FBI/AP images of Adam Gadahn
Pakistani officials say they’ve arrested the California-born al qaeda leader who, since attending training camps in 2004, has been the terrorist group’s mouthpiece in half a dozen videos. Just today Adam Gadahn spoke in a video commending the army major who opened fire at a military base in Fort Hood, Texas killing 13 people. "You shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that military bases are the only high-value targets in America and the West. On the contrary, there are countless other strategic places, institutions and installations which, by striking, the Muslim can do major damage," said Gadahn.
The 31-year-old moved to Pakistan in 1998 after converting to Islam at an Orange County mosque, and was charged with treason in 2006. He’s also charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization, reports ABC, and could get the death penalty if convicted. Though in the past Pakistan has not been the U.S.’s strongest ally on terror, Gadahn’s capture—which hasn’t yet been confirmed—will be taken as a sign the country is cooperating with Washington, according to the AP.
Every once in a while, there comes along a Member of Congress who is not only eccentric but borderline wacky, not to mention a fear monger. One of the leading examples is Rep. Sue Myrick, Republican of Charlotte, representing a very conservative, heavily-churched district.
It is difficult to understand why, in an election-year series of articles, the Charlotte Observer (McClatchy) is giving dramatic, front-page coverage to the alarmist notions of Rep. Myrick on the subject of Islam and terrorism that begins at home. Its progressive editorial board, incidentally, has often endorsed her. Yet, she has frequently demonstrated that she is little more than a right-wing fringe lawmaker with very little clout in Congress over eight terms.
The recent front-page coverage has run from
Myrick Videos Warn of Terrorism: Charlotte lawmaker says Fort Hood shootings and airplane bombing attempt are 'tips of the iceberg'(January 10) to the extra-large-type headline:
Rep. Myrick, Muslims Defend and Debate(February 26). And it will continue. She has found her defining issue in the quest for re-election.
Myrick, a founder of the House Anti-Terrorism Caucus which is not connected to any standing committee of the House, over the years had repeatedly warned that Americans were not being told there are homegrown jihadists willing to blow themselves up to hurt fellow citizens, and that the Internet is a medium for radicalization in influencing Muslim citizens to attack their own country. She even warned President George W. Bush that Americans were uninformed on these matters!
In other words, these suspicions came to her well before she was privy to classified information as a new member of the House Intelligence Committee, as of 2009. Now she cannot tell the public what she has learned:
I can't tell you...There's a threat out there to our security...It's worse than I thoughtshe told the Charlotte Observer. There's more.
The 68-year-old Congresswoman launched an ongoing YouTube video series back in January. In the first video, called Beyond Terrorism: The Whole Story, she warns that extremists live in our midst,
even in positions in our government.But the wide-eyed Myrick tells the camera:
You're not being told the whole story... This is something that nobody ever tells you.
[These videos may be found on the Charlotte Observer's website thanks to the in-depth reporting of McClatchy Washington correspondent, Barbara Barrett: bbarrett@mcclatchydc.com.]
II
Last October the Congresswoman had accused the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) of secretly planting spies on Capitol Hill by trying to get Muslim interns hired in Congressional offices. She was joined in the accusation by Reps. John Shadegg (R-AZ), Paul Broun (R-GA), and Trent Franks (R-AZ). The four lawmakers quoted from a publication entitled Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America, on the day of its release.
The foreword to the book had been written by Rep. Myrick. Immediately following the news conference, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA)--the chair of the House Intelligence subcommittee on which Myrick serves--sent out a letter denouncing
reckless attempts to blacklist an entire ethno-religious group.
Of late, Myrick has even suggested that some universities--such as Harvard and Georgetown--are being wrongly subverted by a brand of Islam common to Saudi Arabia known as Wahabism.
(Barbara Barrett's February 25 story in the Charlotte Observer,
Myrick Looks to Heal Long Rift with Muslims,contains numerous quotes from the Representative, and from moderate Muslims and academic experts on Islam.)
III
On February 25, Sue Myrick convened a tense two-hour
town hallmeeting in Charlotte, with Muslims constituting most of the audience. The event was heavily covered by local TV stations. At times, there was a frenzied quality to her behavior on the podium.
As reported by religion reporter Tim Funk on February 26--
Rep. Myrick, Muslims Defend and Debate--Ms. Myrick continued to argue that the threat of homegrown Islamist terrorism is real and defended herself against charges by local Muslims that she was spreading fear about their religion.
Myrick said she had agreed to the town hall meeting to
build bridgeswith her moderate Muslim constituents, and invited them to join her in opposing those who she said were
trying to hijackIslam.
I'm talking about the sympathizers and supporters of a radical agenda...It's not that all Muslims are bad or all Muslims are trying to do this,she reportedly said.
But many of the comments from Muslim attendees revealed feelings of anger toward the lawmaker. For example, as reported by Tim Funk, Najeeb Karimi asked Myrick why she had not been as devoted to wiping out and labeling other forms of homegrown terrorists, such as the Texas man who recently flew his plane into a federal building in Austin to protest the IRS.
Is this terrorism?he asked Myrick.
(Oklahoma City bomber) Timothy McVeigh? Is that Christian terrorism?
After cutting off the questions with people still in line, Myrick turned the microphone over to Zuhdi Jasser, a conservative political ally and a Muslim physician who heads the Islamic Forum for Democracy. He accused many moderate Muslims, including those in the audience, of being in denial about the
cancerof radical Islam. Based on Jasser's comments, Rose Hamid--the former head of Muslim Women of the Carolinas--said after the meeting:
(Myrick's) goal was not necessarily to listen to the Muslims, but to deliver her message to the Muslims.
This was probably the point for the staged framework of the meeting from the beginning: little Sue Myrick taking on the threat from dangerous Islam.
IV
Rep. David Price (D-NC), the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Department of Homeland Security, has pointedly observed that any member of Congress with details about a legitimate threat should take it to the FBI.
I'm convinced we can do that without profiling, without stigmatizing whole groups.
If Myrick has any details about a legitimate threat to national security from radical Muslims infiltrating the federal government, she could go to the FBI. Alternatively, she could follow in the footsteps of the deceased Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wisc)--another fear monger--and name names and provide numbers of terrorists who lurk inside our governmental institutions. But, of course,
I can't tell you--says this new member of the House Intelligence Committee--because it is secret information.
Yesterday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to renew three expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, after the Senate abandoned the PATRIOT reform effort and approved the extension by a voice vote on Wednesday night.
Disappointingly, the government's dangerously broad authority to conduct roving wiretaps of unspecified or "John Doe" targets, to secretly wiretap of persons without any connection to terrorists or spies under the so-called "lone wolf" provision, and to secretly access a wide range of private business records without warrants under PATRIOT Section 215 were all renewed without any new checks and balances to prevent abuse. Despite months of vigorous debate, when PATRIOT renewal bills providing for greater oversight and accountability were approved by the Judiciary Committees of both the House and the Senate, Democratic leaders' push for reform fizzled in the face of staunch Republican opposition buoyed by recent hot-button events such as the attempted bombing of an airliner on Christmas Day and the shooting at Fort Hood.
The renewed PATRIOT provisions were originally set to expire on December 31, 2009, but Congress ran out of time last year and temporarily extended them until February 28th, this coming Sunday. The new extension is expected to be signed by the President before then.
The one silver lining? Despite a push by Republican leaders for a four-year extension, the renewed provisions are now set to expire in one year. So, although this battle's been lost, the effort to roll back PATRIOT's worst excesses is far from over. Thank you to everyone who took action to support PATRIOT reform this past year; we hope that you'll continue the fight with us in the next year.
After a pretty crazy week of debate and travel, I've now been able to read and ponder Mr Stack's "manifesto." It seems to me that there are all sorts of incoherent strands of populist rage within it, right and left, as well, obviously, as personal issues that almost certainly pushed him from simply raging at the TV set to becoming a terrorist. I think the attempt to use him to condemn either political party is unhelpful.
But I want to make a few simple points: this was obviously an act of terrorism. When someone is mad at the government, and when he flies a plane into a federal building, killing two and traumatizing countless others and urges others to do the same, he is a terrorist.
Secondly, it is pernicious to define terrorism by the race or religion of its perpetrators. In the country I grew up in, London and the town where my sister's family now lives, Guildford, endured brutal IRA bombings. These acts of terror were no less terror than Jihadist terror or far right domestic terrorism, such as Timothy McVeigh's. Ordinary people were drinking a beer in a pub or shopping in a department store and blown to bits.
None approached the numbers killed in the mass murder of 9/11 in one incident, but over the years of terror, very large numbers of innocents were killed. What I find deeply alarming is that race is now beginning to define an act of terrorism in America. Fox News described the Fort Hood shootings as an act of terrorism, but did not describe the assassination of Dr George Tiller as an act of terrorism.
Both were politically motivated, and designed to foment terror, and both were influenced by extremist forms of religious teaching. Is terrorism defined by the number of people it kills? Or the race of the perpetrators? Or the religion of the terrorists? The Dish tries hard not to make such distinctions.
Terrorism is terrorism whoever does it. Torture is torture whoever does it. Murder is murder whoever does it. Just as I oppose affirmative action and hate crime laws, which make specious distinction on the basis of race and other characteristics, so I oppose making any distinction on those grounds when describing terrorism. That, I think, is a conservative position. And Fox News is not a conservative news organization. It is, in many ways, a racist and xenophobic one whose double standards are a result of pure prejudice not reason.
