Study: ‘little evidence of Islamic jihadists’ in the U.S.

October 16, 2007

For six years, we’ve been warned that the Bush administration needs sweeping new authority, free of checks and balances, in order to keep us safe. Officials, without warrants, should be able tap Americans’ phones and read their emails. The Patriot Act was absolutely necessary. Torture policies should be written and practiced in secret. Habeas corpus need no longer be a guiding principle. We’re all used to words and phrases like “rendition,” “enemy combatants,” and “indefinite detention.”

All of this is completely justifiable, we’ve heard, because there are dangers lurking in every corner and terrorists in our midst. But it appears there may be a disconnect between what we’ve been told and what is true.

Six years of investigations and prosecutions have turned up little evidence of Islamic jihadists at work in the United States, according to a study released Monday.

The study, conducted by New York University’s Center on Law and Security, tracked 510 cases billed as terrorism-related when arrests were made.

But it found only 158 of those people arrested since al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks were prosecuted for terrorism.

And how many people were convicted of planning attacks within the United States? Four, including Zacarias Moussaoui and “shoe bomber” Richard Reid.

To be sure, even one homicidal maniac has the potential to commit unspeakable acts, but with all of these suspected terrorists facing criminal charges, the overwhelming majority of cases go to court without a link to terrorism.

This is not to say there aren’t dangerous people who want to commit acts of terrorism; there clearly are. And this is also not to say that we shouldn’t take counter-terrorism seriously; we certainly should. But the data does make one wonder if perhaps the unprecedented power grab from the Bush gang was, shall we say, excessive given the circumstances.

I’m reminded of an instance from two years ago, when former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge acknowledged that the Bush administration periodically put the country on high alert for terrorist attacks based on flimsy evidence. “There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, ‘For that?'” Ridge told reporters.

It’s almost as if the goal was to keep people scared, whether the facts warranted it or not.

Is it possible — I’m just throwing this out there — that perhaps the administration’s drive to acquire new power had less to do with domestic threats, and more to do with their ideological ambitions? Perhaps that explains why the administration leaned on telecommunications companies to cooperate with an NSA surveillance program long before 9/11?

I think we should just go ahead and let them give the president all this power. Then, the next president, probably a Democrat, should go ahead and fully exercise them, and acknowledge publicly doing so. If the neo-cons scream bloody murder, we can have the satisfaction of calling them hypocrites (again) and, with the point made, the president should work with the (Democratic) Congress to abolish and outlaw these practices.

  • [pausing to adjust tinfoil hat]

    It makes me wonder a lot of things…among them whether their “ho-hum” attitude and dismissal of the obvious signs of a possible attack on the US wasn’t so much incompetence as it was a calculated risk that would allow them to put us firmly under their thumbs.

    The refusal of McConnell, citing state secrets privilege at the urging of the WH to allow the telecoms to even discuss whether they were involved in eavesdropping and when it began makes me wonder what, if any, information they actually had in hand from these telecoms prior to 9/11 that would clearly have allowed them to apprehend, intercept and interrupt the attacks.

    I wish it weren’t possible or even rational for me to think things like this, but the more we learn, the less trust I have in these people – and given that I never had much to begin with, it’s gone from that level to being able to believe they might have been twiddling their thumbs just waiting for it to happen.

  • As I remind people all the time you’re far more likley to die at the hands of a fellow american .

  • Four, including Zacarias Moussaoui and “shoe bomber” Richard Reid.?

    let me guess the other two: take-down-brooklyn-bridge-with-blowtorches guy and march-around-in-FBI-provided-boots-in-miami guy.

  • Yes, it would be interesting if the dems were to inherit all this new spying power so they too could uncover all the republican donors and go after them to prevent the GOP from getting much of its financial support. They could find out just what all the corporations were planning and any big business deals that were going down and use the information to garner one democratic party rule.

    The difference here is responsible government, one that believes in the checks and balances set in place and the equality of the 3 branches of government. Just because the Bush administration runs the executive branch like a crime family doesn’t mean that’s what the democrats would do even given the same power to do it. The republicans know this no matter how they try to spin it.

    Bush is doing everything possible to prevent the public from learning that he has been spying on the democrats more than any terrorists and has been using the new expanded executive power to stop investigations into Republican activities and to influence elections. Bush couldn’t justify his activities if they were known and with a blanket immunity for the telecom. co., there would be no reason to find out or expose his activities.

    This is why there is a cloud of secrecy around his activities and why he must prevent their exposure at all costs. It’s not about how it will or might be abused in the future…it’s about protecting what’s already been done…like a “Watergate” of gigantic proportions.

  • terrorists in our midst

    What a crock. America is incredibly target-rich. If there were really all these terrorists everywhere, there would be a lot more shit going down. Yet the Alaskan pipeline remains unmolested, our buildings still stand, our water supplies haven’t been poisoned and when a bridge collapses, you can bet it’s from neglect, not sabotage. All this terrorism talk is a bunch of bullshit designed precisely for the purposes of keeping us in fear. And 99% of us swallow every piece of tripe we’re fed and believe it all.

    It’s almost as if the goal was to keep people scared

    Not “almost.” Not “as if.” That is the goal.

    NSA surveillance program long before 9/11?

    Yeah well, they had all the jeeps and tanks painted in desert camoflauge before 9-11 too. This whole thing is a scam and we’re all a bunch of suckers.

    It’s the government we should be afraid of, not imaginary “terrorists.”

    Petrodollars. It’s about Petrodollars. It’s not about nukes, or terrorism or any of that crap. It’s about Empire and it’s about money. The terrorism myth belongs somewhere between Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy.

    **************

    Comment #1- No amount of petty “I told you so” self-satisfaction is worth your rediculous proposal. I hope you were joking.

  • The obvious reply from BushBotVille is that their sweeping measures scared the jihadist away.

    This is not to say there aren’t dangerous people who want to commit acts of terrorism; there clearly are.

    Yep. Just ask anyone who works at a facility that provides abortions. Oops, I forgot. When pale people try to blow shit up it doesn’t count as terrorism.

  • The lack of evidence is definitive proof of the devious nature of the jihadists.

  • I believe there was never an intention to turn expanded executive powers over to a Democratic president. When all this began, work toward the permanent Republican majority was progressing quite nicely. In fact, if you look at the rightward shift of the courts and the media, the purging of career bureaucrats and the Diebold fiasco, the success of their efforts remain. Unfortunately for conservatives, Katrina came along, followed by the US Attorney scandals and disillusionment with the Iraq occupation, throwing them off course.

    Assuming a Dem takes the WH in 08, the challenge will be to undo in four years what Bush has done in eight — but as pizza tumour notes @ 3, the odds of that are long and I believe conservatives are counting on those odds. When the right recaptures the WH, and they will, they’ll simply pick up where they left off — and next time, they may succeed in their permanent majority.

  • Bush’s war in Iraq has killed and maimed far more people, and destroyed far more property than all the terrorist acts worldwide have managed in the last thirty years combined, since the State Department has kept statistics.

    Imagine what it must be like to experience real terror, as the Iraqis have in the last five years. Then think of how Americans have reacted to 9/11.

    I just can’t believe it.

  • Re # 7 Haik Bedrosian,
    You are right! It is about empire and petrodollars. See Jim Holt, It’s The Oil, London Review of Books, Truthout. perhaps I assume too much about how well it answers many of the questions I had about the Iraq escapade but Holts theory seems to be the most likely reason why all three leading Democratic candidates are very coy about getting out of Iraq. While I don’t think we should be there and I think we have Iraqi blood on our hands big-time, I can see why a political leader looking at the long term viability of America as a nation would be hard pressed to get out of Iraq and let all that oil get out of US control. However, having said that, we only need to look at nations such as Saudi Arabia to see how depending on an oil economy can cripple a nations ability to inovate, create and solve the problems that drive ‘can-do’ countries such as most of our Western Democracies. It is our choice. A nation with energy needs can meet them as we are now doing, which is the relatively easy way in the short term or we can inovate, develope new technologies and learn to live with less energy over the long term; or we can let the other nations do the inovation as we are doing in some ares now and eventually become a large, bankrupt second or third world nation. Either way we can not have an empire. You know, one third of our oil use goes to fuel our navy!
    DC

  • If there is even one terrorist in this country, then every American should be monitored every minute. Why? Because it’s good for the Republican Party.

  • In view of the report — little sign of jihadists in US — I wonder what this article in yesterday’s NYT was all about… Probably just trying to influence the upcoming FISA vote, so that they have something to bitch about, once it’s in and clamps on some more of the rights that citizens thought they had/ought to have. Still, lots of people are going to read it and think “with people like this around, we’d better give Bush all he wants”…

    http://tinyurl.com/2lpkqj

  • Whaddaya mean, “little evidence”? Why, I saw a guy with a beard walking down the street only yesterday.

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