Australian government exploits attack by mentally-ill man to whip up terrorism scare

Mike Head

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the police and the mass media seized upon a knifing in a Sydney suburb on Saturday by a young man suffering from schizophrenia to declare it was a “lone wolf” terrorist attack inspired by Islamic State (ISIS).

Before any of the facts were known, police commanders asserted that the stabbing represented a new wave of Islamic terrorism. The media ran screaming headlines, such as “Terror on our streets” and “Global terrorism strikes on suburban streets.”

Turnbull went further, equating the incident to the 9/11 mass terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, which were used to proclaim an endless “war on terror,” invade Afghanistan and Iraq and impose far-reaching attacks on basic legal and democratic rights.

Ishas Khan, a 22-year-old Australian-born man from a Bangladeshi family, allegedly chased and stabbed Wayne Greenhalgh, 59. The older man was walking his dog on Saturday afternoon in front of Khan’s house in Minto, a working-class suburb. Greenhalgh, who lives several houses away from Khan, suffered multiple stab wounds before being rescued by local residents.

Anonymous police sources admitted to journalists that Khan had no known links to ISIS and had serious mental health problems, including schizophrenia. Residents told the media that Khan, once a high-performing school student, had acted erratically for weeks, especially since his mother died after a long illness two weeks ago. He had paced up and down the street, shouted at passers-by and pushed a car axle up and down the road.

Despite these signs of severe mental illness, New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn yesterday declared that although Khan was not on a terror watch list, “we know that this person has strong extremist beliefs inspired by ISIS.”

“Police sources” told the media that a search of Khan’s home discovered an electronic copy of Islamic State’s magazine Dabiq and evidence that he had searched for “extremist” YouTube videos. Apart from these flimsy and unsubstantiated claims being used to vilify Khan, they directly prejudiced any criminal trial. Khan was yesterday charged with committing a terrorist act and attempted murder. He was refused bail.

Media outlets highlighted reports that Khan had shouted Islamic slogans and called out: “You killed my brothers and sisters in Iraq.” These reports suggest that the unstable young man opposed the escalating US war in Iraq and Syria, in which Australia is closely involved and in which thousands of civilians have been killed.

But the corporate media and the government proclaimed that the entire population was now “at war” with Islamic extremism. The first seven pages of Murdoch media’s Sydney tabloid, the Daily Telegraph, today featured lurid headlines like: “White-robed IS radical’s mission to kill ‘Aussie’,” “Wolves at the door” and “Victim of unholy war at home.”

Turnbull, whose fragile government is under intense pressure from the corporate elite to demonstrate its capacity to impose deep budget cuts on the population, seized upon the fact that the attack occurred on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary to insist it signalled a new assault on Australia’s “way of life.”

The prime minister declared: “On one level they seem very different, 15 years apart, very different events. But connecting them both is a ­violent Islamist ideology which perverts the religion of Islam and seeks to destroy and threaten our way of life.”

While the September 11 ­attacks were “elaborate” and planned months in advance by Al Qaeda, Saturday’s stabbing was emblematic of an evolved terror threat, Turnbull said. “What we have seen on Aust­ralian soil and elsewhere in the world is increasingly this type of lone actor attacks,” he said.

Of course, Turnbull made no mention of the fact that Al Qaeda groups have been fighting for several years on Washington’s side in its drive to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, just as they once did in Afghanistan during the late 1980s and early 1990s, in the US-led operation to oust the Soviet-backed Najibullah regime.

Turnbull’s comments reportedly followed high-level discussions within the intelligence and police apparatus. He said he received a briefing from Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) director-general Duncan Lewis, Australian Federal Police commissioner Andrew Colvin, Justice Minister Michael Keenan and Counter-Terrorism Co-ordinator Tony Sheehan.

As well as providing the pretext for frontline Australian involvement in the US-led wars in the Middle East, the 9/11 attacks were utilised to introduce more than 60 pieces of so-called terrorism legislation. These vastly expanded the powers and surveillance activities of the security agencies, defined terrorism in sweeping terms and overturned fundamental rights, such as no detention without trial.

While the initial targets of these measures were vulnerable young Islamic men like Khan, they form part of a developing police-state framework that can and will be used to suppress social unrest and political dissent as the drive to war and austerity intensifies.

Since being narrowly returned to office in the July 2 election, Turnbull’s Liberal-National government, with the bipartisan backing of the Labor Party, has brought forward four further measures to bolster the powers of the police, intelligence and military forces.

Attorney-General George Brandis seized on Saturday’s stabbing to proclaim the necessity for two new terrorism laws. One bill will permit control orders—a form of house arrest—to be imposed on teenagers as young as 14. The other will allow for individuals convicted of terrorism-related and other offences, including treason, to be detained indefinitely, even after they have served their prison terms.

The other two measures will effectively give the military the authority to kill civilians in Iraq and Syria, and speed up the procedures for calling out the troops domestically to suppress opposition and unrest.

Today’s editorial in the Daily Telegraph provided a taste of the toxic atmosphere being whipped up by the ruling elite. It declared that the Minto stabbing marked an escalation of the “war” that commenced on 9/11. “Our citizens and suburbs are the frontline of this war,” it stated. “Their country is at war. It is a war unlike any we have ever fought.”

There is a clear connection between this inflammatory rhetoric and the financial elite’s demand for severe cuts to health, education and other social spending. That was illustrated by twin editorials today in the Australian Financial Review. One insisted that Saturday’s “Islamic State-inspired terror attack in Sydney” had “reminded Australians that the threat of global Islamic terrorism still looms large.” The other demanded that, with parliament resuming today, Turnbull “set a strong economic agenda and begin repairing the budget,” starting with the passage of $6.5 billion worth of cuts in an Omnibus Bill.

The ratchetting up of communal and military tensions is both an attempt to derail the widespread public opposition to this austerity offensive, and a means of boosting the repressive powers of the state apparatus to impose the dictates of the corporate establishment.

Zika virus spreads in Puerto Rico and Florida

Julio Patron & David Brown

The Zika virus has continued to spread in the United States and its territories throughout the summer months, leading to a health crisis with long-term impacts. Over 18,000 people have tested positive for the disease, including 1,750 pregnant women. Zika can cause a range of neurological problems and particularly targets fetal brain development, leading to birth defects, most notably microcephaly, the small development of the brain.

On Friday, Thomas Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that they “are now essentially out of money,” and that Americans are “about to see a bunch of kids born with microcephaly.” The CDC first requested funding in February, but Congress has yet to pass any funding measure.

The epidemic has steadily unfolded in the US despite constant warnings from health officials that preventive measures were necessary. In May 2015 the Zika epidemic in Brazil that has now spread to the US was first identified. In December 2015 the first case of local Zika transmission in the US territory of Puerto Rico was confirmed. In February 2016 the World Health Organization declared the explosive spread of the virus throughout the Americas a public health emergency of international concern.

The similarity of Zika to other mosquito-borne illnesses, like dengue and chikungunya, led a variety of experts from the National Institutes of Health, the National School of Tropical Medicine, the CDC and others to warn of Zika’s impending spread throughout Puerto Rico and onto the US mainland. Despite these warnings, the US Congress went into recess in July without approving any funding.

On August 12, the US government declared a public health emergency in Puerto Rico due to the rapid spread of the virus, which would allow the access of emergency funds. Close to 50 pregnant women are testing positive for the disease daily, and the CDC estimates that by the end of this year, 20 to 25 percent, or 875,000 of the Puerto Rican population will have contracted the virus.

There are over a thousand new Zika cases being reported each week, and the total reported in Puerto Rico so far is 15,541, according to the CDC. Because most of those infected experience no symptoms, the number of people infected is likely much larger.

Unwilling and unable to address the poor health care, widespread poverty and antiquated infrastructure that forms the social basis of the Zika outbreak, government officials and agencies have focused on posturing over petty squabbles and half-measures.

The governor of Puerto Rica, Alejandro Padilla, filed a federal lawsuit July 21 against the CDC plan to use aerial spraying of the insecticide Naled across the island in order to slow the spread of Zika. The CDC has since backed down from the proposal, but has responded to the lawsuit, saying that Naled has been used in the United States for years and is currently being sprayed in Florida.

At sufficient concentrations, Naled is known to cause a wide range of issues, from nausea to paralysis, and is potentially deadly. It can also lead to neurological disorders in unborn babies. Although the concentrations used in aerial spraying are below those known to cause health problems, it can seriously impact other useful insects like bees. Due to its potential risks, Naled has been banned by the European Union.

Zika is primarily transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. The Aedesmosquito is the most common type in the US and throughout the world and spreads particularly well in poor urban environments. To breed, it only requires small puddles of water like those readily found anywhere without regular trash collection or piped water. Basic infrastructure—such as indoor plumbing, air conditioned buildings, window screens and clean streets—greatly reduces the ability of the mosquito to bite multiple people, spreading the disease.

The Zika virus targets the nervous system and its impact on fetal development can be catastrophic. It is known to cause microcephaly, a rare birth defect that causes babies to be born with abnormally small heads and life-threatening brain damage. If the mother contracts the virus at any point during her pregnancy, it can be carried over to the infant. The estimated cost to care for a baby diagnosed with microcephaly ranges from $1 million to $10 million.

It is unknown at what point in pregnancy and childhood the Zika virus affects brain development. Initial research on the Brazilian epidemic shows that affected infants born with a normal-sized head, generally those infected later in the pregnancy, can suffer from a host of difficulties, including abnormal eye development and hearing loss. The full impact of Congenital Zika Syndrome will only be discovered as doctors study those affected as they grow.

Although most adults who contract Zika show no significant symptoms, it can cause Guillain-Barré syndrome, an uncommon disorder that causes the body’s immune system to attack its own nerve cells. It can cause paralysis and death. There is currently no vaccine or cure for Zika.

Brazil is the epicenter of the current Zika epidemic, with 78,421 confirmed cases, and 196,000 suspected of having the virus. Poor access to health care and the lack of a simple test for Zika make the full extent of the epidemic difficult to know, but the number of infants with congenital defects has doubled since the outbreak. The outbreak began in the poverty stricken northeast region of Brazil. Birth malformations were at about 40 per 100,000 until November 2015. The number then jumped to 170 per 100,000 births, four times higher in the area.

The conditions of poverty that led to Zika’s spread through Brazil are increasingly found within the United States. Florida, the only US state with local transmission of the disease, has an official poverty rate of 16.6 percent. Over 10 percent of the state’s children live in deep poverty, defined as less than half of the official poverty rate. In Puerto Rico, 45 percent of the population live below the poverty line, and the territory’s health care system has faced massive cuts due to an ongoing $70 billion debt crisis.

Twenty-year-old Muslim recruit killed by officers at Marine boot camp

Eric London

A 20-year-old Muslim Marine recruit, Raheel Siddiqui, jumped out of a third story window on March 18, 2016 after suffering repeated abuse by officers at the Parris Island base in South Carolina.

Siddiqui’s death is one of dozens of cases of officer abuse that have emerged at Parris Island alone. Across the country, officers of the various branches of the US armed forces systematically abuse young recruits, the overwhelming majority of whom, like Siddiqui, come from working-class families.

An initial investigation revealed that Siddiqui began having mental and physical health problems shortly after arriving at training camp. His requests for help were ignored by officers in his company, known as “Killer Kilo Company,” who evaluated him and forced him to return to training.

Following a week of grueling physical training that traditionally involves heavy verbal and psychological abuse by drill sergeants and other officers, Siddiqui first complained that he was being abused. These complaints were again ignored. Salon reported that officers called Siddiqui a “terrorist” because of his Islamic faith.

On March 18, eleven days after he arrived at camp, Siddiqui told his drill instructor that he had a sore throat and requested medical attention. When the drill instructor refused and began yelling at him, Siddiqui remained silent before falling to the floor in pain. The drill sergeant continued to yell at him, and when Siddiqui again failed to respond, the officer hit him on the face as many as three times. Siddiqui then stood up, began sprinting out of the barracks, and leapt over a railing, falling 40 feet to his death.

Though Siddiqui’s death has been labeled a suicide, it would be more apt to call it a murder. Ultimately the young man and his family are victims of American imperialism.

The young man’s family emigrated from Pakistan in 1990 to live in the Detroit-area town of Taylor, Michigan. Like most military recruits, Siddiqui joined the armed forces largely out of a desire to provide a decent life for his family.

Siddiqui’s sister, Sidra, told the Wall Street Journal: “We struggled as a family when we were little, and he wanted to change that.” Siddiqui’s father is an auto-parts worker who was returning from his night shift when he first heard the news that his son was dead. He recalls seeing an ambulance parked in front of his home. Inside, first responders were tending to Siddiqui’s mother, who had just received the news.

Despite the fact that Siddiqui graduated from Harry S. Truman High School as class valedictorian, the lack of job opportunities for young people forced him to take a minimum-wage job at a nearby Home Depot. He received a scholarship to attend engineering program at the University of Michigan, Dearborn.

Siddiqui’s family was skeptical of his decision to join the Marines. His mother told the Wall Street Journal that her son told her: “Mom, there are possibilities in the Marines. If life gives me a golden chance, why can I not accept? I’ll get a good job. I’ll give you a good life. I’ll give you a home. I’ll give you everything.”

When he arrived at training camp, he was thrown into the reactionary, jingoistic climate of the armed forces of American imperialism. So vicious and sadistic is this climate that it broke down an innocent, intelligent, and hardworking young man, killing him in a week and a half.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the drill sergeant who beat Siddiqui was already under investigation for placing another Muslim recruit in a clothes-drying machine in 2015. The officer did so after accusing the recruit of being responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Another recruit overheard the officer yelling at the Muslim soldier: “Why are you even here? You’re gonna kill us the first chance you get, aren’t you, you terrorist? What are your plans, are you a terrorist?”

Despite this, the officer was neither demoted nor removed from his position as a drill instructor. In the 3rd Recruit Training Battalion alone, dozens of officers are now under investigation for similar abuse. The battalion proudly refers to itself as the “Thumping Third” for the brutality that its recruits face.

The US Marines issued a perfunctory statement aimed at covering up the fact that officer abuse is a standard operating procedure of all branches of the US military.

“When America’s men and women commit to becoming Marines, we make a promise to them. We pledge to train them with firmness, fairness, dignity and compassion.” said Marine Commandant General Robert B. Neller. But top military brass have not brought charges against a single officer responsible for abusing recruits and are protecting the identities of all officers involved. The ongoing investigation’s purpose is to protect those responsible, present Siddiqui’s death as an isolated incident and ensure that the culture of abuse continues unhindered.

The US armed forces are not trained with “compassion” any more than they are sent to war for “humanitarian” reasons or to protect “democracy.” The brutal, fascistic climate cultivated by the officer corps is a reflection of the military’s class character. The military’s purpose is to advance the interests of Wall Street and the American financial aristocracy, pillaging the world and securing its natural resources, shipping lanes, and cheap labor sources.

Siddiqi’s death reveals the dark shadow that fifteen years of permanent war in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa have cast on American society. The US military has killed over a million people in its ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan.

This permanent state of war has left no element of life untouched. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Fallujah, Haditha, extraordinary rendition, disposition matrix, black sites, waterboarding and drone strikes are the places and terms which have come to define the character of the wars. Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both pledge to continue the so-called War on Terror with no end in sight.

Political prisoner Chelsea Manning begins hunger strike

Tom Hall

Political prisoner and whistleblower Chelsea Manning began a hunger strike on Friday in military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she is currently serving a 35-year sentence under deplorable conditions.

Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning, is the former US Army specialist who was the source of major releases by WikiLeaks, including the Collateral Murder video that shows a US Army gunship mowing down civilians in Baghdad, the Iraq War Logs, the Guantanamo Bay files, the Afghan War Diary, and a cache of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables shedding light on the machinations of American imperialism.

Manning explained in a written statement that she was protesting the discriminatory treatment that she, as a transgendered woman, has received while in prison.

“I need help. I am not getting any,” Manning wrote. “My [requests have] only been ignored, delayed, mocked, given trinkets and lip service by the prison, the military, and this administration.”

Despite announcing that she was transgendered in 2013, shortly after her sentencing, Manning has been forced to serve her sentence in an all-male prison and to cut her hair short to meet military standards. She is demanding written assurances that she will receive her prescribed medications for her gender dysphoria.

Prison officials have routinely blocked her access to treatment such as hormone injections, prompting her lawyers to file a lawsuit in 2014. This has contributed to severe and ongoing clinical depression, for which she has not received regular care, and which led Manning to attempt suicide in early July.

“I was driven to suicide by the lack of care for my gender dysphoria that I have been desperate for. I didn’t get any. I still haven’t gotten any. I needed help. Yet, instead I am now being punished for surviving my attempt.”

The government responded to Manning’s attempted suicide by filing additional charges; she now faces the prospect of indefinite solitary confinement, reclassification into maximum security and an additional nine years tacked onto her sentence, with no possibility of parole.

“Today, I have decided that I am no longer going to be bullied by this prison—or by anyone within the U.S. government,” Manning concluded. “Until I am shown dignity and respect as a human again, I shall endure this pain before me. I am prepared for this mentally and emotionally. I expect that this ordeal will last for a long time. Quite possibly until my permanent incapacitation or death. I am ready for this. I need help. Please, give me help.”

Manning's increasingly desperate situation in prison is the direct result of malicious persecution by the US government. It is no exaggeration to say that the Obama administration is seeking to hound Manning to her death.

Since her initial arrest and imprisonment in 2010, the military and Obama administration have been determined to make an example of her, through an unending campaign of torture and harassment, as a deterrent against future whistleblowers.

For the first ten months, Manning was placed in solitary confinement for twenty-three and a half hours per day, under the pretext of being placed on “suicide watch,” and subjected to routine humiliation through daily strip searches.

Last year, Manning was threatened with indefinite solitary confinement for minor violations of prison rules, such as “sweeping food onto the floor,” possession of unauthorized reading material and possession of a tube of expired toothpaste (officially, “medical misuse”).

According to ChelseaManning.org, the charges were retaliation against Manning over an incident in which she had asked for a lawyer after being confronted by a prison guard in the mess hall. Manning was later given the lesser punishment of 21 days of restriction from recreational areas or going outdoors, after a public petition in her defense attracted more than 100,000 signatures.

The retaliation against Manning after her suicide attempt in July, which includes, once again, the threat of indefinite solitary confinement, is particularly vindictive. Solitary confinement, which has been deemed a form of torture by the United Nations, has been linked by scientific studies to significantly higher rates of suicide among prison inmates.

A 2014 study in the American Journal of Public Health found that more than 70 percent of all suicides in California prisons occurred among inmates placed in isolation. A lawyer for Manning from the ACLU explained that her “big fear is formal isolation. She relies on access to phone and written communication. If that were cut off, I’d be even more worried.”

Manning’s principled and courageous stand in bringing to public attention the crimes of American imperialism has earned her the respect and admiration of millions throughout the world. At the same time, she has earned the hatred of those in the state apparatus who understand that her decision to risk prosecution in order to expose their crimes is only an initial expression of the growth of anti-war sentiment and social opposition more broadly. This sentiment is growing, particularly among those of Manning’s generation who have come of age in the last fifteen years under the shadow of the massive expansion of American militarism and assault on democratic rights under the framework of the so-called War on Terror.

Significantly, Manning’s hunger strike has elicited a stony silence from the Obama administration and most sections of the American establishment media. Neither the Defense Department nor the Justice Department, which is conducting the retaliatory investigation after Manning’s suicide, issued statements on the matter, nor did either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, the two main candidates in the current presidential election. The New York Times and the Washington Post, which traditionally set the agenda for the rest of the American media, ran only brief wire reports.

By contrast, the same day that Manning announced her hunger strike, sections of the media were busy manufacturing a new round of provocations against WikiLeaks, on the basis of an anonymous “leak” from a criminal investigation launched against the journalistic organization by the federal government, accusing it of censoring financial transactions between Syrian and Russian banks in its release of “The Syria Files.”

The original report from the Dailydot web site also accused WikiLeaks of issuing veiled threats against them for publishing the story. The slanderous article is in line with attempts to portray WikiLeaks’ release of internal Democratic National Committee emails as being masterminded by Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to influence the US presidential elections.

Obama pledges to veto legislation allowing 9/11 victims to sue Saudi government

Tom Carter

On Friday, the United States House of Representatives voted in favor of legislation that would permit September 11 victims and their families to sue the government of Saudi Arabia, based on its role in the terrorist attacks that resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people. The bill, which the Obama administration has threatened to veto, was passed by the Senate in May.

The bill, together with the Obama administration’s opposition to it, marks the continued unraveling of the official narrative of the September 11 attacks.

As confirmed by secret government documents released in May and July of this year, sections of the Saudi state apparatus were likely complicit in the September 11, 2001 attacks. At least two of the hijackers—15 out of 19 of whom were Saudi nationals—were directly aided by Omar al-Bayoumi, who was identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a Saudi intelligence agent with “ties to terrorist elements.” Some hijackers received paychecks for fictitious jobs from a company affiliated with the Saudi Ministry of Defense.

Al-Bayoumi, meanwhile, worked closely with an Emir at the Saudi Defense Ministry. According to phone records obtained through a US government investigation, al-Bayoumi called Saudi government agencies 100 times between January and May of 2000. Meanwhile, three of the hijackers stayed at the same Virginia hotel as Saleh al-Hussayen, a Saudi interior ministry official, the night before the attacks.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations sought to cover up these and other facts pointing to Saudi complicity in the September 11 attacks. The involvement of the government of Saudi Arabia in the attacks—together with Israel, one of America’s key allies in the Middle East for more than half a century—was deemed too embarrassing. It would have raised too many questions about the possible foreknowledge of the attacks within any section of America’s military or intelligence apparatus.

Indeed, the documents released this year confirm that American intelligence agencies had a policy prior to September 11, 2001 of not following the activities of Saudi intelligence agents within the US, on the grounds of Saudi Arabia’s status as a major US ally. For this reason, US intelligence agencies paid little to no attention to the activities of Saudi agents like al-Bayoumi while they organized and facilitated the attacks. The possibility that this state of affairs was intentional has not been ruled out, and nobody was ever prosecuted for what amounts—if the official story is to be believed—to systemic incompetence and colossal negligence.

For 13 years, the infamous so-called 28 pages were redacted from the official report known as the “Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.” Until their release in July, members of Congress were only given access to these pages via a locked basement vault where they were not permitted to take notes.

The bill passed on Friday—sponsored by Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas and Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York—is a response to information pointing to Saudi involvement in the September 11 attacks. The bill would permit victims and their families to argue in American courts that the Saudi government should be held liable for its role in the attacks. The bill would allow an exception to a 1976 law that generally provides that foreign nations are immune from lawsuits in US courts.

The “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act,” Senate Bill 2040, would amend the federal judicial code to allow US courts “to hear cases involving claims against a foreign state for injuries, death, or damages that occur inside the United States as a result of... an act of terrorism, committed anywhere by a foreign state or official.”

The text of the bill makes no direct reference to Saudi Arabia. Instead, it is couched in terms of providing “civil litigants with the broadest possible basis... to seek relief against persons, entities, and foreign countries, wherever acting and wherever they may be found, that have provided material support, directly or indirectly, to foreign organizations or persons that engage in terrorist activities against the United States.”

The Obama administration has cloaked its opposition to the bill on procedural and diplomatic grounds, citing the necessity of maintaining friendly relations with Saudi Arabia. The White House has also argued that permitting lawsuits against foreign nations in American courts would set a precedent under which the US government could be sued in foreign courts by foreign victims.

“There are always diplomatic considerations that get in the way of justice, but if a court proves the Saudis were complicit in 9/11, they should be held accountable,” Schumer wrote in a statement issued to the press. “If they’ve done nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about.”

The Saudi government threatened to retaliate if the bill was passed by selling off up to $750 billion in US assets before they could be seized by legal procedures in American courts.

Sunday marked the 15th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, which have been invoked incessantly over the intervening years by both the Bush and Obama administrations as a justification for war as well as for vast changes to American politics, law and society. The September 11 events “changed everything,” the population was told, necessitating an indefinite “war on terror.”

The September 11 attack was a godsend to the Bush administration, which had come to power following a stolen election in the year 2000. Having lost the popular vote, Bush was installed as president only after the Supreme Court ordered a halt to the counting of votes in Florida. Composed of ultra-right “neocons” who had spent the previous decades on the fringes of the state apparatus, the Bush administration seized on the September 11 attacks to implement a far-reaching transformation of American political life, imposing an agenda of military aggression abroad and constructing the framework of a police state at home.

The phrase “9/11” was used to terrorize and browbeat the population with the prospect of a future attack, trample democratic rights, and bully and intimidate dissent. Pursuant to the new legal and political framework instituted as part of the so-called war on terror, the American government asserted the power to “preemptively” wage war against any country; depose any government; spy on the entire world’s population; and abduct, torture and assassinate anyone in the world.

The repressive apparatus of the state, from airport security checkpoints to local police forces, was militarized and armed to the teeth. To this day, anyone passing through a Transportation Security Agency checkpoint is confronted with a shrine dedicated to the victims of the September 11 attacks.

The population has been told for 15 years that the September 11 attacks inaugurated an existential conflict between the American government and Islamic extremism. The reality is that the September 11 attacks were sponsored by sections of the government of a US ally, which itself is a bulwark of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East. Meanwhile, a question mark remains over the unaccountable failure of the American intelligence agencies to prevent the attacks.

The US has been a key supporter of Islamic extremism in the Middle East throughout its 70-year alliance with the Saudi monarchy. During the Cold War, and especially in Afghanistan during the 1980s, the US sought to use right-wing Islamic militants as a counterweight to Soviet influence in the region.

American support for Islamic fundamentalist forces did not end with the liquidation of the Soviet Union. While verbally opposing Islamic extremism abroad, the US has supported Chechen terrorists against Russia as well as Al Qaeda affiliates in Libya and in Syria. It armed and funded the latter forces as part of its regime-change efforts against the governments of Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad.

US and allies threaten North Korea with sanctions and military attack

Peter Symonds

In the wake of North Korea’s fifth nuclear test last Friday, the Obama administration is pressing for tough new sanctions on a regime that is already one of the most isolated in the world. Another round of punitive measures will exacerbate the already tense situation on the Korean Peninsula and heighten the danger of conflict.

US Special Representative for North Korea Sung Kim declared yesterday that the United States and Japan, together with South Korea, were considering unilateral sanctions in addition to any that might be imposed by the UN. Speaking in Tokyo, he said, “We will be working very closely in the [UN] Security Council and beyond to come up with the strongest possible measure against North Korea’s latest actions.”

North Korea, however, dismissed the threat of new sanctions as “meaningless” and “highly laughable” and called on the US to recognise it as a nuclear power. A foreign ministry statement declared it would work to improve its nuclear arsenal “in quality and in quantity,” saying it needed to protect itself against US aggression.

Pyongyang’s nuclear program, however, only heightens the dangers facing the working class in North Korea, throughout Asia and the world. Its bellicose threats provide the pretext for Washington to accelerate its military build-up in North East Asia, not just against North Korea, but also against China, as well as providing Japan and South Korea with a justification for further militarisation.

Speaking to the Yonhap news agency yesterday, an unnamed South Korean military official declared that the defence ministry had plans, known as “Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation,” aimed at destroying Pyongyang if North Korea showed any indications of planning a nuclear attack.

“Every Pyongyang district, particularly where the North Korean leadership is possibly hidden, will be completely destroyed by ballistic missiles and high-explosive shells as soon as the North shows any signs of using a nuclear weapon. In other words, the North’s capital city will be reduced to ashes removed from the map,” the source said.

This bloodcurdling threat is in line with new operational plans agreed last year between the US and South Korea, known as OPLAN 5015, providing for a pre-emptive attack on North Korea and “decapitation” operations to eliminate its top leaders, including Kim Jong-un. The US has 28,500 troops in South Korea and, in the event of war with North Korea, would assume operational command of South Korea’s forces, which, including reserves, number over 3 million personnel.

Following North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in January, the US pressured China to agree to the harshest UN sanctions yet, including on North Korean exports of gold, titanium ore and rare earth metals. Pyongyang is still able to buy oil and sell coal, as long as it is for “livelihood purposes,” not the military. China is by far North Korea’s largest trading partner, accounting for up to 90 percent of its overall trade.

China is the focus of fresh US accusations that it is not doing enough to rein in its ally and demands for tougher measures. Beijing criticised the latest nuclear test and called for North Korea to denuclearise but is reluctant to impose sanctions that would precipitate the collapse of the Pyongyang regime and result in a unified Korea allied to the US.

China is well aware that the US military build-up in North East Asia is part of broader American efforts to militarily encircle it and prepare for war. Beijing sharply criticised the US decision to install a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea that undermines China’s nuclear deterrent.

The clearest indication that the US military and intelligence apparatus is preparing more aggressive measures against North Korea was the response of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to the nuclear test. In a pre-recorded interview last Friday with CNN after meeting with former national security officials from both Democratic and Republican administrations, she suggested that sanctions had failed and that other unspecified measures were needed. The interview was broadcast yesterday.

Clinton declared that if she took office as president, “[W]e will not allow North Korea to have a deliverable nuclear weapon.” Asked what she would do, Clinton first indicated that she would apply pressure on China to choke off trade with North Korea. “We have got to start intensifying our discussions with the Chinese, because they can’t possibly want this big problem on their doorstep,” she said.

Pressed on the issue, Clinton declared: “We’re not going to go into all the details,” then pointed to Iran as an indication of what her administration would do. “Additional sanctions and doing it the way… that I led with Iran, did have a big impact because they worked,” she said, adding: “So we will do more on sanctions [on North Korea], because that’s part of an overall strategy, but that’s not enough.”

Clinton’s reference to Iran is significant. The Obama administration’s strategy toward Tehran was a combination of economically crippling sanctions that impacted heavily on the Iranian population, and the constant threat of devastating military strikes not only against Iran’s nuclear facilities but also its military and economy. White House officials repeatedly declared that “all options are on the table”—that is, including the military one.

Clinton’s “overall strategy” toward North Korea is the same: intense economic pressure on North Korea and, if that fails to bring Pyongyang to its knees, military action that threatens to precipitate a wider war. A more sinister aspect of US measures taken against Iran—a sustained covert operation in collaboration with Israel to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists and sabotage its nuclear facilities—is undoubtedly under discussion in relation to North Korea.

John Negroponte, former director of national intelligence under US President George W. Bush, yesterday declared that North Korea was “single most significant danger that the next administration is going to face” and something was going to have to be done about its nuclear and missile programs. Like Clinton, he suggested that “the real solution” must go further than another UN resolution or more sanctions.

The remarks of Clinton and Negroponte reflect intense discussions almost certainly taking place right now behind closed doors in the Pentagon, US intelligence agencies and the White House. While further sanctions are being publicly touted, other plans, which are far riskier and more provocative, are being drawn up and prepared that may well be implemented by the present, not the next, administration.

Wall Street’s Destruction Of Sacred Sioux Indian Burial Grounds

Irwin Jerome

Major kudos go out to the Texas-based, crude oil Energy Transfer Partners and their multitude of Wall Street financiers that reads like a lineup of who’s-who from the financial world (Sunoco, Bank of America, HSBC, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, US Bank, Barclays, Wells Fargo, Bank of Nova Scotia, Citibank, Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Canada, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of Tokyo, Societe Generale, Intesa Sanpaolo, Compass Bank, Phillips 66, Enbridge, Marathon, to name but a few of the 30+ international funders of over 10 Billion dollars). Their collective contributions to the Dakota Access Pipeline are in keeping with the time-honored ruthless American tradition of racism, facism and corporatism towards people of color and the sacredness of land and life.

The moguls of the petroleum industry and reckless abusers of the Earth’s finite resources are now intent upon creating an underground pipeline wall 1,172 miles long back and forth across the Missouri River, through North & South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois with pipeline connections to the Gulf of Mexico and a multitude of international destination’s beyond. The penchant among politicians and corporatists alike to constantly build walls of various kinds, whether above or below ground, between nations of people makes this current pipeline controversy especially poignant on the eve of 2016’s US Presidential Election as voters struggle to decide who is the lesser evil regarding the support of Wall Street, the Pentagon and the Establishment’s Mongers of Environmental Destruction and War in the world. One wonders what relevant, pithy commentary will be forthcoming from Presidential candidates Trump, Clinton, Stein and Johnson?

Energy Transfer Partners and its coterie of Fat Cats recently sent in a fleet of Caterpillar tractors to intentionally destroy the culturally-sensitive, sacred burial grounds of the Standing Rock Sioux people before their legal representatives could address relevant state and federal protocols in a court of law, or North Dakota’s State Historic Preservation Office could do a proper survey of the area. One could either call it a stroke of genius or stupidity, matched only, perhaps, by the diabolical craftiness of North Dakota Governor Dalrymple who sought to cut off all the cell phone and internet WiFi reception in the contested Sioux lands of North Dakota to try to muzzle any factual accounts from ever reaching the outside world. Meanwhile, the brutality and ruthlessness continues at the hands of those like the Frost Kennels of Ohio and their ex police and military dog handlers who’ve been hired to sic their trained German Shepherd guard dogs onto peacefully protesting men, women, elders and children from all races and nations who have begun to gather in ever greater numbers to protest what is going on.

This confrontation in the distant, isolated northern plains and prairie lands of the Lakota & Dakota Sioux people has all the earmarks of another potentially-brewing historic Wounded Knee. Will it end up becoming yet another massacre of 1890 or another Siege of 1973?

Will America & the Fat Cat corporatists and politicians ever learn how to live in peace and harmony with those so different than themselves who live on ancestral lands they consider to be forever sacred?

American Muslims 15 Years After 9/11/2001

Abdus Sattar Ghazali

• For Muslims now, 15 years since 9/11, ‘it seems more people are more openly hateful’ (Penn Live)
• Muslim Americans still struggle with hate crimes, 15 years after 9/11 (AOL)
• 15 years after 9/11, unwelcome spotlight returns to Islam (USA Today)
• Muslims are still under attack for their beliefs 15 years after 9/11 (Desert News)

These headlines best reflect the dilemma of the seven-million-strong American Muslim Community which remains target of assault, bigotry, hate-crime and profiling, one and half decade after the horrific terrorist attacks. Muslim men were attacked, some fatally, while Muslim women in headscarves were harassed and mosques and Muslim businesses were vandalized.

In the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, U.S. Muslims were targeted by a slew of hate crimes, some tragically resulting in loss of life. But 15 years after the attacks, religious tolerance and assimilation into the fabric of the country continues to largely elude Muslims in America, whether they are from Middle Eastern or Asian countries, American-born and bred, white or black, says Ivey DeJesus of Penn Live.

Tellingly, in the 15 years since the 9/11, hate towards Muslims has become more openly acceptable. Anti-Islam rhetoric is no longer playing out behind closed doors. It’s explicit, not implicit anymore.

A new report by Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding has documented an upsurge in violence against Muslims in the United States. The report cites 180 reported incidents of anti-Muslim violence during the period between March 2015 and March 2016. Among these were 12 murders; 34 physical assaults; 56 acts of vandalisms or destruction of property; nine arsons; and eight shootings and bombings. Among the incidents noted were the murders of three university students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the murder of an Iranian-American in California by a white supremacist, and a road-rage incident in Houston in which a Palestinian-American man was killed by a man who told him to “go back to Islam.”

Not surprisingly, there were nearly four times as many attacks against mosques in 2015 compared with 2014, according to a report compiled by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest American Muslim civil advocacy group. There were 78 instances where mosques were targeted — counting vandalism, arson, and other destruction — in 2015. There were 20 total in 2014, the group counted. Some of the incidents from December 2015 include the firebombing of a mosque in Coachella, California and the discovery of a severed pig’s head at a mosque in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On the other hand the 2016 CAIR California Civil Rights Report, which reveals that anti-Muslim bias incidents saw a significant increase since last year. A total of 1,556 incidents, 295 from the Bay Area alone, were reported to CAIR-California over the course of the 2015 year. These included complaints involving: employment discrimination, federal law enforcement questioning, housing discrimination, immigration issues, hate crimes, and school bullying.

Few incidents have underscored the paranoia and misconceptions that a wide section of America has about Muslims than the arrest on September 14, 2015 of a 14-year-old Muslim boy in Dallas, Ahmed Mohamed. He was arrested at his MacArthur High School after the school officials called police because he had brought to class a homemade clock that allegedly looked like a bomb. He was suspended from the School for three days.

Relating all the hate attacks, discrimination, mosque vandalism, and other negative incidences related to the American Muslims are beyond the scope of this article.

2016 Elections

Muslim Americans have been at the center of this year’s presidential election. As the presidential election draws near, American Muslim community is facing increasing challenges in terms of Islamophobic rhetoric by public figures and the resulting hostility and discrimination. Donald Trump’s claim that he witnessed “thousands” of people “cheering” in New Jersey following the September 11, 2001, attacks sparked controversy. Even more controversy followed with the Republican nominee calling for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. In a move that goes beyond his call to ban Muslim immigration into the United States, Donald Trump said in June that profiling American Muslims is something that needs to be considered. In an interview with Face The Nation on CBS, Trump said “I hate the concept of profiling, but we have to use common sense. We’re not using common sense.”

Throughout the campaign, Trump has advocated increased surveillance of Muslim American communities and mosques. He also said he would consider registering Muslim Americans in a database, or requiring Muslims to carry special identification cards. Trump is persisting with his attack on Muslims because it has proven to be his strongest issue, according to exit polls in many Republican primaries. In the pivotal March 15 contests, exit polls of voters in the five states that held elections revealed a remarkable fact: two-thirds of Republican voters support Trump’s proposal to ban Muslim immigrants and tourists. In some states that held early primary elections – South Carolina and Missouri – nearly 75 percent of Republican voters support the ban. Apparently, he is taking advantage of deep-seated fears of Muslims among Americans, especially Republican voters. Trump is winning votes because he is willing to go further than any other candidate in tarnishing all Muslims.

Trump even provokes controversy when he criticized the Muslim parents of a slain American soldier who was killed in Iraq by a suicide bomber in 2004.

‘The Trump Effect’: Hatred, fear and bullying on the rise in schools: The presidential race is stoking fears and racial tensions in America’s classrooms. In April 2016, The Southern Poverty Law Center published a report titled “The Trump Effect: The Impact of the Presidential Campaign on our Nation’s Schools.” “My students are terrified of Donald Trump. They think that if he’s elected, all black people will get sent back to Africa,” one middle school teacher told the SPLC. The teacher was one of more than 2,000 educators who opted to take a survey conducted through the SPLC’s “Teaching Tolerance” program. “I have had Muslim students called terrorists,” said another teacher who submitted comments to the survey. “There is a boy from Mexico, who is a citizen, who is terrified that the country will deport him if Trump wins,” wrote a third teacher. “He is also scared that kids and grown-ups can and will hurt him.” Overall, more than two-thirds of the teachers who took the survey reported that their students — mainly Muslims, immigrants and children of immigrants — were worried about what could happen to them and their families after the November election. And more than one-third of the teachers said they’ve noticed a rise in anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment among their students as well.

Divisive presidential election negatively impacts American Muslims: A majority of Muslim Americans feel unsafe in the United States due to a divisive presidential election that, they report, has negatively impacted their lives, according to the preliminary results of a recent study conducted by Adelphi University, New York. Researchers assessed the impact of Islamophobia on the Muslim American community during the corrosive campaign for the White House. The results, although troubling, were not surprising, say researchers, given the rancorous rhetoric demonizing Muslim Americans, their role in society, and how their culture clashes with purported mainstream American values. Among the more disturbing of the study’s discoveries: 50 percent of respondents said they feel unsafe; nearly two-thirds reported experiencing discrimination in the past year; and perhaps most noteworthy, 93 percent reported that election-year Islamophobia had “some to extreme” negative impact on theirs and their families’ lives. “There’s a lot of fear,” said Dr. Wahiba Abu-Ras, an associate professor of social work at Adelphi University who is studying the mental health of American Muslims. More than half of participants (57 percent) described their experiences as “extremely stressful” and 31 percent reported their experiences as “somewhat stressful.”

Trump’s bigotry has inspired American Muslim voters: According to USA Today, “after 9/11, some Muslim Americans said they were so fearful that they ventured from their homes only when they had to. Not so anymore. With the scrutiny of Muslims, the diverse faith group has become organized and outspoken. Muslim civic and religious groups are holding news conferences, staging anti-terror prayer vigils and interfaith events, and meeting with law enforcement to act against bias and show that they are as American as the next person. They’re bombarding media with condemnations of terrorism after all attacks, including those in the U.S., France, Iraq and Pakistan that targeted non-Muslims and Muslims alike. Groups have held voter registration drives. Some have run for office. In North Jersey, both Teaneck and Prospect Park have Muslim mayors, and Muslims serve or are seeking seats on councils and school boards in Paterson, North Bergen, Passaic, Paramus and Clifton.”

Muslims, who have generally refrained from city politics, had begun organizing get-out-the-vote drives in many cities and showing up in record numbers at the polls.

Washington Post writes under the title: “Donald Trump’s bigotry has inspired U.S. Muslim voters like no candidate before”: Donald Trump? Your bigotry has inspired Muslim American voters like no presidential candidate has done before.

The American Muslim community has responded to its challenges in the post 9/11 America with political activism and an intensive interfaith and outreach drive to build bridges and reach other ethnic and faith communities. It gains strength from the principles of freedom, liberty and equality on which this great nation was founded.

On the positive note

All is not downbeat for the American Muslims. Despite prevalent negative public opinion American Muslims get support from the fellow Americans in their time of distress.

Taken a strong stand against a rising climate of Islamophobia in America, the California State Assembly has declared August as the ‘Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month.’ The Assembly passed a resolution that declared August 2016 as Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month, as part of an effort to acknowledge the “myriad invaluable contributions of Muslim Americans in California and across the country.” The sponsors of the resolution pointed out that California is home to over 240 mosques, more than any other state in the country. The resolution also decried the discrimination that Muslim Americans have had to endure in the years following the September 11 attacks.

In July last, Montgomery County, Maryland, issued a proclamation reaffirming the county’s support for its Muslim citizens. The decision to issue the proclamation came out of concern over anti-Islamic rhetoric in the wake of attacks in Paris and Brussels. The proclamation was issued to demonstrate the County Government’s firm belief that people of all religious faiths are valued and respected and will be safe; and that acts of hatred against Muslims will not be tolerated. The county executive’s office has estimated that there are about 12,000 Muslims in the county — roughly 1.2 percent of the county’s total population.

St. Johns County of Florida issued a Proclamation expressing County’s strong adherence to fostering civility among its diverse community of residents. The proclamation declared that May, 2016 be designated as: Civility Month; and “calls upon all citizens to exercise civility toward each other this month and throughout the year.”

A the Muslim community faces difficulty in establishing new mosques or expand the existing Islamic Centers, Afton (Minnesota) City Council approves plans for mosque in city. The Newton County, Georgia, has decided to lift moratorium on permits for all houses of worship.

The U.S. Education Department has announced it will begin collecting data this year about allegations of discrimination or bullying of students based on their religion, bringing new attention to what educators and advocates call a growing problem in public schools, particularly for Muslim students. Catherine E. Lhamon, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, said “Students of all religions should feel safe, welcome and valued in our nation’s schools,” she said in an announcement.

Seven million strong American Muslim community has welcomed the appointment of first Muslim federal judge. On Sept 7, 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Abid Riaz Qureshi, a Washington lawyer, to the US District Court bench who would become the country’s first Muslim-American federal judge if he is confirmed. Abid Riaz Qureshi is a lawyer at the Latham & Watkins law firm in Washington, specializing in health care fraud and securities violations, according to the White House. Obama nominated him to serve on the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Qureshi earned the Champions of Justice Award in 2012 by the National Law Journal’s Legal Times for upholding the legal profession’s core values through public service, pro bono work and advocacy for civil liberties.

76% Want Four-Person Debates, Why Are Establishment Elites Preventing It?

Kevin Zeese

A recent USA Today poll found 76% of voters want debates with four candidates including not just the two most hated candidates in history, the Republican and Democratic nominees and their vice presidential running mates, but Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka of the Greens, and Gary Johnson and Bill Weld of the Libertarians.

Any candidate on enough ballots to achieve 270 electoral college votes should be in the debates. The people have a right to see all candidates debating the issues who are on their ballots.

The deceptive debate commission, which is called a debate commission just to hide the truth: it is a corporation of the Democrats and Republicans whose purpose is to limit debates to their two parties, has no legitimacy. It has a major conflict of interest – why should the two establishment parties decide their opponents cannot debate? It is an obvious conflict of interest that the media should be calling out. The media should join the demand of the people – open debate are essential for democracy.

Today, half of US voters do not even consider themselve Democrats or Republicans, both parties are widely disliked and debates should not be limited to two minority parties, who present two hated candidates when there are four candidates on enough ballots to win a majority of the electoral college.

This week we are starting a series of protests in Washington, DC at the offices of the deceptive debate commission. On Wednesday during rush hour beginning at 4:30 people will be holding a disruptive protest at rush hour. We will me meeting at New Hampshire Ave and M St. NW at 4:30.  We are calling for people to “Occupy the Debates.” The anniversary of OWS is September 17th and opening the debates would be a good use of that anniversary. The people need to challenge the DC political elites who keep the debate closed so only big business views are heard.

Please share this announcement widely and urge people to attend if they are near DC  also urge them to share it widely so all activists near DC are aware of it.

We also urge people around the country to self-organize protests at media outlets to urge them to demand open debates and to stop the fraud of the deceptive debate commission. The debates will be shown on all network and cable news outlets.

And, we urge students and others near the venues of the debates to organize protests, write about the deceptive debate commission in local papers (including student papers), and pressure the president and board of trustees for open debates. Debates will be held at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY, Longwood University in Farmville, VA, Washington University in St. Louis, MO, and University of Nevada in Las Vegas, NV. Universities in particular should be open to a wide variety of views not just the views of two parties funded by Wall Street and big business interests.

Either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton could demand open debates. Donald Trump supported open debates in 2000 and exclaimed how it was amazing that this commission could keep people out of debates. Now, he seems to have joined the DC political elites and is manipulating democracy. In 2008 Hillary Clinton pushed for debates because of the importance of the office of the presidency. She too, is a debate manipulator. These two hated candidates do not want the voters to know there are more options. Instead they prefer to close the debates and shut out the voices of those who challenge them.

The debates impact every issue we care about. Many issues will not be on the agenda for these debates, among them are preventing escalation of wars, relieving students and millennials of the burden of unfair tuition debt, ensuring healthcare for everyone in an improved Medicare for all program, breaking up the big banks, and transforming to a green economy with a major jobs programs. These issues among others will not be debated if we only hear from two Wall Street parties.

It is time for all of us to unite and demand inclusive debate as a step toward creating a real democracy and ending the manipulation of the elites.

Fifteen Years After 9/11: Is America Any Safer?

Taj Hashmi

“Is America Any Safer” is the cover story of this September’s Atlantic magazine. CNN and other media outlets are also commemorating the catastrophic terror attacks on the morning of September 11, 2001. Reflecting their collective delusions of persecution, and exaggerated self-importance, Americans in general are perplexed about certain things with regard to 9/11: a) what went wrong with their intelligence; b) why some people hate them so much; c) America is no longer invincible; and d) theirs being “The land of the free and the home of the brave” will always remain “Number One”. However, the politics of fear- and hate-mongering has impaired American minds, which only think Islamist terrorists are the only security threat to their nation.

Some Americans honestly believe there are evil people around the world who are jealous of Americans, and hate their freedom. They aren’t that different from some North Koreans, who also believe the whole world is jealous of their country. After a decade of teaching security studies in America – both in military and civilian settings – I am convinced the average American politicians, intellectuals, and generals believe terrorism is an original sin, and terrorists kill for the sake of killing! However, a ten-year-old American boy was exceptional. Moments after the second plane hit the Twin Towers, he quipped: “Why are they killing us? We must’ve done something wrong to some people, somewhere in the world”!

Fifteen years after 9/11, American media, politicians and analysts are evaluating what went wrong on that fateful day; and how much 9/11 has cost the economy and society so far; and what else America should do to defeat al Qaeda, ISIS and their ilk. There’s no guilt, no remorse, no apology to the Muslim World for America’s illegitimate invasions, Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Gharaib.

American bombs, guns, and drones since Hiroshima have killed more than ten million unarmed civilians across the world. And who doesn’t know this except the overwhelming majority of Americans? They know very little to nothing about their country’s covert and overt invasions of countries, and promotion of terrorist groups across the world. Americans somehow were instrumental in the creation of al Qaeda, Taliban, and the ISIS, directly or through its surrogates like Saudi Arabia. It’s sad but true; in 2011 America turned a blind eye to Saudi invasion of Bahrain to crush the popular mass upsurge of the Shiite majority against the Sunni rulers of the oil rich sheikhdom; and Saudi Arabia since 2015 has killed thousands of Yemeni rebels, with impunity.

America since 9/11 has confronted “the newfound fear” … sometimes heroically and sometimes irrationally, mostly by fear-mongering and demonizing Muslims, Syria and Iran. Meanwhile, the country has spent $1 trillion to defend against al Qaeda and ISIS. “Has it worked?” is the embarrassing question. While the State, DoD, and Homeland Security agencies had been trying to defeat al Qaeda, the more deadly ISIS emerged from “nowhere” in Syria and Iraq. One’s not sure if America’s Middle Eastern surrogates, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey (which was in good terms with Washington until the abortive July coup in 2016) created the anti-Shiite/anti-Iranian ISIS – with tacit US support! It raises two diametrically opposite questions: a) Has the “War on Terror” been lost? b) Is the ISIS another US-sponsored false-flag operation?

The legacies of 9/11 haunt the world, and America too. American and allied soldiers’ indiscriminately killed and captured a large number of civilians in Afghanistan in the first few months of the invasion in November 2001. Hundreds of “unlawful combatants” from Afghanistan were tortured and kept behind bars at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center for years; a couple of hundred detainees are still there without any charges and trial process.

The way US General Wesley Clark (ret.) publicly exposes the real motives of the American warmongers days after 9/11 is revealing. According to him, America didn’t invade Iraq in 2003 for defending democracy, freedom, or America’s Homeland Security, let alone 9/11: “About ten days after 9/11, I went to the Pentagon … and one of the generals called me in. He said, ‘We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq…. I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.’” He also reveals Pentagon’s hidden agenda about invading seven countries in five years, “starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and, finishing off, Iran”.

Since invading countries for the sake of invasions being the raison d’être – America’s mighty Military-Industrial Lobby loves mega wars in distant lands for the “profits of war” – 9/11 didn’t precipitate the invasions of Iraq and Libya. The “profits of war” explain all American post-World War II invasions of countries, including Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos; and millions of innocent civilians got killed in these countries. The US-led illegitimate wars are only comparable to those waged by Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo.

However, democracy and free press create problems, even for the American hawks. What fascist, communist, and military dictators got away with – the world hardly knew how many people Stalin, Mao, or Saddam Hussein killed during their heydays – America’s top warmongers, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. couldn’t hide from their own people and the world at large. Thanks to William Assange and Edward Snowden, now we know a lot more about American ways of illegitimate wars and invasions than before. We also know as to how Nobel Laureate (in Peace) President Obama, and his former hawkish Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were responsible for thousands of deaths of unarmed civilians in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

The 15th anniversary of 9/11 is a time to reflect on as to how despite being democracies, countries like America, Britain, France, Germany, and Australia get away with invading countries, and killing tens of thousands of unarmed civilians. It’s time to demand the trial of all war criminals that invaded countries and killed millions of innocent people during the last seven decades – from Hiroshima to Helmand, Aleppo to Fallujah, Sana’a to Mogadishu, and Bahrain to Beirut – for the sake of justice, and just and durable peace. It’s time to stop demonizing Muslims, Arab or non-Arab. It’s time to inform the misinformed in the West about the lies, and deceptions their governments resort to justify invasions of countries out of sheer neo-imperialist design of plundering the weak and resource-rich countries in the Third World. American taxpayers must know that since 9/11, their Government has plundered around $3 trillion from them in totally unnecessary and illegitimate wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere.

We believe America and its allies would be safe only when they would ensure others’ safety, freedom, honour and dignity. They must be told terrorists just don’t drop from the heavens; terrorism is a weapon of the weak, and desperate people resort to terrorism as their last resort, not as their first choice; Islam doesn’t permit suicide attacks, and killing of innocent people; only imperialists and neo-imperialists wage wars and kill innocent people. Apparently, today America is safer than before while resource rich countries in the Third World worry if they are the ones America contemplates invading next to bring “freedom and democracy” to them, a la Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya!