‘Leftist’ groups as a terrorist threat?

September 27, 2006

Glenn Greenwald read through the now-declassified summary (.pdf) of the National Intelligence Estimate and noticed something, at the very end, that a lot of us missed. From the document:

Anti-US and anti-globalization sentiment is on the rise and fueling other radical ideologies. This could prompt some leftist, nationalist, or separatist groups to adopt terrorist methods to attack US interests. The radicalization process is occurring more quickly, more widely, and more anonymously in the Internet age, raising the likelihood of surprise attacks by unknown groups whose members and supporters may be difficult to pinpoint.

We judge that groups of all stripes will increasingly use the Internet to communicate, propagandize, recruit, train, and obtain logistical and financial support.

Did you catch that reference to “leftists”? I thought you might. How about the reference to dangerous right-wing or anti-government groups? They seem to have been left out of the report.

It prompted Glenn to ask, “Are ‘leftist’ groups one of the principal targets on the anti-terrorism agenda of the Bush administration, and if so, aren’t the implications rather disturbing?” It hardly seems like an unreasonable question.

And in case the NIE summary was too subtle, one of the more unhinged members of the House GOP caucus took the argument about “leftists” and the “Internet” to the next level this week on Fox News.

Amanda has the disconcerting rundown.

Monday on Fox News’s Your World With Neil Cavuto, Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) said that Sunday’s New York Times story on the new National Intelligence Estimate and the ensuing public discussion are “putting lives in danger” because terrorists are monitoring “these satellite broadcasts.”

Additionally, terrorists are monitoring and utilizing “political posturing” and “cheap shots” in the blogosphere “to their own advantage.”

So, in summary, all Americans need to watch what they say; if you criticize the president you’re helping al Qaeda; liberal blogs should be considered inherently suspect, and that never mind that cool breeze you’re feeling — it’s just a little chilling effect.

I just made an off-topic comment on this under the previous post, after reading salon.com….

Beware, anonymous lefties… you will get what the Baltimore peacemongers got…

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.clergy27sep27,0,2593888.story?coll=bal-local-headlines

  • Very chilling indeed. One point to ponder regarding the lack of including right wing, anti-government groups, such as the ones that produce timothy McVey: It is they who are in power right now. The right wing anti-government radicals ARE RUNNING THE COUNTRY.

  • Time to start practicing holding our breaths for waterboarding. I always wanted to see what a prison cell in Syria looked like.

    If radical Islamic fundamentalist are far right wingers, why is the left being implicated? Hugo Chavez has nothing to do with left-leaning blogs in the U.S. Simplistic labels (left, right) are not dequate descriptors for who may actually be a “threat” to the safety of American citizens.

  • “One point to ponder regarding the lack of including right wing, anti-government groups, such as the ones that produce timothy McVey: It is they who are in power right now. The right wing anti-government radicals ARE RUNNING THE COUNTRY.” – citizen-pain

    Doubtlessly, having learned the lessons of his father, Boy George II is making sure that any incidents such as Ruby Ridge or Waco, which in fact were the motivations of Timothy McVeigh, do not occur again during the Bushite administration. Thus, clearly, the FBI and BATF have been told in no uncertain terms not to mess with right-wing radical organizations…

    … or at least not until after November 2008 😉

  • I like snowboarding, does that mean I’ll like waterboarding? Will waterboarding become an Olympic event?

    If I suddenly stop posting here, tell Mom I love her wherever I am.

  • If radical Islamic fundamentalist are far right wingers, why is the left being implicated?

    That was the first thing that jumped out at me — seems to me that religious fundamentalists of any stripe are actually on the right, not the left.

    Don’t get me wrong — an extremist is an extremist is an extremist, no matter left or right. But to name the left specifically seems a bit … well, let’s just say this doesn’t make me feel good about 2008. I keep getting this feeling there won’t be an election due to some “threat” or actual attack of some kind.

    Now excuse me while I go get a heavier weight foil for my hat …

  • I heard PETA was planning to throw red paint on Mitch McConnell’s searsucker suit. Seriously radical leftists! If we can’t beat terrorism, at least we can beat communism! After all it is already dead.

  • CB: So, in summary, all Americans need to watch what they say; if you criticize the president you’re helping al Qaeda; liberal blogs should be considered inherently suspect

    especially since it came out a few months back (can’t find the links now) that the gov’t were reading blogs /on our dime/.

    see y’all in the halliburton detention camps!

    ps, hey Osama, what’s shakin’, bay-beh?

  • And I thought I was paranoid. It’s getting downright scary. What happens if in, say 5 years when we are totally a fascist country, will my comments be enough to declare me an enemy of the the US.

    Seems far fetched, but so did almost every piece of legislation on the table today, five years ago.

  • We’re already under attack. A group of radicals have destroyed the following:

    The budget surplus
    Our military readiness
    Our national credibility
    New Orleans
    Various parts of the Constitution

    Can we lock them up now?

  • … not that, as far as I can tell, the NIE thing is getting that much play in the MSM at the moment.

    In the spirit of Monday’s CB post about Newsweek, the top story at this moment on the CNN International website (http://edition.cnn.com/) is: “Bush blocks terror report release”.

    The top story right now on the CNN US website (http://us.cnn.com/) is: “School gunmen made bomb threats.”

    One of the items under “Latest News” on the right-hand side of the screen on the US site is “Full terror report to stay secret”. Wouldn’t want to upset Americans by telling them who’s keeping it secret, would we?

  • CB

    At the first shy, this might sound very disturbing, but it really is not. The NIE is talking about threats to US interests abroad. There are two right-wing groups that might want to attack US interests abroad – religious extremist/fundamentalist groups (mostly Islamists), and nationalist groups (and those who are a mix of the two), and both these groups are included in the list.

    Let’s not under-appreciate the fact that there are way too many ultra-left groups abroad which are radically opposed to globalization, and see it as a mere facade for imperialist agenda, and quite a few of them are perfectly capable of violence against American citizens/interests.

  • About twenty years ago, I saw the movie “The Falcon and the Snowman,” starring Sean Penn and Timothy Hutton. As part of plot of electronic/satellite surveillance and such, it was revealed in the course of the story that our government was spying on Australian labor unions (senseless red-scare crap). In that context, “lefties” seemed to be a threat to the economic order during the cold war (as was Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement was a threat to the social order in the 1960’s). I suspect–that even today–that the people you think that they own this country fear any change to the economic order, and that why leftists must be spied on.

  • ScottW: What happens if in, say 5 years when we are totally a fascist country, will my comments be enough to declare me an enemy of the the US.

    if you haven’t already, see V for Vendetta; the parallels to what’s happening in our country are amazing.

    Racerx: Can we lock them up now?

    if the Democratic party had any balls left, we would’ve begun that shit ages ago.

  • Uh-huh. Did anyone catch that Gonzales the Human Gonad is pushing to require all ISPs to hang on to customer data for two years, ostensibly to help stop child pornography? I’m sure that’s part of the reason and by part, I mean .0001%.

    Please keep in mind though that this is just part of the report. Could silence about right wank groups be a sign Negroponte went to work with the edit tool in Adobe Acrobat?

    I find it difficult to believe that a non-partisan panel decided leftists could be suddenly incited to blow things up when the number of terrorist acts by left wing groups in the past 200 years might equal the terrorist activities of right wingers during a single month. There’s a reason every Planned Parenthood office has as much security as a bank in a very bad neighborhood.

    However if the NSA is eyeballing this, here’s a secret message for ya: Uckfay uoyay ithway a haincay awsay.

  • So I just went out to take another five minutes off my life, and I started thinking, which, for me, is always dangerous. NOTE: Please adjust your deflector beanies accordingly.

    If they really did start to crack down on “leftists,” who would they actually come after?

    I can’t foresee them starting with the big shots such as Atrios, Kos, Carpetbagger, or any of the other “big dogs.” Doing so would cause too much attention.

    So, they would probably start at the bottom. And since my little site only get a few hundred hits a day (a majority of which are either people I know or porn/cheap meds/payday loan spam), I would guess that folks such as me would be the first target.

    With that in mind, let me just assure all of you that no manner of torture would ever break me!!

    I can hold my breath for seconds on end!

    I find the notion of ear-piercing hardcore rap pleasant!

    Dogs? I have three at home — they don’t scare me!!

    Electrodes to my genitals? I’ve been married for six years — the fact my genitals would be touched would be a nice change of pace!

    And I used to be a waiter who worked 14 hour shifts, so standing for long periods of time is nothing, nothing I say!!!

    Now, if they make me watch Fox News for long periods of time, followed by selected readings from O’Reilly’s and Coulter’s new books?

    Hey … everyone has their breaking point.

  • Okay … just noticed that I say that I will never break, then admit that everyone has their breaking point.

    That damn foil is disrupting my ability to reason. Guess I should’ve used the aluminum stuff, not the lead.

  • Electrodes to my genitals? I’ve been married for six years — the fact my genitals would be touched would be a nice change of pace!

    Dude, that is the weirdest fetish I’ve yet seen. You need to click on some of those porn links from your spam, stat.

  • Electrodes to my genitals? I’ve been married for six years — the fact my genitals would be touched would be a nice change of pace!
    Dude, that is the weirdest fetish I’ve yet seen. You need to click on some of those porn links from your spam, stat.

    Comment by Mr. Flibble — 9/27/2006 @ 5:24 pm

    Just remember, we may hook the clips to their testicals, but we don’t flip the switch. That’s the difference between us and the terrorists.

    It’s why the terrorists are winning.

  • Mr. Flibble–
    You call it a “fetish.”

    I call it “Saturday night.”

    (Okay … I have crossed so many lines of decency in this thread I can’t even see them any more. That’s what happens when you’ve had three hours of sleep and are about an hour away from a 4-day weekend. Well, the painkillers also help, but that’s for another thread …)

    😉

  • If I may play devil’s advocate for a moment, the NIE does mention “separatists” as well as “leftists.” Could this be a reference to white separatists, and therefore be a euphemism for right-wing groups (since no one uses the word “rightist”)?

    Of course, that would be cold comfort for a left-wing demonstrator left to rot in a jail cell for eternity alongside a white separatist…

  • The Limerick as Torture:

    There once was a blogger named Mose;
    Who took several jolts to his hose;
    He yawned through the zapping,
    but he started crapping;
    When Ann Coulter took off her clothes.

    [CB please feel free to delete this completely inappropriate, off topic and nauseating post.]

  • Gorobei – having just returned from Sweden, I know that they just elected a more conservative government there. In American terms, that means that Ted Kennedy would be considered too conservative for the new governing party there. Maybe Ralph Nader could slip in.

    They love Americans over there, have no idea how the F–k George Bush got elected, let alone re-elected, and are generally pretty astute when it comes to politics, as in they see being well-informed as being a civic duty.

    Unfortunately, the women are all 6ft tall, gorgeous and out of most of our leagues…..

  • LOL, no. 17 Unholy Moses.

    21: Well, the painkillers also help, but that’s for another thread

    due to circumstances beyond my control, i was forced to quit reading news about two weeks back. well, i cut down from like 12-16 hrs/day to like 3 or whatever. my point is, i’ve been drinking and self-medicating (as i prefer to call it) a LOT less. and my stash is like hu oopsy, wrong forum.

    CB: please delete this as well if it displeases you.

    the answer is orange: When Ann Coulter took off her clothes.

    MY MIND’S EYE!

  • That limterick is great – took me five minutes to vclean off thecomputer screen here.

    One small niggling writerly criticism – the last line should be “When Ann Coulter took off all her clothes.” It just maintains the rhythm of the other lines better.

  • Sorry for bringing the discussion back on topic—you can electrocute me later if you wish—but Ann Coulter in the buff is definitely a WAR CRIME!!!

    Well, on to it, then.

    The stuff that’s going on these days; the absolute garbage that’s being pandered about how “critics of the president” (lower-case “p” used intentionally here) are aiding/abetting the terrorists; about how “dissent” is unpatriotic; about how “Truth” is the equivalent of Treason—it’s all been around before.

    Remember “Viet Nam?” Remember the “anti-war protests?” How about a little place called “Kent State?”

    I sure as hell do.

    And, I remember how a lot of folks in the government referred to the people who protested the war.

    “Traitors” was a popular word back then, too. So was “Unpatriotic.” And “Unamerican.”

    Politicians had nothing but hateful words and pathetic insults for those dissenters. “Men of God” were no better—which is why I’ve conscientiously avoided the self-serving “Christian” faith for over 36 years now. A common “quip” on Republican lips in that time, regarding the four students who died on May 4th, 1970, was : “They only killed FOUR? They should’a killed MORE!”

    Ohio’s version of “dear leader” at the time—Governor James Rhodes—led the charge to convict students for the shootings, while absolving his precious Guardsmen of any responsibility. Now there’s something I’d called “seriously unhinged”—you get shot, and the gunman’s employer blames you.

    As of this moment, the great difference between 1970 and today consists of just one item: No one is shooting at us for our dissent against this criminal government—yet.

    But look at what can happen today, incomparison to 1970. Someone can openly call for the death of journalists, politicians, professors, and even Supreme Court Justices—and get away with it. A sitting president (there’s that wretched “little p” again) can break law after law—after law, and a Congress will do nothing about it. A journalist who does demonstrate the audacity to say “this is wrong” gets a fake anthrax letter sent to him—and people think of it as “a joke.”

    No—dissent against a wrong, and fighting for what’s right, isn’t leading to people being shot at—but perhaps—just perhaps, mind you—it’s already led to something far worse; far more sinister; far more damaging than any bullet ever could be….

  • Did you catch that reference to “leftists”? — CB

    Sure did, first time around, too (in the original text). But then… I was looking for it… You’re not saying you’re surprised, are you, CB? “First label them ‘leftie’ then hang (shoot, electrocute) them” has been the gold standard of US politics for a good, long time now. Remember McCarthy (Joe)? Remember Kent State? Remember the times when the Selma marchers were “the closely watched train”? Or the “eco-terrorists”? Or the people who tried to protect the PP clinics from being bombed? Disgusting lefties all.

    Now, to address the practical issues. A new supply of tinfoil is on my shopping lists (to buy as soon as it’s on sale) but, in the meantime, here’s what I learnt from my Mother (who was a “leftie” before WWII and spent some 14 yrs in and out of jail “for communism”) and from my friends (who were “righties” in communist Poland and spent some time in and out of jail “for politics” also)

    Dale ( #6) is on the right track; everyone who visits this blog (whether to post or just to read; nobody’s gonna be very picky, when sifting through hundreds of names) should leave info with family and friends regarding what to do if “they” come knocking at your door in the middle of the night (and you choose not to jump out of the 5th story window). Leave the info with as many people as possible, because some of your nearest and dearest could be drag-netted also (both: because the NSA is not sufficiently efficient. And because it is).

    The thing to do it to get the message (somehow) to the Red Cross, the Amnesty International, the Human Rights Comission, etc. Preferably while your contact is on holidays abroad, to avoid implication. Or use the least suspect person to deliver it, if you have to deliver it within the country (I’m told that my — Jewish and very religious — grandma carried a “gryps” in her wig, when she requested an “audience” with the International Red Cross representatives in a swanky Warsaw hotel (where she got the money for the train ticket from Lodz, my Mother never knew).

    Another day I’ll tell you how to communicate with other prisoners by knocking (remember, you can’t knock long and short, so Morse is out). Something my Mother taught me when I was 6yrs old — as soon as I could read and write — “just in case…”

    For the past 6 years, I’ve been watching this country slide into “familiar territory”. Now it (and me with it, but, at least, I’m better prepared to cope) is almost there…

  • Okay … I just woke up The Boy after reading #23 due to hysterical laughter … and our computer is in the basement … two floors down. (And, I should note, not my parent’s basement.)

    I would like to sincerely apologize to The CB — I’m fairly confident my comments are a low point in this blog’s history in terms of intelligent discussion and discourse. But I have that effect on … well, pretty much everything I touch.

    Now — on topic. More specifically, Steve’s post (#28) —
    I think one of the reason’s we haven’t seen another Kent State is because no one is out there protesting like they did in the ’60s. I wasn’t around then, but I’ve seen the pictures and talked to my dad, who wasn’t exactly active in the anti-war movement (being the Navy will do that to a person). But even if it was just a small portion of tpopulace that spoke out against LBJ and Nixon and all the problems and mistakes they both faced and made, that portion made a helluva lotta noise.

    More importantly, it made a difference.

    Forty years later we have another wildly unpopular and failing war, and a leader that makes Nixon look like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Gandhi all rolled up into one.

    But instead of hand delivering our grievances to those in power, all we do is sit here “discussing” the issues on virtual street corners where names, faces and motives are often anonymous. Protest signs and slogans have been replaced by blog entries and sometimes-caustic commentary.

    Granted, there’s less of a chance of getting sprayed with a fire hose or beaten with a baton this way. But is any of it actually making a difference?

    I’ve wondered what, if anything, will need to happen for this to change. Will anything this administration does cause us to leave our computers and march on the Capitol? Even if it’s just a small percentage of us, will we actually do more than type out our thoughts before climbing into bed for a good night’s sleep? Or is blogging the new, safer, and even less radical form of protest?

    I, for one, would love to take some kind of action. But I can’t even update my own site on a regular basis due to work and family — how in the hell could I be expected to participate in some form of civil disobedience? I can barely get two days off work — how could I take a week or two to go to D.C. and cause a ruckus without getting thrown into some detention center in the center of Tortureyourassistan. There’s also the fact that activism doesn’t exactly meet my rather modest salary requirements.

    I really wish there was more I could do, and I hate having to sit here, just hoping that someone else will step up and start doing something a bit more … I dunno … I don’t want to type “profound,” but that’s the word I keep coming back to.

    But, at the present time, this keyboard and this blog (as well as several dozen others that I visit) are all I got.

    I guess all I can do is hope that, when all is said and done, it was enough.

  • That should’ve read ” … being IN the Navy … ” in the third paragraph.

    My dad’s a failry big guy and all, but he’s not the whole Navy — just an old battleship …

  • I really wish there was more I could do, and I hate having to sit here, just hoping that someone else will step up and start doing something a bit more … I dunno … I don’t want to type “profound,” but that’s the word I keep coming back to — Unholy Moses

    Don’t feel bad… I have some 20–30 ys on you (be 57 next month), I don’t work for a living, and I’m *still* in the same place as you are — waiting for *someone else* to give a signal, to strike a spark… I would *join*, in a minute (something I would never have contemplated 6 yrs ago), consequences be damned — my son’s an independent adult, my husband wouldn’t object, and I could be young and “un-humble” (don’t know the word in English; this is a direct translation form Polish) again…

    The best I could think of to do was put myself on the local Dem HQ list for “grunt work” (because of my faulty English, I do not feel comfortable with telephone or door-to-door work), and they do, once in a while. I convince myself it’s better than nothing, because I don’t want to die before we’ve cleaned house. But, like you, I *wish* I could help out with the cleaning…

    Bush’s Realm is not the country that my Mother sent me to 33yrs ago with the words: “I hate to see you leave, but you’ll be free there”

  • Libra—try these on for size….

    Aggressive, assertive, audacious, bold, brash, brassy, cheeky, forward, confident, self-confident, dominant, masterful, ostentatious, or showy.

    *And a tip of the hat to Merriam Webster Online….

  • I’ll buy that the nationalists and separatists are decidedly right-wing and that the non-political workers of the national intelligence agencies treat all threats the same. On the other hand, I have only heard of investigations on peace groups , anti-globalization groups, and nature-rights groups (environment and animal; some suspected in arsons).

  • “…not dequate descriptors for who may actually be a “threat” to the safety of American citizens.”

    They are not nearly as interested in threats to the safety of American citizens as they are in threats to American power, i.e. their power. And given that they have trouble distinguishing between peace protesters executing their first amendment rights and radical terrorists (which is why they infiltrate Grandma’s For Peace type groups), I think it is only a matter of time before those Halliburton camps start getting used.

    Oh, and Ramki, Globalization IS “a mere facade for imperialist agenda.” No third world country has ever been improved by it, and many have been devastated. The US loves it, of course, because it makes mega-profits for multinational corporations. If that’s not economic Imperialism, the phrase has no meaning (and I used to be a big supporter of globalization, at least until the real effect of globalization on third world countries became evident).

  • Nationalist groups is what might otherwise be called “rightists”, but since “”rightist” groups is a phrase that hasn’t been coined, they go with more descriptive things like “nationalist”. “Leftist” is a reference to groups like the FARC in Columbia or the Shining Path in Peru. It does not represent an intelligence community assessment that PETA represents a danger to US interests.

  • Snort (Laughter). So what’s new under the sun?
    We all knew this would happen.
    See you at the concentration camp.
    (Sorry, I have a morbid srnse of humor).

    • Comments are closed.