July 31, 2007:
All charges dropped against that "terror doctor" you were supposed to be all panicked about| |
Excerpt: Australia's chief prosecutor today dropped a terror charge against an Indian doctor accused of supporting last month's failed bomb attacks on London and Glasgow.
The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions Damian Bugg withdrew the charge against Mohamed Haneef in the Brisbane Magistrates Court.
Bugg told reporters in Canberra that he ordered the charges withdrawn because he was satisfied "there was no reasonable prospect of conviction". |
May 23, 2007:
'War on terror' destroys lives worldwide, says Amnesty Int'l| |
Excerpt: "Today far too many leaders are trampling freedom and trumpeting an ever-widening range of fears: fear of being swamped by migrants; fear of “the other” and of losing one’s identity; fear of being blown up by terrorists; fear of “rogue states” with weapons of mass destruction," AI secretary general Irene Khan said and added that "the approach being taken by many world leaders is short-sighted, promulgating policies and strategies that erode the rule of law and human rights, increase inequalities, feed racism and xenophobia, divide and damage communities, and sow the seeds for violence and more conflict." |
May 9, 2007:
Six knucklehead non-terrorists arrested for terrorism in New Jersey| |
Comment: Add the Fort Dix Six to the long list of harmless idiots arrested in high-profile operations that have nothing to do with security and everything to do with selling us the War on Terror. |
April 17, 2007:
Bush's 'war on terror' phrase helps terrorists| |
Excerpt: President George Bush's "war on terror" rhetoric has strengthened terrorist groups by helping them to create a shared identity, the British Development Secretary, Hilary Benn, warned on Monday.
Comment: There is no war on terror.
There are endless occupations of foreign nations, endless explosions, gunfights, and war, endless death of American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, and of course plenty of death for innocent civilians in these occupied nations, but in all the reasons offered for this, the so-called "war on terror," there's nothing that isn't just plain propaganda. |
Dec. 13, 2006:
Remember the hype?
UK 'plot' terror charge dropped| |
Excerpt: A Pakistani judge has ruled there is not enough evidence to try a key suspect in an alleged airline bomb plot on terrorism charges.
He has moved the case of Rashid Rauf, a Briton, from an anti-terrorism court to a regular court, where he faces lesser charges such as forgery. |
Sept. 24, 2006:
Iraq war created a terrorist flood, American spymasters warn Bush| |
Excerpt: America's spy agencies have concluded that the invasion of Iraq has created a flood of new Islamic terrorists and increased the danger to US interests to a higher level than at any time since the 9/11 attacks.
This grim assessment is provided in a classified intelligence document called the National Intelligence Estimate, large parts of which have been leaked to the New York Times. The report is the largest US intelligence survey of the global terror threat carried out since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Its conclusion will surprise few critics of the Iraq war or US policy against terrorism. It is, however, a sharp contrast to the message often coming out of the White House and provides a far more harrowing assessment of terrorism than a congressional report published last week. |
Sept. 14, 2006:
UN says US report on Iran nuclear program is a big lie| |
Excerpt: U.N. inspectors investigating Iran's nuclear program angrily complained to the Bush administration and to a Republican congressman yesterday about a recent House committee report on Iran's capabilities, calling parts of the document "outrageous and dishonest" and offering evidence to refute its central claims.
Comment: The US Congress is LYING to make the case that we have to attack Iran, now, for the love of Pete.
The House report says that Iran is producing weapons-grade enriched uranium, but the UN's nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, says that's a giant big fat lie.
The rat bastards in the Republican Party, after they've completely destroyed our military AND our credibility on the last lie-based war, are now actually trying to LIE THIS COUNTRY INTO ANOTHER DAMN WAR!
Peter Hoekstra's (R-MI) pants are COMPLETELY ON FIRE! Experts are saying that this is just like before Iraq, which ALSO DIDN'T HAVE A NUCLEAR PROGRAM!
Dagnaggit, these people are starting to REALLY PISS ME OFF!!! Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK |
Aug. 18, 2006:
Republican terror tactics losing appeal, polls suggests| |
Comment: For the first time in decades, the GOP does not poll better than Democrats on security issues.
And all they had to do was dismantle all government emergency services, divert all security funding to their rich friends, stop participating in international diplomacy, adopt an official policy of invading countries pre-emptively, completely decimate the military, and declare that the U.S. an enemy to every single member of the largest religion on the planet.
And all this gets them into A TIE with the Democrats.
Does Cheney have to personally launch nuclear attacks on all major U.S. cities live on Fox News before Americans realize that the White House is putting us all in more danger than any foreign enemy ever could?
Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK |
Aug. 7, 2006:
Terror danger wildly overhyped| |
Excerpt: The bottom line is, terrorism doesn't kill many people. Even in Israel, you're four times more likely to die in a car wreck than as a result of a terrorist attack. In the USA, you need to be more worried about lightning strikes than terrorism. The point of terrorism is to create terror, and by cynically convincing us that our very countries are at risk from terrorism, our politicians have delivered utter victory to the terrorists: we are terrified. |
July 25, 2006:
This 'war on terror' disgraces America
by James Bovard, The Boston Globe
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Excerpt: The federal government has inflated the "No Fly List" to 200,000 names. But the list has nabbed more members of Congress than it has terrorists. US Senator Edward M. Kennedy and US Representative John Lewis have been inconvenienced by it, and anyone named David Nelson is likely to face a major interrogation each time he flies. Federal officials make it very difficult to correct the list, thus tormenting citizens who are guilty of nothing more than having a name resembling a name suspected sometime by some government official. |
June 30, 2006:
Newspaper finds defense witnesses for Guantanamo prisoner, though US said they couldn't be found| |
Comment: Isn't it obvious, as the lies continue, that virtually everything Bush & Cheney have announced about the 'war on terror' is an un-ending parade of blatant lies?
... Today they're lying to keep a man in prison, to prevent him from having a fair trial. Tomorrow they could be lying to imprison you. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
June 30, 2006:
Al Qaeda's threat repeatedly overhyped by Bush-Cheney administration| |
Excerpt: In contrast to the truly terrifying Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker, and 9/11 master strategist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- both of whom took terrorism to new levels of competence -- most Al Qaeda operatives look more like life's losers, the kind who in a Western culture would join street gangs or become a petty criminals but who in the jihadi world could lose themselves in a "great cause," making some sense of their pinched, useless lives.
Like Richard Reid, who tried to set his shoelace on fire.
Or Ahmed Ressam, who bolted in a panic from his car at the U.S. border during an alleged mission to bomb the L.A. airport.
Or Iyman Faris, who comically believed he could bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch.
Or the crazed Zacarias Moussaoui, who was disowned even by bin Laden.
Then you've got the hapless Lackawanna Six, and, more recently, the Toronto 17, who were thinking about pulling off an Oklahoma City-style attack with ammonium nitrate -- or perhaps just beheading the prime minister -- but hadn't quite gotten around to it. |
June 27, 2006:
War in Iraq was just what al Qaeda wanted, says al Qaeda insider's book| |
Comment: In Management of Savagery, for example, we learn about the vital boost that the Afghanistan war against the Soviet Union provided the jihadists. The USSR's defeat in Afghanistan not only lead to their ultimate break-up (according to the book), but proved to potential recruits that the two superpowers were not invincible. Thanks, USA, for providing Osama Bin Laden and friends adequate military supplies, training and funding to raise up Al Qaeda as a major league player. That worked out really well for us, eh? Angela Baker PERMANENT LINK |
June 25, 2006:
"Terror plot" against Chicago skyscraper? Not really.| |
Excerpt: The plot sounded menacing: a group of home-grown terrorists with sinister code names seek help from al-Qaida to attack the tallest US building, the 103-storey Sears Tower in Chicago. But as more details emerge of a supposed terror plot interrupted by US authorities, the plotters and their half-baked plan seem less than deadly and more than a little ridiculous. |
June 13, 2006:
Poll of foreign policy experts deeply pessimistic about US "war on terror"| |
Excerpt: Only 13% of the experts think America is winning the war on terror, compared with 56% of the public. |
June 1, 2006:
Homeland Security cuts New York, DC funds by 40%| |
Excerpt: After vowing to steer a greater share of anti-terrorism money to the highest-risk communities, Department of Homeland Security officials on Wednesday announced 2006 grants that slashed money for New York and Washington 40 percent, while other cities including Omaha and Louisville, Ky., got a surge of new dollars.
Comment: Do we need any further proof that the Department of Homeland Security has no actual interest in making Americans safer? Helen & Harry LINK |
May 1, 2006:
Former watchdog at Homeland Security says DHS protected White House instead of Americans| |
Excerpt: The Homeland Security Department has made the nation only marginally safer than it was before the 2001 terror attacks that spawned its creation, the agency's former internal watchdog charges in a new book. The memoir released Monday by former Homeland Security inspector general Clark Kent Ervin also accuses Tom Ridge, the department's first secretary, of shutting down critics instead of focusing on terrorists. |
April 9, 2006:
Nothing but lies behind "war on teror"
by Robyn E. Blumner, St. Petersburg Times
Feb. 19, 2006:
Bush and Blair have brilliantly done bin Laden's work for him
by Simon Jenkins, The Times of London| |
Excerpt: America asks the world to believe itself so threatened as to require the kidnappings of foreign citizens in foreign parts, detention without legal process, the curbing of free speech and derogation from all international law.
It asks the world to believe that it must disregard the Geneva conventions and employ foreign dictators to help it to torture at random.
It uses the same justification for occupying Iraq and Afghanistan.
The world simply refuses to agree. |
Feb. 14, 2006:
Bin Laden tapes are as phony as Sept. 11's connection to Islam
by Kevin Barrett, The Capital Times [Madison, WI]
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Excerpt: I recently helped translate a previously unknown bin Laden tape, a real one from the early '90s, back when he was still alive. I know the guy's flowery religious rhetoric. The recent tape wasn't him. |
Jan. 27, 2006:
Bush administration response to spying scandal: Lies, lies, and more lies
Jan. 19, 2006:
Bin Laden expert skeptical about latest purported bin Laden tape
Dec. 7, 2005:
The terror verdict TV networks ignored
by Eric Boehlert, The Huffington Post| |
Excerpt: When then-Attorney General John Ashcroft personally announced the Al-Arian indictment on Feb. 20, 2003, in a press conference carried live on CNN (Ashcroft tagged Al-Arian the North American leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad), the story garnered a wave of excited media attention. ABC's "World News Tonight" led that night's newscast with the Al Arian arrest. Both NBC and CBS also gave the story prominent play that evening. But last night, in the wake of Al-Arian's acquittal, it was a different story. Neither ABC, CBS nor NBC led with the terror case on their evening newscasts. None of them slotted it second or third either. In fact, according to TVEyes, the 24-hour monitor system, none of networks reported the acquittal at all. Raise your hand if you think the nets would have covered the trial's conclusion if the jury had returned with a guilty verdict in what the government had hyped as a centerpiece to its War on Terror. |
Oct. 12, 2005:
The polls and the terror alerts: A series of odd coincidences
July 5, 2005:
Are al Qaeda videos, tapes, and websites for real?
What's wrong with this picture?
by Andres Kargar, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: All static websites are either registered in a country or are hosted by sites that are registered in that country. For example, yahoo.com has a registration record in Network Solutions' databases, meaning it is traceable. Your personal homepage might also be traceable through registration of its domain. If not, it is being hosted by a site, such as yahoo.com, which again will make it quite traceable. You see, the daily bombardment of propaganda can be so effective that even intelligent people who are aware of these facts are still fooled by the news reports. |
June 12, 2005:
Feds wildly exaggerate terror prosecution records (again)
May 20, 2005:
FBI says biggest domestic terrorists are animal-rights and environmental groups
May 10, 2005:
"Flimsy evidence" behind terror alerts,
ex-Homeland Security Sec'ty Ridge now admits
May 8, 2005:
Latest "high-ranking" al Qaeda capture was another nobody, another lie
April 15, 2005:
Terrorism on the increase again; Bush administration orders report quashed
April 15, 2005:
Justice Dept: Any destructive device
may be a "weapon of mass destruction"
April 14, 2005:
US-touted "terror case" evaporates into more Bush administration lies
April 7, 2005:
Homeland Security memo reveals terrorism records being sanitized
March 10, 2005:
Secret FBI report questions al Qaeda's abilities Excerpt: "Al-Qa'ida leadership's intention to attack the United States is not in question," the report reads. (All spellings are as rendered in the original report.) "However, their capability to do so is unclear, particularly in regard to 'spectacular' operations. We believe al-Qa'ida's capability to launch attacks within the United States is dependent on its ability to infiltrate and maintain operatives in the United States."
And for all the worry about Osama bin Laden's sleeper cells or agents in the United States, a secret FBI assessment concludes it knows of none.
The 32-page assessment says flatly, "To date, we have not identified any true 'sleeper' agents in the US," seemingly contradicting the "sleeper cell" description prosecutors assigned to seven men in Lackawanna, N.Y., in 2002.
Feb. 17, 2005:
Ridge, pollsters met during Bush campaign
Jan. 11, 2005:
A forbidden question about al Qaeda
by Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times
Jan. 9, 2005:
Better we don't capture bin Laden, says ex-CIA honcho
Nov. 16, 2004:
Federal fines for supporting terrorists reduced by two-thirds since 9/11
19 top fundraisers for Bush did illegal business with terrorist countries
Oct. 4, 2004:
Study shows terror warnings boost Bush approval ratesExcerpt: When the federal government issues a terrorist warning, presidential approval ratings jump, a Cornell University sociologist finds. Interestingly, terrorist warnings also boost support for the president on issues that are largely irrelevant to terrorism, such as his handling of the economy.
Sept. 7, 2004:
Cheney: If America elects Kerry, terrorists will strike againExcerpt: "If we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again -- that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States," Cheney said.
Sept. 3, 2004:
The al Qaeda striptease
# with comments by Men at Work
Aug. 9, 2004:
U.S. Attorneys say Justice Dept hindered terror prosecutions
Aug. 5, 2004:
Chart: Bush ratings vs. terror alerts
Aug. 3, 2004:
Reports that led to terror alert were years old, officials now say
July 19, 2004:
Feds' claims of terror prosecutions don't add up (again)
July 5, 2004:
US warns of booby-trapped beer coolers
June 23, 2004:
Terrorism worldwide increases
Government issues 'correction' to earlier, misleading report
June 15, 2004:
Bush administration ditches the war on actual terrorists, focuses instead on citizens exercising democratic rights
by Madeline Zane, Unknown News
June 3, 2004:
Another terror suspect freed by feds
Again, "national security" trumps "war on terror"
June 3, 2004:
Police, FBI fret about audiotapes, paper airplanes
June 2, 2004:
Bush likens war on terror to World War II
March 4, 2004:
The terrifying terror of terrorism
Dec. 21, 2003:
US officials are lying about terrors stats (again)
Dec. 8, 2003:
Terror-related cases often fizzle
Dec. 8, 2003:
Figures show 'hype' of terror war
Nov. 28, 2003:
Does al Qaeda exist?
July 21, 2003:
Anti-terror law enhances penalty for drug crimes
Feb. 21 and March 15, 2003:
Justice Dept. lied about terror cases, says GAO
and Justice Dept. lies about terror cases -- again
Feb. 14, 2003:
US now says terror threat info was fabricated
Nov. 22, 2002:
Bin Laden tape “faked,” say Swiss experts
SCROLL UP FOR MORE RECENT COVERAGE 
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There's much more than this at Unknown News.
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In the end, most cases on the Justice Department [terror prosecution] list turned out to have no connection to terrorism at all.
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The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says.
Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.
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When the federal government issues a terrorist warning, presidential approval ratings jump, a Cornell University sociologist finds. Interestingly, terrorist warnings also boost support for the president on issues that are largely irrelevant to terrorism, such as his handling of the economy.
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Federal prosecutors claim they built 35 terrorism-related cases in Iowa in the two years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, but most of the defendants have questionable links to violent extremism.
Defendants who could be identified by the Des Moines Register were, in most cases, charged with fraud or theft and served just a few months in jail.
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In the first two months of this year, the Justice Department filed charges against 56 people, labeling all the cases as "terrorism."
But an Inquirer investigation has found that at least 41 of them had nothing to do with terrorism -- a point that prosecutors of the cases themselves acknowledge.
Among the cases:
28 Latinos charged with working illegally at the airport in Austin, Texas, most of them using phony Social Security numbers.
Eight Puerto Ricans charged with trespassing on Navy property on the island of Vieques, long a site of civil protests of ordnance testing.
A Middle Eastern man indicted in Detroit for allegedly passing bad checks who has the same name as a Hezbollah leader.
A Middle Eastern college student charged in Trenton with paying a stand-in to take his college English-proficiency tests. He received a one-month jail sentence after pleading guilty.
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