The post-tragedy debate consists predictably of gun control, immigration, the President's competence, Islam's terrorism genes, more (usually not less) military involvement in the Middle East, effective asymmetrical warfare, and the need for more surveillance. Other issues can be discussed but the aforementioned tend to occupy the bulk of public debates since 9-11.
The mainstream media and shills like Hillary and Donald continue to tap into our most visceral impulses to help our identifying the bogeyman whereon we focus our wrath. The pattern of the murder's behavior often includes prior contact with the FBI. This contact begs questions about "why didn't the FBI act?" Such questions likely presuppose our accepting increased surveillance.
But, if the media and state continue serving up strawmen like Islam and Guns to knock down with fury when debating how to avoid future tragedies, we will never see other troubling patterns that deserve further review. Attacks carried out by terrorists previously either tracked by law enforcement or even in their custody and later released should prompt our asking if this involves more than bureaucratic incompetence. It never does though.
Law enforcement agencies in the West seem to possess an infinite capacity to absorb criticism. But, then again the FBI survived and flourished after 48 years of J. Edgar Hoover's police state apparatus. The chattering pundit-terrorism-experts lecture us that failed states like Afghanistan and Iraq are hotbeds for terror networks to develop. Ok? So why does terrorism also occur now in nations featuring the most robust surveillance apparatus? Regardless of the underlying conditions the power structure always makes causal claims that they enable terror threats. For instance, if "terror" occurs in Iraq its because it is a failed state; meanwhile, if it erupts in the U.S., its because the terrorists hate it for its freedom.
The much publicized facts such as Omar Mateen calling 911 and expressing his brotherhood with the ISIS establish him in the U.S. media as another poster boy for Islamic extremism. His two trips to Saudi Arabia should rightfully increase suspicions that he was a terrorist asset. Equally important, Mateen's trip to the land of Mecca and Medina does understandably create such suspicions, then what about trips taken and meet and greets attended by Senator John McCain? The various groups comprising the moderate Syrian Opposition whom McCain enthusiastically supports have committed killings and triggered a refugee crisis affecting millions. But the mainstream media show no qualms about either indulging McCain's sanctimoniousness when he promotes such groups, or neglecting to question the number of civilian casualties caused by U.S. led coalition bombing in Syria and Iraq. So we should now trust their coverage and analysis of the Orlando shooting?????
Yes our applying Occam's Razor would tell us that we should believe this killer's stated motives. But, on the other hand remember the scene in Godfather II when an assassin strangling Frank Pentangeli audibly says to his victim "Michael Corleone says hello." The assassin's verbal expression is an attempt to disguise on whose behalf he is strangling Pentangeli, misdirecting the blame to Corleone.
The FBI's constant claims that it foils many terror plots follow an established pattern. They initiate the contact with the potential terrorists, and then provide them with plans, targets, and weapons. This record justifies our asking questions about the range and depth of the FBI's involvement in terrorism beyond their being incompetent and lacking the tools to follow up on suspects under surveillance. Moreover, another canard cited ad nauseam is that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies need to coordinate their databases and intelligence. A streamlined bureaucracy will better position our police state to stop terrorists. The inference here is that the FBI needs more power. Does it?
Each time we hear the post-tragedy lecture that the FBI needs more power we should consider that they have already established a dangerous pattern of seeking out mentally ill persons to whom they provide weapons. A large body of evidence consisting of the information relevant to 27 U.S. Federal terror cases shows that the FBI manufactures more terror plots than their being an agency scrambling around with insufficient resources to protect the public. The ineffectiveness and injustice of the FBI's identifying of actual terror plots is documented in a report published by Human Rights and Columbia Law School's Human Rights Institute. An important conclusion taken from this study is stated accordingly:
“Americans have been told that their government is keeping them safe by preventing and prosecuting terrorism inside the US,” said Andrea Prasow, deputy Washington director at Human Rights Watch and one of the authors of the report. “But take a closer look and you realize that many of these people would never have committed a crime if not for law enforcement encouraging, pressuring, and sometimes paying them to commit terrorist acts.” [1]The mass shooter's motives (real and imagined) are instantly psychoanalyzed by our philosopher kings and the masses alike. But, it seems the FBI's motives garner less attention which is an injustice to the public given its pattern of manufacturing terror. Plus, in light of this documented pattern we should question the FBI's motives and commitment to protecting the public when its members say:
Most likely the FBI will hide behind the embarrassing yet convenient rhetoric of their being the victims of some combination of incompetence and inadequate resources. This cycle continues.The ACLU of Massachusetts’s Kade Crockford notes this extraordinarily revealing quote from former FBI assistant director Thomas Fuentes, as he defends one of the worst FBI terror “sting” operations of all (the Cromitie prosecution we describe at length here):If you’re submitting budget proposals for a law enforcement agency, for an intelligence agency, you’re not going to submit the proposal that “We won the war on terror and everything’s great,” cuz the first thing that’s gonna happen is your budget’s gonna be cut in half. You know, it’s my opposite of Jesse Jackson’s ‘Keep Hope Alive’—it’s ‘Keep Fear Alive.’ Keep it alive. [2]
The facts learned so far warrant our asking if the Orlando mass shooter's experience fit into this pattern of FBI manufacturer of terror. Omar Mateen likely did not exist just under the radar, whose movements and motives though concerning revealed no hint of his plotting an act of terror. FBI informants at minimum made the acquaintance of this bi-polar jihadist and closet homosexual. The New York Daily News reports:
Mateen first appeared on authorities’ radar in 2013 after the security guard’s colleagues alerted the FBI to inflammatory statements he made to colleagues claiming “family connections to Al Qaeda,” according to [FBI Director James] Comey.
Mateen also told coworkers he had a family member who belonged to Hezbollah, a Shia network that is a bitter enemy of ISIS — the network he pledged allegiance to the night of the carnage, Comey noted.
The FBI’s Miami office opened an inquiry into Mateen.“He said he hoped that law enforcement would raid his apartment and assault his wife and child so he could martyr himself,” Comey said. Nevertheless, FBI investigators investigated Mateen, who was born in New York, for 10 months. They introduced him to confidential informants, spied on his communications and followed him. They also interviewed him twice.
They concluded the investigation after determining his claims were not credible. [3]Their conclusion would seem reasonable except other critical reports have surfaced that suggest the FBI's interactions with Mateen involved more than merely investigating his true terrorist connections.
The FBI's interaction with Mateen reportedly included more than their interviewing, following, and spying on him. They attempted to add Mateen to their now long list of terror recruits:
Sheriff Ken Mascara of Florida’s St. Lucie County told the Vero Beach Press Journal that after Mateen threatened a courthouse deputy in 2013 by claiming he could order Al Qaeda operatives to kill his family, the FBI dispatched an informant to "lure Omar into some kind of act and Omar did not bite." [4]
So this chain of events encourage a couple of questions: How is the FBI able to set up so many other terror plots then subsequently foil them by arresting the potential terrorist whom they approached and incited to carry out said terror plot? Then how can they introduce Mateen to FBI informants who spy and follow him but then lose the ability to foil this particular terror plot? Such questions baffle me especially after they reportedly and previously attempted to lure him into a terror plot
If this sounds unfair to ask such questions after a seemingly unavoidable tragedy, then why is it fair that we remain unsolicited subjects of an NSA-led surveillance state?
Plus, the FBI's sending informants to investigate Mateen for his alleged jihadist mindset didn't jeopardize his employment. Judicial Watch has reported about Mateen's employer and the government's curious indifference to his pro-jihadist comments and associations:
In 2013 Mateen was investigated by the FBI for terrorism ties and his connections to an American named Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha who carried out a suicide bombing in Syria. Both men are from the Ft. Pierce area in Florida’s so-called “Treasure Coast.” The federal probe didn’t seem to impact Mateen’s work at G4S however, because there was no disruption in his employment, even after he openly praised ISIS. This is astounding considering that the agency created after 9/11 to prevent another terrorist attack has a $234 million contract with G4S to provide security services for a number of federal agencies, including the nation’s nuclear facilities and the departments of Labor, Justice, Energy, State as well as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Ironically, the government’s contract with G4S stipulates that the company helps identify “suspected terrorists” trying to enter the U.S. and helps the feds with emergency responses to terror threats. [5]Mateen's jihadist words and actions had no impact on his employment, which should result in our expanding our scope of inquiry to scrutinize the state's failure to impose more strict guidelines on government security contractors for hiring employees.
The facts associated with terrorist act in Orlando should prevent our being satisfied to vent our wrath at an Islamic bogeyman dangled in front of us. Jihadist ideology and either homophobia or a disgruntled repressed homosexual provide the salaciousness needed to sustain our attention for a few more news cycles. But, we need to focus more on the FBI's repeated pattern of being involved with terrorists at some point before the terror plots are either foiled or executed.
One notable example of the U.S. government's possessing knowledge of criminals illegally purchasing weapons while remaining indifferent or taking no action to prevent such activity occurred in the infamous Department of Justice's (DOJ) Fast and Furious program. The U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate committees published the following summary about this dangerous gamble:
The previous joint staff report entitled The Department of Justice’s Operation Fast and Furious: Accounts of ATF Agents chronicled Operation Fast and Furious, a reckless program conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and the courageous ATF agents who came forward to expose it. Operation Fast and Furious made unprecedented use of a dangerous investigative technique known as “gunwalking.” Rather than intervene and seize the illegally purchased firearms, ATF’s Phoenix Field Division allowed known straw purchasers to walk away with the guns, over and over again. As a result, the weapons were transferred to criminals and Mexican Drug Cartels. (emphasis added) [6]The DOJ's foreknowledge of weapons being sold illegally while remaining indifferent to what should have been the obvious implications shows dangerous levels of negligence. Just who would eventually acquire such weapons? Angels? And yet we are supposed to believe they can protect us????
Its not so easy to foil plots when you aren't actually plotting them. Maybe the FBI should reconsider its functioning as a factory to manufacture faux terror-plots. They are playing with real fire though.
[2]. Greenwald, Glenn. "Why Does the FBI Have to Manufacture its Own Plots if Terrorism and ISIS Are Such Grave Threats?" The Intercept. February 26, 2015. https://theintercept.com/2015/02/26/fbi-manufacture-plots-terrorism-isis-grave-threats/
[3]. Dan Good and Stephen Rex Brown."FBI spied on Orlando gay club terrorist Omar Mateen for 10 months in 2013: FBI Director James Comey." New York Daily News. June 13, 2016. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/orlando-gay-club-shooter-omar-mateen-called-911-bathroom-article-1.2671481
[4]. Max Blumenthal and Sarah Lazare. "Before Omar Mateen Committed Mass Murder, the FBI Tried To Lure Him Into A Terror Plot." Alternet. June 19, 2016. http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/omar-mateen-committed-mass-murder-fbi-tried-lure-him-terror-plot#.V2f7BoDLDfY.email.
[5]. "Orlando Terrorist Worked at Security Co. Hired by DHS to Transport, Release Illegal Aliens." Judicial Watch. June 13, 2016. http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2016/06/orlando-terrorist-worked-security-co-hired-dhs-transport-release-illegal-aliens/
[6]. Joint Staff Report. "The Department of Justice's Operation Fast and Furious: Fueling Cartel Violence." 112th Congress July 26th, 2011. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/FINAL_FINAL.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment