Tesla and terrorism nonsense

  The 9/11 attacks provided the U.S. government with one of the greatest opportunities in U.S. history to destroy the freedom of the American people. Declaring a “war on terrorism,” federal officials seized upon the crisis to exercise omnipotent powers, purportedly to keep the nation “safe” from the terrorists who were supposedly hell-bent on coming to get us. In the process, the war-on-terrorism racket became as effective in destroying liberty as the war-on-communism racket had done throughout the Cold War.

  With the war on terrorism, U.S. officials don’t have to bother complying with constitutional restraints and the restrictions in the Bill of Rights. That’s because the U.S. is considered to be at “war.” Therefore, the executive branch is permitted to do pretty much anything it wants without concerning itself with interference by the other two branches — Congress and the federal judiciary. That’s a perfect recipe for the destruction of liberty.

Moving beyond 9/11

  I’ve become increasingly ambivalent about the way we commemorate the dark days and months that began on September 11th, 2001.

  Each year, the memories and all the feelings they evoke are less vivid. Thus, the news articles, commentaries, and TV specials about the 9/11 attacks serve as important reminders, not only of the immeasurable loss of life and the permanent degradation of our sense of security, but of the lessons we should have learned from the events and its aftermath.

The ‘sore loser effect’: Rejecting election results can destabilize democracy and drive terrorism

  An attendee at an October 2021 political rally hosted by right-wing activist Charlie Kirk asked: “How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?”

  The attendee was referring to the baseless allegation that Joe Biden stole the 2020 U.S. presidential election and that he unfairly denied Donald Trump reelection.

Interventionists ignore 9/11 motive to our detriment

  In the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, some interventionists are ignoring the most important factor in the Afghanistan debacle: what motivated the terrorists to commit the 9/11 attacks. 

  Or, even worse, some interventionists continue to buy into the motive that U.S. officials ascribed immediately after the attacks: that the terrorists struck on 9/11 because they hated America for its “freedom and values” or because they were Muslims who were engaged in a centuries-old quest to establish a worldwide Islamic caliphate, one that would put the United States under Sharia law.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - 20th anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks

  Today marks the 20th anniversary of the infamous 9/11 terrorist attacks on our nation. It was a day in your life where you remember where you were and what you were doing when you first heard of the attacks on the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It changed our world.

  Like most people, I thought the first plane that flew into the towering Trade Center was an accident. However, when the second plane hit, you knew it was not pilot error. It was traumatic and terrifying. I asked several of our state leaders about their memories of that fateful day. Allow me to share some of their experiences.

Both Israel and Hamas are aiming to look strong instead of finding a way out of their endless war

  Israel and Hamas are locked in ever-escalating rounds of violence.

  This is not new. Every few years, large-scale violence erupts for a few days or weeks and ends with a temporary ceasefire that essentially returns the situation to the same depressing status quo: The Gaza Strip besieged and devastated and the adjacent Israeli population in constant fear of the next attack as well.

  Though this is far from a symmetric conflict – Israel has vastly more military resources than Hamas – it is traumatic on both sides.

Americans aren’t worried about white nationalism in the military – because they don’t know it’s there

  White nationalist groups, who make up some of the most serious terror threats in the country, find new members and support in the U.S. military. These groups believe that white people are under attack in America.

  In their effort to create an all-white country where nonwhites do not have civil rights protections, these groups often instigate violent confrontations that target racial and religious minorities. Since 2018, white supremacists have conducted more lethal attacks in the United States than any other domestic extremist movement.

19 years after 9/11, Americans continue to fear foreign extremists and underplay the dangers of domestic terrorism

  On a Tuesday morning in September 2001, the American experience with terrorism was fundamentally altered. Two thousand, nine hundred and ninety-six people were killed as the direct result of attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. Thousands more, including many first responders, later lost their lives to health complications from working at or being near Ground Zero.

  Nineteen years later, Americans’ ideas of what terrorism is remain tied to that morning.

Moving beyond 9/11

  I’ve become increasingly ambivalent about the way we commemorate the dark days and months that began on September 11th, 2001.

  Each year the memories and all the feelings they evoke are less vivid. Thus, the news articles, commentaries, and TV specials about the 9/11 attacks serve as important reminders, not only of the immeasurable loss of life and the permanent degradation of our sense of security, but of the lessons we should have learned from the events and its aftermath.

Brain injuries from interventionism

  The number of U.S. soldiers who have suffered traumatic brain injuries from the Iranian missile attack last month in Iraq has now risen to more than 100. The injuries demonstrate the sheer inanity of foreign interventionism.

Russian flags over an American base

  President Donald Trump’s erratic policy shifts on Syria this fall have planted the seeds for new security threats to the United States and its allies—and Americans are noticing.

  The zigs and zags of Trump’s approach to Syria—announcing a full withdrawal of U.S. troops one week then sending U.S. troops back to “secure the oil” the next—opened the door to new security threats, including the revival of ISIS, a humanitarian crisis, and a continued expansion of Russia’s destructive role in Syria and the broader Middle East. In addition to these immediate concerns, there are the long-term effects that will play out for years to come, such as the doubt cast on America’s reliability as a security partner and the troubling signal that U.S. foreign policy prioritizes protecting oil over human life.

Military suicides shouldn’t surprise anyone

  The title of a recent New York Times op-ed by Carol Giacomo is an attention grabber: “Suicide Has Been Deadlier Than Combat for the Military.”

  The article points out that “more than 45,000 veterans and active-duty service members have killed themselves in the past six years. That is more than 20 deaths a day — in other words, more suicides than the total American military deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

  The article states: “Other than pointing to national trends, officials have offered few explanations for why military suicides are rising. Studies seeking more answers are underway.”

  Permit me to offer my explanation for this deadly phenomenon: Iraq and Afghanistan and other places where U.S. service members have been obeying orders to participate in military operations involving the wrongful killing of people.

Analyzing online posts could help spot future mass shooters and terrorists

  In the weeks following two mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, police forces across the United States made more than 20 arrests based on threats made on social media.

  Police in Florida, for example, arrested an alleged white supremacist who, police said, threatened a shooting at a Walmart. Richard Clayton, 26, allegedly posted on Facebook, “3 more days of probation left then I get my AR-15 back. Don’t go to Walmart next week.”

  People who are contemplating, or are even planning, serious crimes rarely make such clear public declarations of their intent. However, they might leave clues that, if properly understood, could offer opportunities to avert tragedy. We have teamed up with computer scientist Anna Rumshisky to collect and analyze more than 185,000 words of extremist or hateful narratives published online by people who have then gone on to commit large-scale shootings or terrorist crimes.

Who are the real friends of the troops?

  Ever since the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, it has been an article of faith that Americans should thank the troops for their service in those two countries.

  Yet, with the exception of libertarians and a few leftists, the fact is that during the two decades of death, injury, suffering, destruction, and out of control federal spending and debt that threatens to send the government into bankruptcy, the overwhelming majority of Americans never openly demanded that the U.S. government bring the troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Don’t ignore serious nonmilitary threats to U.S. national security

  Almost two decades after thousands died in the attacks of 9/11, there remain many active efforts underway to protect America from international terrorism.

  Since 9/11, American domestic and international security policy has been focused on individual terrorists, terrorist groups, and rogue countries as the primary threats. The country’s defensive response has been focused on the military and law enforcement capabilities. That’s natural because the military knows how to shoot, drop, and launch things at threats like that. And those dangers still exist.

  However, as someone who routinely analyzes threats, vulnerabilities, and risks, I see the U.S. again falling prey to a decades-old problem, which the 9/11 Commission termed a “failure of imagination.” That’s when leaders miss important, relevant connections or alternatives to what they’re focused on.

The ongoing, never-ending U.S. death star

  The U.S. national-security establishment’s death star continues operating at full-speed and on auto-pilot. According to an article in Newsweek, the Pentagon and the CIA have now killed half-a-million people since 9/11. The article didn’t say how many of those dead people are estimated to have participated in the 9/11 attacks, but I’d say that a reasonable estimate would be maybe 10 or 20 at the most. That would mean that 498,980 people who have been killed by the U.S. death star since 9/11 had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.

  Moreover, those half-a-million deaths don’t include the hundreds of thousands of people who have been killed in the U.S.-incited civil wars in Syria and Lebanon.

New Zealand attack shows white supremacy is global terrorist movement

  The atrocity in New Zealand shows us, once again, that we’re dealing with an international terrorist movement linked by a dangerous white supremacist ideology that’s metastasizing in the echo chambers of internet chat rooms and on social media networks.

  This hatred is even being amplified by our own president, who speaks of an “invasion of our country.”

Justifying the 17-year war

  When I first learned about the Thirty Years War in a history class in college, I was both fascinated and amazed. How in the world could a war go on for 30 years? That just seemed incomprehensible to me.

  Not anymore. The U.S. war on Afghanistan has now been going on for 17 years. And if the American people follow the advice of Michael E. O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, it’s a virtual certainty that the United States will easily surpass the Thirty Years War and, maybe, the Hundred Years War, which needless to say, also amazed and fascinated me when I learned about its existence.

How about the truth regarding the Department of “Defense”?

  With all the born-again fervor for truth among the mainstream press within the context of the Donald Trump regime, would it be too much to ask for the truth regarding the U.S. Department of “Defense”?

  I mean, come on, there is no way that what U.S. troops have been doing overseas for the past 70 years has anything to do with the defense of the United States. Instead,  it has all been about empire and intervention.

  So, while we are on the subject of truth, how about if we change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of Empire and Intervention?

To fight hate, vote

  Consider the last 11 days in our country.

  First, a white gunman killed two African Americans in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, after trying to break into a black church.

  Then, a man who reportedly identified as a white supremacist was arrested for mailing pipe bombs to President Barack Obama, George Soros, Hillary Clinton and other people President Trump has criticized.

  And last Saturday morning, as worshippers gathered at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, a white gunman shouted “All Jews must die” as he opened fire, killing 11 people.

  Behind each attack was the same kind of naked hate.