Our "terrorist" tracking system by the numbers

Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux (The Intercept, "Barack Obama’s Secret Terrorist-Tracking System, by the Numbers"

Support independent cartooning: join Sparky's List—and visit Tom Tomorrow's Emporium of Fun, featuring the new book and plush Sparky! (The Nation/ThisModernWorld.com).

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Biggest group on watchlist not terrorists

Nearly half of the people on the U.S. government’s widely shared database of terrorist suspects are not connected to any known terrorist group, according to classified government documents obtained by The Intercept.

 

Of the 680,000 people caught up in the government’s Terrorist Screening Database -- a watchlist of “known or suspected terrorists” that is shared with local law enforcement agencies, private contractors, and foreign governments more -- than 40 percent are described by the government as having “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.” That category -- 280,000 people -- dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined.

1984: The numbers are shocking and aimed at something far more sinister than "terrorism."

 

Peter, are you targeting American citizens?

The documents, obtained from a source in the intelligence community, also reveal that the Obama Administration has presided over an unprecedented expansion of the “terrorist” screening system. Since taking office, Obama has boosted the number of people on the no fly list more than tenfold, to an all-time high of 47,000 -- surpassing the number of people barred from flying under [Unprecedented President] George W. Bush.

 

Obama and Nixon (TTDB)

“If everything is terrorism, then nothing is terrorism,” says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent. The watchlisting system, he adds, is “revving out of control.”

 

The classified documents were prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center, the lead agency for tracking individuals with suspected links to international terrorism. Stamped “SECRET” and “NOFORN” (indicating they are not to be shared with foreign governments), they offer the most complete numerical picture of the watchlisting system to date. Among the revelations:

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When Guns Are Everywhere in police hands (Tom Tomorrow/thismodernworld.com)

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• The second-highest concentration of people designated as “known or suspected terrorists” by the government is in Dearborn, Michigan -- a city of 96,000 that has the largest percentage of Arab-American residents in the country.
• The government adds names to its databases, or adds information on existing subjects, at a rate of 900 records/day.
• The CIA uses a previously unknown program, code-named Hydra, to secretly access databases maintained by foreign countries and extract  data to add to the watchlists.

Puppet "Capt. America" and Nixon (thenation)

A U.S. counterterrorism official familiar with watchlisting data told The Intercept that as of November 2013, there were approximately 700,000 people in the Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, but declined to provide the current numbers. Last month, the Associated Press, citing federal court filings by government lawyers, reported that there have been 1.5 million names added to the watchlist over the past five years. More

Massive rally at White House condemns Israel

Ashley Wells, Sheldon S., Wisdom Quarterly; CODEPINKla.org

Hey, White House, Buddhist monks agree: We need the change we were promised! (phayul)

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Massive Rally at White House condemning Israeli massacre in Gaza

Cool it in Gaza? - Hell no, we're killing 'em!

Washington, DC - CODEPINK (Women for Peace) joined the White House rally on Saturday, August 2, calling on the U.S. government to pressure Israel [and or the CIA and U.S. military-industrial complex] to stop the ongoing massacre and lift its illegal siege of Gaza in Palestine, Israel.

Gaza Strip ghetto, Palestine

CODEPINK activists carried large banners and conducted a mock cemetery with bloodied dolls and toys commemorating the loss of so many innocent Palestinian lives, especially children.

CODEPINK activists have engaged in actions across the country almost daily since the Israeli attack on Gaza began. They have protested at Israeli consulates across the country, been arrested for blocking the entrance of the Israeli Embassy in DC, rallied at U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s house, and more.

 

The U.S. gov't pushes for Israel's crimes.

With the toll in Gaza [now far] surpassing 1,400 deaths, 8,200 wounded, and 180,300 civilians displaced, activists are determined to keep pressure on the U.S. to end its arming, funding, and unconditional support for Israel and its war crimes.
 

In the past few days alone, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks by U.S.-owned F-16s, Apache helicopters, weaponized drones, tank shelling, and naval bombardment.

 

Actually controlling the media

The tiny Gaza Strip (home of 1.8 million civilian)’s only power plant was targeted by Israel's state-sponsored militants -- the fourth most powerful army in the world -- and blown up, schools were destroyed, U.N. shelters were illegally bombed and hospitals targeted after threat-warning that they would be shelled, and over 4,000 homes knocked to the ground, explains retired Colonel Ann Wright (with paraphrasing and augmenting by WQ). “We must take action to stop this!”

“As a Jew, a mother, a U.S. taxpayer, and a compassionate human being, I weep as I watch the massacre of so many innocent people, including hundreds of children in Gaza”

- CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin

“We must take our heartbreak and outrage directly to the White House,” Benjamin adds. The press contact for this action is Ali McCracken (860) 575-5692. More

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Control of the U.S. Media

Greenwald: CIA and NPR propaganda (video)

Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; Glenn Greenwald (The Intercept) Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez, Nermeen Shaikh (DemocracyNow.org, Aug. 13, 2014)

NPR propaganda uses CIA-linked firm's report on Snowden's whistle blowing

Iraq: Is U.S. "humanitarianism" only summoned to control oil-rich areas?

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The NSA illegally spies on everyone it can.

Earlier this month, The Intercept published documents provided by NSA-whistleblower Edward Snowden that revealed the deep ties between Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies.

In a recent article, investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald cites one 2013 document that described a "far-reaching technical and analytic relationship" between the National Security Agency (NSA) and its Israeli counterpart against "mutually agreed upon geographic targets."

The partnership includes a "dedicated communications line" supporting "the exchange of raw material, as well as daily analytic and technical correspondence." More

NPR's disinformation for the state

Whistleblower former NSA Agent Snowden

Furthermore, Greenwald’s latest article for The Intercept is headlined "NPR is laundering CIA talking points to make you scared of NSAb eporting." 

Greenwald takes a highly critical look at a story by NPR’s counterterrorism correspondent, Dina Temple-Raston, which aired on Morning Edition earlier this month. Temple-Raston’s propaganda-ridden report focused on claims by the tech firm Recorded Future that it has "tangible evidence" that NSA whistleblower Snowden harmed national security by inadvertently prompting "terrorists" to use better encryption programs to maintain their privacy.

 

Greenwald says the NPR report erred in failing to mention that the firm is funded by the CIA, even though Temple-Rason was well aware of this. "This was such a pure and indisputable case of journalistic malpractice and deceit," Greenwald charges. "NPR radically misled millions of people with this report." More

Rise of CIA's "ISIS": US re-invasion of Iraq, backing of Syrian rebels fuels Jihadis’ advance

LA Police Commission gives LAPD Chief Beck 2nd term Beck has worked for the LAPD for more than three decades. Violent crime has fallen under his tenure it's also come with controversy.

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• 5 Killed in Gaza During Attempt to Dismantle Israeli Missile
• WHO: Gaza Hospitals, Health Facilities "In Dire Need"
• U.K. to Suspends Arms Exports to Israel if Gaza Assault Resumes 
• Venezuela Sends Humanitarian Aid to Gaza 
• Israel Apologizes for Labeling Brazil "Diplomatic Dwarf"
• Israel: U.N. War Crimes Probe a "Kangaroo Court"
• WHO Approves Untested Drugs for Ebola Outbreak
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• Ferguson Police Continues to Withhold Identity of Officer Who Killed Michael Brown 
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• Judge Steps Down in Immigration Fraud Trial of Chicago Arab-American Activist
• HRW: Rabaa Massacre in Egypt "a Crime Against Humanity"

Noam Chomsky on ISRAEL's "hideous atrocity"

Wisdom Quarterly; Prof. Emeritus Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman (democracynow.org)

"Sadistic and grotesque": Noam Chomsky on how Netanyahu/the CIA's Israel limits food and medicine in occupied Gaza

 

US/CIA uses "Israel" in M.E.

PART 2 (see Part 1): famed linguist and political dissident Noam Chomsky exposes the crisis in Israel and the Middle East, unquestioned U.S. support for Israel, states-sponsored Jewish-apartheid, and the BDS movement. "In the Occupied Territories, what Israel is doing is much worse than [racist South African] apartheid," Chomsky says.

"To call it apartheid is a gift to Israel, at least if by 'apartheid' you mean South African-style apartheid. What’s happening in the Occupied Territories is much worse.

"There’s a crucial difference. The South African Nationalists needed the black population. That was their workforce.…The Israeli relationship to the indigenous Palestinians it has corralled into the Occupied Territories is totally different. They just don’t want them. [They want to and are well into exterminating millions of them.] They want them out, or at least in prison."

Let's open a new arm of the museum focusing on our crimes against others? - No way!

 

"A Hideous Atrocity": Noam Chomsky on Israel’s assault on Gaza and U.S. support for Israel's illegal occupation 

Noam Chomsky: Israel’s actions in Palestine are "much worse than Apartheid" in South Africa

Noam Chomsky on the U.S. mainstream media’s "shameful moment" in Gaza and how a U.S. policy shift could immediately end the Israel's illegal occupation 

Ex-Japanese PM on how Fukushima meltdown was worse than Chernobyl and why he now opposes nuclear power Three years ago today a massive earthquake triggered a devastating tsunami that struck Japan’s northeast coast, resulting in an unprecedented nuclear crisis: a triple meltdown at the Fukushima-Daichi...

Noam Chomsky: Israel's Actions in Palestine are "much worse than Apartheid" in South Africa Part 2 of conversation with famed linguist and political dissident MIT Prof. Emeritus Noam Chomsky on the crisis in Israel's ghetto the "Gaza Strip," U.S. military and propaganda support for Israel, apartheid, and the BDS (boycott, divest, and sanction) movement. 

Noam Chomsky: Sabra and Shatila Massacre that forced Israeli PM Sharon’s ouster recalls worst of Jewish Pogroms We look at one of the most shocking incidents in the career of the late former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon: the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Up to 2,000 Palestinians died on Sept. 16-17, 1982...

(DemocracyNow.org)

• NYPD arrests wife of man who filmed fatal arrest of Eric Garner 
• VIDEO: Glenn Greenwald: U.S. intelligence agencies provide "KEY ingredient" that funds, arms, enables, and encourages Israeli war crimes (then covers them up with polished pro-Israeli-biased PR campaigns in the U.S. and other Western media outlets) in greater Palestine, as well as its two "Bantustans" (racist ghettos) -- the heavily blockaded, oppressed, spied on, controlled, bombed, and sabotaged Gaza Strip and West Bank ghettos. This does not take into account the atrocious "refugee camps" it has created outside of its undefined/unconstitional boundaries/borders in neighboring countries such as Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and/or Lebanon.

Spied on for being Muslim? NSA targets named by Snowden respond to U.S. surveillance

"The Kill Team" U.S. in Afghanistan (film)

Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Dan Krauss (killteammovie.com); Nuart

Why do we as Americans kill around the world? We join "kill teams" and commit atrocities and, rarely, we get prosecuted for it. Why does our government do it to us, leading us to our worst potential as human beings? It is -- as revealed by the high ranking U.S. military man Smedley Butler -- because WAR IS A RACKET!

WARNING: Graphic photos and candid discussion of killing not in warfare but for amusement!

(The Young Turks) Ben Mankiewicz, Wes Clark Jr., and Michael Shure discuss a new report in Rolling Stone magazine about a "rogue" U.S. military Kill Team in Afghanistan that sought out and murdered helpless civilians for fun and terrorist glory. At Minute 2:37 the American soldiers seem to have done more to this child than murdered him: homosexual rape is indicated by removed trousers and blood stains. Do Americans really commit war crimes and crimes against humanity? Do they really chop off fingers (Angulimala- and War on Vietnam-style) and keep them as "trophies" of their murders? Do American soldiers develop PTSD? Moral injuries? Savagery while hypocritically calling innocent Afghans trying to defend themselves and their families against another brutal invasion "barbarians"?

Khmer convictions: Cambodia, Angelina Jolie

Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Pat Macpherson, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; BBC

It is believed that up to 2 million Cambodians died under CIA/Pol Pot's regime (AFP/BBC)

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Cambodian Tomb Raider Angelina Jolie (Lara Croft)

Most Americans are not likely aware that anything much ever happened in Cambodia -- Cambodia? Where's Cambodia? -- even as our government illegally bombed it during our war on Vietnam and our CIA fomented mass murder and crimes against humanity by cultivating dictators. 

 

It does the same now in the geopolitical Middle East just as it did all over Latin America. The CIA's activities there were exposed first hand by the highest ranking officer to ever blow the whistle:
 

Philip Agee, author of Inside the Company: CIA Diary. This seems to be in keeping with the way-of-empire and our American imperial method of making war as we learned it from England, Germany (WW II era Nazis, who came to live and work for the U.S. shadow government), Spain, France, Rome, Greece... It seems to be the Western way.

 

But Americans might know the name Pol Pot from the late 1970s, and we have all certainly heard the expression "killing fields." After all, the world's most famous Cambodian citizen is superstar actor Angelina Jolie. And America's amazing "Buddha Girl" Ratanayani is a Cambodian-American!
 

The Buddha at Battambang, Cambodia (Kim Seng/captainkino.com/flickr.com)

 

Reptilians/Nagas

Cambodia was once a peaceful Theravada Buddhist country in Southeast Asia.
 
But long before that -- mirroring the Mesoamerican empires of ancient Mexico (Aztec, Toltec, and Olmec) -- it was one of the world's greatest empires extending in the jungles from the center of the world at Angkor Wat and its suburbs, which were once home to 1,000,000 residents. It covers more ground than Paris and was built with more stone than the pyramids of Egypt, according to National Geographic.

The greatness is evident because Cambodia's former glory was not limited to the City of Angkor with its central wat (Buddhist temple). Other great stone cities have also been discovered and made much of by National Geographic, but other equally great ruins remain yet to be discovered.
 

Glass pool reservoir at Angkor Wat, Cambodia (Platongkohphoto/flickr.com)

 

But their innovative water system collapsed and their apparent worship of nagas (reptilians, snakes, Quetzalcoatl-like off-planet overlords) ushered in their ruin as a "Rome," "Washington," or "Vatican" -- the capitals of other massive empires.
 
"The Killing Fields," winner of three Academy Awards, tells the story of a New York Times reporter and his Cambodian aide harrowingly trapped in Cambodia's 1975 Khmer Rouge revolution. Sam Waterston, John Malkovich, and "Best Supporting Actor" (Oscar and Golden Globe winner) Haing S. Ngor star in this shattering true story. Rated: R.

 

Jolie's Cambodian shaman/Buddhist tattoos

Americans would have heard of the expression "The Killing Fields" from the popular film, and Pol Pot from the chorus of the Dead Kennedy's ironic and popular punk classic "Holiday in Cambodia," its stone building sunk in jungle thickets from Angelina Jolie as actress (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador.

WARNING: Graphic and gruesome violence! (CNN.com, May 1, 2009) CNN's Dan Rivers profiles members of the Khmer Rouge, as they face justice before a U.N.-backed trial.

Top Khmer Rouge leaders convicted: found guilty of crimes against humanity

Ancient megalithic Angkor Wat and its Buddha and kings' faces (Dvillaret/flickr.com)

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(BBC) There was a round of applause as the verdict was reached, according to BBC correspondent Jonathan Head.

Two top Khmer Rouge leaders have been jailed for life after being convicted by Cambodia's UN-backed tribunal of crimes against humanity

 

Nuon Chea, 88, served as leader Pol Pot's deputy and Khieu Samphan, 83, was the Maoist regime's head of state. They are the first top-level leaders to be held accountable for its crimes.
 

Soum Rithy, who lost his father and three siblings, reacts to verdict in Phom Penh (Reuters)

 
Up to two million people are thought to have died under the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime -- of starvation and overwork or executed as enemies of the state.

 

Judge Nil Nonn said the men were guilty of "extermination encompassing murder, political persecution, and other inhumane acts comprising forced transfer, enforced disappearances, and attacks against human dignity."

 

Lawyers for the pair said they would appeal against the ruling. "It is unjust for my client. He did not know or commit many of these crimes," Son Arun, a lawyer for Nuon Chea, told journalists. They will remain in detention while this takes place. 
 
"Anger remains"

The regime sought to create an agrarian society: cities were emptied and their residents forced to work on rural co-operatives. Many were worked to death while others starved as the economy imploded. 

 

During four violent years, the Khmer Rouge also killed all those it perceived as enemies -- intellectuals, minorities, former officials -- and their families. More

"Holiday in Cambodia"
(DKs555) "Apocalypse Now" illegally in Cambodia, where the US/CIA had no right or justification to be. Yet, it dropped more cluster bombs and committed as many if not more secret war crimes in Cambodia and Laos than it did in Vietnam.

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An honest man on ISRAEL: Noam Chomsky

Wisdom Quarterly; Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman (democracynow.org, Aug. 7, 2014)

Hideous. Sadistic. Vicious. Murderous. That is how Noam Chomsky describes Israel’s 29-day offensive war on Gaza -- which as killed nearly 1,900 people and left almost 10,000 Gazan Palestinians injured.
 

Pappe: "Racist Apartheid State" with US help

Chomsky has written extensively about the Israel conflict with Palestine for decades. After Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009, Chomsky co-authored the book Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel’s War Against the Palestinians with Israeli scholar Ilan Pappé. (Exeter University Prof. Pappé is one of the leading voices on Israel, calling the U.S./Israel campaign against Palestine an "incremental genocide").
 

Israel claims "self-defense" in war crimes

Chomsky's other books on the Israel/Palestine conflict include Peace in the Middle East?: Reflections on Justice and Nationhood and The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians. Perhaps his most famous work is called Manufacturing Consent exposing American propaganda techniques.
 
Noam Chomsky is a world-renowned political dissident, linguist, and author, Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), where he has taught for more than 50 years. More

• Ceasefire in Gaza enters final 24 hours
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• Iraqi Christians face crisis as I.S. advances; 40,000 Yazidis trapped...
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• U.S. drone strike kills at least 5 in Pakistan
• Russia sanctions U.S., European agricultural goods
• Snowden allowed to remain in Russia for 3 more years
• Cambodia: 2 Khmer Rouge leaders sentenced to life

U.S. bombs Japanese civilians: Hiroshima

Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan (DemocracyNow.org, Aug 6, 2014); CC Liu and Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; Follow the White Rabbit (A Million Windows, Feb. 3, 2011)

American “Enola Gay” dropping the bomb on innocent Japanese civilians at home far from the war zone for the profit of the U.S. military-industrial complex (gtrebekah.edublogs.org)

Nagasaki civilians were bombed by the USA first major war crime, a crime against humanity so enormous that no American thinks much about it except to offer limp excuses that cannot hold up (Nagasaki Museum/US Army handout (latimes.com)

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Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 69 Years Later

Japan (sunrisejetphotogallery)

“I hate war,” Koji Hosokawa told me as we stood next to the A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, Japan.

 

The skeletal remains of the four-story building stand at the edge of Japan's Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The world watches in horror this summer as military conflicts rage.

• [These "conflicts" are fomented by the U.S. military-industrial complex.]

The U.S. military-industrial complex loves to bomb Buddhists (amillionwindows)

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They're leaving destruction in their wake from Afghanistan, to Libya, to Gaza, to Syria, to Iraq, and Ukraine...

Protesting and demanding change in Ukraine

[Ukraine is where U.S. Senator, failed presidential candidate, released POW, torture survivor, Arizona Republican John McCain is both eliminating the civil rights of Americans with indefinite detention bills (written with a shameful Joe Lieberman). There he has been stirring up Cold War-era tensions with Russia by offering Ukraine covert U.S. military intervention and promises of overt sanctions].

• VIDEO: McCain calls U.S. "cowardly" for not arming Ukraine
• U.S. stealthily devastates Japan yet again: Fukushima under HAARP
• Atomic Cover-Up: The Hidden Story Behind the U.S. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• "From Hiroshima to Fukushima: Japan’s Atomic Tragedies" (Amy Goodman)

Never far from the dead and injured, nuclear-armed missiles stand by ready to rain down ultimate devastation, waiting for the horrible moment when hubris [our overarching American pride and exceptionalism], accident, or inhumanity triggers the next nuclear attack.

 

“I hate war,” Hosokawa reiterated. “War makes everyone crazy.”

Nagasaki Festival

 

(FTWR) Imagine 20 bulky, drunk Japanese men carrying a two ton golden shrine, hauling [it] up several flights of stairs.

We are experiencing the Kunchi matsuri Festival in Nagasaki City, Japan (where they affectionately call it O-kunchi).

Kunchi started as a festival to celebrate the harvest season, then came to be an occasion to oust hidden Christians, and nowadays it’s primarily just a holiday.

 

500,000 displaced, 10,000 injured by Israel

The city districts make their own floats; one float was a beautiful ship with kids playing drums, and one of them was also trying to catch as many painted wooden fish from the ground as possible. We also find traditional Dragon Dance and, of course, the use and abuse of sake [a distilled rice alcoholic spirit that leads us to wonder if the name Naga-saki isn't a reference to "dragon-brew," naga-alcohol]... More 

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"Evacuate your cities." U.S. threat letter to Japan, circa 1945