Legitimate Inquiry or McCathyesque Witch-hunt? Congressional hearings on American Muslims.

America’s Terrorist Training Camp
Posted October 30, 2001
What’s the difference between Al Qaeda and Fort Benning?

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 30th October 2001

For the past 55 years it [the USA] has been running a terrorist training camp, whose victims massively outnumber the people killed by the attack on New York, the embassy bombings and the other atrocities laid, rightly or wrongly, at Al-Qaeda’s door. The camp is called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHISC. It is based in Fort Benning, Georgia, and it is funded by Mr Bush’s government.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2001/10/30/americas-terrorist-training-camp/

Witch-hunt?

No, it's a Radical-Muslim hunt.

Maybe you just had a brain fart, or maybe not, but my argument was not that McVeigh was motivated more by politics than religion.

Obviously

Based on the frequency, severity and currency of attacks? You can only make this look dire by excluding McVeigh, and by dragging in an account of activity in the UK. Last time i checked, the national security of the United Kingdom is not a concern of the United States Congress. So far, all we have is your ipse dixit that there is a serious threat, and your ipse dixit (or that of the FBI, which is about as reliable) on attacks that have been foiled. Personally, although people like McVeigh and Rudolph appal me, i don't think right-wing, christian lunatics are a serious threat. Nor do i think right-wing, Muslim lunatics are a serious threat either.

As Osso pointed out, this is like HUAC--i call it a witch hunt.

Put McVeigh back in the mix. The calculus remains the same.

Sorry, but I trust the FBI more than you.

Your opinion on the hearings is noted.

Since I feel not enough was done to uncover the distortions and misleading statements made by the former administration and the Waxman hearings barely got a mention, I doubt there will be a legitimate comparison in the next two years. Consider the subject matter of the Waxman hearing verses coming attractions. The former is about misleading statements and distortions in order to justify a war where people died and lives were at stake. Where else could such inquiries take place but in congress? Compare that to talk of leading investigations into Obama's birth certificate and the like. Kind of like the blue dress sort of thing.

But this inquiry into alleged terrorist or "radical Muslims (the name says it all) , will be nothing but a witch hunt conducted by folks who have a biased view and will seek like minded witnesses and evidence to back it up which will have the effect of stirring up a lot of controversy needlessly since we have avenues set up to handle our nations security which would include following leads into plots and terrorist. I only hope the inquiry turns out to be as little as the Waxman hearings with as little mention about it in the media.

He [King] says the hearings are planned in response to complaints from law enforcement officials that Muslim leaders have been uncooperative in terror investigations.

"When I meet with law enforcement, they are constantly telling me how little cooperation they get from Muslim leaders," King told the Times. "It is controversial. But to me, it is something that has to be discussed."

Sorry, but I trust the FBI more than you.

The FBI's Vendetta
Against Martin Luther King, Jr.

excerpted from the book

The Lawless State

The crimes of the U.S. Inteligence Agencies

by Morton Halperin, Jerry Berman, Robert Borosage, Christine Marwick


The speech brought the crowd to its feet, applauding, echoing the "Amens" that greet evangelical preaching, and shouting "Freedom Now!" The FBI reacted differently. In memoranda to the director, King's speech was characterized as "demagogic," and the presence of "200" Communists among the 250,000 marchers caused the Intelligence Division to state that it had underestimated Communist efforts and influence on American Negroes and the civil rights movement. King was singled out:

He stands head and shoulders over all other Negro leaders put together when it comes to influencing great masses of Negroes. We must mark him now . . . as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of Communism the Negro and national security.

More ominously, the FBI suggested that "legal" efforts to deal with King might not be enough. "It may be unrealistic," the memorandum went on, to limit ourselves as we have been doing to legalistic proofs or definitely conclusive evidence that would stand up in testimony in court or before Congressional Committees....

It was up to the FBI to "mark" King and bring him down on its own-to take the law into its own hands.

On October 1, 1963, Hoover received and then approved a combined COMINFIL-COINTELPRO plan against the civil rights movement. The approved plan called for intensifying "coverage of Communist influence on the Negro." It recommended the "use of all possible investigative techniques" and stated an "urgent need for imaginative and aggressive tactics . . . to neutralize or disrupt the Party's activities in the Negro field."

On October 10 and 21, Attorney General Kennedy gave the FBI one of those "investigative techniques" by approving the wiretaps on King.

On October 18, 1963, the FBI distributed a different kind of memorandum on King, not only to the Justice Department, but to officials at the White House, the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, the Defense Department, and Defense Department intelligence agencies. It summarized the bureau's Communist party charges against King and went much further. According to - Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall, it was a personal diatribe . . . a personal attack without evidentiary support on the character, the moral character and person of Dr. Martin Luther King, and it was only peripherally related to anything substantive, like whether or not there was Communist infiltration or influence on the civil rights movement.... It was a personal attack on the man and went far afield from the charges [of possible Communist influence].

The attorney general was outraged and demanded that Hoover seek the return of the report. By October 28, all copies were returned. This was the first-and last-official action to deter Hoover's vendetta against King.

In November, John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Lyndon Johnson became president and the Justice Department was in a state of confusion with the attorney general preoccupied with his personal grief. King viewed the assassination as a tragedy, and hoped it would spawn a new public concern for peace and reconciliation.

While the nation mourned, the FBI held a conference at the beginning of December to plan its campaign to destroy King and the civil rights movement. At that all-day meeting FBI officials put forward proposals that make G. Gordon Liddy's Watergate plan seem pale by comparison. Officials of the nation's number-one law enforcement agency agreed to use "all available investigative techniques" to develop information for use "to discredit" King. Proposals discussed included using ministers, "disgruntled" acquaintances, "aggressive" newsmen, "colored" agents, Dr. King's housekeeper, and even Dr. King's wife or "placing a good looking female plant in King's office" to develop discrediting information and to take action that would lead to his disgrace.

From the nature of Burke Marshall's description of the October 18 report, it is obvious that the FBI was on to something it viewed as unsavory about King's private life. The report made the charges, but as Marshall said, there was no "evidentiary" support. Now the FBI was out to get the proof. By January, the FBI had initiated physical and photographic surveillance of King, deploying its most experienced personnel to gather information, and had placed the first of many illegal bugs in Dr. King's room at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C.

According to Justice Department regulations at the time, microphonic surveillance, although it necessitated a physical trespass and was more intrusive than a phone tap, did not require the approval of the attorney general. Even under its own regulations, however, the FBI could only use this technique to gather "important intelligence or evidence relating to matters connected with national security." In this case the FBI planned to use "bugs" to learn about "the [private] activities of Dr. King and his associates" so that King could be "completely discredited." It was clearly illegal.

The Willard Hotel "bug" yielded "19 reels" of tape. The FBI, at least in its own opinion, had struck pay dirt. The bug apparently picked up information about King's private extramarital and perhaps "inter-racial" sexual activities. This opened up the possibility of discrediting King as a Communist who engaged in "moral improprieties."

For J. Edgar Hoover, "immoral" behavior was a crime comparable to "subversive" activity-and of equal utility.

Read on about this trustworthy group at,

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/NSA/Vendetta_MLK_LS.html

. At the first hint of a witch-hunt, I completely trust the media to bring it to our attention, and at the first legitimate hint (or possibly even before) the public outcry will grind the hearings to a halt...that is if members of the committe haven't done so already.

Perhaps their lack of cooperation is due to improper handling of the situation by law enforcement.

If the hearings were expanded to address radicalization of all stripes (religious, political, environmental, etc) would you feel less alarmed?

Can't say I disagree but who gets to decide who the extremists are?

Quote:

Perhaps their lack of cooperation is due to improper handling of the situation by law enforcement.

Perhaps their lack of cooperation is only a perception on the part of those making the charge.

Perhaps, but should we assume that?

How would you feel if you were invited to participate in a Congressional hearing designed to find out why you weren't cooperating? Particularly if the Congressional panel was headed by someone who "was one of the leaders who opposed the building of the Islamic center, and he has been criticized before for what critics say amounts to inflating the risk Muslim leaders in the U.S. pose."

I'd be a bit wary, if it was me, and would have to agree with the "Muslim leaders [who] told the Times they have strong concerns about King's proposed hearings.

The hearings aren't intended to be a tea party, and the fact that some witnesses are wary about being called doesn't mean that their fears will be realized or that the hearings shouldn't proceed.

"We are disturbed that this representative who is in a leadership position does not have the understanding and knowledge of what the realities are on the ground," said Abed A. Ayoub, the legal director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. He added that King's proposal "has bigoted intentions."

Obviously he's wary. He's also insulting. Not a good way to prep for congressional hearings.

Quote:

Can't say I disagree but who gets to decide who the extremists are?

I have a couple nominations from this board.

My concept of a witch-hunt is a proceeding where the authorities subject witnesses to a series of questions designed to, at a minimum, harrass them but hopefully induce them to confess to a crime or way of thought that will almost assuredly result in negative consequences for them outside of the hearings.

Sorry, but i trust the FBI more than i trust some gobshite, grandstanding Republican congressman trying to suck up to the teabaggers.