The program grew out of a desire to address a gap identified after 9/11. One of the 9/11 hijackers – Khalid al-Mihdhar – made a phone call from San Diego to a known al Qaeda safe-house in Yemen. NSA saw that call, but could not see that it was coming from an individual already in the United States. The telephone metadata program under Section 215 was designed to map the communications of terrorists, so we can see who they may be in contact with as quickly as possible.
This is, of course, a steaming crock of crap. The fact is that Khalid al-Mihdar was under surveillance and so was his contact in Yemen. The US even had videotape of al-Mihdar at an al-Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur shortly before he went to San Diego. And US intelligence knew that al-Mihdar was in the United States.
The problem? The various intelligence agencies were each looking to make their own bust and refused to properly share information with one another.
They don’t need to spy on all of our smartphone information and track 310 million people’s telephone calls and whereabouts! They need to talk with each other there in Washington! And in fact there is a joint FBI/ CIA facility in the DC area now where files can be accessed by officers with the right clearances across agencies.
Obama’s anecdote simply does not support the case for holding phone metadata, either in the government or by private telcos. And since I don’t think Obama is ignorant or lacking in smarts, I think he and whoever crafted that reference to 9/11 into his violent assault on the Fourth Amendment were doing so in a calculated and wholly dishonest fashion.
Obama was from 2007 frank that he admired Ronald Reagan. What you’re a little afraid of is that he may harbor some sneaking admiration for Tricky Dick Nixon.
In September 2002, agents and officials from the CIA and FBI testified before a joint congressional panel about how their security agencies failed to fully share information about suspected terrorists and their activities in the months leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks.
As much as anyone working in counterterrorism, John O’Neill knew about this communication breakdown. In fact, just two months before Sept. 11, in a speech to Spanish police on interagency cooperation, he had asked his audience, “How much more successful could we all be if we really knew what our agencies really knew?” O’Neill’s last major FBI investigation — the attack on the USS Cole on Oct. 12, 2000 — was a case study of just how bad inter-agency communication had become.
-The Critical Meeting in Malaysia
The story of this intelligence failure begins with a 1999 CIA breakthrough — the interception of communications from an Al Qaeda logistics center in Yemen about a meeting of operatives that would take place in January 2000 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The names of two of the participants were mentioned: Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi.
The CIA tracked Almidhar on his way to Malaysia. An agent told FRONTLINE that during a passport check at a stopover, the CIA even got access to his Saudi Arabian passport and learned Almidhar had been issued a multiple-entry visa to the U.S.
Once in Kuala Lumpur, the Al Qaeda operatives were photographed — at the CIA’s request — by Malaysian authorities at a series of meetings. Reportedly, no sound recordings were made, but intelligence sources now believe the meetings were held to plan future Al Qaeda attacks. Among the men captured in the surveillance photos were:
Almidhar and Alhazmi (later hijackers of American Flight 77 which flew into the Pentagon on Sept. 11);
Ramzi bin al-Shibh (a Sept. 11 co-conspirator and Mohamed Atta’s roommate. It would not be until after Sept. 11 that bin al-Shibh would be identified in the Malaysia surveillance photos);
Tawfiq bin-Atash — AKA “Khallad” (a suspected intermediary between bin Laden and plotters of the October 2000 USS Cole attack).
The CIA maintains that it did notify the FBI by e-mail of the Malaysia meetings soon after they occurred — and that it did mention Almidhar had a U.S. visa. The FBI, however, states they have no record of this notification.
The CIA admits that it did not inform the bureau that after the Malaysia meetings ended, it tracked Almidhar and Alhazmi to Los Angeles. The CIA further admits that it failed to warn the INS or the State Department, and as a result, the men’s names were not added to a terrorist watch list.
h/t for the tweet that inspired this post to @ZoeSCarpenter
The Washington Post: is it telling the whole story?
Analysis: How Washington Post strips casualties from covert drone data
By Chris Woods / November 1, 2012
Alongside the Washington Post’s latest blockbuster reports on the Obama administration’s drone kill list is a new graphic, depicting US covert strikes since 2002.
Based on studies by monitoring organisations, the graphic lists hundreds of US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, in what the paper says will be a regularly updated project. Also detailed are ‘the names of prominent militant leaders killed in individual strikes,’ the paper says.
But there the information stops.
All other casualty information has been stripped from the Washington Post’s data. There is no reference to the numbers reported killed in each strike. No names or numbers are put to the civilians killed.
In short, the paper has removed much of the information that is most valuable for assessing the effectiveness of the US drone campaign.
As a series of emails between the Washington Post and the Bureau reveals, the decision to strip out pertinent casualty data was an editorial one, and was part of broader ‘reservations and concerns’ at the paper concerning casualty counts.
An examination of the Post’s reporting indicates the paper frequently omits credible reports of civilian deaths in US covert drone strikes.
So concerned was the Bureau at the Washington Post’s intention to strip away casualty information that it has refused permission for the paper to use its work in such a significantly amended form.
‘No casualty counts’
The graphics editor of the Washington Post first approached the Bureau directly on September 18 asking to make use of the Bureau’s full dataset, having initially tried to obtain the information indirectly via the Guardian.
The Bureau allows full and free access to its data under a Creative Commons licence. In recent weeks, both the Guardian in the UK and Al Akhbar in Lebanon have used its data to map drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen.
In a series of emails with senior Bureau staff, the Washington Post graphics editor noted that ‘TBIJ indeed does have the most accurate and comprehensive public representation of drone strikes.’
Nevertheless the Post’s plan was to aggregate data from the Bureau, the New America Foundation and the Long War Journal ‘in a way that will not highlight casualty counts’.
In response the Bureau noted that while drone casualty counts are a challenge, ‘who dies, and in what numbers, are the most critical questions that the data can address’.
The Bureau went on to ask: ‘Are you aiming to name militant leaders killed, for example, or only to map the locations of each strike/ frequencies? If the former, there is surely also a necessity to name all civilians recorded killed. If you only map events, how does a user distinguish between a strike that kills no one and an event that kills 80?’
In response, the graphics editor wrote on September 24: ‘I’ve spoken to editors and reporters on our foreign desk on Friday. Due to the same reservations and concerns about the casualty counts that I mentioned previously, we will not be showing casualty counts.’
The Bureau’s managing editor Iain Overton expressed concern about the Washington Post using Bureau data in such an altered form. The Post’s published graphic only employs New America Foundation and Long War Journal material – and all casualty counts have been removed.
Wider problem
The Washington Post’s wider coverage of drone strikes shows a reluctance to address civilian deaths, with credible reports often omitted.
There are issues around the recording of casualties from US drone strikes – civilian or otherwise – given the reporting challenges they present. Critics argue there is too much incentive for individuals to exaggerate claims of civilian deaths for propaganda purposes.
That does not explain why reported civilian casualties continue to decline steeply in Pakistan and elsewhere. Nor does it explain why casualty counts by the Bureau and others appear close to the US government’s own overall estimates of the numbers killed.
Claims of civilian deaths in Pakistan are generally uncommon, and significant information is often known about the victims. Of 41 CIA drone strikes between January and October, civilian deaths were confidently reported on four occasions. There are indications of possible civilian deaths in a further nine strikes.
By stripping away the casualty data I’m not sure what’s left. They have also introduced their own bias into the recording, by selectively choosing which information to retain’ - Elizabeth Minor, Oxford Research Group
The identities of civilian victims are known for three of the four attacks. On August 18 the wife of militant Ahsan Aziz died. Three days later a 13-year-old boy and relative of militant leader Badruddin Haqqani was reported killed. And on October 24 the wife of schoolteacher Reshmeen Khan died as she walked in a field adjacent to a drone strike
Only for an incident in May in which worshippers in a mosque were reported killed are there no biographical details in any of the reporting.
While the Washington Postfrequently notes the deaths of senior militants, no mention of reported civilian casualties was made by the Post for three of the four 2012 cases cited above. Only for the October 24 event did the Post run an agency report stating that a woman had probably been killed.
The deaths of 11 civilians in an alleged US drone strike in Yemen on September 2 was also not reported by the paper, it seems.
In response to a recent complaint about its coverage of non-combatant deaths, the Washington Post insisted that it is ‘committed to documenting the deaths of civilians, as our coverage broadly shows.’
‘Dangerous editorial cut-off’
Just down the road from the Washington Post’s headquarters, experts gathered in the city on October 22 for the release of the largest-ever study into the recording of casualties in conflicts.
Funded by the Swiss government and the US Institute of Peace, the Oxford Research Group report examined casualty recording by more than 40 organisations (including the Bureau) across the world. It concluded that ‘useful documentation of deaths from conflict can be done even during intense conflict, and in repressive and dangerous environments.’
Elizabeth Minor, the report’s author, expressed surprise that the Washington Post would remove what she says is the most important information being collected, no matter how incomplete.
‘By stripping away the casualty data I’m not sure what’s left. They have also introduced their own bias into the recording, by selectively choosing which information to retain,’ Minor told the Bureau.
‘A better approach might be for the Post to publish all available information, transparently sourced, and so allow the reader to make up his or her mind as to its validity.’
The decision by the Washington Post to strip away casualty figures from its data – and to downplay civilian deaths – appears at heart a political call. As the Bureau’s managing editor Iain Overton notes, ‘We would be very happy to work in collaboration with the paper on its coverage of drone warfare.
‘However, we believe that to give a full and comprehensive view of the current situation in Pakistan and beyond, it’s incumbent on journalists to include credible casualty reports. To ignore this area simply because the information is imperfect or awkward is a dangerous editorial cut-off.’
The United States: An Impoverished, Delusional Society
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford / May 16, 2012
When Europeans resist corporate austerity measures, they are struggling to avoid “being forced to live like most Americans, at the total mercy of the rich.” The U.S. safety net hardly exists. The “American way of life” is a state of profound insecurity and social disconnectedness.
“Europe is headed for deep turmoil because Europeans have something to defend.”
Thanks to the U.S. corporate media’s great skills of obfuscation, omission and just plain lying, Americans are quite confused about the political and financial crisis in Europe, and what it means on this side of the Atlantic. People in the United States harbor vague fears that the social turmoil they see playing out in European elections and on the streets may come here. This scares them, which is almost funny, in a very sad way, since what European working people are struggling to avoid is being forced to live like most Americans, at the total mercy of the rich.
Europeans are righteously upset because they have something quite precious to lose: a social safety net that provides levels of security that Americans have never experienced, and that many cannot even imagine. Since most overworked or underemployed Americans don’t know how Europeans actually live, they find it difficult to understand what all the fuss is about. U.S. corporate media fill in the vast blanks in American consciousness with slanders against Europe – the relatively comfortable French and the devastated Greeks, alike – branding them all lazy slackers who don’t want to work hard or pay their bills. America’s damn near nonexistent social welfare structure is packaged as a virtue, while the sights and sounds of European protest are made to seem ominous, dangerous, selfish.
Most Americans of modest means don’t travel to countries where the people live better than they do, or are so oblivious that they don’t notice the deep social service networks that underlie these societies. Americans cannot understand, for example, that higher educational achievement is so often tied to strong national compacts among citizens and fundamental notions of social equality – these qualities being absent in American life. CNN is quick to cite figures on European unemployment, but tells its U.S. audience virtually nothing about the social safety net that makes unemployment in Europe a very different experience than being without a job in the United States.
“America’s damn near nonexistent social welfare structure is packaged as a virtue.”
A young relative of mine happened to graduate with a professional degree just in time for the 2008 meltdown, which wiped out all the new jobs in his profession. He sought work in France, being fluent in the language, and found it a far more welcoming society than his own. More than half of his rent was subsidized, because the French believe that people younger than 26 should have a chance to begin independent lives without undue burdens. My young Black American relative rode public transportation for half fare, as did his young French peers. While working, he considered getting another professional degree, which would have cost him less than $2,000 a year at a fairly prestigious French school. And he was a foreigner! A French student who had already paid into the health care system, could study for a year for less than $1,000.
My young relative eventually came home – because…well, this is home. It is a materially rich country, but one that is socially impoverished and, frankly, too ignorant to know it. Europe is headed for deep turmoil because Europeans have something to defend. They’ll fight to keep a decent social welfare net. The Americans don’t even know what a minimally just society looks like or feels like. We’ll have to create that society through struggle, and almost from scratch.
Mythical al-Qaida fortress portrayed by CIA analysts.
Osama’s Almost Letter To Me
By Eric Margolis / May 6, 2012
Why was I named in alleged al-Qaida letters last week as a recipient for documents about 9/11?
Al-Qaida was not founded by Osama bin Laden, as many wrongly believe, but in the mid-1980’s in Peshawar, Pakistan, by a revolutionary scholar, Sheik Abdullah Azzam.
I know this because I interviewed Azzam numerous times at al-Qaida HQ in Peshawar while covering the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. Azzam set up al-Qaida, which means “the base” in Arabic, to help CIA and Saudi-financed Arab volunteers going to fight in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. In those days, the west hailed them as “freedom fighters.”
In letters allegedly captured by US special forces from bin Laden’s compound, Al-Qaida’s public relations people cited me and 19 other western journalists as potential recipients of new documents about the 9/11 attacks on the US.
No surprise there. I’ve followed al-Qaida for the past 26 years as a writer, broadcaster and military consultant. My columns are read widely across South Asia and the Gulf. I have a reputation for being fiercely independent-minded and determined to get at the truth, no matter how unpopular.
The big US news networks heavily censored al-Qaida’s statements on government orders, or misreported them, complete with fake videos of bin Laden.
The report cites redoubtable British writer Robert Fisk, the New Yorker’s ace investigator Seymour Hersh, ABC News investigator Brian Ross, and me as journalists who reported fairly and accurately on the region.
All of us veterans have tried to report facts honestly and cut through propaganda from all sides. We have all been strong critics of al-Qaida and terror attacks, but also critics of heavy-handed, often counter-productive US and western policies in the Muslim world.
As these letters shows, Al-Qaida was never the vast, worldwide terror organization that President George W. Bush claimed. As I witnessed, it was always tiny, no more than 200 men. Al-Qaida’s original goal was to fight the mostly Tajik and Uzbek Afghan Communists and their Soviet masters.
Al-Qaida became an ally of Taliban in this anti-Communist struggle. But Taliban had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. As the renowned journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave reported from Afghanistan, Taliban’s tribal chiefs tried to oust firebrand Bin Laden from their nation.
Today, what’s left of al-Qaida numbers no more than 25 men in Afghanistan, according to US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Yet President Barack Obama cites the alleged al-Qaida “threat” as the reason for keeping US forces in Afghanistan and keeping Pakistan under semi-occupation. That was the real purpose for releasing these letters. Al-Qaida has become an integral part of US politics.
Al-Qaida is being used as a bogeyman by America’s Republicans to defend bloated US military spending and defend torture as having led to finding bin Laden. My sources tell me a huge bribe led the US to bin Laden, not torture.
The Pentagon has been leaking so-called information claiming bin Laden was planning a wave of terror attacks just before he died. In fact, bin Laden had become an isolated, powerless jihadi living in retirement when he was killed.
Why was he not brought back to the US for trial?
An open trial would have finally allowed Americans to discover the truth about the crime of 9/11, al-Qaida, and anti-Americanism in the Muslim world. Tragically, this did not happen. Dead men tell no tales.
We still don’t know how much bin Laden was involved in 9/11, or if it was hatched in Pakistan. My own understanding is that 9/11 was planned in Hamburg and Madrid, and executed by mostly Saudi citizens.
Al-Qaida lives on after bin Laden, but as a tiny bunch of western-hating militants with no power and little ability to stage major attacks. Violent anti-American groups from West Africa to Indonesia have adopted the title al-Qaida. For example, al-Qaida in Iraq never existed before the US invasion.
It’s like the slaves in the film “Spartacus” crying out, “we are all Spartacus.”
These stepsons of al-Qaida are not centrally linked and have nothing in common except for opposing western domination of the Muslim world and espousing religious law. As US intervention in Africa and Central Asia intensifies, so will they spread. It’s a perpetual terrorist motion machine.
They Appear to be intelligent
engaging
even full of a type of life energy
and yet
there they are
with a table
full of buttons and stickers
supporting
advocating
voting for
a monster
On the surface
they seem to be
progressives
do they not know
have they ignored
or are they
just in denial
I'm sure
when Bush was President
they were adamantly opposed to war
to torture
to slaughtering
blowing the guts out of
women and children
of treating "illegal" immigrants
like cockroaches
of fucking the poor
while enriching his rich buddies
of shredding the Constitution
of total disregard
for the safety of our
food supply
of total disregard
for the climate catastrophe
that is unfolding
of being an
asshole
And yet they have a table
outside my window
campaigning for a man
who has invaded more countries than Bush
given more money to the Banksters than Bush
deported and imprisoned more immigrants
than Bush
wiped his ass on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights
more than Bush
had more contempt for the poor
than Bush
And yet
there they are
smiling and handing out
their buttons
and stickers
never reflecting
upon their hypocrisy
upon their
favoring
the policies
they hated
when it was Bush
Then there are my
right-wing friends
who call him a "socialist"
And if
you're talking about
corporate welfare
and tax breaks for the rich
in other words
redistributing the wealth
to the already wealthy
than he is sort of a
Robin Hood in reverse
Stealing from the poor
to give to the rich
a Socialist
in reverse
My right-wing friends
wonder about his birth certificate
wondering about his
"muslim" name
never noticing
his glee
as he
"changes the mindset that leads to war"
by blowing the brains
out of
those "other" people
those "unpeople"
which he holds
in as much contempt
as Bush ever dreamed of
He said his campaign would be different
wouldn't take huge corporate donations
he lied
He said he would filibuster
retroactive immunity for the telecoms
who helped the government
spy on us
He lied
He said in his victory speech
that global warming
would start cooling
that rising oceans
would start receding
now that he was in charge
he lied
He said he would not fill his
Administration
as Bush had
with lobbyists
he lied
He said he would close Guantanamo
instead he opened more Guantanamo's than even Bush
He said he would make it easier
for workers to join a union
he lied
When it came to
who to help
he decided
that ten million people
losing their homes
while he gave trillions
of dollars
to the very people
who gave him more money
than any presidential candidate has ever received
from Wall Street
His choice was easy
I WILL FUCK THE POOR
Guess that's
"Socialism"
He "saved General Motors"
by giving billions to Management
while forcing pay cuts
loss of health care
and pensions
on the workers
Guess that's "Socialism"
He said
his administration
would be transparent and open
and democratic
he said
"whistleblowers should be protected"
he fucking lied
he has prosecuted more whistleblowers
than all other presidents in
the history of the United States combined
No President has hated democracy more than him
Oddly my right-wing friends
who loved all of this
when Bush did it
think
he's a "Socialist"
and my "progressive" friends
who hated it when Bush did what he does
are the same
in one way
they are tragically
ill informed
about
Barack Obama
U.S. President George W. Bush (L) and Afghan President Hamid Karzai shake hands at the conclusion of their joint statement to reporters at the Presidential Palace in Afghanistan December 15, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
Steele blames Obama for Afghanistan, Defends Iraq War By Juan Cole / July 3, 2010
Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele has provoked a furor by remarks he made on President Obama’s Afghanistan policy at a GOP fundraiser in Noank, Ct. (where he mumbled on for all the world like a third-rate lounge lizard at an off-off the Strip Vegas discount casino before an audience mesmerized into zombiehood by its subsidized lunch buffet). The speech appears to have been secretly recorded, and is now on the Web. Geo at the Right Vs. Left blog put up a transcript of Steele’s comments.
The Republican line on the Afghanistan War is apparently that it is a good war, well-fought, but has the misfortune to be overseen by Obama, who, despite personally ordering all the elements of the war that the GOP praises, is nevertheless somehow an inappropriate leader of it.
Self-contradiction poses no conundrum for politicians as long as the public does not notice it. That it is illogical to denigrate Obama as leader while praising the troop surge and the counter-insurgency strategy that he authorized appears not to occur to anyone south of the Mason-Dixon line. Conservatives (with the exception of Libertarians) can embrace this paradox because they hold twin premises. The first is that the United States should always be at war and all of its wars are glorious, righteous and beneficial to all concerned, even the enemy. The second is that a Democratic president is sort of like gay marriage; it is against nature and intrinsically wrong, and while it may actually exist in some times and places, it must be vigorously ignored until it can be undone and safely forgotten about. With a Democratic president in the White House, the munificent War must resemble the virgin birth, having no human author and yet bestowing infinite grace on all.
Steele violated this both-sides-of-the-mouth absurd discourse every which way from Sunday. He attributed the war to Obama, restoring him as commander-in-chief, a presidential epithet applicable only to GOP heads of state. Steele said that Afghanistan “was a war of Obama’s choosing. This was not something that the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”
Steele seems to have missed the part where the Bush administration gradually committed the US to war-fighting in Afghanistan. He has paid no attention to what has been going on in Afghanistan since the Taliban were overthrown or at least sidelined in 2001. He does not seem to realize that the NATO and US troops were doing active war-fighting in Afghanistan all through 2008, when 159 Americans gave their lives and nearly that number again of NATO and allied troops also died.
Then Steele openly said that the war, far from being magnificent and beneficent, is actually a Major Mistake and almost certain to End Badly. He said that if Obama
is such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? Alright, because everyone who has tried over a thousand years of history has failed, and there are reasons for that. There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan ...
(I would argue that it is actually only since Afghans began learning how to manufacture [in artisan style] hand-held firearms that they have become truly formidable, i.e. from the late 1600s.)
Steele’s remarks on Afghanistan can be distinguished from those of Denis Kucinich only insofar as the RNC chairman complained about Obama’s ‘demonization’ of the Iraq War (as if it had actually gone very well and been unproblematic, deserving none of the opprobrium heaped upon it by mere reality). Steele said, “But it was the President who was trying to be cute by half by building a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should in Afghanistan.” Other than his attachment to a war launched in impudent violation of the United Nations charter and all subsequent international law, which killed perhaps a million persons, wounded 3 million and displaced and made homeless another 4 million… Steele sounded like a left-wing Democrat. He seems to have been reading Ann Jones at Tomdispatch (would that more GOP officials did).
Having delivered himself of the only principled and sensible arguments he has put forward since the Good Old-boy Party humorlessly made him its public face, Steele now faces demands by the hounds of the Right that he resign in ignominy. When Bill Kristol, who has notoriously been Wrong about Everything, demands that an RNC chairman resign, it can only mean that the party has a choice between reviving Neoconservatism– which is pernicious but creepily coherent as a nihilist ideology of perduring destruction– and muddling along with no positive message at all.
