A little advice

Earlier today, I sent the following to an old friend out west. He hasn't answered yet. Maybe a Cannonfire reader will have some words of advice.

* * *

The most fun I've had recently was when I wrote a weird blog post about Anwar al-Awlaki, the American citizen turned Al Qaeda-linked imam who was blown up by a drone. Don't know if you read that one. As always, I offered an oddball theory, in the hope of inspiring someone to send me either confirmatory evidence or an interesting counter-argument.

Last night, I got to thinking that this post could be the basis of a worthwhile documentary. It would be a full length video concocted out of found footage and offered gratis on YouTube. The subject of the video would not be Awlaki per se. Rather, it would be a piece about the many mysteries we've encountered during the decade-plus of the war on terror.

But.

Well, you know what the "but" is already, don't you? On my blog, the moment I mention Al Qaeda or the war on terror -- in any context -- the fucking "controlled demolition" bastards come out to play. For some reason, they really watch my blog like a hawk. Even though I never publish their comments, they keep looking for a way in.

I sometimes feel like Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer's Apprentice, holding the door back with all his might -- because if it should open even the tiniest amount, for even a microsecond, the Ambulatory Broom Army will burst in and take over and trample everything underfoot. I've learned the hard way that you can't engage these guys in any sort of dialogue. If you do, you'll end up having the same fucking arguments every hour of every day until you die. Life is too short and my interests are too broad to deal with those clowns.

What to do?

Doesn't seem right that I should let those bastards censor me. I don't go to their blogs and try to censor them. I just want to make an interesting, off-beat, hopefully thought-provoking (and not too amateurish-looking) documentary without having to deal with their madness.

On the other hand -- maybe these "controlled demolition" wackos have finally given up. Or maybe they've learned that their terrible behavior has only injured their cause. Their theory certainly isn't as popular as it once was.

What to do?

By the way: I didn't publish a piece on 9/11 written by our old friend Jim DiEugenio, for the reasons given above. This decision was not really fair, since Jim's piece is not about the "controlled demolition" theory. But I'm just plain afraid to address the subject of 9/11 from any angle. Whenever I put my ear to that particular door, I can still hear Paul Dukas' famous "marching brooms" theme...

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Austerity won't work

Paul Krugman has a big, juicy piece up about what went wrong and continues to go wrong:

But it all went wrong in 2010. The crisis in Greece was taken, wrongly, as a sign that all governments had better slash spending and deficits right away. Austerity became the order of the day, and supposed experts who should have known better cheered the process on, while the warnings of some (but not enough) economists that austerity would derail recovery were ignored. For example, the president of the European Central Bank confidently asserted that “the idea that austerity measures could trigger stagnation is incorrect.”

Well, someone was incorrect, all right.

Of the papers presented at this meeting, probably the biggest flash came from one by Olivier Blanchard and Daniel Leigh of the International Monetary Fund. Formally, the paper represents the views only of the authors; but Mr. Blanchard, the I.M.F.’s chief economist, isn’t an ordinary researcher, and the paper has been widely taken as a sign that the fund has had a major rethinking of economic policy.

For what the paper concludes is not just that austerity has a depressing effect on weak economies, but that the adverse effect is much stronger than previously believed. The premature turn to austerity, it turns out, was a terrible mistake.

In a word: The problem is austerity. Intuitively, austerity seems the right idea at a time when debt is so high. But people with tight belts do not spend, and only spending can get the economy going again.

Yet we keep hearing that the only possible answer is ever more austerity:

The really bad news is how few other players are doing the same. European leaders, having created Depression-level suffering in debtor countries without restoring financial confidence, still insist that the answer is even more pain. The current British government, which killed a promising recovery by turning to austerity, completely refuses to consider the possibility that it made a mistake.

And here in America, Republicans insist that they’ll use a confrontation over the debt ceiling — a deeply illegitimate action in itself — to demand spending cuts that would drive us back into recession.

The Republican goal is not to save the country but to slice into Social Security and Medicare. They've made that fact very clear. Eric Zeusse argues that Obama is their secret ally:

Now he is repeating this same behavior, regarding cuts to “entitlements.” Yet again, polls show that the public rejects raising the retirement age, reducing the inflation-measure in calculating benefits, and the other Republican-pushed measures; but Obama is doing all he can to help Congressional Republicans get what they want on these issues.

Yet again, Pelosi and Reid are tearing their hair out about Obama’s deceits and his preemptory caves on vital issues. On January 4th, Pelosi in her weekly press briefing was asked about using the 14th Amendment to annihilate the Republicans’ threats to violate the 14th Amendment, and Pelosi said, “I’ve made my view very clear on that subject. But I’m not the president of the United States.” On the same day, Ryan Grim at Huffington Post bannered “Harry Reid Would Back Obama If He Bucks GOP On Debt Ceiling: Source.” Reid “has privately told other Democrats, including President Obama, that if the administration used its constitutional and executive authority to continue paying its debts in the face of House Republican opposition, he would support the approach.”

The way this would work is: Republicans would repeat the 1995 shut-down cliff-hanger, and President Obama would cite the 14th Amendment, and possibly also the trillion-dollar-coin tactic, to continue paying the U.S. Government’s debts; and the matter would then go to the Supreme Court to be adjudicated. But Obama has already, through his Press spokesperson, said that he won’t use the 14th Amendment. That will leave only the coin-tactic, which is less likely to succeed. He has already publicly trashed his biggest weapon.

Democrats in Congress cannot publicly say that they despise a Democrat in the White House, but the signs indicate that they do.

The coin trick may soon be the only bit of magic available to the president. He has not ruled it out. In fact, we see new trial balloons every day. I don't know if that's a positive sign or a distressing sign but...it's a sign of something.

There is thus now a Democratic Party rebellion against Obama, and he will soon show by his actions – no longer just his words – whether he is a Democrat, and whether his Republican actions in the past have reflected, on his part, stupidity, rather than actual treachery.

Many of my readers will find it hard to see this situation in terms of Pelosi & Reid vs. Obama. But I think that interpretation has much to recommend it.

I was pretty damned captious during the previous four years, and I would prefer to have a more positive stance toward the next four. There are encouraging signs: No more Tim Geithner, no more Rahm Emanuel. Call me naive, but I still think that we can force this president to act like a Democrat.

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The Awlaki mystery: Was he one of ours? Is he really dead?

Here's what you think you know:

Anwar al-Awlaki was an American civil engineer who became an Imam, an Al Qaeda propagandist, an associate of terrorists (including the 9/11 attackers and the underwear bomber), and an alleged operational agent of the world's most notorious terror organization. Despite his American citizenship, Awlaki made this administration's "kill" list; a drone took him out in Yemen in September, 2011. Two weeks later, his 16 year old son (also an American) was also killed by a drone.

Or so we have been told. Is it possible that what you think you know just ain't so?

Family members and the ACLU have asked, under FOIA, to see the legal basis for these targeted killings. Unsurprisingly, New York Southern District Court Judge Colleen McMahon issued a ruling denying the ACLU's "facially overbroad" request. McMahon admitted that the government's targeted killings "seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution."

Part of McMahon's ruling seems like it could have been written by a progressive blogger:

The Administration has engaged in public discussion of the legality of targeted killing, even of citizens, but in cryptic and imprecise ways, generally without citing any statute of court decision that justifies its conclusions. More fulsome disclosure of the legal reasoning on which the Administration relies to justify the targeted killing of individuals, including United States citizens, far from an recognizable "hot" field of battle, would allow for intelligent discussion and assessment of a tactic that (like torture before it) remains hotly debated. It might also help the public understand the scope of the ill-defined yet vast and seemingly ever-growing exercise in...

(The rest of the line went missing when the document was uploaded. Damn.)

“However, this court is constrained by law, and under the law, I can only conclude that the government has not violated FOIA by refusing to turn over the documents, and so cannot be compelled by this court of law to explain in detail the reasons why its actions do not violate the Constitution and laws of the United States. The Alice-in-Wonderland nature of this pronouncement is not lost on me.”

Well, as long as the judge can offer up literary allusions, I suppose we can tolerate her inability to deliver justice.

Marcy Wheeler noticed something odd about this ruling (in a footnote on page 4): The judge ran her unclassified statement past the FBI just to give the Bureau a chance to see if she had accidentally spilled any beans about classified matters. Why is this odd? Because, as far as we know, the FBI played no role in the Awlaki case.

Now in my day, by cracky, the gubmint couldn't refuse FOIA information without listing one of the ten reasons for exemption given here (subsection B). It worked like this: You asked for a document under FOIA, and the gubmint would send you some pages filled with big black redaction marks. Each mark would have a handwritten label noting the specific exemption -- b3, b6, whatever.

Things are different now. A judge may offer a blanket denial -- "No soup for you!" -- and that's that.

This particular bowl of soup may contain a surprise ingredient.

A few bold theorists, including yours truly, have suggested that al-Awlaki was, as cold war spies used to say, nash. ("Nash" was KGB-speak for "ours.") In other words: I think this guy was always one of our own agents, operating under ultra-deep cover.

His targeted killing -- and the drone-death of his 16 year old son (who otherwise would hardly seem to be worth the effort) -- might have been staged. Perhaps father and son were not killed. Perhaps they were extracted and reassigned, or allowed to retire.

Awlaki, who once had a massive internet presence (including lots of YouTube videos), rose to a position of prominence within Al Qaeda even though Bin Laden reportedly didn't like him. From Wikipedia:

Some Muslim scholars said they did not understand al‑Awlaki's popularity, because while he spoke fluent English and could therefore reach a large non-Arabic-speaking audience, he lacked formal Islamic training and study.

He was born in New Mexico in 1971, yet later claimed to have been a native Yemeni. This summary of his academic years allows for more than one interpretation:

In 1991 Al-Aulaqi returned to the U.S state of Colorado to attend college. He earned a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University (1994), where he was president of the Muslim Student Association.[50] He attended the university on a foreign student visa and a government scholarship from Yemen, apparently by claiming to be born in that country, according to a former U.S. security agent.[51] He spent a summer of his college years training with the Afghan mujahideen.[17]

Al-Aulaqi also studied Education Leadership at San Diego State University, though he never completed his degree there. He worked on a Doctorate degree in Human Resource Development at George Washington University Graduate School of Education & Human Development from January to December 2001.

George Washington University has longstanding CIA ties. The stint with the mujahadeen -- at a time when they were working with the CIA -- is certainly suggestive.

After the 9/11 attacks, Awlaki was interviewed by the FBI due to his undeniable ties to three of the hijackers. Nevertheless, on February 5, 2002, al-Awlaki was invited to speak at a formal Pentagon lunch.

Who invited him? Who cleared him? Those questions have never been properly answered. More disturbingly: Why has the western press been so reticent to discuss Awlaki's Pentagon ties?

In late 2011, this comment on a right-wing site raised a few good questions:

However the more I read about the deeds of this guy, the more I become sure that something is not at all right. His terrorist accomplishments seem to be taking responsibility for talking a moron into placing explosives in his underwear that did not blow up but rather burned family jewels. the next thing mentioned is being responsible for two copy machines being shipped by plane that failed to explode and were discovered long before they got anywhere near the United States and injured no one. The third things is that a muslim soldier listened to his preaching and shot a lot of other soldiers at fort Hood... seems Al-awlaki inspired the act but no proof that I have heard that he even knew it was going to happen.

Seems to me that this cleric was a total screw up and not much a danger but given lots of publicity which seemed to be his claim to fame.

...if he was as the press suggests then he got exactly what he had coming, but if he was a deep cover agent sent to get close the real terrorists in the middle east and made famous by press releases from the government for failed terrorist attempts .. then killed for political points to make Obama seem to be an effective terrorist hunter ..well then something is very wrong.

I would disagree with the "effective terrorist hunter" bit. Since Yemen is off-limits to any independent investigators, we really don't know what happened there. We can't be positive that the man is dead. The only evidence we have are statements from the governments of Yemen and the United States.

But we do know that the drone killings created image problems for Obama, at least among his liberal supporters. (His conservative enemies will always oppose him no matter what he does.) 

It's worth noting that al-Awlaki died once before -- in a 2009 drone attack. He got better.

I've written about the Awlaki-as-"nash" theory before. If you re-read that post, you may be able to come up with a plausible answer to Marcy's question: Why was that judge so concerned with running her statement past the FBI, even though the FBI was not party to the case?

There are plenty of indicators that the FBI ran Awlaki during his time in this country...

Given his clear connections to the San Diego team members, you would presume that Al-Awlaki would have scooted out of the country -- as he had announced he would do. But no. Naturally, he was interviewed by the FBI after the terror attack. And with unnatural ease, he sailed right through their questioning -- even though he clearly seems to have lied about his relationship with the hijackers, since his story contradicted the evidence of his cell phone records.

(Wasn't Martha Stewart forced to do jail time for lying to investigators about a much less important matter?)

After all of this, the guy was busted for soliciting prostitutes in 2002 -- his second bust on that charge. He seems to have been able to make the problem go away with surprising ease. That became a pattern. When it came to potential legal problems, this man always seemed to have the protection of a Holy Guardian Angel:

His name came up in the abortive Operation Green Quest investigation. He was placed on the terrorist watch list. Shortly after that, a judge issued a warrant for his arrest on a charge of passport fraud.

In October of 2002, the warrant was rescinded and the criminal case was dropped. He was allowed to fly into the U.S on October 10, 2002. Customs detained him until the FBI told Customs that al-Awlaki was taken off the watch list just the day before.

History Commons draws the following info from a 2004 U.S. News and World Report story:

Al-Awlaki then leaves the US again. The FBI will later admit they were “very interested” in al-Awlaki and yet failed to stop him from leaving the country. One FBI source says, “We don’t know how he got out.”

The pattern is unmistakable: The FBI told everyone that they were "very interested" in the man -- but only when he was out of the country. If they were so desperate to talk to him again, why didn't they pay him a visit when Customs had detained him at the airport?

Dec. 18, 2003: British MP Louise Ellman tells House of Commons calls Muslim Association of Britain is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood; says Awlaki “is reportedly wanted for questioning by the FBI in connection with the 9/11 al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.”

Yeah. Funny thing about that, Louise: The FBI did question him twice, both before and after he 9/11 attacks. They let him go, despite clear evidence of his involvement. And they let him fly in and out of the country, even though lots of innocent people (lefties, mostly) were put on the "no fly" list during this same period.

You want more evidence? Then consider this: The Australian -- a prominent Murdoch-owned newspaper down under -- once strongly implied that Awlaki was working for U.S and/or Yemeni intelligence.

In 2006, he used the name Abu Atiq. Under that name, he was part of a gun running ring in Yemen. He was scooped up by Yemeni authorities and placed in prison just a short while before a huge raid took out the entire ring. The news account says that "Abu" was the "key" to the raid. Translation: He blabbed. He (allegedly) stayed in prison for 18 months, segregated from everyone else, and then was let loose.

My primary reasons for continuing to think that Awlaki was nash may strike you as subtle, but I nevertheless would ask you to mull them over.

In all of the recent press reportage, there is no mention of the troubling history outlined above (and in our previous post). No mention of his 2002 chumminess with the Pentagon. No mention of the FBI's bizarre "catch and release" pattern. No mention of his "angelic" protection when it came to his many legal problems. No mention of his "Abu Atiq" escapade, in which he ratted out his colleagues. No mention of his ties to "terrorist cells" that were clearly creations of the FBI itself. No mention of Bin Laden's mistrust.

Think about it: What other reason can there be for Barack Obama to order the drone killing of a 16 year old American boy?

It's very possible that neither father nor son truly died. They may be living elsewhere, under assumed identities.

If Awlaki was always a penetration agent, and if he really is alive right now, would he be cold-hearted enough to allow his father to think him dead? As a very roundabout way of answering that question, I may one day write a long post about a couple of mystery men from days of yore: Richard Colvin Cox and Michael Valentich.

You may want to look 'em up.

(I will publish no comments touching on the usual 9/11 conspiracy theories. Sorry. But if that door cracks open even a tiny amount, all sorts of rats will clamber aboard the good ship Cannonfire.)

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FBI abets plot to assassinate Occupy leaders

The FBI found out about a plot to murder OWS leaders in Texas. The conspiracy was apparently instigated by private parties, although the actual authorship remains unknown. There is no evidence that the FBI did anything to warn the targets, or did anything to impede the assassination plot.

What's plain as day is that some group somewhere was plotting to murder OWS leadership in Texas. It's also clear that the FBI never bothered to inform the targets of the threats against their lives. This stands in apparent contrast to how closely they worked and coordinated with private banks to handle the OWS protests as a whole. And, remember, this is the same FBI who has put tremendous effort over the past few years into breaking up its own terrorist plots. You'd think that when it had a chance to go after actual plots to assassinate leaders of a political movement, they might, you know, actually do something and then trumpet the success in stopping a real plot. Apparently not.

So the lesson here is simple. If you're a private bank, the FBI will help you demonize non-violent protesters as "terrorists," but if you're a protester, you don't get to know that you might have an infrared dot dancing on the back of your head -- or have the FBI take it as serious as one of its own made up terrorist plots.

Couple of questions:

1. How much longer will the right-wing propagandists maintain the fiction that Obama aided and abetted the OWS movement?

2. If the FBI knows about an assassination plot but does nothing to stop it, is the Bureau culpable?

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"Terrorists and pedophiles and cannibals -- oh my!"

You've probably already heard about the NY cop named Gilberto Valle who stands accused of offering to kidnap women for money. The man who allegedly offered to pay for that service was a fetishist named Michael Vanhise, who wanted to cook the women alive and then eat them.

Here's the question everyone is asking: Was this plot serious, or was it just an online fantasy?

Here's the question everyone should be asking: How did the government find out about a matter discussed in private emails and private messages?

One good way to make the citizenry tolerate the government's continuing assaults on our right to privacy is to build a well-publicized case against a person who seems truly despicable. If Americans accept warrant-free intrusion in a case involving a possible plot to kidnap women, precedent is established. The government will be then be free to stick its nose into other private mailboxes, in situations that are far less outre.

If we sacrifice our rights in order to catch a potential cannibal kidnapper, then we will no longer possess those rights when the government wants to shut us down for political dissent.

Of course, the more sheep-like Americans will respond with their usual sheepish mantra: "If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about." Those are the precise words people used in Nazi Germany. 

The actual complaint is here. FBI agent Anthony Foto is far too vague about how he learned about this alleged plot:

6. In or about September 2012, the FBI learned that GILBERTO VALLE, the defendant, a New York City Police Office, was sending electronic mail ("e-mail") and instant messages from a home computer (the "Computer"), discussing plans to kidnap, rape torutre, kill, cook and eat body parts of a number of women.

7. Pursuant to a Court-authorized search warrant, the FBI performed a search of the Computer and discovered that GILBERTO VALLE, the defendant, had created files pertaining to at least 100 women and containing at least one photograph of each woman, the majority of whom are listed by their first and last name (the "Individual Files")....

The story told here leaves out the most crucial piece of information. Yes, the FBI got a search warrant -- eventually. They did so after the fact, because they already knew the nature of Valle's private email and private chats. How did the FBI discover the contents of those emails and chats in the period before the warrant was issued? 

That's the part they're not telling you.

That's the part that should matter dearly to all politically-engaged people, no matter how repellent you may find the accusations against Valle. If all you can talk about or think about is the "ick" factor of this story, you've been distracted.

The sheer outrageous spectacle of the Grand Guignol activities described here has blinded most people to the more important question: By what right does the FBI -- without a warrant -- learn the content of a citizen's private email?

We've all seen the pattern. Ever since the passage of the Patriot act, government agents have cried "Terrorists and pedophiles! Terrorists and pedophiles!" as their grand excuse for snooping without a warrant. Now we have a third scarecrow to frighten the gullible. "Terrorists and pedophiles and cannibals -- oh my!"

I hope it goes without saying that nobody should interpret this post as a plea for the toleration of terrorism, pedophilia and cannibalism. In the past, Cannonfire has never had a kind word for cannibal kidnappers, and you should not expect that policy to change any time soon. I am every bit as anti-cannibal-kidnapper as you are.

But this blog has repeatedly warned that the government uses extreme cases as a way to justify the erosion of rights we all used to hold dear.

How not to write a news story. The tale of Michael Vanhise took an odd turn yesterday. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what that turn was, because this report lacks basic comprehensibility.

A lawyer claims that the arrest of a man accused of trying to pay a police officer to kidnap a Manhattan woman was done to prevent him from testifying about Internet sexual fantasies at the officer's cannibalism-tinged trial.

Attorney Julia Gatto spoke after Vanhise, 22, of Trenton, appeared briefly in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, where he was ordered held pending a bail hearing Monday on a conspiracy to commit kidnapping charge.

"Mr. Vanhise is being used as a pawn by the government to bolster a very weak case," Gatto said outside court. She represents Valle, 28, of Queens, who is scheduled to go to trial later this month after he was charged in October with one count of kidnapping conspiracy and one count of accessing a computer without authorization.

She said Vanhise "would have exonerated our client" with testimony about his own participation in a world of Internet sexual fantasies where people could speak of unspeakable acts they would never commit. She said the arrest Friday appeared to be a tactical move by authorities to prevent testimony by Vanhise or others about Internet fantasies.

"He definitely could have been a defense witness, yes. We believe he would certainly support the defense," Gatto said.

The lawyer said the government appeared to be pressuring potential defense witnesses not to take the witness stand by saying in court documents filed against Vanhise that there were other co-conspirators who had not been charged in the case.

Again, I think that the concepts being discussed here -- Kidnap! Torture! Cannibalism! Conspiracy! -- are so bizarre and emotionally-charged that many people reading this report won't notice that it doesn't make much sense. I can't see how the arrest of Vanhise could prevent his being called to testify in the Valle case. Moreover, I can't see how the other (unnamed) witnesses can be so prevented.

Is Julia Gatto trying to tell us that people who are placed under arrest do not testify in court cases? I was under a very different impression.

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Ah, 1966!

(This blog usually saves non-political posts for the weekend. Screw consistency.)

When I was a wee tyke, Mom took the family to Fantastic Voyage, which I pronounced the greatest film ever made. I just saw it again. Not only is the thing still great, it's now the funniest film of all time. I defy anyone to watch it without going into Rifftrax mode.

The "micronaut" crew is led by Stephen Boyd. If you're a younger person who has never experienced Boyd-ness, picture William Shatner -- then imagine what Shatner might be like if he were incapable of showing any emotion other than an inchoate simmering resentment.

The crew also includes Donald Pleasance (as the scientist whom everyone trusts even though he practically has the word "SPY" stamped on his forehead), Arthur Kennedy (as The Old Philosopher) and Raquel Welch. Raquel does absolutely nothing in this movie except fill out a tight wet suit. And she asks a lot of really basic questions about science and stuff because, gee, she's just a girl.

This has got to be the best cast ever. Could the producers have improved upon it? Maybe if they had found room for Paul Lynde. Or Frank Gorshin. Or Charles Nelson Reilly. Or DeForest Kelly. Or...

Alan Hale. I just read that the producers originally wanted Alan Hale to play the sub driver. Yes! Alan Hale was the Supreme Personality of Godhead. (Says so, right there in the Mahabharata.) With Alan Hale on board, this film would have transcended Transcendence Itself.

The most hilarious moments occur when Arthur Kennedy waxes philosophical, which he does at every opportunity. Sweartagod, at one point he starts quoting from the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus. Somewhere around the inner ear sequence, he becomes converted to what we now call Intelligent Design, while Donald Pleasance proves his Marxist villainy by sticking up for Darwin. 

How could anyone on board not immediately spot Pleasance (who had recently played the best Satan in cinema history) as the traitor? I mean, he had that voice, that accent, those creepy cadences... Pleasance always seemed like the kind of guy who could perform an icepick lobotomy on his own child. For fun.

Many of the effects still look trippy, especially the Giant Undulating Lung Set (complete with smoke particles), which must have been a bitch to build and operate. I don't want to see a CGI remake of this movie. It looks fine the way it is.

But even as a tiny lad, I wondered: What's lighting up those sets? Why is the human body so bright inside?

Popular culture was unfathomably great in the 1965-1970 period, especially for kids. I'd give anything to go back, just for a day.

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I've been waiting decades for this one...

Finally, one genius cartoonist makes a brave attempt to undo our national amnesia. This is what really happened, folks. At least, this is part of it.

And the hell of it is -- he couldn't have won the GOP nomination in 2012, because today's Randroid right would have considered Ronald Reagan too far to the left. He raised taxes, compromised with the Democrats, and strongly favored the Earned Income Tax Credit.

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