{"id":13275,"date":"2011-12-15T08:15:31","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T16:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=13275"},"modified":"2011-12-15T08:15:31","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T16:15:31","slug":"the-danger-from-politicizing-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/15\/the-danger-from-politicizing-terror\/","title":{"rendered":"The Danger from Politicizing “Terror”"},"content":{"rendered":"

By politicizing who is and who is not a \u201cterrorist\u201d \u2013 pinning the label on American adversaries and sparing purported American friends \u2013 the U.S. government created confusion at FBI headquarters that contributed to the failure to stop the 9\/11 attacks, reports ex-FBI agent Coleen Rowley. (originally posted on Consortium News<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

Glenn Greenwald\u2019s critique \u2013 regarding the recent U.S. indictment of 38-year-old Iraqi Faruq Khalil Muhammad Isa (currently in Canada) \u2013 is spot on about \u201cterrorism\u201d coming to simply mean opposing United States\u2019 interests or resisting U.S. military invasions.<\/p>\n

U.S. authorities have now dropped any requirement that the \u201cterrorists\u201d target or kill civilians as part of a political objective, the classic definition of terrorism. Isa stands accused of \u201cproviding material support to a terrorist conspiracy\u201d because he allegedly backed a 2008 attack in Mosul, Iraq, killing five U.S. soldiers.
\n<\/p>\n

As Greenwald wrote<\/a>, \u201cIn other words, if the U.S. invades and occupies your country, and you respond by fighting back against the invading army \u2014 the ultimate definition of a \u2018military, not civilian target\u2019 \u2014 then you are a . . . Terrorist.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the reverse of Greenwald\u2019s example is also true, that those \u201cterrorist\u201d groups throughout the world who commit violent acts or kill civilians at U.S. instigation, encouragement or in line with U.S. interests are NOT considered \u201cterrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, before 9\/11, the Chechen \u201crebels\u201d \u2013 who had orchestrated mass civilian hostage takings, suicide bombings and hijackings and who were accused of having planted bombs in apartment buildings in Russia\u2013 were not deemed to be \u201cterrorists\u201d for purposes of satisfying the \u201cforeign power\u201d element of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.<\/p>\n

The Chechen fighters were apparently seen as on \u201cour\u201d (the U.S.) side in opposing the Soviet Union in the final days of the Cold War and against Moscow\u2019s authority when the old Soviet Union was splintering into pieces in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Zacarias Moussaoui<\/strong><\/p>\n

That blind spot regarding the Chechens played out as a factor in the FBI\u2019s failure to act effectively to stop the 9\/11 attacks in which a key early suspect, Zacarias Moussaoui, was identified as a follower of and recruiter for Ibn Omar al-Khattab<\/a>, a Muslim extremist and Chechen guerrilla leader long allied with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.<\/p>\n

The Department of Justice Inspector General \u201cReview of the FBI\u2019s Handling of Intelligence Information Related to the September 11 Attacks (November 2004)<\/a>\u201d and other 9\/11 inquiries eventually concluded that FBI supervisors erred, among other things, by not understanding that the Chechen group could have been deemed to be a \u201cforeign power\u201d even though it had not been previously \u201crecognized\u201d by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, nor had the U.S. State Department put Ibn Khattab\u2019s Chechen group on the official Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.<\/p>\n

Footnote 123 on page 142 of the Inspector General Report contains this telling detail: <\/p>\n

Martin [a pseudonym for an FBI supervisor] suggested to the OIG that the reason that groups engaged in a civil war were not pled as terrorist organizations under FISA was because they were not \u2018hostile\u2019 to the United States or working against U.S. interests. When asked whether it was a requirement under FISA for a terrorist organization to be hostile to U.S.interests to fulfill the foreign power requirement, Martin said that he did not know whether this was a legal requirement, but that he believed that it was assumed in the statute based on the terrorist organizations that had been pursued by the government.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This fact-of-life within the FBI \u2013 that only \u201chostile\u201d militants were put on the official U.S. terrorist list and that some Islamic extremists were viewed as generally aligned with U.S. interests (or at least not threats) \u2013 created confusion among FBI supervisors in the weeks and months before the 9\/11 attacks.<\/p>\n

A Warning Ignored<\/strong><\/p>\n

An April 2001 memo clearly warned and spelled out that Khattab was \u201cheavily intertwined\u201d with Osama bin Laden\u2019s plans to launch terrorism attacks against the U.S.<\/p>\n

However, the confusion over how to define \u201cterrorism\u201d when it fits with U.S. interests explains how and why the FBI failed to grasp that Khattab or his violent Chechen group were \u201cterrorists\u201d even when the April 2001 memo urgently warned that the two leaders (Khattab and bin Laden) were planning to attack the U.S.<\/p>\n

This blind spot proved devastating just weeks before the 9\/11 attacks when FBI Agent Harry Samit from the Minneapolis Field Office interviewed Moussaoui on Aug. 16-17, 2001, and concluded that Moussaoui, who had paid cash for classes to learn how to fly a jetliner, was almost surely a dangerous terrorist.<\/p>\n

But Samit could not get his FBI superiors in Washington to understand the danger and approve a warrant to search Moussaoui\u2019s possessions.<\/p>\n

According to an investigative article at TheDailyBeast.com<\/em><\/a> entitled “The Terrible Missed Chance” last September, former New York Times correspondent Philip Shenon wrote that “Samit and his colleagues [in Minneapolis] felt they had to be aggressive \u2014 especially after the FBI legal attach\u00e9 in Paris reported back on Aug. 22 [2001] that French spy agencies had evidence showing Moussaoui was a recruiter for Ibn Omar al-Khattab \u2026 (A companion of Moussaoui\u2019s, picked up at the time of his arrest, told the FBI that Moussaoui followed a \u2018prophet\u2019 \u2014 Khattab.)<\/p>\n

However, back in Washington, Michael Maltbie, a cautious counterterrorism specialist, \u201csaid he saw no evidence that Moussaoui was connected to a foreign government or well-known terrorist group that would meet the definition of a \u2018foreign power\u2019 under U.S. intelligence laws \u2014 the standard required to trigger a warrant,\u201d Shenon wrote, adding:<\/p>\n

\u201cDesperate to prove the needed link, Samit reached a CIA counterterrorism expert who said he had no doubt that the Chechens and Al Qaeda worked together. \u2018Khattab was a close buddy with bin Laden from their earlier fighting days,\u2019 the CIA official wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the FBI\u2019s top brass had seen the link, too. In an April 2001 memo<\/a> prepared for [then-FBI Director Louis] Freeh, then\u2013assistant director Dale Watson warned about \u2018significant and urgent\u2019 intelligence to suggest \u2018serious operational planning\u2019 for terrorism attacks by \u2018Sunni extremists with links to Ibn al Khattab, an extremist leader in Chechnya, and to Usama Bin Laden.\u2019 The memo\u2019s headline: \u2018Bin Laden\/Ibn Khattab Threat Reporting.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The failure of the State Department to include Khattab\u2019s Chechen militant organization on the official list of terrorist organizations and the FBI supervisors\u2019 misunderstanding of FISA\u2019s \u201cforeign power\u201d requirement created the bureaucratic gap that FBI headquarters wouldn\u2019t close in those crucial days before the 9\/11 attacks.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s even possible that, as with U.S. funding of the mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan (whose ranks included Osama bin Laden), the CIA or other U.S. covert operators funded Al Khattab as he operated \u201con our side\u201d against \u201cour\u201d Russian adversary despite Chechen terrorists\u2019 repeated killings of Russian civilians. [That sort of double standard has certainly applied to anti-communist terrorists associated with attacks on Fidel Castro\u2019s Cuba.]<\/p>\n

The confusion caused by this politicized approach toward \u201cterrorism\u201d ultimately prevented the U.S. government from acting effectively against a genuine terrorist threat like 9\/11. And, the flip side of that politicization is now apparent in the U.S. government prosecuting Iraqis as \u201cterrorists\u201d for fighting American troops who were sent, partly as a U.S. reaction to 9\/11, to invade Iraq.<\/p>\n

(Coleen Rowley, a FBI special agent for almost 24 years, was legal counsel to the FBI Field Office in Minneapolis from 1990 to 2003. She wrote a \u201cwhistleblower\u201d memo in May 2002 and testified to the Senate Judiciary on some of the FBI\u2019s pre 9\/11 failures. She retired at the end of 2004, and now writes and speaks on ethical decision-making and balancing civil liberties with the need for effective investigation.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By politicizing who is and who is not a \u201cterrorist\u201d \u2013 pinning the label on American adversaries and sparing purported American friends \u2013 the U.S. government created confusion at FBI headquarters that contributed to the failure to stop the 9\/11 attacks, reports ex-FBI agent Coleen Rowley. (originally posted on Consortium News) Glenn Greenwald\u2019s critique \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[438,489,698,484,482,305,488,486,483,485,487],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-13275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-9-11","tag-9-11-inquiries","tag-al-qaeda","tag-chechens","tag-definition-of-terrorism","tag-glenn-greenwald","tag-ibn-al-khattab","tag-ibn-omar-al-khattab","tag-september-11-attacks","tag-terrorists","tag-zacarias-moussaoui"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13275"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13285,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13275\/revisions\/13285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13275"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}