Tag: FBI

Cuban International Terrorism? What!?

On Jan. 11th, the New York Times and the AP reported that Trump’s State Department lead by his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo designated Cuba as a U.S. deemed state sponsor of terror. The label was applied to the nation from 1959 to 2015; the time between the Socialist Revolution of the Castro Brothers, Che Guevara, and the countless members of the People’s Socialist Party, and the détente under Barack Obama. In 2015, Pres. Obama took Cuba off the list and renewed diplomatic relations with the Socialist experiment that is Cuba, and Joe Biden is expected to thaw relations even further.

The Socialist Caribbean island-state is designated by Pompeo as a terror-supporting state for three reasons:

  • Cuba has taken in several members of the Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN) and defied extradition requests from the leaders’ home country. Peace talks between the ELN and the Colombian government took place in Havana beginning in December 2015 and lead to the ELN leaders never leaving. The Colombian government wants them to pay for an ELN bombing of a police station in Bogota that took place in 2019. Cuba refuses to send them back because it would violate protocols established between the two groups during peace efforts that were broken off after the bombing.
  • Cuba is the protective home of Joanne D. Chesimard, a.k.a. Assata Shakur. Shakur is a former member of the Black Liberation Army and is still wanted for a killing of a New Jersey state trooper in the 1970’s. Two other fugitives now call Cuba home along with Shakur, and they have never been extradited back to the U.S. for over some 50 years now.
  • Cuba is a strong ally of Venezuela and Nicolas Maduro; the U.S.’s biggest Latin-American boogey man right now (probably the biggest since Fidel Castro.) Despite crippling sanctions on this oil-rich nation of South America, the U.S. government, and most of the media, blame socialist reforms implemented during the time of Pres. Hugo Chavez as the source of every Venezuelan ill. It’s never the sanctions, always the radical left ideology.

The State Department says Cuba has, “…provided support for acts of international terror.” Therefore they join only three other countries on the list: Iran, Syria, and North Korea. (Cuba’s a little out of place, don’t ya think?)

According to a Reuters report, Cuba has already got a cash-strapped economy that shrank 11% in 2020 due to the pandemic, tougher U.S. sanctions, and domestic inefficiencies, according to Economy Minister Alejandro Gil. And the NYT reports, Cuba has began having shortages of both medicine and food, as the article describes,

“…Cubans have been forced to stand in line for hours in the hope of getting their hands on the meager stocks that exist.”

If you go back into the past posts of STL. you will see my obvious sympathy for the nation of Cuba. There are terrible, terrible lies that are spread about Socialist Cuba all over regarding accusations of large executions, brutal forced labor camps, and any and everything Che Guevara related (If you can stomach it, check out this short YouTube clip of Joe Rogan stating on his popular podcast that Guevara was a “mass murderer.”) And most of these lies come from former rich Cubans who were not interested in showing any humanity towards the country’s poor after the Revolution. They all packed their bags, headed north for Florida, and they still cry for their exploitative businesses, like their sugarcane plantations where the peasants did all the work, living in ignorance and filth. This is why Trump won Florida in 2020. “Little Havanna” knew that both Trump’s and Pompeo’s massive egos cannot handle this little island shaking it’s fist at the monolithic United States.

My point, finally, is that it is ridiculous for Cuba to be designated as state sponsor of terror. And second, these sanctions only hurt the people there. The long lines, lack of food, and absence of electricity and cooking fuel in Cuba (and in Venezuela) are a result of sanctions. And now there are new one’s levied by our ruler on his last days in office.

Tell me, have sanctions worked in North Korea, Iran, Iraq under Saddam, Venezuela, or Cuba? No, they have not. They have just hurt the people.

And on a lighter note, check out this comedy sketch about Cuba’s designation as a terror-supporter at the State Dept. from Breakthrough News:

Politicos Protected by Smartphone Decision, Too

26SCOTUS-master675Today all nine U.S. Supreme Court Justices agreed that a search of one’s cellphone without a warrant by a law enforcement agency is a violation of the fourth amendment and requires the obtaining of a search warrant. In Chief Justice John Roberts written opinion he stated that,“Cellphones have become important tools in facilitating coordination and communication among members of criminal enterprises, and can provide valuable incriminating information about dangerous criminals,” but, “Privacy comes at a cost.”

Upon the first reading of this decision one might think that criminals are the only ones being protected by this opinion for they may now more easily use their smartphones to set up illegal enterprises. But what about us that are politically active? Three reasons we and like-minded folks should be thankful for this decision: COINTELPRO, Project MINARET, and the FBI.

As Wikipedia can so much more eloquently explains:

COINTELPRO (an acronym for COunter INTELligencePROgram) was a series of covert, and at times illegal,[1] projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveying, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.[2]National Security Agency operation Project MINARET targeted the personal communications of leading Americans who criticized the Vietnam War, including Senators (e.g., Frank Church and Howard Baker), civil rights leaders (e.g., Dr. Martin Luther King), journalists, and athletes.[3][4]

Do a good read-up on COINTELPRO and Project MINARET, which took place from the 1956 to 1971, and tell me that your not in support of this decision. Could you imagine if J. Edgar Hoover ever got MLK’s or the Students for a Democratic Society’s smartphones what changes in history may have occurred?

 

 

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NSA Surveillance On “Frontline”

indexI just spent the last three hours watching two great episodes of the PBS program “Frontline” that deal with the history of the NSA surveillance program.

The first episode is a two-hour piece on the creation and development of the program from the time of 9/11/2001,  to the inclusion that NSA actions still continue with Pres. Obama.  It includes interviews with everyone (sans Bush/Cheney) and gives a detailed account of the history of the program.

The second episode of one hour contains a brief introduction to Edward Snowden and then the complicity by major tech corporations with the NSA and the FBI regarding electronic surveillance.

Plus the website has many complimentary information and interviews that I have yet to look into but look interesting. It is important and compelling viewing.

See Here.

Frontline: Insider Trading

5222v7757Frontline had a very good episode this week on insider trading and hedge fund SAC Capital’s founder Steven Cohen who’s being sued by the SEC and is under investigation by the FBI.

You will be shocked by what is legal in the stock market game regarding illegal information.

Watch Here.

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Is This Personal Data Collection REALLY Happening?

[Attn.: This post is a complete rant which I truly try to keep from posting here at Sparking the Left. But this time I could not help myself.]

CdCould this really be happening?  Is this really happening? Is this a nightmare?

With all of these revelations this past week regarding our government’s collection of  bulk personal data from the four largest telecommunications companies in the U.S., and most of the giants of Silicon Valley, has blown my mind.

Now, as a result of a good episode of “Frontline” I have seen, I know that the NSA searches through our e-mails whenever certain terms like “terror” or “Al Quaida” are used. But this construction of a database for the NSA, CIA, and the FBI to have at their own convenience is absolutely unacceptable even if they call it by a new, fancy name, like “metadata.” And they’ve done it with secret warrants from secret FISA courts which makes these actions look even more dubious.

Pres. Obama may have told us that nobody is listening to our phone calls and no one is reading our e-mails. But what if the next White House is won by another Richard Nixon or the FBI has another J. Edgar Hoover. Who is going to stop them from using that data for nefarious purposes. We could have another COINTELPRO on our hands like they did in the late 60’s and early 70’s which spies on perceived “subversive” individuals and groups (look up COINTELPRO on the web sometimes, kids). They could come after Paul, me, or our valued readers who follow this blog for just being critical of the government.

This is just too dangerous let go. We must keep our opposition strong until necessary changes are made.

FBI Nominee Comey Involved in Bush-Era Crimes

comeyGlenn Greenwald at The Guardian is on point, as usual, writing about how Pres. Obama’s nominated FBI head James Comey was involved in Bush administration’s NSA eavesdropping and torture rulings. Yet, it seems as if nobody cares.

Read Here.

Breaking Down What Ex-CIA Agent Rodriguez Said in 60 Minutes Interview

The interview with Jose Rodriguez, former head of the CIA’s Clandestine Service, was both fascinating and horrifying as he did his best to defend the “enhanced interrogation” techniques used on terrorism suspects in the years after 9/11.  So much of what he said could have been delved into deeper and the interview could have gone on for another hour yet still not covered everything.  I’d like to highlight some of the things he said and the weakness of his defense of torture.

We made some al Qaeda terrorists with American blood on their hands uncomfortable for a few days.

This is a tricky quote to some extent.  It suggests the torture was only performed on known terrorists and in the case of the CIA only (and not including the other branches of defense) that might be accurate.  But we know innocent people were tortured and in some cases died due to torture while in U.S. custody.  He also contradicts himself later about the idea of this torture just being “a few days” for some suspects when he talks about sleep deprivation for a week at a time in at least one case.  Maybe some members gave up information after a few days but he gives zero examples of that.

So we were facing a ticking, time bomb situation.

This is a common defense of torture by its advocates.  The scenario is a bomb is ticking, someone has been caught who has info on its whereabouts, and he is tortured because he won’t give up the location.  Which works really well…in movies, not so much in reality.  In fact, I’m not sure how this idea gets lumped in with suicidal terrorists.  How many bombs have been placed with a timer by Islamic terrorists?  I’m guessing the number is around zero since the vast majority are suicide bombers.  The “ticking, time bomb” defense is ridiculous when applied to al Qaeda’s actual tactics.

At first, FBI interrogators used their standard interviewing techniques with no coercion, and Abu Zubaydah cooperated, giving tips and leads but–

Jose Rodriguez: After he regains his strength he stopped talking…He shuts down.

Or did he just not know anything else?  Rodriguez backs up the idea he had more information with virtually no evidence.  It’s pointed out in the story the FBI claims he gave up everything he knew prior to the torture.  But someone assumed he knew more and was lying that he didn’t, which we can’t be sure of.  Rodriguez defends this by stating:

He gave us a road map that allowed us to capture a bunch of Al Qaeda senior leaders.

He is angry but noticeably stumbles at this point in the interview before he says “a bunch.”  It was as if he knew he needed to give something reasonably logical and important here but could come up with nothing.  He clearly wanted to be able to give a number or a few names of captured terrorists to corroborate his claim but fails.

Then the interview immediately shifts to Khalid Sheik Mohammed so we are left to assume his capture may have resulted from the enhanced interrogation techniques on Zubaydah.  This is not properly delved into by 60 Minutes at this point since we don’t know that to be true nor do we know if that capture came from the information the FBI got prior to the torture.

People don’t understand that this program was not about hurting anybody.

Wow.  People died because of the bodily harm inflicted by this program.  This statement is the equivalent of someone robbing a bank and in the process of robbing that bank, they shoot and kill everyone in the bank.  Then when they are put on trial their lawyer asks the murder charges to be thrown out because the crime committed was just about robbing the bank and “not about hurting anybody.”  Clever attempt to dance around that one, Mr. Rodriguez.  Sadistic, but clever.

But many of the tips from detainees reportedly led to blind alleys and expensive wild goose chases.

Jose Rodriguez: But the issue here was timing. We needed information and we needed it right away to protect the homeland.

Rodriguez is essentially saying the torture was virtually useless when we couple this revelation with an earlier point he made.  He stated a psychologist he consulted on torture techniques said it would usually take about thirty days to “break” someone and get pertinent information.  By this time, the info leading to other terrorists is likely irrelevant since the free terrorists would probably move from their locations in the interest of their own safety when they realize someone has been caught who knows their whereabouts.  Rodriguez is also contradicting himself and the idea of the ticking time bomb scenario with the thirty days revelation.

Lesley Stahl: Now, here’s what I heard: that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told you the courier had retired and threw you off the scent for a while.

Jose Rodriguez: That was the one secret he was going to take to the grave, and that was the protection of the Sheikh. He was not going to tell us.

The courier they are speaking of here is the one that eventually led to Osama bin Laden.  An important point since Rodriguez is admitting torture failed on KSM and, not only did it fail, he also shows they had no idea when someone was lying to them even when being tortured.  A very poor defense for torture considering KSM is usually the prime example of torture allegedly “working.”

Then comes the most fascinating part of this interview: the discussion of the tapes that recorded the “enhanced interrogation” of Zubaydah and their destruction by Rodriguez.

The reason why we taped Abu Zubaydah was because we– he was very wounded when he was captured. And we feared that he was gonna die in captivity. So we wanted to show the world that we actually had nothing to do with his death. That you know, he died on his own.

First off, I’m assuming he was saying the “died on his own” part tongue-in-cheek.  I haven’t known many people to get wounded by another person then ‘die on their own’ because of the wounds inflicted by someone else.

But the bigger question here is why tape the interrogation then destroy it?  Zubaydah was one of the first relatively big captures in the War on Terror and was also one of the first to be tortured.  Rodriguez claims he destroyed the tapes so they could not be used as propaganda and to protect the identities of his agents in the videos.  If they were only making people “uncomfortable for a few days” and it was “not about hurting anybody”, why would the tapes be propaganda?  Answer: because it’s actually torture.  And the idea he was protecting his agents’ identities?  Was the CIA not familiar with blurring stuff out of videos?  Could they really not hire a 10-year-old with a computer and video editing software to do this one for them?  And if they had a video of Zubaydah giving the location of 9/11 mastermind KSM, wouldn’t this be the best justification of their techniques?

Since Rodriguez gives no real defense of why he destroyed the tapes, I’ll give one considering the evidence we are given.  He destroyed the tapes of the Zubaydah interrogation because torture wasn’t working on him and they wanted no record showing their embarrassment of the false information they believed and followed around the world wasting a ton of money and resources.  If the tapes existed and showed the FBI was right and he was wrong, he and everyone in the government advocating torture over the past decade would be shamed forever.

Which leads us to one last point.  If this were to be true, it would have been even more vicious than the idea of torture itself to continue the program when you know it to be a failure.  And they did continue it…