Tag: terror

Terroreksperter: “Komplet vanvittigt” at evakuere ambassader

Cory Doctorow skriver på Boing Boing:

By an amazing coincidence, the worst terrorist attack that never happened since 9/11 is not happening right now, proving that everyone who was worried about out-of-control NSA spying had lost the plot. Which is ZOMGTERRISM. So 28 US diplomatic posts have been evacuated (that is to say, “experienced an ordered departure”), including ones in places like Mauritius or Madagascar, where al Qaeda has nefariously never operated as part of its devious plan to lure everyone there into a false sense of security.

Well, some people are cynical and just don’t believe it, despite all the overwhelming secret evidence that we’re not allowed to see or know about or hear about or even have described to us. People like State Department counterterrorism advisor Will McCants, who called the evacuation of the diplomatic posts “Crazy Pants” (“you can quote me”). Loose cannons like Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who called the terrifying and nonspecific warnings “absurd hyperbole that is coming almost entirely from reckless commentators or ill-informed or ill-spoken [Capitol] Hill folks…no one who really knows al Qaeda or its history thinks that this is as huge a deal as portrayed—and certainly nothing remotely close to the worst thing we have seen since 9/11.” But what the hell does he know?

“It’s not completely random,” said another expert of the administration’s reaction, “but most people are, like, ‘Whaaat?'” Other terms used to describe it in addition to “Whaaat?” and “crazy pants”: “willy-nilly,” “baffling,” “tenuous,” “head-scratching,” and “who really knows, anyway?” White House spokesman Jay Carney wasn’t helping any: “What we know is the threat emanates from, and may be focused on, occurring in the Arabian Peninsula,” he said yesterday. “It could potentially be beyond that, or elsewhere. We cannot be more specific.” So, just stay away from everywhere, thanks.

But we have to do something, don’t we, because isn’t this “the most serious threat [Sen. Saxby Chambliss has] seen in the last several years,” reminiscent of “what we saw before 9/11”? Actually, “[t]hat is absurd hyperbole that is coming almost entirely from reckless commentators or ill-informed or ill-spoken [Capitol] Hill folks,” or so said Michael Leiter, but what does a former director of the National Counterterrorism Center know about counterterrorism? “I don’t think this was purposeful hype,” Leiter continued, “but no one who really knows al Qaeda or its history thinks that this is as huge a deal as portrayed—and certainly nothing remotely close to the worst thing we have seen since 9/11.”

Security Expert: Broad U.S. Terror Alert Is “Crazy Pants” [Lowering the Bar]

Og ja, hvis man var rigtig kynisk, kunne man få den tanke, at panikken faktisk handler om at få os alle til at synes, at NSAs overvågning af alt og alle er fjing fjong. I alle tilfælde har terroreksperterne og Doctorow ret i, at så overbevisende ser det heller ikke ud.

ETA R.I.P.

Den baskiske separatist- og terrorbevægelse ETA har opløst sig selv – besejret af den spanske stat, den bekæmpede, og en baskisk befolkning, der ikke vil vide af den.

Jeg har en masse meninger om dette, men ikke så meget igen at have dem i. Jeg vil i stedet citere Luistxo Fernández, der med base i Donostia (San Sebastián) er helt anderledes tæt på:

So, ETA ended its war. The ergative energy worked. Even Tony Blair had something prepared for the occasion, though he couldn’t come to town. Fresh air in the city. A sense of relief for almost everybody, that’s what I feel among the Basques. Lots of interesting analysis and posts have been written over the last days, and one feature in common among those that are most interesting (imho) is that they’ve been written from a personal point of view. I have some examples in Spanish at hand, if you can read the language: Juan Carlos Etxeberria, Mitxel Ezkiaga and Ander Iza. (3 journalists).

I feel like I could also write from that perspective, ’cause this also has affected my life (I’m 44). But I’m not in the mood. There will be pieces from our lives that won’t be written.

Will I or my two children see an independent Basque Country some day? I want that to happen. The defeat of ETA was a prerequisite for that, I believe.

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lterqqAgVw1qion5qo1_500.jpg

Some newspapers, this friday. A photo that had to be taken long ago, by a fine Basque photographer, Juan González Andrés, El Humilde Fotero del Pánico.

Et paradoks, men Luistxo har uden tvivl ret: ETAs undergang var en forudsætning for, at Baskerlandet kan blive uafhængigt. Vil det så ske? Who knows – den form for nationalisme er måske lidt gammeldags i vores globaliserede verden, men det ser uden tvivl anderledes ud i en trængt kultur som den baskiske eller walisiske for at nævne to oplagte eksempler.

En blogosfære fuld af had

Jostein Gaarder og Thomas Hylland Eriksen skriver i New York Times om den islamofobiske diskurs på nettet, som har dannet grobund for forestillingen om en “væbnet kamp” mod “islamiseringen” af Europa (et Europa, hvor muslimer udgør 3% af befolkningen i Norge, og 5% af befolkningen i det, om man skal tro de mere ekstreme kredse, “hårdt ramte” Storbritannien):

IT is tempting to view Anders Behring Breivik, the self-described Christian crusader behind the July 22 massacre in Norway, as an isolated case of pure evil. Yet history has taught us that such acts of violence rarely occur independent of their social and cultural surroundings.

Mr. Breivik managed to commit two terrorist attacks in a single afternoon. But the hatred and contempt from which he drew his deranged determination were shared with many others throughout the international right-wing blogosphere.

The racism and bigotry that have simmered for years on anti-Islamic and anti-immigration Web sites in Norway and other European countries and in the United States made it possible for him to believe he was acting on behalf of a community that would thank him. As John Donne famously put it, “No man is an island … every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

The global Islamophobic blogosphere consists of loosely connected networks of people — including students, civil servants, capitalists, and neo-Nazis. Many do not even see themselves as “right-wing,” but as defenders of enlightened values, including feminism.

The Islamophobes of Norway have no manifesto, but they share three fundamental views: that Norway is in the hands of a treacherous, spineless, politically correct elite that has betrayed the pure spirit of Norwegian culture by permitting demographic contamination; that Muslims will never be truly integrated (even if they pretend to be); and that there is a Muslim conspiracy to gain political dominance across Europe.

Hatred of Muslims and resentment of the left — one of us has repeatedly received resentful diatribes against the “multiculturalist elite,” and was mentioned in Mr. Breivik’s own writings — is not confined to Norway. Mr. Breivik has praised Gates of Vienna, a Web site that compares contemporary Europe to long-ago wars with the Ottomans. He has praised writers like Bruce Bawer, the American author of “While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within,” and Bat Ye’Or, the pseudonym for the British author of the conspiratorial “Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis.” He is an enthusiastic reader of the virulently anti-Islamic blog of Pamela Geller, an American who leads the group “Stop Islamization of America” and gained notoriety for her opposition to an Islamic center near ground zero in Manhattan.

Europe’s new right is, in other words, not neo-Nazi; it has swapped anti-Semitism for Islamophobia. After a hiatus of several hundred years, fear of Islam reemerged around 1989, as the Cold War was ending and Iranian mullahs issued a fatwa against the British writer Salman Rushdie. It gained popularity as increasing numbers of Muslims entered Europe as immigrants in the 1990s, and became widespread in the aftermath of 9/11. Traditional racism may actually be waning in several European countries, but hostility toward Islam and animosity toward Muslim immigrants and their children is on the rise.

Og ja, det er der jo nogen af os, der har sagt i årevis. I Danmark har man – udover i de mere ekstreme af Dansk Folkepartis udmeldinger – kunnet finde ekkoer af Breiviks synspunkter i den samling af højreekstreme blogs, som jeg selv spøgefuldt har kaldt skrigosfæren. Det ekstreme og nærmest grænseløst hadefulde anti-islamiske højre er i dag den største trussel mod det frie og åbne samfund i Europa, og det på trods af, at der er masser af konkurrence på netop dét område.

Link: A Blogosphere of Bigots

Washington Post om tragedien i Norge

Fredag den 22. juli skrev Jennifer Rubin i Washington Post:

There is a specific jihadist connection here: “Just nine days ago, Norwegian authorities filed charges against Mullah Krekar, an infamous al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist who, with help from Osama bin Laden, founded Ansar al Islam – a branch of al Qaeda in northern Iraq – in late 2001.”This is a sobering reminder for those who think it’s too expensive to wage a war against jihadists. I spoke to Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute, who has been critical of proposed cuts in defense and of President Obama’s Afghanistan withdrawal plan. “There has been a lot of talk over the past few months on how we’ve got al-Qaeda on the run and, compared with what it once was, it’s become a rump organization. But as the attack in Oslo reminds us, there are plenty of al-Qaeda allies still operating. No doubt cutting the head off a snake is important; the problem is, we’re dealing with global nest of snakes.”

Dette er nok en af de mest effektive påmindelser, man overhovedet kan få, om at nogle gange er det bedre at vente og se, hvad der faktisk er sket, før man sætter autopiloten på. Det lader til at dem, der vil “wage a war against jihadists” er blevet et større problem for Europa (og i hvert fald for Skandinavien) end Al Qaeda nogensinde har været. Men det kan kun tiden vise.

Via As’ad Abukhalil, der også citerer James Fallows fra The Atlantic: “No, this is a sobering reminder for those who think it’s too tedious to reserve judgment about horrifying events rather than instantly turning them into talking points for pre-conceived views”.

Lars Hedegaards propaganda og terrorangrebet i Norge

Som jeg gjorde opmærksom på i mit seneste indlæg, var Anders Behring Breivik, der stod bag massakren i Norge, meget påvirket af retorikken i den såkaldte counter-jihad-bevægelse. Faktisk er Breiviks video fyldt med propaganda- og smædetegninger, der har gået på omgang på Hodjas blog og andre højreekstreme blogs.

Trykkefrihedsselskabets formand Lars Hedegaard er et meget aktivt medlem af counter-jihad-bevægelsen i Europa. Det var i denne forbindelse, at han lod sig interviewe på engelsk i en video,der vakte stor opstandelse i december 2009. Her sagde han bl.a.:

»Vore to livsmåder er som ild og vand. En af dem må sejre«,

»Efter den tyske besættelse af Danmark var der en del, som havde samarbejdet med fjenden, som kom i knibe. Det samme kunne ske her«

Her er der en meget interessant parallel: Anders Behring Breivik opfatter det norske Arbeiderpartiet som “kulturmarxister”, der forråder Norge og hele Europa ved at tillade tilrejsende muslimer at “islamisere” området. Breivik ville vel sige, at her var der nogle mennesker fra det norske Arbeiderparti, som har “samarbejdet med fjenden”, og som derfor “kom i knibe”.

Jeg er sikker på, at Lars Hedegaard aldrig har forestillet sig, at hans vision om voldelig modstand mod det, som han i sin paranoide forestillingsverden ser som “islams overtagelse”, skulle udmønte sig i en massakre på børn og unge mennesker, men det er svært at benægte, at det er samme tankegang, der ligger bag.

Til en counter-jihad-konference i Bruxelles i 2007 sagde Lars Hedegaard også, som tidligere citeret:

We need to develop a strategy that may allow us to achieve our objectives. This means that we must develop a comprehensive and deep strategy equal to that of islam. This strategy must take into account that some of our public and private institutions may opt to side with our enemies unless we force them to side with us.

A successful defensive strategy may necessitate the creation of parallel institutions under our control accompanied by civil disobedience vis-à-vis the official, dhimmified ones – which is a classical occurrence in occupied countries.

We would undoubtedly benefit from a study of the modus operandi of primarily European resistance movements during World War 2 though our present situation is much more ominous at least long term.

Det er svært at benægte, at Breivik selv indbildte sig at have udtænkt en “strategi, der skal opnå deres mål” – nemlig en udelukkelse af islam fra Europa. Hans massakre går længere end noget, de europæiske modstandsbevægelser begik under 2. Verdenskrig, men nu er vores situation jo også “langt mere truende i hvert fald på langt sigt”, hvis man skal tro Hedegaard.

Breivik ser selv, som det fremgår af hans video og manifest, selv sine terrorhandlinger som startskuddet på “den europæiske borgerkrig 1999-2083”, som vil “få 2. Verdenskrig til at ligne en skovtur” og vil ende med “islams fordrivelse fra Europa”.

Så ret beset gjorde den norske terrorist vel ikke andet end at føre den tanke om væbnet modstand, som Lars Hedegaard og kredse omkring Den Danske Forening har flirtet med i årtier, ud i livet. Der er så vidt jeg ved ikke tale om nogen form for direkte inspiration fra Hedegaard, men der er ingen tvivl om, at Lars Hedegaard med sine bidrag til “counter-jihad-bevægelsen”, ikke mindst med sin gentagelse af “Eurabia-løgnene” og sin flirten med en decideret voldelig “modstandskamp”, står som en af de åndelige bagmænd til den selv samme bevægelse, som Breivik var inspireret af.

Lars Hedegaard pådrager sig ikke hermed noget decideret ansvar for Breiviks handlinger – men måske han og andre for en anden gangs skyld kunne besinde sig på, hvilken ild det egentlig er, de puster til med deres propagandistiske tåbeligheder og løgne.

Dokumentation: Den norske terrorists YouTube-video

Videregivet uden nogen form for sympati med budskabet, naturligvis. Hvad der er interessant er, at den henviser til Breviks eget manifest, og at budskabet ligger ekstremt tæt op af de konspirationsteorier, der udspredes i de såkaldte “counterjihad”-netværk, som vi tidligere har omtalt her på bloggen.

Internationalt set taler vi om den britiske forfatter, der bedst kendes under dæknavnet Bat Ye’or, Pamela Geller og den rimeligt skingre Gates of Vienna, Brussels Journal og ikke mindst den anonyme norske blogger Fjordman. Der er også kontakter til deciderede fascister, for eksempel det belgiske separatistparti Vlaams Belang, der udnytter den “islamiske trussel” som element i deres kamp for et uafhængigt og ensrettet Flandern.

I Danmark er flere af bloggerne bag Uriasposten, Snaphanen samt Lars Hedegaard og dele af Trykkefrihedsselskabet vigtige dele af dette netværk – og ivrige kolportører af den konspirationsteori om “Eurabia”, der også ligger bag Breiviks video. Hermed pådrager de pågældende skribenter sig naturligvis ikke noget ansvar for Breiviks handlinger, men der er ingen tvivl om, at den meget hadefulde diskurs, der kan findes især i kommentarsporene på diverse blogs, har volden som sin yderste konsekvens. Også Lars Hedegaard har antydet muligheden af en “væbnet modstandskamp” mod de europæiske regeringer, for at vi kan slippe af med “muslimerne”.

Breivik kan, med sine selv for de kredse overskruede konspirationsteorier og sin makabre fremgangsmåde slet ikke betragtes som nogen typisk eksponent for denne bevægelse – men der er ingen tvivl om, hvor inspirationen kommer fra.

Som sådan er dette terrorangreb desværre ikke nogen enlig svale, men, som Rune Engelbreth Larsen skriver, kulminationen på årtier med højreorienteret terror i de nordiske lande.

Michael Moores tanker om drabet på Osama bin Laden

Michael Moore gør opmærksom på, at denne praksis med at dræbe landets fjender i deres nattøj gør USA til et dårligere land:

For nine years I wrote and I said that Osama bin Laden was not hiding in a cave. I’m not a cave expert, I was just using my common sense. He was a multimillionaire crime boss (using religion as his cover), and those guys just don’t live in caves. He had people killed under the guise of religion, and not many in the media bothered to explain that every time Osama referenced Islam, he wasn’t really quoting Islam. Just because Osama said he was a “Muslim” didn’t make it so. Yet he was called a Muslim by everyone. If a crazy person started running around mass-killing people, and he did so while wearing a Wal-Mart blazer and praising Wal-Mart, we wouldn’t automatically call him a Wal-Mart leader or say that Wal-Mart was the philosophy behind his killings, would we?

Yet, we began to fear Muslims and round them up. We profiled people from Muslim nations at airports. We didn’t profile multi-millionaires (in fact, they now have their own fast-track line to easily get through security, an oddity considering every murderer on 9/11 flew in first class). We didn’t run headlines that said “Multi-Millionaire Behind the Mass Murder of 3,000” (although every word in that headline is true). You can say his wealth had nothing to do with 9/11, but the truth is, there is no way he could have kept Al Qaeda in business without having the millions he had.

Some believe that this was a “war” we were in with al Qaeda – and you don’t do trials during war. It’s thinking like this that makes me fear that, while bin Laden may be dead, he may have “won” the bigger battle. Let’s be clear: There is no “war with al Qaeda.” Wars are between nations. Al Qaeda was an organization of fanatics who committed crimes. That we elevated them to nation status – they loved it! It was great for their recruiting drive.

We did exactly what bin Laden said he wanted us to do: Give up our freedoms (like the freedom to be assumed innocent until proven guilty), engage our military in Muslim countries so that we will be hated by Muslims, and wipe ourselves out financially in doing so. Done, done and done, Osama. You had our number. You somehow knew we would eagerly give up our constitutional rights and become more like the authoritarian state you dreamed of. You knew we would exhaust our military and willingly go into more debt in eight years than we had accumulated in the previous 200 years combined.

If we really want to send bin Laden not just to his death, but also to his defeat, may I suggest that we reverse all of that right now. End the wars, bring the troops home, make the rich pay for this mess, and restore our privacy and due process rights that used to distinguish us from any other country. Right now, our democracy looks like Singapore and our economy has gone desperately Greek.

Hideki Tojo killed my uncle and millions of Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos and a hundred thousand other Americans. He was the head of Japan, the Emperor’s henchman, the man who was the architect of Pearl Harbor. When the American soldiers went to arrest him, he tried to commit suicide by shooting himself in the chest. The soldiers immediately worked on stopping his bleeding and rushed him to an army hospital where he was saved by our army doctors. He then had his day in court. It was a powerful exercise for the world to see. And on December 23, 1948, after he was found guilty, we hanged him. A killer of millions was forced to stand trial. A killer of 4,000 (counting the African embassies and USS Cole bombings) got double-tapped in his pajamas. Assuming it was possible to take him alive, I think his victims, the future, and the restoration of the American Way deserved better. That’s all I’m saying.

Link: Some Final Thoughts on the Death of Osama bin Laden (via Boing Boing).

Sig nej til nøgenscanning – bliv raget i skridtet

I USA, indtil videre. Men det er slemt nok (og kan være på vej hertil): Hele proceduren lader til at have til hensigt at ydmyge passageren og få vedkommende til at tage nøgenscanneren (altså en kropsscanner, der viser sikkerhedspersonalet et billede af dig uden tøj på) næste gang:


At BWI, I told the officer who directed me to the back-scatter that I preferred a pat-down. I did this in order to see how effective the manual search would be. When I made this request, a number of TSA officers, to my surprise, began laughing. I asked why. One of them — the one who would eventually conduct my pat-down — said that the rules were changing shortly, and that I would soon understand why the back-scatter was preferable to the manual search. I asked him if the new guidelines included a cavity search. “No way. You think Congress would allow that?”

I answered, “If you’re a terrorist, you’re going to hide your weapons in your anus or your vagina.” He blushed when I said “vagina.”

“Yes, but starting tomorrow, we’re going to start searching your crotchal area” — this is the word he used, “crotchal” — and you’re not going to like it.”

“What am I not going to like?” I asked.

“We have to search up your thighs and between your legs until we meet resistance,” he explained.

“Resistance?” I asked.

“Your testicles,” he explained.

‘That’s funny,” I said, “because ‘The Resistance’ is the actual name I’ve given to my testicles…”

The pat-down at BWI was fairly vigorous, by the usual tame standards of the TSA, but it was nothing like the one I received the next day at T.F. Green in Providence. Apparently, I was the very first passenger to ask to opt-out of back-scatter imaging. Several TSA officers heard me choose the pat-down, and they reacted in a way meant to make the ordinary passenger feel very badly about his decision. One officer said to a colleague who was obviously going to be assigned to me, “Get new gloves, man, you’re going to need them where you’re going.”

For the First Time, the TSA Meets Resistance (via Boing Boing).

11-årig tager elektronisk opfindelse med i skole: Terroralarm

I afdelingen for you just can’t make this up: En 11-årig dreng i San Diego forsøgte at bygge en maskine, der kunne registrere bevægelser, med diverse komponenter monteret i en halvliters Gatorade-flaske. En af skolens ledere kastede et blik på flasken, besluttede at det nok var en bombe og slog alarm, så det lokale bombehold kunne komme og undersøge den suspekte flaske med en Rulle-Marie:

When police and the Metro Arson Strike Team responded, they also found electrical components in the student’s backpack, Luque said. After talking to the student, it was decided about 1 p.m. to evacuate the school as a precaution while the item was examined. Students were escorted to a nearby playing field, and parents were called and told they could come pick up their children.

A MAST robot took pictures of the device and X-rays were evaluated. About 3 p.m., the device was determined to be harmless, Luque said…

The student will not be prosecuted, but authorities were recommending that he and his parents get counseling, the spokesman said. The student violated school policies, but there was no criminal intent, Luque said.

Og det er da vitterlig morderlig pænt af dem, at de ikke vil anholde en 11-årig dreng og/eller hans forældre for at interessere sig for elektronik og tage resultatet af sine anstrengelser med i skole. Idioter …

Link: Science project prompts SD school evacuation (via Boing Boing).

SFs bagland gør oprør mod idiotiske terrorcensurlove(opdateret)

Karina Lorentzen Dehnhardt – SFs retspolitiske ordfører der har foreslået at forbyde “gentagne besøg på terrorhjemmesider” indrømmer blankt på hendes blog at: “Jeg kender ikke de nærmere detaljer(..)” og spørger

“Var det fordi, man havde kendskab til, at manden havde downloadet terrorrelateret materiale eller surfet masser af sider, som opfordrer til terror? Eller var det i virkeligheden noget helt tredje.”

Hun indrømmer altså at hun ikke ved noget som helst om hvad der fik den 26-årige somalier til at gå amok, men gætter på at det var besøg på nogle terrorhjemmesider. Og hvad er så løsningen på denne hypotetiske problemstilling? Censur og kontrol.

Og så kommer en besynderlig sætning:

“SF ønsker hverken at censurere eller kontrollere nettet, men blot at få undersøgt, om det er en farbar vej, at gøre systematiske besøg på terrorhjemmesider ulovlige. Internettet skal være åbent og ucensureret, men derfor er ikke alt, hvad man foretager sig på nettet lovligt.”

Hvis man gør det ulovligt at surfe på hjemmesider, jamen så er det da censur og kontrol – det er netop defintionen på censur og kontrol!

Resten af blogindlægget er ligeså rodet og uden logik – men der kommer dog et enkelt pip der er sandt –

“Forslaget betyder altså ikke mere overvågning af nettet, men giver politiet et redskab til at gøre noget på et tidligere tidspunkt.”

Næh – for al form for trafik på internettet bliver overvåget og gemt. Så der kan simpelthen ikke være mere overvågning af internettet – godt set Karina.

Blogindlægget bliver heglet igennem i kommentarerne – SF består stadig af overvejende fornuftige mennesker der foretrækker en retstat og ytringsfrihed – giv gerne dit besyv og overbevis SF om at de skal have en nye retsordfører – hurtigst muligt.

— Updatering —
Politiken.dk har nu historien, hvor Karina Lorentzen er tydeligt presset af de nærgående spørgsmål. Hun glider af med følgende intet-snak
»Vi vil gerne komme med et konkret og konstruktivt indspark til debatten. Det synes jeg, vi har gjort, hvor alle andre har snakket flere ressourcer og beføjelser til PET og flere udvisninger«, siger Karina Lorentzen.
Ja det er da konkret at forbyde folk at surfe på terror-relaterede hjemmesider – men konstruktivt? Eller intelligent? Eller gennemtænkt? Næh.