Are There One Million Terrorists in America?

The blogosphere is buzzing about the fact the Federal Government's terrorist watch list has reached 1,000,000 names. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has launched a website where people on the list can register their complaints and recount their experiences: http://www.aclu.org/watchlist.

From the press release:

"America's new million record watch list is a perfect symbol for what's wrong with this administration's approach to security: it's unfair, out-of-control, a waste of resources, treats the rights of the innocent as an afterthought, and is a very real impediment in the lives of millions of travelers in this country," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program. "It must be fixed without delay."

"Putting a million names on a watch list is a guarantee that the list will do more harm than good by interfering with the travel of innocent people and wasting huge amounts of our limited security resources on bureaucratic wheel-spinning," said Steinhardt. "I doubt this thing would even be effective at catching a real terrorist."

Controls on the watch lists called for by the ACLU included:

• due process
• a right to access and challenge data upon which listing is based
  tight
  criteria for adding names to the lists
• rigorous procedures for updating and cleansing names from the lists.

The ACLU also called for the president - if not this one then the next - to issue an executive order requiring the lists to be reviewed and limited to only those for whom there is credible evidence of terrorist ties or activities. The review should be concluded within 3 months.

In February, the ACLU unveiled an online "watch list counter," which has tracked the size of the watch list based on a September 2007 report by the inspector general of the Justice Department, which reported that it was growing by 20,000 names per month.

Don't you feel safer knowing that the Justice Department is adding twenty thousand names per month to the terrorist watch list?

Why does who hate us?

Via Slate - Why Do They Hate Us? Strange answers lie in al-Qaida's writings.

Why do they hate us?

Americans have been asking this question for nearly six years now, and for six years President Bush and his accomplices have been offering the same tired response: "They hate us for our freedoms." With every passing year, that answer becomes less convincing.

Part of the problem has to do with the question itself. Who exactly are they? Are we referring to al-Qaida and its cohorts? Are we talking about Iran, Syria, and the other nation-states whose interests in the Middle East do not properly align with America's? Or perhaps we mean Hamas, Hezbollah, or the myriad religious nationalist organizations across the Muslim world that share neither the ideology nor the aspirations of global, transnational groups like al-Qaida, but that have nevertheless been dumped into the same category: them.

The whole article is an interesting read and takes an interesting perspective on the issue.

Near the end, the author alludes to a question:

Because, if we are truly locked in an ideological war, as the president keeps reminding us, then our greatest weapons are our words. And thus far, instead of fighting this war on our terms, we have been fighting it on al-Qaida's.

Why are we fighting on their terms? It is a very interesting question indeed.

Closing Gitmo? Maybe, maybe not

Via CNN - Bush administration close to shutting down Guantanamo

The Bush administration is nearing a decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and move the terror suspects there to military prisons elsewhere, The Associated Press has learned.

Both the Pentagon and the White House denied Thursday evening there were any plans to close the facility.

President Bush's national security and legal advisers are expected to discuss the move at the White House on Friday and, for the first time, it appears a consensus is developing, senior administration officials said Thursday.

The advisers will consider a new proposal to shut the center and transfer detainees to one or more Defense Department facilities, including the maximum security military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, where they could face trial, said the officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing internal deliberations.

Officials familiar with the agenda of the Friday meeting said Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Peter Pace were expected to attend.

It was not immediately clear if the meeting would result in a final recommendation to Bush.
"No decisions on the future of Guantanamo Bay are imminent"

Deputy White House Press Secretary Scott Stanzel said Thursday that there are no plans for such a meeting.

Certainly just because the White House denies it doesn't mean anything. As I recall, they denied that Rummy was leaving almost up until the moment it was announced. Only time will tell I guess.

Terrorism more likely

BBC News - Iraq policy 'spawned new terror'

The countries had tried to "keep the lid on" problems by military force and had failed to address the root causes, the Oxford Research Group warned.

[. . .]

Its latest report said these issues were still the greatest threats, but added that the ongoing war on terror and the war in Iraq were increasing the risk of future terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11.

So much for the idea that by fighting them there we are making ourselves safer at home - an argument I've never bought into personally.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. . .unless they are at Guantanamo

NYT - New to Job, Gates Argued for Closing Guantánamo

In his first weeks as defense secretary, Robert M. Gates repeatedly argued that the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had become so tainted abroad that legal proceedings at Guantánamo would be viewed as illegitimate, according to senior administration officials. He told President Bush and others that it should be shut down as quickly as possible.

This idea was shot down, however, because some members of the administration wanted to make sure that the detainees didn't gain any Constitutional rights.

There is widespread agreement, however, that moving any detainees or legal proceedings to American territory could bring significant complications.

Some administration lawyers are deeply reluctant to move terrorism suspects to American soil because it could increase their constitutional and statutory rights — and invite an explosion of civil litigation. Guantánamo was chosen because it was an American military facility but not on American soil.

It is funny (ironic) to me that the United States was founded with the grand notion that all men are created equal, but when it comes down to it, we don't seem to think that all men (human beings) are entitled to the same rights or considerations. If they are not American citizens or housed on American soil, we don't have to treat them in the way that we claim to believe all of human-kind should be treated.

If we truly believe that our justice system is the best possible (although not perfect) form of determining guilt or innocence and doling out judgments while preserving the inalienable rights of the individual, why are we so bound and determined not to use it in the case of terror suspects. The short answer, of course, is that we think they don't have any rights. They are guilty until proven innocent. Actually they are guilty. Period. Or maybe even exclamation point. They are guilty, we know it, we shouldn't have to prove it. We should just be able to torture them and execute them. End of story.

I'm sorry, but that is just not the moral foundation that my country was founded on. It seems to me that if we can't try and convict them according to our stated standard of justice, the same standard we hold our own citizens to, then we have no business being the ones to punish them.

Mohammed confession update

For those of you who are interested, the full (well, as full as the government will allow) transcript of the hearing can be found here.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed confesses to 9/11 plot

NYT - Suspected Leader of 9/11 Attacks Is Said to Confess

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, long said to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed to them at a military hearing held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Saturday, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon yesterday. He also acknowledged full or partial responsibility for more than 30 other terror attacks or plots.

“I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z,” he said.

I find it interesting that some of the plots he confessed to were assassination attempts on former US Presidents.

Though American officials had linked Mr. Mohammed to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and to several others, his confession was the first time he spelled out in his own words a panoply of global terror activities, ranging from plans to bomb landmarks in New York City and London to assassination plots against former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and Pope John Paul II. Some of the plots he claimed to plan, including the attempt on Mr. Carter, had not previously been publicly disclosed.

Later in the article it notes that the assassination plot against Clinton was back in 1994, which would have been while he was still president, but it is not clear if the attempt on Carter was way back when he was president or if it was a more recent plot. Considering Mohammed's age, I would think it would have to be a more recent plot, since he would have only been about 15 when Carter left office. I wonder why he would want to assassinate a former president?

I also found this statement by Mohammed to particularly interesting:

His actions, he said, were like those of other revolutionaries. Had the British arrested George Washington during the Revolutionary War, Mr. Mohammed said, “for sure they would consider him enemy combatant.”

I find the analogy so interesting because I have heard it made so many times by one of my former professors. It is just interesting to hear the exact same analogy made by the terrorist himself.

One does have to wonder, however, if he is really responsible for all the things he has confessed to or if he is just boasting.

Afghan Civilian Heroes

CNN News - Afghan civilians stop terror attack at U.S. base

Two civilians thwarted an attempted terrorist attack Tuesday when a vehicle loaded with explosives attempted to crash through the front gate of a U.S. base in the Afghan capital, according to the U.S. military.

The two men, an interpreter and a security guard, dragged the apparent suicide bomber from the vehicle before he could detonate explosives, said Col. Tom Collins, the chief spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

"I think it's a pretty amazing and heroic event," Collins said.

He said that at about 9 a.m. Tuesday (10:30 p.m. ET Monday) a driver crashed his vehicle into Camp Phoenix, the base where the Afghan National Army and police are trained. The driver reached for what appeared to be a cord to detonate a bomb, he said.

"Amazingly, a couple of Afghans who just happened to be on the scene there realized what was happening," Collins said.

"Anyone's inclination would have been to run away but these guys are genuine heroes," Collins said.

It is always good to hear about bombing that are stopped. It is also good to hear that there are people willing to go above and beyond the call of duty to save other people.

Additionally, it is nice to have an example of people in the country we are trying to help that are willing to help us in return. I never doubted that they were there, it is just good to have an example to point to.

Speaking of Embassies. . .

BBC News - Tunisia gunmen 'had embassy plan'

Tunisian police have found plans of embassies and explosives after a gun battle with suspected Islamic extremists, the interior minister says.

A list of names of foreign diplomats in the country was also discovered after the 3 January clash in which 12 gunmen were killed, said Rafik Haj Kacem.
. . .
Mr Kacem described the men as "Salafist terrorists" - a reference to the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, a radical group opposed to Western [?] which aims to create an Islamic state in Algeria.

It is not clear which embassies or diplomats featured in the seized documents.

Attacking embassies is a good way to get attention, I guess. I'm not sure what it is designed to accomplish beyond that, if anything.

After-thought: Obviously the take-over of the US embassy in Iran accomplished more than simply getting attention. Without knowing what the terrorist involved planned to do with their information, it is hard to fully evaluate the situation.