Homegrown Right-Wing-Extremist Terrorism: A Recent History
The Southern Poverty Law Center compiled a jaw-dropping overview of about seventy terrorist attempts on American soil by right-wing extremists over the past fifteen years; a lot happened between Timothy McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bombing and the recent plane attack on an IRS building in Austin. Take the 1999 attack by Buford Furrow, for example:
Buford Furrow, a former member of the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations who has been living with the widow of slain terrorist leader Bob Mathews, strides into a Jewish community center near Los Angeles and fires more than 70 bullets, wounding three boys, a teenage girl and a woman. He then drives into the San Fernando Valley and murders Filipino-American mailman Joseph Ileto. The next day, Furrow turns himself in, saying he intended to send “a wake-up call to America to kill Jews.”
$650m Compensation Settlement for Heroes of September 11
Nico Hines writes on the Times:
Rescue and recovery workers who were exposed to a toxic brew of smoke and dust in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks have been awarded $650 million in a compensation deal struck in New York.
Thousands of 9/11 heroes, including firefighters, police officers, construction experts and emergency workers, have filed lawsuits since 2003 but last night’s agreement is expected to put an end to years of legal battles.
The settlement, worth up to $657.5 million (£434 million), was reached after negotiations between lawyers representing more than 10,000 people exposed to the debris from the World Trade Center and New York City’s federally financed insurer.
Some workers are likely to receive payments of only a few thousand dollars. Others could be in line to get more than…
‘Jihad Jane’: American Woman’s Plot To Kill Swedish Cartoonist
‘Jihad Jane,’ as Pennsylvania woman Colleen LaRose dubbed herself, was indicted Tuesday for helping recruit a network for suicide attacks and plotting to kill a Swedish cartoonist. Seven Muslims were arrested in Ireland in connection with the alleged plot. Jonathan Adams reports for the Christian Science Monitor:
Authorities unsealed charges in the US against a woman dubbed “Jihad Jane” and arrested seven Muslims in Ireland Tuesday for their alleged involvement in a plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist.
The allegations highlight the ongoing sensitivity of cartoon renderings of the prophet Mohammad, and are a rare example of a white American woman becoming involved in global jihad over the Internet.
CNN Finds Addiction Counselor Who Says She ‘Knows’ Ivins Was Anthrax Killer
There has been a lot of skepticism about the FBI’s closure of the 2001 anthrax terror scare, led perhaps by Bob Coen & Eric Nadler, authors of Dead Silence: Fear and Terror on the Anthrax Trail. Now CNN is running a video questioning the state of Dr. Bruce Ivins’ mind, suggesting strongly that it was definitely Ivins who was behind the anthrax attacks. Is this is a case of the major media helping out the government?
Washington Times Reports 9/11 Inconsistencies
Jennifer Harper for the Washington Times:
A lingering technical question about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks still haunts some, and it has political implications: How did 200,000 tons of steel disintegrate and drop in 11 seconds? A thousand architects and engineers want to know, and are calling on Congress to order a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center.
“In order to bring down this kind of mass in such a short period of time, the material must have been artificially, exploded outwards,” says Richard Gage, a San Francisco architect and founder of the nonprofit Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.
Mr. Gage, who is a member of the American Institute of Architects, managed to persuade more than 1,000 of his peers to…
Anthrax Myth Persists Despite Evidence
The highly convenient way in which the U.S Government’s FBI has “closed the case” on the 2001 anthrax attacks will not wash with anyone who has read the excellent Dead Silence: Fear and Terror on the Anthrax Trail by Bob Coen and Eric Nadler. I’d be interested to hear what Messrs. Coen & Nadler make of the issue of whether or not the anthrax spores used in 2001 were weaponized, discussed here in USA Today:
Can science ever do away with bad ideas? Or do they just limp along forever?Consider the federal investigators who have “formally concluded” their investigation into the 2001 anthrax killings, pointing again to the late anthrax vaccine researcher Bruce Ivins as the case’s culprit.
Whatever history’s verdict on Ivins, one brouhaha at the center of the case has already outlived him — the story of “weaponized” anthrax.
“One of my biggest frustrations with this has been showing people the data, and it doesn’t matter,” says researcher Joseph Michael of Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M…
Disgruntled Americans are the New Terrorists
By Stacie Adams at The Smirking Chimp:
Joe Stack, the man who recently flew a plane into an IRS building in Texas, has been described as everything from a true American hero to a ‘lone wolf’ style domestic extremist. However, most are reluctant to brand him with the label of terrorist, although that is the most apt description of Stack and his activities.
I saw a segment on the news this morning where some talking head was going to great pains to distinguish the difference between an act of terrorism and a so called ’spectacle murder’, which sounds like something he just made up in the green room before he came on.
Apparently Stack’s crime is not considered terrorism because he only meant to call attention to his plight, not terrorize people into…
FBI Knew Austin Attack Was Coming
Paul Joseph Watson for prisonplanet.com:
A trusted source has told this office that the FBI knew Austin was going to be attacked today and had dispatched officers from its Dallas headquarters yesterday afternoon to be in place for today’s incident.
The source claims that a confidential memo was circulated yesterday detailing that a building in Austin was going to be the target of an attack today. He was told this by an informant who works in the Dallas FBI office.
Four FBI agents hurriedly left the Dallas office yesterday to be ready and on the scene for the aftermath of the incident, according to the informant, who was shaken when he saw events unfolding today and put two and two together.
We cannot confirm the accuracy of the claim but the source is known…
It’s a Conspiracy! No, It’s Not: A Debunking of the Classic Theories
Image by quarkscrew via Creative Commons
The New York Times’s Michiko Kakutani, so often the purveyor of eviscerating book reviews, for once truly loves something: an all-out mockery of a myriad of conspiracy theories, from 9/11 to Princess Diana, by David Aaronovich, Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History:
The principle of Occam’s razor suggests that the simplest hypothesis is usually the correct one — or as the character Gil Grissom in “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” succinctly puts it, if you hear hoofbeats, “think horses, not zebras.”In his lively new book, “Voodoo Histories,” the journalist David Aaronovitch uses Occam’s razor to eviscerate the many conspiracy theories that have percolated through politics and popular culture over the last century, from those that assert that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were…
Breast Implants As A Terrorist Weapon?
The Detroit Free Press reports:
British intelligence agencies have reportedly monitored terrorist communications bragging that women suicide bombers have already undergone surgery to hide explosive bombs in their breast implants.
“You could certainly put a liquid of any kind in a saline device, and a gel implant theoretically could be opened and replaced with a different type of gel,” said Maryland plastic surgeon Dr. Craig Person.
“I believe that any liquid in a breast implant, or any gel with a silicone-type of implant would be hard to detect with a body scanner,” Person told 9NewsNow.
Al-Qaeda ‘Certain’ To Attack United States In Next Six Months
Dennis Cutler Blair, the third and current U.S. Director of National Intelligence
Perhaps these government officials want to avoid the kind of criticisms leveled at their predecessors for failing to warn of the 9/11 attacks; or maybe they have a more subtle agenda in more or less guaranteeing further attacks on U.S. soil. The mainstream media is all over the story, this one from the Washington Post:
The Obama administration’s top intelligence officials on Tuesday described it as “certain” that al-Qaeda or its allies will try to attack the United States in the next six months, and they called for new flexibility in how U.S. officials detain and question terrorist suspects.
The officials, testifying before the Senate intelligence committee, also warned of increased risk of cyber-attacks in the coming months, saying that the…
The Truth About Flight 253 Has Been Revealed
By Kurt Haskell on the Lori’s Liberal Realm blog:
The Sharp Dressed Man Who Assisted Mutallab Onto Flight 253 Was A U.S. Government Agent
Since our flight landed on Christmas Day, Lori and I have been doing everything in our power to uncover the truth about why we were almost blown up in the air over Detroit. The truth is now finally out after the publication of the following Detroit News article:
Let me quote from the article:
“Patrick F. Kennedy, an undersecretary for management at the State Department, said Abdulmutallab’s visa wasn’t taken away because intelligence officials asked his agency not to deny a visa to the suspected terrorist over concerns that a denial would’ve foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaida threats against the United States.
“Revocation action would’ve disclosed what they were doing,” Kennedy…
Mikey Hicks, 8 Years Old, Permanent Fixture On U.S. “Selectee” Terrorist Watch List
Every now and then the Gray Lady actually comes up with a story that makes it worth reading, such as this one detailing the Orwellian comedy surrounding poor little Mikey Hicks and his long-suffering family:
The Transportation Security Administration, under scrutiny after last month’s bombing attempt, has on its Web site a “mythbuster” that tries to reassure the public.
Myth: The No-Fly list includes an 8-year-old boy.
Buster: No 8-year-old is on a T.S.A. watch list.
“Meet Mikey Hicks,” said Najlah Feanny Hicks, introducing her 8-year-old son, a New Jersey Cub Scout and frequent traveler who has seldom boarded a plane without a hassle because he shares the name of a suspicious person. “It’s not a myth.”
Michael Winston Hicks’s mother initially sensed trouble when he was a baby and she could not get a seat…
California Airport Evacuated Over Jar Of Honey
Is our nation kinda dumb? Discuss. From Reuters:
Authorities shut down a California airport on Tuesday after a suspicious amber liquid in a passenger’s bag tested positive for explosives — only to ultimately determine that the substance was honey.
Francisco Ramirez, a 31-year-old gardener who had been visiting family in the central California city of Bakersfield, was allowed to return home to Milwaukee.
When the bottles [of honey] were opened, two of the screeners smelled a strong chemical odor, complained of nausea and were rushed to a local hospital, where they treated and released. But “the substances in the bottles did turn out to be honey…It is nothing but honey,” FBI spokesman Steve Dupre told Reuters.
Calling Shenanigans on the Christmas Terror Plot Narrative
From Nick P. at Black Sun Gazette:
Perhaps I’m just used to looking for such things, but the narrative being crafted regarding Christmas’ plot to blow up an airplane is highly suspect.
My first feelings of uneasiness came after it was reported that the Nigerian man who tried to blow up a plane on Christmas Day was tied to Yemen. Pretty fucking convenient considering that both rhetoric and action against Yemen have been ratcheted up in the last couple of weeks.
As the story continues to unfold, there are increasing reasons to question the official story.
New TSA Security Regulations in Light of Christmas-Time Double-Header Scare
Jeffrey Goldberg writes on the Atlantic:
Sometimes the stupidity is too much to bear. From the new guidelines for international air travel:
U.S.-bound passengers aboard international flights must undergo a “thorough pat-down” at boarding gates, focused on the upper legs and torso.
Thanks for letting us know, TSA, that the search should be focused on the upper legs and torso. As I’ve said on numerous occasions, pat-downs that ignore the crotch and the ass are useless. We recently saw in Saudi Arabia the detonation of a rectal bomb, so it really doesn’t take much creativity to imagine that terrorists will be taping explosives to their scrotums. Of course, TSA is not going to be feeling-up people’s scrotums anytime soon, so the question remains: Why does our government continue to make believe that it…
The Odds of Airborne Terror
Nate Silver, who in the past has put the mainstream media to shame with his statistical predictions of election results, writes on his site, FiveThirtyEight.com:
Not going to do any editorializing here; just going to do some non-fancy math. James Joyner asks:
There have been precisely three attempts over the last eight years to commit acts of terrorism aboard commercial aircraft. All of them clownishly inept and easily thwarted by the passengers. How many tens of thousands of flights have been incident free?
Let’s expand Joyner’s scope out to the past decade. Over the past decade, there have been, by my count, six attempted terrorist incidents on board a commercial airliner than landed in or departed from the United States: the four planes that were hijacked on 9/11, the shoe bomber incident…
The Nigerian Man Who Tried To Ignite Plane Bomb Has Al-Qaeda Links
From Reuters:
A Nigerian man believed to be linked to al Qaeda militants was in custody on Saturday after he tried to ignite an explosive device on a U.S. passenger plane as it approached Detroit, U.S. officials said.
The suspect, who suffered extensive burns, was overpowered by passengers and crew on the Christmas Day flight from Amsterdam. The passengers, two of whom suffered minor injuries, disembarked safely from the Delta Air Lines plane.
“We believe this was an attempted act of terrorism,” a White House official told Reuters.
The flight had left Amsterdam on Friday and Dutch counter-terrorism authorities said they were trying to figure out where the suspect had come from, how he had been screened and how he had managed to board the flight.
Representative Peter King of New York, the senior Republican…
FBI Memos Flagged The Green Party As A Terrorist Group
Gawker has a copy of an internal FBI memo, a couple years old, created in response to the threat of animal-rights terrorism in Georgia.
Interestingly the Green Party is identified as a possible terrorist threat to be watched.
