultants, fitness trainers, pollsters, public announcers, and television news personalities who create the vast stage for illusion,” Hedges continues. “They are the puppet masters. … The techniques of theater have leeched into politics, religion, education, literature, news, commerce, warfare, and crime.”

I know those fools are out there — many millions of them. I might even be one. But what is absolutely maddening about this book is Hedges’ penchant for stating sweeping, generalized claims as absolutes. And yet this master of divinity turned New York Times war correspondent become sociological scholar often bolsters his summations with just enough research, statistical data and anecdotal evidence to make them plausible. The book takes readers to Madison Square Garden for an exegesis of professional wrestling; to the Adult Video News Expo in Las Vegas for lengthy interviews with porn actors and producers and an inflatable doll vendor; and to Claremont Graduate University in California for a seminar on positive psychology, which Hedges terms a “quack science” that “is to the corporate state what eugenics was for the Nazis.”

As a resident of Miami Beach, where the pornographic sensibility is a way of life, I wasn’t shocked to read that annual porn sales in the United States “are estimated at $10 billion or higher” or that DIRECTV distributes “more than 40 million streams of porn into American homes every month.” But I shuddered when Hedges documented not just a growing appetite for violent forms of porn in America but their remarkable visual similarity to photos of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. “Porn reflects the endemic cruelty of our society,” he writes. “The violence, cruelty, and degradation of porn are expressions of a society that has lost the capacity for empathy. … The Abu Ghraib images that were released, and the hundreds more disturbing images that remain classified, could be stills from porn films.”

Unfortunately, Empire of Illusion won’t enlighten or offend the large swaths of functionally illiterate Americans transfixed by smut, pro wrestling, reality TV or celebrity gossip, because those people won’t read the book. But this scholarly 193-page diatribe, which draws from a 100-author bibliography ranging from the late neo-Marxist Frankfurt School icon Theodor Adorno(The Culture Industry) to Princeton professor emeritus Sheldon Wolin (Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism), would surely madden many proud affiliates and alumni of America’s elite university system.

Hedges, who attended New England prep schools, Colgate and Harvard as a young man, and later taught at Princeton, Columbia and New York University, asserts in Chapter 3, “The Illusion of Wisdom,” that Harvard, Yale, Princeton and most elite schools “do only a mediocre job of teaching students to question and think.” Elite universities are in the business of producing “hordes of competent systems managers” not critical thinkers. Those statements strike me as generally accurate. But I’d expect some fierce academic blowback from this notion: “The elite universities disdain honest intellectual inquiry, which is by its nature distrustful of authority, fiercely independent, and often subversive.” And Hedges suggests that these high-end schools “refuse to question a self-justifying system” in which “organization, technology, self-advancement, and information systems are the only things that matter.”

Hedges not only blames the elite universities for our mortgage-fueled financial crisis but is sure their alumni on Wall Street and in Washington have no capacity to really fix the economic system. “Indeed, they’ll make it worse,” he predicts, exchanging his reportorial register for the absolutist. “They have no concept, thanks to the educations they have received, of how to replace a failed system with a new one.” (He includes George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Obama’s “degree-laden” cabinet members in this group.)

If Hedges knows how to fix the system, he doesn’t tell us inEmpire of Illusion. I hope that’ll be the subject of his next book, because in the meantime, “powerful corporate entities, fearful of losing their influence and wealth” are waiting for “a national crisis that will allow them, in the name of national security and moral renewal, to take complete control,” he warns, without citing verifiable evidence for his dire prediction.

What if PBS, Fox and YouTube organized a national debate featuring Chris Hedges, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, his predecessor Hank Paulson, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Christian Coalition president Roberta Combs and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid? That panel is a little far-fetched, but it’s the sort of cross-ideological forum that Cass Sunsteinprescribes in Republic.com 2.0 as a way of preventing the nation from sliding into factional, perhaps even violent strife.

Sunstein is a law professor, author and perennial all-star in the world of public intellectuals; he took leave from Harvard Law School to be administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget. “The American constitutional order was designed to create a republic, as opposed to a monarch or direct democracy,” he writes. “Representatives would be accountable to the public at large. But there was also supposed to be a large degree of reflection and debate, both within the citizenry and within government itself.”

Of course, the Founding Fathers knew public debate could get ugly. Sunstein notes Alexander Hamilton’s belief that the “jarring of parties” was a good thing because it would engender deliberation and, over time, a “republic of reasons.”

Are we one today? Not as much as we could be, Sunstein thinks. His fundamental concern in Republic.com 2.0 is the Internet’s potential for impeding deliberation between groups with opposing viewpoints, eventually increasing ideological rigidity and polarization to a point of no return. It’s vastly easier to join like-minded Internet “enclaves” across the world than to drive across town for a meeting in which someone might challenge one’s pre-established beliefs and positions. Sunstein walks readers through behavioral studies finding that when groups of like-minded individuals are isolated from different viewpoints, they tend toward consensus on the most extreme position held within the group.

At worst, Sunstein says, Internet-induced polarization could lead to social instability. “The danger is that through the mechanisms of persuasive arguments, social comparisons, and corroboration, members will move to positions that lack merit,” he writes. “It is impossible to say, in the abstract, that those who sort themselves into enclaves will generally move in a direction that is desirable for society at large or even for its own members. It is easy to think of examples to the contrary, as, for example, Nazism, hate groups, terrorists, and cults of various sorts.”

Clearly, the Internet has potential to create political good. Citizens have access to vast amounts of information and commentary. Even like-minded enclave proliferation can be good: The more there are, the greater the potential for inter-enclave discussion.

But a study of 1,400 liberal and conservative blogs found the vast majority of bloggers link only to like-minded blogs. Worse, another study showed that when “liberal” bloggers comment on “conservative” blog posts, and vice-versa, a plurality of comments simply cast contempt on opposing views. “Only a quarter of cross-ideological posts involve genuine substantive discussion. In this way, real deliberation is often occurring within established points of view, but only infrequently across them,” Sunstein reports.

One cure for Internet-driven polarization lies with “general interest intermediaries.” By that terminology, Sunstein means media outlets like The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, current affairs magazines, PBS, NPR and old-fashioned network news broadcasts: “People who rely on such intermediaries have a range of chance encounters, involving shared experiences with diverse others, and also exposure to materials and topics that they did not seek out in advance.”

Of course, these are the media that are in decline because of the Internet. Sunstein imagines a greater role for private and public institutions, including the federal government, in ensuring enough general-interest intermediaries exist to make the republic’s communications system “a help rather than a hindrance to democratic self-government” and a counterbalance to the echo chambers of the Web.

For the most part, Thom Hartmann’s Threshold: Crisis of Western Civilization functions as a general-interest intermediary in book form. Still, readers can be forgiven for wondering, at times, whether they are in a no-conservatives zone. Hartmann is host of the Thom Hartmann Show, a nationally syndicated “progressive” radio talk show.

Just the same, Threshold is so geographically and temporally sprawling that it offers material even progressive readers might not have chosen in advance: a refugee camp in contemporary Darfur in southern Sudan (Lesson: Famine leads to war and more suffering.); ancient New Zealand, where the Maoris exterminated the moa birds, forcing them to become cannibals (Don’t repeat this mistake.); contemporary Denmark, where people happily send 30 to 60 percent of their income to the government in exchange for free health care, free university tuition, yearlong maternity leave, ample unemployment coverage and more (Americans should consider this.); Caral in ancient Peru, where anthropologists have found no evidence of weaponry (”Maybe peace is the natural state of things.”); the Iroquois people, who made certain decisions based on how they would affect tribe members seven generations hence. (If only the rest of us Americans would do that.)

In sum, Threshold is 262 pages of scientific and historical anecdote suggesting that unregulated markets, undemocratic behavior and unecological practices lead to catastrophe. If you haven’t already read a good overview of topsoil depletion, the marine fisheries crisis, rain forest destruction, the democratic behavior of red deer, the 1888 Supreme Court decision that defined corporations as “persons,” the $15 million that 30,000 corporate lobbyists spend weekly when Congress is in session, President Eisenhower’s premonition of a military-industrial complex with “unwarranted influence,” the 2004 computerized voting machines controversy, the $1 trillion in tax dollars the U.S. government spent on war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not on infrastructure and schools, and the subprime loan/toxic securities debacle — you can find one in Threshold. Hartmann’s common-sense remedies include “recovering a culture of democracy,” “balancing the power of men and women,” “reuniting with nature,” “creating an economy modeled on biology” and “influencing people by helping them rather than bombing them.” His book offers few specifics on how these ends might be accomplished in the real world.

So are we drifting along in a pre-fascist state? Has our democratic system really fallen under the control of corporate America? Hartmann’s take obviously starts and stays (far) to the left of center, and we’ll just have to stay tuned and see whether future events support the dire view he and Hedges have of America’s political direction. Meanwhile, I’ll be on the lookout for a persuasive book telling me how it isn’t exactly so, and why America can escape from the economic and ecological spectacle it has made itself.

Source: AlterNet

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Travelers harassed by intense airport security after Nigerian on terror list was allowed to attempt attack on Flight 253

A passenger who boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in Amsterdam with attempted plane bomber Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab says the would-be terrorist had no passport and was aided by a sharp-dressed man who claimed Mutallab was a Sudanese refugee, just one of a plethora of startling inconsistencies surrounding an incident that has led to ramped up security and increased levels of harassment in airports.

Every single fact that has come to light since the attempted bombing on Christmas Day directly indicates that the bomber was deliberately allowed to board the plane and that his attack would have succeeded if not for the alert and brave reactions of the passengers and flight crew.

According to Kurt Haskell, an attorney with the Haskell Law Firm in Taylor, Michigan, “He and his wife were sitting on the ground near their boarding gate in Amsterdam, which is when they saw Mutallab approach the gate with an unidentified man.”

Mutallab was a poorly dressed, young looking individual, but he was accompanied by a man in an expensive suit, Haskell told MLive.com.

“He says the suited man asked ticket agents whether Mutallab could board without a passport. “The guy said, ‘He’s from Sudan and we do this all the time.’”

Although Mutallab is Nigerian, Haskell said the well-dressed man portrayed him as a desperate Sudanese refugee in an attempt to elicit sympathy and as a way of bypassing his lack of documents.

“The ticket agent referred Mutallab and his companion to her manager down the hall, and Haskell didn’t see Mutallab again until after he allegedly tried to detonate an explosive on the plane,” states the report.

Crucially, Haskell said that after the plane landed he saw another man being taken into custody by the FBI along with Mutallab. However, the FBI later said that Mutallab was the only individual taken into custody.

Were the feds retrieving their own agent, the sharp dressed man who ensured that Mutallab boarded the plane despite his overwhelmingly suspicious circumstances?

Mutallab was a known security threat who was on the terror watch list. He is barred from entering Britain after being refused a new visa due to applying for a fake university course. Separate reports said that he did hold a valid visa, which begs the question, how can someone on a terror watch list be allowed to fly?

“On the one hand, it seems he’s been on the terror watch list but not on the no-fly list,” he said. “That doesn’t square because the American Department for Homeland Security has pretty stringent data-mining capability. I don’t understand how he had a valid visa if he was known on the terror watch list,” Dr Magnus Ranstorp of the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies told the London Independent.

It has also been revealed that Mutallab’s father contacted U.S. intelligence officials a month ago and warned them that his son was a threat, but nothing was done.

The bomber’s father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, was a a former minister and chairman of First Bank in Nigeria. The bomber does not fit the image of a disgruntled, rag-tag terrorist. His considerable wealth allowed him to live in luxury at an imposing London mansion.

As a result of the failed attack, new security directives have been introduced for anyone traveling into America. Intense body and hand-luggage searches and sniffer dogs have been beefed up at departure gates and passengers have been ordered not to stand during the final hour of the flight and are not allowed access to any of their hand luggage during the final hour.

However, if you’re a suspicious looking man on a terror watch list with no passport carrying explosives, you should breeze through security with no questions asked, just be sure to have a sharp-dressed man with you at all times.

Source: Prison Planet

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Conspiracy fever: As rumours swell that the government staged 7/7, victims’ relatives call for a proper inquiry

Own an Unregistered Firearm? You Must Be a Terrorist

The AR15 website posted this photo, taken at Fort Benning. The message is obvious — if you believe in the Second Amendment and the right to own and possess firearms, you are with al-Qaeda.

Source: Infowars

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Is Obama Really Preparing For Civil War?

DHS Video Portrays Average Americans As Terrorists

International treaty gives foreign troops identity of American gun owners

At least 22 people were feared dead and more than 55 injured on Friday night after several carriages of a train travelling from Moscow to St Petersburg derailed.

The cause of the accident was unclear but police were investigating the possibility of a terrorist attack.

The carriages came off the track as the train was en route between Russia’s two main cities on one of the country’s busiest rail links. A government spokesman said the accident to the Neva Express happened at 9.30pm (18.30 GMT) near the town of Bologoye, some 250 miles north-west of Moscow and 150 miles south-east of St Petersburg.

Four carriages came off the rails as the train was travelling between stations in Aleshinka in the region of Tver and Uglovka in Novgorod region, Russian Railways told Russia’s Interfax news agency.

Reports that a small crater was found at the site of the wreck led to speculation that the derailment could have been caused by a bomb. A bomb blast on the same line in 2007 derailed a passenger train and injured 27 people.

“A one-metre diameter hole has been found next to the railway track. Witnesses heard a loud slap before the accident. All of this could point to a possible act of terrorism,” Interfax news agency quoted a source in Moscow’s law enforcement agencies as saying.

Islamist militants have sporadically attacked targets outside the north Caucasus region where there are a number of simmering conflicts surrounding the former Soviet republic of Chechnya.

“There are injured,” the government spokesman said without giving further details. “Medics, rescue teams and police are working at the scene.” Emergency services said it was likely that bodies were buried under the wreckage.

No official statements were available as to what may have caused the accident but Interfax quoted a law enforcement source as saying terrorism could have played a part. Other Russian news agencies quoted transport officials as saying that issues with the supply of electricity may have been a factor.

The line between Russia’s capital and its second city is heavily travelled and trains are often crowded.

Source: London Telegraph

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1,600 are suggested daily for FBI’s list

Obama Every Bit as Bad as Bush/Cheney on Patriot Act

Big Brother: Secret State USA Monitors Protest, Represses Dissent

‘Three people are involved. That, by definition, means it is a conspiracy.’

• NYT: Major Hasan’s behavior in the months and weeks leading up to the shooting bespeaks a troubled man full of contradictions. He lived frugally in a run-down apartment, yet spent more than $1,100 on the pistol the authorities said he used in the shootings.
• CNN: Over one hundred shots were fired in the attack. (Logic dictates that ‘over one hundred shots’ were not fired by a single individual, surrounded by military personnel and special police forces.)
• CNN: FBI was investigating Major Nidal Hasan six months ago.
• Curiouser and Curiouser: -Video surfaces of alleged shooter, Major Nidal Hasan, attending Homeland Security Task Force conference –Major Hasan’s name appears on page 29 of The George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute’s ‘Thinking Anew—Security Priorities for the Next Administration‘ –Proceedings Report of the HSPI Presidential Transition Task Force – April 2008 – January 2009. The report is dated 19 May 2009.
• Numerous media accounts: Major Hasan’s neighbors, medical trainers, colleagues, friends, cousin, uncle, grandfather– even the store owner to where he bought his food — all heap praise on Major Hasan’s temperament. This appears to be psy-ops, six ways to Sunday. –LRP
• The alleged shooter received his medical degree from the military’s Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001 and is a graduate of Virginia Tech. Early on Thursday, he showed no signs of worry or stress when he stopped at 7-Eleven for his daily breakfast of hash browns, said Jeannie Strickland, the store’s manager. “He came in (Thursday) morning just like normal,” she said, “nothing weird, nothing out of the ordinary.”

Fort Hood Gunman Gave Signals Before His [Alleged[ Rampage 09 Nov 2009 Major Hasan’s behavior in the months and weeks leading up to the shooting bespeaks a troubled man full of contradictions. He lived frugally in a run-down apartment, yet made a good salary and spent more than $1,100 on the pistol the authorities said he used in the shootings. He was described as gentle and kindly by many neighbors, quick with a smile or a hello, yet he complained bitterly to people at his mosque about the oppression of Muslims in the Army... An uncle who lives in Ramallah said Major Hasan chose psychiatry over surgery after fainting while observing childbirth during his medical training. The uncle, Rafiq Hamad, described Major Hasan as a gentle, quiet, deeply sensitive man who once owned a bird that he fed by placing it in his mouth and allowing it to eat masticated food. When the bird died, Mr. Hamad said, Major Hasan “mourned for two or three months, dug a grave for it and visited it.”

Military not told about Ft. Hood suspect's e-mails 11 Nov 2009 Two high-profile anti-terrorism task forces did not inform the Defense Department about contacts between a radical Islamic cleric and the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in last week's rampage at Ft. Hood, a senior Defense official said Tuesday. The FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Forces investigated e-mails that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan sent over the last year to Anwar al Awlaki, an imam in Yemen who espouses a radical Islamist ideology and who has ties to militants. However, officials said, task force members concluded that the communications posed no threat and had been undertaken as part of Hasan's research on Muslims, the military and post-traumatic stress disorders.

Senior Official: More Hasan Ties to People Under Investigation by FBI --Alleged Shooter Had 'Unexplained Connections' to Others Besides Jihadist Cleric Awlaki 10 Nov 2009 A senior government official tells ABC News that investigators have found that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan had "more unexplained connections to people being tracked by the FBI" than just radical cleric Anwar al Awlaki. The official declined to name the individuals but Congressional sources said their names and countries of origin were likely to emerge soon. Questions already surround Major Hasan's contact with Awlaki, a radical cleric based in Yemen whom authorities consider a recruiter for al Qaeda [al-CIAduh].

FBI Agents Search Trash At Mosque Attended by Hasan –Agents Seen Pulling Material from Dumpster Outside Killeen Mosque 10 Nov 2009 FBI agents appeared to be carrying out a search warrant today at the Killeen, Texas mosque attended by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Islamic Community Center of Greater Killeen. Local police were called to cordon off the area and told ABC News they were acting on instructions from the FBI. Moments later, four agents, wearing blue gloves, began to search through a trash bin outside the mosque.

Ft. Hood: Official story full of holes By Gregory Patin 10 Nov 2009 The more information there is, the more inconsistencies that can be found. That does not make any topic a conspiracy theory, it just makes it what it is…questionable. A good example is what allegedly happened at Ft. Hood last week… A retired MP, Michael Martinez also said: “No way! That would be impossible. Even if he had two semi-auto pistols [according to reports he used a 9mm and a .357 revolver to gun down over 40 people] he would still have had to stop to reload and someone would have jumped his ass. Most people on base aren’t carrying [weapons], but MPs are and they would have been there in a heartbeat.” …Lori Price, writing for Citizens for Legitimate Government, did an excellent job of compiling articles from the media that came out in the early moments and the aftermath of the shootings.

Fort Hood Shooting Oddities…. By vii 10 Nov 2009 Folks, there are problems with the delivered Fort Hood Massacre scenario. You will not hear about them in the controlled press. You will hear about them in the alternative, internet media. Which is why the globalist cabal is seeking to censor it. All under the guise of “fighting hate”, of course…. (CLG item in telegraph.co.uk blog)

CLG Exclusive: Fort Hood: ‘This story stinks to high heaven.’ SFC, who spent ten years at Fort Hood, comments on Ft. Hood events 09 Nov 2009 I spent 10 years at Ft Hood. There is no way this ‘official’ story is legitimate. No way would a room full of combat vets allow this one shooter to get off over 100 rounds! And, it is not normal for the outside security guards to be there. They are at the MP station, and at the main gates. This means the room full of soldiers processing must have been pinned down; multiple shooters is the only plausible scenario. this sounds like MAJ Hasan has been used, and perhaps is a patsy. –SFC Donald Buswell (Retired)

Fort Hood suspect to be tried in military court 10 Nov 2009 The army psychiatrist suspected in the killing of 13 people in a shooting at the Fort Hood Army post will be charged in a military court, U.S. government officials said on Monday. The official said there is no indication that the accused gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, had been planning an attack.

FBI, military checked Hasan, saw no terror threat, officials say 10 Nov 2009 The FBI and the military investigated contacts between an Army psychiatrist accused of last week’s deadly shooting rampage at Fort Hood and a Yemen-based militant over the past year but concluded he didn’t pose a terrorist threat, senior law enforcement and military officials said Monday. The members of two Joint Terrorism Task Forces, including one in the nation’s capital, went so far as to contact Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s superiors and review his academic and military records for evidence of suspicious activity late last year and early this year, according to three senior U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials.

US Senate to probe whether base massacre was terrorism 10 Nov 2009 A Senate committee on homeland security will investigate the mass shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, to determine whether Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s deadly shooting rampage was an act of terrorism. The chairman of the Senate committee on homeland security, Joseph Lieberman [I-Israel], told Fox News Sunday there had been ‘’strong warning signs” that Major Hasan was an ”Islamist extremist”.

Lawyer asks investigators not to question Hasan 09 Nov 2009 A lawyer for the Army psychiatrist accused in a deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood said Monday he asked investigators not to question his client and expressed doubt that the suspect would be able to get a fair trial, given the widespread attention to the case. Retired Col. John P. Galligan said he was contacted Monday by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s family and was headed to an Army hospital in San Antonio to meet Hasan. “Until I meet with him, it’s best to say we’re just going to protect all of his rights,” Galligan said… Galligan questioned whether Hasan could get a fair trial in either criminal or military court, given President Barack Obama’s planned visit to the base on Tuesday and public comments by the post commander, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone.

U.S. Monitored Fort Hood Suspect Before Shooting 10 Nov 2009 Intelligence agencies intercepted communications last year and this year between Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who is accused of shooting to death 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., and a radical cleric in Yemen known for his incendiary anti-American teachings. But federal authorities dropped an inquiry into the matter after deciding that the messages warranted no further action, government officials said on Monday. Major Hasan’s exchanges with the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, once a spiritual leader at a mosque in suburban Virginia where Major Hasan worshipped, indicate that the authorities were aware of Major Hasan before last Thursday’s deadly rampage, but did nothing.

Hasan Computer Reveals No Terror Ties 09 Nov 2009 A preliminary review of the computer of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the accused shooter in Thursday’s rampage at Fort Hood in which 13 people were killed, has revealed no evidence of any connection to terror groups or conspirators, according to law enforcement officials. CBS News reports that an examination of the computer has revealed Hasan visited Web sites promoting radical Islamic views, but investigators have not found any e-mail communications with outside facilitators or known terrorists.

CIA Denies Report of Blocking Hasan Intel –Officials Tell CBS News Agency Isn’t Withholding Information on Suspected Fort Hood Shooter 09 Nov 2009 Responding to a report that the Army psychiatrist suspected in last week’s Fort Hood shootings had tried to contact people within al Qaeda – and that government intelligence agencies knew about it and are refusing to brief Congress on it – a U.S. intelligence official told CBS News that the CIA isn’t withholding information from Congress. “There’s no sign at this point that the CIA had collected information relevant to this case and then simply sat on it,” the official told CBS News. ABC News published the report Monday morning with details that the CIA was refusing to brief the congressional committees charged with overseeing the intelligence agencies, a senior lawmaker told ABC.

Officials: U.S. Aware of Hasan Efforts to Contact ‘al Qaeda’ –Army Major in Fort Hood Massacre Used ‘Electronic Means’ to Connect with Terrorists 09 Nov 2009 U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda [al-CIAduh], two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News. It is not known whether the intelligence agencies informed the Army that one of its officers was seeking to connect with suspected al Qaeda figures, the officials said.

Hoekstra to launch investigation into Fort Hood shooting, dubs it ‘homegrown jihadism’ 09 Nov 2009 A key Republican lawmaker on Monday asked that the Obama administration keep documents relevant to the Fort Hood shooting available so Congress can continue its investigation into what he called an incident of “homegrown jihadism.” Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Insane-Mich), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, sent a preservation order to the heads of the FBI, CIA, NSA and Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair directing them to keep the documents as part of his committee’s review of the attacks.

Soldier Found With 100 Pounds of C-4 Released From Jail –The ATF, FBI and Montgomery County Bomb Squad investigated the case, trying to determine whether the explosives came from Fort Campbell. 05 Nov 2009 An Army Special Forces soldier who admitted to police that he was stockpiling military-grade explosives outside his home near Fort Campbell was released from jail into the custody of his wife. U.S. Magistrate Judge Cliff Knowles gave the order releasing 25-year-old Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Ryan Richards during a detention hearing Thursday in federal court in Nashville. He was charged with possessing two unregistered automatic weapons but he has not yet entered a plea.

Soldier Arrested After C-4 Explosives, Unregistered Guns Found At Home –The explosives were found in crates. 02 Nov 2009 An Army Special Forces soldier has been arrested following the discovery of 100 pounds of explosives at his Tennessee home in Montgomery County. Timothy Ryan Richards appeared in federal court Monday in Nashville on charges of possessing two unregistered guns. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent Eric Kehn said he expects Richards will face more charges related to the discovery of the explosives… The house is located near the Fort Campbell, Ky., Army post where the solider is based.

Fort Hood shooting suspect conscious, talking, hospital says 09 Nov 2009 Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspect in last week’s mass shooting at the Fort Hood Army Post, is conscious and talking, according to a spokesman for the Army hospital where he is being treated. On Sunday, Hasan was listed in critical but stable condition and in intensive care at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.

Fort Hood shooting suspect’s ties to mosque investigated –The FBI and Army are looking into whether Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had an association with militants at the Virginia mosque where two 9/11 ‘hijackers’ prayed, a source says. 09 Nov 2009 The FBI and the Army on Sunday were investigating whether the military psychiatrist suspected in the Ft. Hood shooting rampage had an association with militants at a mosque in Virginia or in cyberspace. A senior federal law enforcement official said there was no immediate evidence of such a link, nor of any direct connection between the suspected gunman, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, and terrorist groups or individuals, either in person or online.

Are you ready? Wait for it… it’s good: Fort Hood shooting: Texas army killer linked to September 11 terrorists –Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a “spiritual adviser” to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001. 07 Nov 2009 Hasan, the sole suspect in the ['Manchurian Candidate'-style] massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother’s funeral was held there in May that year. The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

Report: Suspected Fort Hood shooter prayed at same mosque as 9/11 terrorists 08 Nov 2009 Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist accused of shooting dead 13 people and wounding 30 others in Fort Hood, Texas, prayed at the same mosque as two of the September 11 terrorists, according to a report published in the Sunday Telegraph. Hasan attended the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001, at the same time as the two terrorists, and the FBI may investigate whether Hasan met them, the Telegraph reported.

U.S. Army gunman’s act “impossible” – grandfather 07 Nov 2009 The grandfather of a U.S. Army psychiatrist accused of shooting dead 13 people and wounding 30 others at a base in Texas said on Saturday he found it impossible to believe his grandson had committed the act. “He is a doctor and loves the U.S.” Ismail Mustafa Hamad told Reuters in an interview at his home in the Palestinian town of al-Bireh. “America made him what he is.”

Army: Shooting Suspect Taken Off Ventilator –Army officials: Hasan is ‘not able to converse.’ 07 Nov 2009 A U.S. Army spokesman says the man authorities say went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood has been taken off a ventilator but still remains in intensive care at a military hospital. Spokesman Col. John Rossi told reporters on Saturday at Fort Hood that he is not sure if Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is able to communicate. Hasan was shot during an exchange of gunfire during Thursday’s attack. The military moved him on Friday to Brooke Medical Center in San Antonio, about 150 miles southwest of Fort Hood. Army officials have said Hasan is “not able to converse.”

Nidal Malik Hasan, Suspected Fort Hood Shooter, Was Called “Camel Jockey” –Fort Hood Shooting Suspect Harassed By Others In Military and Wanted Out, Family Said 06 Nov 2009 Fort Hood shooting suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, wanted out of the Army after being constantly harassed by others in the military and was called a “camel jockey,” his family said. As Hasan was about to be deployed to IraqAfghanistan, he was suffering from some of the same stresses that he was trained as an Army psychiatrist to treat. Although the 39-year-old had just been promoted to major in May, his family says he had hired a lawyer to help him get out of the Armed Forces.

Second Gunman In Custody At Army’s Fort Hood -Report 06 Nov 2009 A second gunman is in custody after a shooting at the Army’s Fort Hood in Texas in which at least seven people were killed and 12 wounded, reports KCEN-TV of Waco. The report comes about two hours after a first suspect was captured, shortly after gunfire broke out. Authorities say the gunmen were dressed in fatigues, though it’s not confirmed whether they are military personnel. It’s also not known if the victims were military personnel or civilians.

• Video: Alleged Fort Hood Shooter Major Hasan At Homeland Security Task Force conference –Hasan’s name, as Task Force member, appears on page 29 of The George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute’s ‘Thinking Anew—Security Priorities for the Next Administration
• White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said earlier that officials were monitoring the incident in the Situation Room. The Department of Homeland Security said it was in the process of obtaining information.
• Alleged shooter is alive, in stable condition –General Bob Cone:
• Terror attack ‘not ruled out’
• The alleged shooter graduated from Virginia Tech –His cousin, Nader Hasan, actually laughed in an interview when asked if alleged shooter, Nadal Hasan, was ‘violent.’ He never went to Iraq.
• Attack appears to have been carried out by multiple shooters. Two suspects are no longer in custody, but a third person has been picked up for questioned.
• Sources say Army shooting suspect was due to be deployed to Iraq
• 42 people shot by Army psychiatrist, promoted to Army Major in May. 12 killed; 30 wounded –US Official: Shooter was Major Malik Nadal Hasan
• ‘The individuals arrested are all US soldiers.’

Surviving Fort Hood shooting suspect arrested at golf course, officer says Updated 2334 GMT 05 Nov 2009 A senior officer who was playing golf Thursday near Fort Hood, Texas, told CNN he witnessed the arrest of one of the two surviving suspects of the shooting at the Army installation. Shortly after the shooting, the officer said, military police told him to clear the course and he saw other MPs surround the building that held the golf carts, he said. The senior officer said he ducked into a nearby house for cover as 30 to 40 cars carrying MPs approached. He said he saw a soldier in battle-dress uniform, his hands in the air. The MPs ordered him to lie on the ground and open his uniform, presumably to ensure he was not carrying explosives, the senior officer said. He said an MP told him that authorities considered the man to be a suspect in the shootings after having overheard the man say he was with the shooter. The man was surrounded for 25 to 30 minutes, until a convoy of vehicles arrived, led by a Ford Crown Victoria and carrying men in suits, and he was taken away, the senior officer said.

Fort Hood gunman [allegedly] shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he opened fire –Army psychiatrist remains on ventilator after rampage that killed 13 people and wounded 28 06 Nov 2009 A US army psychiatrist about to be deployed to Afghanistan allegedly shouted “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is greatest”, as he opened fire at a military base in Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 28. The gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, shouted the Arabic phrase just before he began his shooting spree at Fort Hood military installation yesterday, according to the base commander, Lieutenant General Robert Cone.

Details emerge about Fort Hood suspect’s history 06 Nov 2009 Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, suspect in the assault that killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, and hurt 30, salved the emotional wounds of troops returning from war even as he objected to his own looming deployment to Afghanistan, where he was to counsel soldiers suffering from stress… Hasan recently was involved in a spat with another Fort Hood soldier residing in his apartment complex, apparently related to his Muslim beliefs. The manager of the complex, John Thompson, said the other soldier, John Van de Walker, allegedly keyed Hasan’s car and also removed and tore up a bumper sticker that read “Allah is Love.” Thompson said Van de Walker had been in Iraq and was upset to learn that Hasan was Muslim. A report filed with Killeen police on Aug. 16 indicates that Hasan’s vehicle, a 2006 Honda Civic, had been scratched by an unknown object causing an estimated $1,000 worth of damage. The report indicates that Van de Walker, 30, was arrested on Oct. 21 and charged with criminal mischief.

Death toll rises to 13 in Ft. Hood shootings –Army officials confirmed that the alleged gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was due to be deployed overseas. Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, was shot by a police officer and is hospitalized. 06 Nov 2009 As authorities continue to search for clues on what prompted the shooting Thursday at Ft. Hood, the death toll rose today to 13. Twenty-eight of the 31 people injured in the attack on the nation’s largest military base remain hospitalized. The alleged shooter, an Army psychiatrist who was wounded during the attack, is also hospitalized, unconscious and on a ventilator.

Officers raid Texas home of suspect in Fort Hood shootings 06 Nov 2009 Officers raided the apartment of the soldier suspected in the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, early Friday, searching for clues as to what caused the military psychiatrist to allegedly gun down soldiers he had taken an oath to help, a police spokeswoman said. The alleged gunman, identified as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, opened fire at a military processing center at Fort Hood, killing 13 and wounding 30 others, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said… In the nearby town of Killeen, a SWAT team and FBI agents were searching Hasan’s apartment to help determine what caused the shooting, which military experts called the worst mass shooting at an American military base, Carol Smith, a Killeen police spokeswoman, said early Friday.

Surveillance video shows Fort Hood suspect before shootings 06 Nov 2009 An owner of a 7-Eleven convenience store in Fort Hood, Texas, said Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan came in for coffee and hashbrowns most mornings, including the day he allegedly shot dozens of soldiers. Surveillance video from the store obtained by CNN shows a man who, according to the store owner, is Hasan at the cashier’s counter at about 6:20 a.m. Thursday (7:20 a.m. ET) — about seven hours before the mass shooting. “He looked normal, came in had his hashbrowns and coffee as you see in the surveillance video,” the owner told CNN. Another surveillance video from the store on Tuesday showed the man believed to be Hasan in scrubs… In 2009, Hasan he completed a fellowship in disaster and preventive psychiatry and was assigned to Darnall in July. He had been awarded the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the Army Service Ribbon, but was never deployed outside the United States.

Motive a mystery after Fort Hood rampage –12 die; gunman remain hospitalized, despite earlier reports 06 Nov 2009 An Army psychiatrist about to be deployed to a combat zone overseas allegedly shot and killed 12 people and wounded 31 in a rampage at this sprawling military post north of Austin on Thursday afternoon. Post officials originally said that the suspected shooter — Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan — had been killed, but late in the day said he was wounded and in critical condition at a nearby hospital… Hasan is accused of attacking his fellow soldiers about 1:30 p.m. at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center. Armed with two pistols, he shot more than 40 people before military police and civilian police officers responded, officials said. He was wounded by a civilian policewoman, who was injured in the exchange, police said. Officials had reported earlier that the police officer had been killed. Hasan’s motives were unclear, and early on Thursday, he showed no signs of worry or stress when he stopped at 7-Eleven for his daily breakfast of hash browns, said Jeannie Strickland, the store’s manager. “He came in (Thursday) morning just like normal,” she said, “nothing weird, nothing out of the ordinary.” A few hours later, officials said, the Virginia native began his rampage on the post.

Counter-terror plans will be revised to reflect Fort Hood and Afghan attacks [Wow, that was quick!] 05 Nov 2009 (UK) A soldier turning on his comrades at Fort Hood, an Afghan policeman killing the British soldiers who trained him – two uncannily similar events in two days, but incidents which, across the Western world, security authorities have been planning for and dreading. Since the Mumbai attacks counter-terrorism planning has seen a major shift. The shootings in Afghanistan and Fort Hood carry echoes of the attacks in India with the added danger that the enemy has come from within.

AP: Authorities Had Concerns About Suspect Over Internet Postings [Wow, that was quick, too!] 05 Nov 2009 Federal law enforcement officials say the suspected Fort Hood, Texas, shooter had come to their attention at least six months ago because of Internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats. The officials say the postings appeared to have been made by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was killed during the shooting incident that left least 11 others dead and 31 wounded… The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case. One of the Web postings that authorities reviewed is a blog that equates suicide bombers with a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades.

Suspected Fort Hood gunman graduated from Virginia Tech 05 Nov 2009 The Army psychiatrist suspected of carrying a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, was born in Virginia and graduated from Virginia Tech University, where he was a member of the ROTC and earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry in 1997. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had come to the attention of authorities six months ago because of Internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats, law enforcement officials said Thursday… He received his medical degree from the military’s Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001. He did his internship, residency and a fellowship at Walter Reed.

Twelve dead as US soldiers go on shooting rampage at Fort Hood military base in Texas 05 Nov 2009 At least 12 people have been killed and more than 30 injured after three US soldiers went on a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood military base in Texas. The Army says one of the gunmen has been killed and two others apprehended and all of the gunmen are US soldiers. Lieutenant General Bob Cone: “A shooter opened fire. That person was killed. At this time, we are looking at 12 dead and 31 wounded. They are dispersed among the local hospitals in this area in Texas. “The shooter was killed. He was a soldier. We since then have apprehended two additional soldiers who are suspects, and I would go into the point that there were eyewitness accounts that there may have been more than one shooter.” The massacre happened at a training centre on the sprawling grounds of the largest US military base in the world. One gunman was caught quickly but the others went on the run. Four police officers were shot and wounded before they were arrested. Eyewitnesses said the gunmen were dressed in military uniforms.

12 dead, 30 injured in shootings at Fort Hood –Army psychiatrist was gunman in Texas incident, military officials tell NBC 05 Nov 2009 An Army psychiatrist opened fire Thursday at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 12 people and wounding 30 others before being shot to death, officials told NBC News. Eleven of the victims died at the scene, military officials said. A 12th died later at a hospital, NBC station KCEN-TV of Waco reported.

12 Dead, 31 Wounded in Base Shootings 06 Nov 2009 At least 12 people were killed and 31 wounded Thursday afternoon in a shooting at a military installation in Fort Hood, Texas, according to military spokesmen. Lt. General Bob Cone said in Texas that the shooter was an Army soldier who opened fire in a “readiness facility.” Lt. Gen. Cone confirmed that the shooter had been killed. Two other Army soldiers were in custody as suspects. President Obama said it was “horrifying” that American soldiers would face such a situation at home.

Fort Hood death toll now at 12; gunmen were U.S. soldiers 05 Nov 2009 At least 12 people have been killed and 31 wounded in a shooting at Fort Hood Army Base near Killeen, Texas, when at least one gunmen opened fire on soldiers who were making their final deployment preparations. Lt. Gen. Bob Cone, the commander of III Corps, said that at least one gunman opened fire at the base’s Soldiers Readiness Processing Center where soldiers were receiving medical and dental exams prior to deployment. The gunman’s fire was returned — Cone did not say by whom — and the gunman was killed. Two other soldiers who may have participated in the shootings were arrested in nearby buildings, Cone said. At least one of the dead was a civilian police officer working at the base.

Source: legitgov

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

Fort Hood: A media orgy of rumors, speculation and falsehoods

Hasan had hoped Obama would pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq

Family of alleged Ft. Hood shooter held funeral at mosque of 9/11 hijackers

Much of the initial coverage turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?

Last night, right-wing blogger (and law professor) Glenn Reynolds promoted this media analysis from right-wing blogger (and Los Angeles Assistant District Attorney) Patterico regarding coverage of the Fort Hood shootings.  Patterico wrote:  ”Whenever there is breaking news, it’s good to keep a few things in mind: . . . Always follow Allahpundit” — referring to one of the two bloggers at Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air site.

Upon reading that, I went to Hot Air to read what he had written, and it’s actually quite revealing — not in terms of what it reveals about Hot Air (that topic wouldn’t warrant a post) but, rather, what it reveals about major media coverage of these sorts of events.  Allahpundit’s post consists of a very thorough, contemporaneous, and — at times — appropriately skeptical chronicling of what major media outlets were reporting about the Fort Hood attack, combined with his passing along of much unverified gossip and chatter from Twitter, most of which turned out to be false.

It’s worth focusing on what the major media did last night, and one can use the Hot Air compilation to examine that.  I understand that in the early stages of significant and complex news stories, it’s to be expected that journalists will have incomplete and even inaccurate information.  It’s unreasonable to expect them to avoid errors entirely.  The inherently confusing nature of a mass shooting like this, combined with the need to rely on second-hand or otherwise unreliable sources (including, sometimes, official ones), will mean that even conscientious reporters end up with inaccurate information in cases like this.  That’s all understandable and inevitable.

But shouldn’t there be some standards governing what gets reported and what is held back?  Particularly in a case like this — which, for obvious reasons, has the potential to be quite inflammatory on a number of levels — having the major media “report” completely false assertions as fact can be quite harmful.  It’s often the case that perceptions and judgments about stories like this solidify in the first few hours after one hears about it.  The impact of subsequent corrections and clarifications pale in comparison to the impressions that are first formed.  Despite that, one false and contradictory claim after the next was disseminated last night by the establishment media with regard to the core facts of the attack.  Here are excerpts from Allahpundit’s compilation, virtually all of which — except where indicated — came from large news outlets:

Number of shooters

The fact that at least three gunmen are involved already has Shuster and Miklaszewski mentioning similarities to the Fort Dix Six plot on MSNBC . . . two of the gunmen are still at large and one has fired shots at the SWAT team on the scene . . . . New details from CNN: One gunman “neutralized,” one “cornered,” no word on the third. . . . Whether there are two shooters or three seems to be in dispute at the moment, but there’s certainly more than one:  The second shooting on the base evidently occurred at a theater. . . . Fox News says there are reports that the men were dressed in fatigues. . . . MSNBC TV says two shooters are in custody now. . . . it sounds like both shooters are military . . .According to MSNBC, there were three shooters. . . In case you’re wondering whether the other two soldiers in custody were actual accomplices or just being questioned because they knew Hasan, Rick Perry just said at the presser he’s holding that all three were shooters. . . . Hearing rumblings on Twitter right now that Perry was wrong and that the two other “suspects” have now been released. Was Hasan, in fact, a lone gunman? . . . . According to the general conducting the briefing going on right now, he appears to be a lone gunman.

The fate of the shooter

One of the shooters is dead. . . One is dead, two more are in custody. Has there ever been a case of “battle stress” that involved a conspiracy by multiple people? . . . So poor and fragmented have the early media reports about this been that only now, after 9 p.m. ET, do we learn that … Hasan’s still alive. He’s in stable condition.

The weapons used

M-16s involved: . . . From the local Fox affiliate, how it all went down. Evidently McClatchy’s report of M-16s was wrong:

The shooter’s background

According to Brian Ross at ABC, Hasan was a convert to Islam. . . . Contra Brian Ross, the AP says it’s unclear what Hasan’s religion was or whether he was a convert. . . . Apparently, one of Hasan’s cousins just told Shep that he’s always been Muslim, not a recent convert. . . .

I’m hearing on Twitter that Fox interviewed one of his neighbors within the last half-hour or so and that the neighbor claims Hasan was handing out Korans just this morning. Does anyone have video? . . . . “Brenda Price of KUSJ reported to Greta at 10:33: ‘also, the latest I am hearing, this morning, apparently according to his neighbors, he was walking around kind of giving out his possessions, giving away his furniture, handing out the Koran…’” . . .: Evidently CNN is airing surveillance footage from a convenience store camera taken this just morning showing Hasan in a traditional Muslim cap and robe. . . “A former neighbor of Hasan’s in Silver Spring, Md. told Fox News he lived there for two years with his brother and had the word ‘Allah’ on the door.”

Miscellaneous claims

Good lord — there’s a report from BNO News on Twitter that new shooting is being heard on the base. . . . For what it’s worth, an eyewitness report of Arabic being shouted during the attack: . . .Federal law enforcement officials say the suspected Fort Hood, Texas, shooter had come to their attention at least six months ago because of Internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats. . . . The $64,000 questions: What was he doing at Fort Hood among the population if he thought suicide bombers were heroes?

Isn’t it clear that anyone following all of that as it unfolded would have been more misinformed than informed?

The New York Times‘ Robert Mackey did an equally comprehensive job of live-blogging the media reports, and his contemporaneous compilation reflects many of these same glaring errors in the coverage:  ”CNN reports that two military sources say that the second gunman at Fort Hood is ‘cornered’ . . . Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison told Fox 4 News in Texas that one shooter was in custody and ‘another is still at large’ . . . CNN’s Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr reports that 12 people have been killed and up to 30 wounded. One of the dead is said to have been one of the gunmen. . . . Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, just revealed that earlier reports that the suspected gunman, Major Nidal Hasan, had been killed were incorrect. Major Hasan was wounded but remains alive.”

Perhaps most irresponsible of all is the unverified claim that Hasan had written on the Internet in defense of suicide attacks by Muslims, even though the origins of those writings are entirely unverified.  Similarly, certain news organizations – like NPR — used anonymous sources to disseminate inflammatory claims about Hasan’s prior troubles allegedly grounded in activism on behalf of Islam.  Much of this may turn out to be true once verified, or it may not be, but all of the conflicting, unverified claims flying around last night enabled many people to exploit the “facts” they selected in order to create whatever storyline that suited them and their political preconceptions — and many, of course, took vigorous advantage of that opportunity.

I’m obviously ambivalent about the issues of media responsibility raised by all of this.  It’s difficult to know exactly how the competing interests should be balanced — between disclosing what one has heard in an evolving news story and ensuring some minimal level of reliability and accuracy.  But whatever else is true, news outlets — driven by competitive pressures in the age of instant “reporting” — don’t really seem to recognize the need for this balance at all.  They’re willing to pass on anything they hear without regard to reliability — to the point where I automatically and studiously ignore the first day or so of news coverage on these events because, given how these things are “reported,” it’s simply impossible to know what is true and what isn’t.  In fact, following initial media coverage on these stories is more likely to leave one misled and confused than informed.  Conversely, the best way to stay informed is to ignore it all — or at least treat it all with extreme skepticism — for at least a day.

The problem, though, is that huge numbers of people aren’t ignoring it.  They’re paying close attention — and they’re paying the closest attention, and forming their long-term views, in the initial stages of the reporting.  Many people will lose their interest once the drama dissolves – i.e., once the actual facts emerge.  Put another way, a large segment of conventional wisdom solidifies based on misleading and patently false claims coming from major media outlets.  I don’t know exactly how to define what the balance should be, but particularly for politically explosive stories like this one, it seems clear that media outlets ought to exercise far more restraint and fact-checking rigor than they do.  As it is, it’s an orgy of rumor-mongering, speculation and falsehoods that play a very significant role in shaping public perceptions and enabling all sorts of ill-intentioned exploitation.

Source: Global Research

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