Car bomb in Time Square

[Ed Jewett]

Were US Special Forces Involved in the Arrest of Faisal Shahzad?

By Jeremy Scahill

May 05, 2010 "The Nation" May 04, 2010 - -Reports are emerging suggesting that secret US military intelligence aircraft were used to find and locate Faisal Shahzad, the man accused of attempting to set off a crude car bomb in Times Square. The CBS affiliate in New York reported [1] today: "In the end, it was secret Army intelligence planes that did him in. Armed with his cell phone number, they circled the skies over the New York area, intercepting a call to Emirates Airlines reservations, before scrambling to catch him at John F. Kennedy International Airport." The post at 5:34 PM was titled "Army Intelligence Planes Led To Suspect's Arrest." But then at 6:21 PM, the article's title was changed [2] to "Total Time Of Investigation: 53 Hours, 20 Minutes: Faisal Shahzad In Custody After Nearly Fleeing United States." As Rayne observed [3] on FireDogLake, the paragraph about the Army planes was deleted from the CBS story. Screenshot of the original post here [4].A US Special Operations Force source told me that the planes were likely RC-12s equipped with a Guardrail Signals Intelligence [5] (SIGINT) system [6] that, as the plane flies overland "sucks up" digital and electronic communications. "Think of them as manned drones. They're drones, but they have men sitting in them piloting them and they can be networked together," said the source. "You have many of them--four, five, six of them--and they all act as a node and they scrape up everything, anything that's electronic and feed it back." The source added: "It sucks up everything. We've got these things in Jalalabad [Afghanistan]. We routinely fly these things over Khandahar. When I say everything, I mean BlueTooth would be effected, even the wave length that PlayStation controllers are on. They suck up everything. That's the point."
Guardrail has been used for years by the US military. In recent years, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military has also used the "Constant Hawk" and "Highlighter" aerial sensor platforms. All of these programs have recently undergone a series of upgrades.
So were US special forces involved with Shahzad's arrest?
"My conjecture at the moment is that immediately after this went down and they knew that he was on the loose, parts of the domestic counter-terrorism operations that they had set up during the Bush administration were reactivated," says the Special Forces source. "They're compartmentalized. So they kicked into high gear and were supporting law enforcement. In some cases, law enforcement may not have even known that some of the signals intelligence was coming from covert military units."
If true, that could mean that secretive programs such as "Power Geyser [7]" or "Granite Shadow," remain in effect. These were the unclassified names for reportedly classified, compartmentalized programs under the Bush administration that allegedly gave US military special forces sweeping authority to operate on US soil in cases involving WMD incidents or terror attacks.
"They sidestep Posse Comitatus," said the source.
The Joint Special Operations Command, which was run by Gen. Stanley McChrystal from 2003-2008, is reportedly allowed to operate on US soil. That's a result of Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD-25), an executive order drafted by President Clinton on May 3, 1994. The complete text remains classified, however, "The full text of PDD-25 is reported to exempt the Joint Special Operations Command from the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 18USC Sec.1385, PL86-70, Sec. 17[d]. which makes it illegal for military and law enforcement to exercise jointly," according to GlobalSecurity.org [8].
Among the questions raised by the apparently central role of US special forces in the arrest of Faisal Shahzad is this: To what extent are US Special Forces permitted to operate on US soil under President Obama?
Also, Why did CBS scrub the initial mention of the involvement of Army Intelligence aircraft from its story?
UPDATE: The big story today is how the FBI team tracking Faisal Shahzad in Connecticut allegedly lost track of him. According to reports, Shahzad actually made it onto the Emirates aircraft scheduled to fly to Dubai. As The New York Times [9] reported:
**
"Though Mr. Shahzad was stopped before he could fly away, there were at least two significant lapses in the security response of the government and the airline that allowed him to come close to making his escape, officials of the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies said on Tuesday.
First, an F.B.I. surveillance team that had found Mr. Shahzad in Connecticut lost track of him — it is not clear for how long — before he drove to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, the officials said."
**
This is all entirely plausible. But what if that is not the entire story? At this point, this is just a thought, a possibility to ponder: It could be that the Feds lost track of Shahzad, but that other US forces, namely US military special operations forces (perhaps JSOC), were tracking him and waiting to see if he made any calls, met with any contacts, took any action while he was still a free man.
Consider the confidence of Attorney General Eric Holder, who said [10] bluntly: "I was never in any fear that we were in danger of losing him." Those could be the words of a man trying to downplay what could have been a major FBI failure that, in part, would have played badly for Holder. Or they could be the honest words of a man who knew it was all being taken care of and how.
The official timeline [11] of events released by the White House contains some interesting details [12] that suggest US military special forces involvement. On Sunday at 3pm, according to the timeline, "Nicholas Rasmussen, Senior Director for Combating Terrorism Strategy, convenes an interagency meeting on this incident in the White House Situation Room." Rasmussen is a shadow figure. He cut his teeth [13] in the Bush administration after 9/11 where he worked on the "dark side" as a director of the National Security Council's office of combating terrorism, putting him in regular proximity to Special Access Programs [14] and other activites of which we dare not speak. To give context to Rasmussen's current job, one of his predecessors was Vice Admiral William McRaven [15], the current head of JSOC. "McRaven has managed to bridge both the civilian and military worlds," reported [16] Newsweek. "While working at the National Security Council after 9/11, he was principal author of the White House strategy for combating terrorism."
If the hunt for Shahzad was being run through the National Security Council, which it was, the commander of the Joint Task Force would report to the NSC, which would in turn report to either John Brennan, the Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism or National Security Advisor Jim Jones, and then they would report to the President. From the White House timeline, Brennan seemed to be serving that function. And remember, Brennan also comes from the dark side.
The point of all of this being that the story may not be as simple as the FBI losing Shahzad. One cog in the wheel may not have necessarily known what another was doing at any given time. It could be that there were forces at play in this operation whose involvement may not be a part of the story the White House wants divulged. Just a thought.



Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/blog/were-us-sp...al-shahzad
Links:
[1] http://www.google.com/search?q=Army Intelligence Planes Led To Suspect's Arrest&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
[2] http://wcbstv.com/local/times.square.car.2.1674692.html
[3] http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/45253
[4] http://static1.firedoglake.com/32/files/...25hEDT.jpg
[5] http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/sys...rdrail.htm
[6] http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/man/uswp.../rc12.html
[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/nation....html?_r=1
[8] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/a...d/jsoc.htm
[9] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/nyregi...ne.html?hp
[10] http://www.upi.com/Daily-Briefing/2010/0...273063865/
[11] http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/05/04/...-square-b/
[12] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arch...ock/56136/
[13] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/23/nyregi...wanted=all
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_access_program
[15] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/se...?bioid=401 Vice Adm. McRaven’s diverse staff and interagency experience includes assignments as the director for Strategic Planning in the Office of Combating Terrorism on the National Security Council Staff,&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
[16] http://www.newsweek.com/id/53370

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info...e25389.htm

[Ed Jewett]

Times Square Bomber Linked With CIA-Controlled Terror Group

Jaish-e-Muhammad founded by CIA-MI6 asset who bankrolled 9/11 hijackers
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, May 6, 2010
A man arrested in Pakistan in connection with the Times Square car bombing attempt who had traveled with accused bomber Faisal Shahzad is a member of a terrorist organization that is controlled by British MI6 and the CIA.
Sheik Mohammed Rehan, who was arrested on Tuesday in Karachi, “Allegedly drove with Shahzad from Karachi to Peshawar on July 7, 2009, in a pickup truck, authorities said. They returned to Karachi July 22. It is not known why they went to Peshawar and whether they met with anyone there,” reports the L.A. Times.
Rehan is a member of the militant group Jaish-e-Muhammad, a terrorist organization that came to prominence in the mid-1990’s and has been involved in attacks in the disputed Kashmir border region between India and Pakistan. The group also helped carry out the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament which brought India and Pakistan to the brink of nuclear war, tensions that proved very lucrative for British and American arms manufacturers who sold weapons to both sides.
“The December 2001 terrorist attacks on the Indian parliament — which contributed to pushing India and Pakistan to the brink of war — were conducted by two Pakistan-based rebel groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad, both of which are covertly supported by Pakistan’s ISI,” writes Michel Chossudovsky. “Needless to say, these ISI-supported terrorist attacks serve the geopolitical interests of the US. They not only contribute to weakening and fracturing the Indian Union, they also create conditions which favor the outbreak of a regional war between Pakistan and India.”
Jaish-e-Muhammad, the group now emerging in connection with the Times Square incident, was founded by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the 9/11 bagman who delivered $100,000 from the United Arab Emirates to Mohammed Atta at the behest of General Mahmud Ahmed, then head of the ISI. Mahmud Ahmed, the man who ordered Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh to bankroll the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, was meeting with Republican Congressman Porter Goss and Democratic Senator Bob Graham in Washington DC on the morning of 9/11. In the days before and after the attack, Ahmed also met with CIA Head George Tenet as well as current Vice-President Joe Biden, then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In a report on Jaish-e-Muhammad’s involvement in the murder of Daniel Pearl, who was investigating the ISI, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that the Pakistani government, “Believe that Saeed Sheikh’s power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections with our own CIA.”
Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf also alleged that Sheikh was recruited by MI6 while studying in London for the effort to destabilize Bosnia. During the 1992-1995 Bosnia conflict, the CIA helped Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to train and arm Bosnian Muslims.
In 2002, the London Times reported that Sheikh “is no ordinary terrorist but a man who has connections that reach high into Pakistan’s military and intelligence elite and into the innermost circles of Osama Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization.”
Despite Sheikh’s intimate involvement in numerous acts of terror as well as political kidnappings, including the 2008 Mumbai massacre, he was protected by both the CIA and British intelligence at every turn.
To recap, this is the man who founded the group now emerging in connection with the botched Times Square bombing – a CIA and MI6 asset.
“Experts believe Jaish-e-Muhammad still benefits from links with Pakistan’s powerful government intelligence community. Some experts believe Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency facilitated the group’s formation,” states yesterday’s L.A. Times article.
As the vast majority of geopolitical analysts concur, the Pakistani ISI is virtually nothing more than a CIA outpost. The ISI does nothing without the Agency giving its approval. The CIA has paid millions of dollars to the ISI since 9/11, accounting for no less than a third of the ISI’s entire budget, despite the foreign spy agency’s notorious history of funding and arming terrorist groups like Jaish-e-Muhammad and despite the fact that it bankrolled the 9/11 hijackers.
Since the CIA has its fingerprints all over almost every Middle Eastern terror group, it’s unsurprising that an Agency connection to the Times Square bomber has come to light. We’ve never come across a terrorist who wasn’t trained, equipped, radicalized, entrapped, or provocateured by a western intelligence agency or a terror group controlled by a western intelligence agency.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/times-square...group.html

[Magda Hassan]

The alleged would-be Times Square terrorist was disowned by the Pakistani Taleban yesterday as American politicians called for him to be stripped of his US citizenship so he can be tried by a military tribunal.
Faisal Shahzad — nicknamed the “Idiot Bomber” for a series of blunders leading to his arrest — was praised by a spokesman for the Pakistani Taleban but disowned in the same breath. “We don’t even know him,” a spokesman said.
In New York, an Emirates jet was held on the runway at Kennedy airport for the second time in four days yesterday, amid reports that another “no fly” passenger had escaped detection and boarded the aircraft.
As the White House increased pressure on Islamabad to investigate possible links between Mr Shahzad and a range of militant groups based in Pakistan, new details emerged of his movements before the attempted bombing and of the lonely life in a cheap suburban flat that he was apparently attempting to escape.
Related Links

• New York bomb suspect arrested on plane
  

• FBI ‘lost’ Times Square suspect before flight
  

Hours after Mr Shahzad allegedly left a Nissan on Times Square last Saturday night, the Pakistani Taleban appeared to claim responsibility for the failed attack in a video posted on YouTube.
Yesterday a spokesman for the group, Azam Tariq, told reporters in North Waziristan that “the job [Mr Shahzad] has done was a tremendous one and we praised him for this job but the fact is that we even do not know Faisal” (sic).
The spokesman claimed that his organisation had been framed for the attack. At the same time the Pakistani Ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, insisted that it was premature to link Mr Shahzad to Qari Hussain Mehsud, known as the Pakistani Taleban’s chief bomb-maker.
Having travelled to Pakistan with his wife and children and left them there, it is now alleged that Mr Shahzad surveyed the scene of his intended attack with care, but still made errors. He allegedly visited Times Square on April 28 in the Nissan Pathfinder that he would later pack with propane and petrol, according to sources involved in his interrogation. Two days later he left a getaway car nearby.
Investigators say that he was caught by a surveillance camera changing shirts as he left the Nissan on May 1. At about this time he realised he had left his keys inside the Pathfinder, including those to the getaway car, forcing him to take public transport back to his flat in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
He asked his landlord to let him in and drove back to pick up the Isuzu with a spare set of keys the next day. The car was found at JFK airport on Monday.
Pakistan’s co-operation in questioning Mr Shahzad’s associates and reconstructing his activities is seen in Washington as a vital test of its willingness to crack down on the of militant groups operating from Waziristan.

[Peter Lemkin]

Times Square Bomber Linked With CIA-Controlled Terror Group

Jaish-e-Muhammad founded by CIA-MI6 asset who bankrolled 9/11 hijackers
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, May 6, 2010
A man arrested in Pakistan in connection with the Times Square car bombing attempt who had traveled with accused bomber Faisal Shahzad is a member of a terrorist organization that is controlled by British MI6 and the CIA.
Sheik Mohammed Rehan, who was arrested on Tuesday in Karachi, “Allegedly drove with Shahzad from Karachi to Peshawar on July 7, 2009, in a pickup truck, authorities said. They returned to Karachi July 22. It is not known why they went to Peshawar and whether they met with anyone there,” reports the L.A. Times.
Rehan is a member of the militant group Jaish-e-Muhammad, a terrorist organization that came to prominence in the mid-1990’s and has been involved in attacks in the disputed Kashmir border region between India and Pakistan. The group also helped carry out the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament which brought India and Pakistan to the brink of nuclear war, tensions that proved very lucrative for British and American arms manufacturers who sold weapons to both sides.
“The December 2001 terrorist attacks on the Indian parliament — which contributed to pushing India and Pakistan to the brink of war — were conducted by two Pakistan-based rebel groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad, both of which are covertly supported by Pakistan’s ISI,” writes Michel Chossudovsky. “Needless to say, these ISI-supported terrorist attacks serve the geopolitical interests of the US. They not only contribute to weakening and fracturing the Indian Union, they also create conditions which favor the outbreak of a regional war between Pakistan and India.”
Jaish-e-Muhammad, the group now emerging in connection with the Times Square incident, was founded by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the 9/11 bagman who delivered $100,000 from the United Arab Emirates to Mohammed Atta at the behest of General Mahmud Ahmed, then head of the ISI. Mahmud Ahmed, the man who ordered Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh to bankroll the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, was meeting with Republican Congressman Porter Goss and Democratic Senator Bob Graham in Washington DC on the morning of 9/11. In the days before and after the attack, Ahmed also met with CIA Head George Tenet as well as current Vice-President Joe Biden, then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In a report on Jaish-e-Muhammad’s involvement in the murder of Daniel Pearl, who was investigating the ISI, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that the Pakistani government, “Believe that Saeed Sheikh’s power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections with our own CIA.”
Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf also alleged that Sheikh was recruited by MI6 while studying in London for the effort to destabilize Bosnia. During the 1992-1995 Bosnia conflict, the CIA helped Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to train and arm Bosnian Muslims.
In 2002, the London Times reported that Sheikh “is no ordinary terrorist but a man who has connections that reach high into Pakistan’s military and intelligence elite and into the innermost circles of Osama Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization.”
Despite Sheikh’s intimate involvement in numerous acts of terror as well as political kidnappings, including the 2008 Mumbai massacre, he was protected by both the CIA and British intelligence at every turn.
To recap, this is the man who founded the group now emerging in connection with the botched Times Square bombing – a CIA and MI6 asset.
“Experts believe Jaish-e-Muhammad still benefits from links with Pakistan’s powerful government intelligence community. Some experts believe Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency facilitated the group’s formation,” states yesterday’s L.A. Times article.
As the vast majority of geopolitical analysts concur, the Pakistani ISI is virtually nothing more than a CIA outpost. The ISI does nothing without the Agency giving its approval. The CIA has paid millions of dollars to the ISI since 9/11, accounting for no less than a third of the ISI’s entire budget, despite the foreign spy agency’s notorious history of funding and arming terrorist groups like Jaish-e-Muhammad and despite the fact that it bankrolled the 9/11 hijackers.
Since the CIA has its fingerprints all over almost every Middle Eastern terror group, it’s unsurprising that an Agency connection to the Times Square bomber has come to light. We’ve never come across a terrorist who wasn’t trained, equipped, radicalized, entrapped, or provocateured by a western intelligence agency or a terror group controlled by a western intelligence agency.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/times-square...group.html

Oh, no!...not that old worn-out 'play' again!......

[David Guyatt]

The alleged would-be Times Square terrorist was disowned by the Pakistani Taleban yesterday as American politicians called for him to be stripped of his US citizenship so he can be tried by a military tribunal.

(my bolding)

Delightful!

Please, say the pols, torture him and then execute him - away from public control.

[Peter Lemkin]

The alleged would-be Times Square terrorist was disowned by the Pakistani Taleban yesterday as American politicians called for him to be stripped of his US citizenship so he can be tried by a military tribunal.

(my bolding)

Delightful!

Please, say the pols, torture him and then execute him - away from public control.

Message from Polliticians: "Even US Citizenship will not protect you from our illegal, immoral, unjust and outside-of-all-legal-process actions against those we brand 'terrorists'." Lovely, isn't it....no matter who he was working for. The last thing anyone wants to discuss or think about is what might make anyone angry at the USA.....or make the agents provocateurs make it seem that someone is. :damnmate:

Trials are soon to be a thing of the past if it is judged a 'political' crime, not in the interests of the PTB! Summary execution, torture, imprisonment without legal process, and other niceties.....such a civil society we have become!

[Jan Klimkowski]

The "Idiot Bomber", eh?

Pretty crude piece of spinning there by TPTB as They desperately try to tie this event into the never-ending and totally fatuous War on Terror....

Faisal Shahzad — nicknamed the “Idiot Bomber” for a series of blunders leading to his arrest — was praised by a spokesman for the Pakistani Taleban but disowned in the same breath. “We don’t even know him,” a spokesman said.

(snip)

He allegedly visited Times Square on April 28 in the Nissan Pathfinder that he would later pack with propane and petrol, according to sources involved in his interrogation. Two days later he left a getaway car nearby.
Investigators say that he was caught by a surveillance camera changing shirts as he left the Nissan on May 1. At about this time he realised he had left his keys inside the Pathfinder, including those to the getaway car, forcing him to take public transport back to his flat in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
He asked his landlord to let him in and drove back to pick up the Isuzu with a spare set of keys the next day. The car was found at JFK airport on Monday.

[Ed Jewett]

Petraeus: Times Square bomber likely acted alone
Gen. Petraeus: Times Square bomber apparently a lone wolf, not part of larger terror group
KIMBERLY DOZIER
AP News
May 07, 2010 17:14 EDT
The Times Square bombing suspect apparently operated as a "lone wolf" who did not work with other terrorists, according to the general who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But investigators believe he had some bomb-making training in Pakistan, a second senior military official said.
<br/>

Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, said in a statement Friday to The Associated Press that alleged bomber Faisal Shahzad was inspired by militants in Pakistan but didn't necessarily have direct contact with them.
The senior U.S. military official adds investigators believe Shahzad's explosives training may have been sponsored in part by the Pakistani Taliban. But the official said it is not clear where in Pakistan Shahzad trained, nor what quality of training he received. The failed bomb appeared to be poorly built, investigators said.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing. Shahzad was arrested aboard an Emirates Airlines jet in New York, just minutes before it was scheduled to take off for Dubai.
Shahzad has told investigators he trained in the lawless tribal areas of Waziristan, where both al-Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban operate.
Investigators have also not been able to establish whether he was recruited for the Times Square operation by the Pakistani Taliban, or another militant group — or whether Shahzad came up with the attack plan himself, as he has told investigators, the official said.
Investigators believe Shahzad also may have been inspired by fugitive al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, according to the senior official. The cleric's Internet sermons are popular among extremist Muslims. However, the investigators have not been able to establish that Shahzad had direct communications with the cleric, an American citizen hiding in Yemen.

Source: AP News

[Jan Klimkowski]

Petraeus: Times Square bomber likely acted alone
Gen. Petraeus: Times Square bomber apparently a lone wolf, not part of larger terror group
KIMBERLY DOZIER
AP News
May 07, 2010 17:14 EDT
The Times Square bombing suspect apparently operated as a "lone wolf" who did not work with other terrorists, according to the general who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But investigators believe he had some bomb-making training in Pakistan, a second senior military official said.
<br/>

Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, said in a statement Friday to The Associated Press that alleged bomber Faisal Shahzad was inspired by militants in Pakistan but didn't necessarily have direct contact with them.
The senior U.S. military official adds investigators believe Shahzad's explosives training may have been sponsored in part by the Pakistani Taliban. But the official said it is not clear where in Pakistan Shahzad trained, nor what quality of training he received. The failed bomb appeared to be poorly built, investigators said.
Source: AP News

Did Petraeus speak to the White House? They're busily blaming some mythical new bogeyman they've dubbed "the Pakistani Taliban":

Taliban behind Times Square plot, says US

Times Square car bomb was the work of a Pakistani Taliban group, rather than "lone wolf" attacker

Senior White House officials said today they believe last week's Times Square car bomb was the work of a Pakistani Taliban group, rather than a "lone wolf" attacker, after finding evidence of a broader plot behind the botched attack.

A US citizen, Faisal Shahzad, 30, is in custody for the bombing and is said to be providing valuable information. The US attorney general, Eric Holder, told ABC television that a recent visit by Shahzad to Pakistan was no coincidence.

"We've now developed evidence that show the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack," Holder said. "We know that they helped facilitate it. We know that they probably helped finance it. And that he was working at their direction."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may...ni-taliban

[Ed Jewett]

Using Alleged Terrorism to Escalate War and Homeland Repression

by Stephen Lendman / May 12th, 2010


Much about the New York bomb incident is worrisome, besides the media already pronouncing sentence, biasing future jurors to convict or face the wrath of public opinion, their communities, friends and even family. As a result, Faisal Shahzad doesn’t stand a chance, guilty or innocent, regardless of his alleged confession and the plausibility that he was set up – used as a convenient dupe with his device rigged not to go off but to emit smoke to be found. Why not given America’s history of using false flag incidents for political advantage.
Again, the possibility is real, given the incident’s similarity to the Christmas 2009 airline one involving Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He was also used as a convenient dupe, his explosive device no more powerful than a firecracker.
Understand also how involved CIA operatives and assets are globally, especially in Eurasia. Pakistan’s ISI (its intelligence service) is a de facto adjunct, both working together destabilizing the region for US geopolitical interests. So-called terror incidents in America or the West are directly connected; perhaps the New York one the latest using Shahzad as a convenient dupe.
Inflammatory Political Rhetoric
On May 4, political venom spewed from New York, Washington and elsewhere, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, calling Shahzad a “homegrown terrorist with a political agenda,” and New York Governor David Paterson, the White House, and Attorney General Eric Holder calling the incident a terrorist act, Holder saying in a May 4 news conference:

We anticipate charging (Faisal Shahzad) with an act of terrorism transcending national borders, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, use of a destructive device during the commission of another crime, and explosives… Based on what we know so far, it is clear that this was a terrorist plot aimed at murdering Americans in one of the busiest places in the country…..

Make no mistake — although this car bomb failed to properly detonate – this plot was a serious attempt. If successful, it could have been a mass casualty event. (It’s) a stark reminder of the reality we face today in this country… a constant threat from those who wish to do us harm simply because of our way of life.”

He went on to cite terrorist networks, lone agents at home and abroad, the continued threat as a result, and implication, of course, for needing stern measures, including sacrificing (more) liberty for security, mindless of Benjamin Franklin once saying that “Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither,” and won’t get them because the scheme is to deny them.
At the same news conference, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly reminded attendees of the 1993 World Trade Center incident, adding: “I think New Yorkers can rest a little easier today, and that’s due in no small measure to the investigative muscle of FBI agents and New York City police detectives (as well as JFK Airport) customs officials.”
Perhaps they had advance knowledge. Perhaps also the likelihood of more repressive laws, stepped up militarism and wars, stripping social services to pay for them, and distracting public attention from the looming Gulf disaster, Goldman Sachs, and impending financial reform to institutionalize business as usual, while claiming real change.
Provocative Media Reports
Besides inflammatory round-the-clock TV and radio reports, the New York Times, like other corporate publications, left no doubt where it stands.
In a Shahzad profile, it stressed his role in a terrorist plot, citing a criminal complaint that “militant strongholds” gave him bomb-making training in Pakistan, and that he’s been charged with conspiring to use “weapons of mass destruction” — hardly an apt description for gasoline, propane, firecrackers and fertilizer not considered by the Times.
It also said the car he “apparently” drove to the airport was found with a “Kel-Tech 9 millimeter pistol, with a folding stock and a rifle barrel, along with several spare magazines of ammunition.” How convenient to be easily found in plain sight.
Born in Pakistan, Shahzad is a naturalized US citizen with a University of Bridgeport, CT bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering as well as an MBA. Before resigning in mid-2009, he worked as a junior financial analyst for Affinion Group (a marketing services company) in Norwalk, CT. Authorities said he was unemployed at the time of his arrest. They also said he confessed and is cooperating. He’s yet to be arraigned in court.
Since the May 1 incident, the Times headlined numerous feature stories, including on May 5 by writers Mark Massetti and Scott Shane called “Evidence Mounts for Taliban Role in Car Bomb Plot,” saying: American officials said Wednesday that it is very likely that a radical group (the Taliban) once thought unable to attack the United States played a role in the bombing attempt in Times Square, elevating concerns about whether other militant groups could deliver at least a glancing blow on American soil.”
Remember that blaming bin Laden and Al Qaeda for 9/11, and the Taliban for sheltering them, became justification for attacking and invading Afghanistan, then Iraq 18 months later based on bogus weapons of mass destruction claims and suggesting Saddam’s involvement in 9/11.
Today, the Obama administration “cautions” about the Pakistani Taliban’s involvement with Shahzad, one step short of accusing them, Al Qaeda, and other so-called terrorist groups (including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, the Haqqani Network, and Kashmiri elements) to have pretext for stepped up war and increased homeland crackdowns, for sure coming with the public being manipulated to accept them.
Pakistani Taliban spokesperson, Azam Tariq, however, claimed no involvement in the Times Square incident or information about the video claiming it. “We don’t even know (Shahzad),” he said. Pakistani (ISI) intelligence officials also expressed skepticism about the Taliban’s ability to attack America.
No matter, according to a May 9 AP report headlined, “Pakistani Taliban Behind Times Sq. Plot, Holder Says,” quoting the Attorney General claiming it was “intimately involved” in the May 1 incident. They “directed the plot,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press and ABC’s This Week.
That despite an unnamed Islamabad-based Western diplomat telling CBS News that “The Taliban have no demonstrated ability to strike distant places. Structurally, they are far from being a global organization like Al Qaeda,” that’s, in fact, a 1980s CIA creation – “Islamic brigade” (mujahideen) freedom fighters against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Today, they’re America’s “outside enemy,” terrorists against “democratic freedoms” and the rationale for imperial wars and repressive homeland security.
Later in the day, AP reported that “Holder said changes may be needed to allow law enforcement more time to question suspected terrorists before they are told about their Miranda rights. (He) said the White House wanted to work with Congress to examine the 1966 Supreme Court” ruling to give law enforcement agents “necessary flexibility to gather information from suspects in terror cases.”
For sure, this is a dangerous slippery slope down which the end game is grim — full-blown despotism once constitutional rights are ended. Post-9/11, they’ve been incrementally stripped away.
In a May 3 editorial titled, “Luck and Vigilance,” the Times called the city “lucky this time… no one wants to bet their security on it,” so to prevent a future disaster “Officials in New York and Washington also need to take a hard look at what, if anything, might have been done to head off this earlier.” The implication is clear — more repressive laws, sweeping surveillance, and police state crackdowns against suspects to tell others what to expect.
Clear as well are the targets — Muslims and people of color. Rarely ever are white persons charged with terrorism, no matter the offense.
For example, white supremacist, Paul Schlesselman, pleaded guilty in January to conspiring to kill Barack Obama and dozens of other Blacks in 2008. He got 10 years in prison on: “one count of conspiracy, one count of threatening to kill and inflict bodily harm upon a presidential candidate, and one count of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence,” not terrorism that surely would have been charged if he was black, Latino or especially Muslim, the main target of choice in the “war on terror.”
According to AP, authorities described Schlesselman and co-defendant Daniel Cowart (awaiting sentencing) as “white supremacist skinheads who hatched a plan to go on a cross-country robbery and killing spree that would end with an attack on Obama in 2008. Their plan was to kill 88 African-Americans and behead 14 others before trying to take out Obama. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist movement.”
Proposed Homeland Crackdown Measures
They’re coming so be prepared, the New York incident used as justification. On May 5, New York Times writer Scott Shane headlined, “Government Tightens No-Fly Rules,” saying: “Homeland Security officials on Wednesday ordered airlines to speed up checks of names added to the no-fly list,” and to check for updates every 24 hours. Look for an expanded list ahead, and stepped up airport security, making travel even tougher, perhaps to include interrogations, body searches, and other repressive measures against anyone officials target.
Pervasive Use of Surveillance Cameras
Post-9/11, cities began installing networks of surveillance cameras in public areas downtown, at airports, in shopping areas and elsewhere. Though experts doubt their effectiveness and studies bear this out, significant privacy and civil liberties concerns are raised, including stereotyping and racial discrimination by those in charge of monitoring.
Among global cities, London by far is the most camera-surveilled with as many as 1.4 million in place, no one saying for security reasons. They’re everywhere – on streets; in business, shopping, and government areas; in parks; schools; in hallways; on elevators, in cabs and police cars; even in public rest rooms, so there’s no place to hide.
American cities have theirs and are adding more, a 2006 ACLU report titled, “Who’s Watching?” saying post-9/11, their numbers in New York City alone “skyrocketed. And our lawmakers have failed to keep up: video surveillance cameras can be operated with almost no legal constraint or consequence,” despite scant evidence they deter crime on a cost-per-crime solved basis.
For example, for every 1,000 London cameras, less than one crime per year is solved for an average cost of $30,000. At best, other cities report mixed results, but in all cases too poor to justify installation, monitoring and other associated costs.
According to AP, Chicago is the most video-surveilled city in America, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff saying, “I don’t think there is another city in the US that has as an extensive and integrated camera network….”
Over the past decade, they’re everywhere across the city, including on streets, poles, buses, business and shopping areas, in train tunnels, schools, local landmarks, and elsewhere, in a network linking private and public entities to police. Yet a May 6 Chicago Tribune Steve Chapman article headlined, “Surveillance cameras a flop,” said that in Chicago, New York and other cities, their results are unimpressive, and “The more cameras (and) cops watching (them), the more potential for waste.”
Yet it doesn’t deter zealots like Mayor Richard Daley, planning them for “almost every block,” despite their high cost and low return.
After the New York bomb incident, expect that attitude throughout the country, in Manhattan for certain reported AFP’s Sebastian Smith on May 4 headlining “Police cameras to flood Manhattan to prevent attacks,” saying: “New York officials say they could stop attacks like (the Times Square one) by expanding a controversial surveillance system so sensitive that it will pick even suspicious behavior” without further explanation.
Mayor Bloomberg supports a high-tech system, modeled after London’s “ring of steel” in its financial district. The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative way exceeds traditional surveillance. It will constantly watch, collect license plate numbers, video pedestrians and drivers, as well as detect explosives and other weapons.
A complementary system, called Operation Sentinel, will log every vehicle entering Manhattan by scanning license plates and checking for radiation.
Analytic software will analyze raw data in real time for fast results and follow-up. Alarms would signal unattended bags or a car circling a block more times than normal or operating unconventionally. It’s a brave new world, a new level of privacy invasion and civil liberty intrusion, soon heading everywhere across America to a greater or lesser degree.
For the ACLU, it raises serious “privacy, speech, expression and association concerns. Troubling examples of that come from (NYPD) video archives.”
Headlining “Ready.Fire.Aim!?,” the ACLU highlights a growing video surveillance infrastructure with virtually no oversight or accountability, its proliferation impinging on civil liberties and personal freedom “in the most intimate, and most public, sense.”
If authorities abandon these principles, everyone’s rights are at risk, the ACLU saying its study documented “the nature and magnitude of the harm posed by the unregulated proliferation of video surveillance cameras.” Unless new legislation balances their use against civil liberty and privacy protections, democratic freedoms will be sacrificed for public safety, that, in fact, won’t be offered or gained.
Proposed Repressive Legislation and other Measures
Senator Scott Brown (R. MA) will join Senator Joe Lieberman (I. CT), Rep. Jason Altimire (D. PA), and Rep. Charlie Dent (R. PA) in proposing a Terrorist Expatriation Act to strip naturalized Americans of their citizenship for having committed terrorist acts or aiding a designating foreign terrorist organization (FTO). Lieberman said persons called terrorists “should be turned over to the military” for prosecution, denying them their rights in civil courts. More on that below.
AFP reports that Senator Chuck Schumer (D. NY) signaled his support, saying: The measure “sounds like something I’d support, but I’d have to look at the legislation.” Senator John McCain (R. AZ) said Americans should lose their citizenship rights “if they’re designated an enemy combatant.”
McCain also supports denying alleged terrorists their Miranda Rights, based on the Supreme Court’s Miranda v. Arizona (1966) ruling that both inculpatory and exculpatory police-obtained statements are admissible as evidence only if defendants were informed of their right to an attorney before and during questioning, against self-incrimination, and that they understood them. Denying them is a clear violation of constitutional freedoms, being lost at an alarming rate post-9/11.
Lieberman supports McCain saying: “The first thing you want to get from (a suspected terrorist) is information about other co-conspirators, perhaps other attacks that are planned at the same time, and then (decide) whether he should be read his Miranda rights.”
With inflammatory media reports, other lawmakers from both parties may offer support when legislation is introduced, perhaps enough to get these or similar measures passed. If so, anyone charged with terrorism or conspiracy to commit it, with or without proof, will be vulnerable.
Police State Terror since 9/11
Because of its relevance, material from a March 26 article is repeated below.
Straightaway post-9/11, George Bush signed a secret finding empowering the CIA to “Capture, Kill or Interrogate Al-Qaeda Leaders.” He also authorized establishing a covert global gulag to detain and interrogate them without guidelines on proper treatment.
Other presidential directives ordered abductions, torture and indefinite detentions. In November 2001, Military Order Number 1 empowered the Executive to capture, kidnap or otherwise arrest non-citizens (and later citizens) anywhere in the world for any reason and hold them indefinitely without charge, evidence, due process or judicial fairness protections of law.
The 2006 Military Commissions Act authorized torture and sweeping unconstitutional powers to detain, interrogate and prosecute alleged suspects and collaborators (including US citizens), hold them (without evidence) indefinitely in military prisons, and deny them habeas and other legal protections.
Section 1031 of the FY 2010 Defense Authorization Act contained the 2009 Military Commissions Act, listing changes that include discarding the phrase “unlawful enemy combatant” for “unprivileged enemy belligerent.” More on that below.
Seamlessly, Obama continues Bush administration practices and added others, including:
• greater than ever surveillance;
• ruthless political persecutions;
• preventively detaining individuals ordered released – “who cannot be prosecuted,” he said, “yet who pose a clear danger to the American people;”
• a secret “hit list” authorizing CIA and Pentagon operatives to kill US citizens abroad based on unsubstantiated evidence they’re involved in alleged plots against America or US interests;
• weaker whisleblower protections;
• state secrets privilege to block lawsuits by victims of rendition, torture, abuse or warrantless wiretapping; and
• other anti-democratic measures, including continuing Patriot Act violation of First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment protections, and a more repressive than ever Homeland Security apparatus.
Then on March 4, John McCain introduced S. 3081: Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010 to interrogate and detain “enemy belligerents who commit hostile acts against the United States to establish certain limitations on the prosecution of such belligerents, and for other purposes.”
Senator Lieberman and eight Republicans co-sponsored it, a measure that if enacted will target anyone worldwide, including US citizens, on the mere suspicion that they engage in or materially support terrorism. They’ll be placed in military custody, interrogated and denied their constitutional rights if designated an “unprivileged enemy belligerent” — a political, not criminal, classification that has no judicial standing in civil proceedings, ones conducted fairly, that is.
“Unprivileged enemy belligerent” status places designees in legal limbo, denies them due process in civil proceedings, and condemns them to military prosecutorial injustice with no right of appeal, even if sentenced to death. Torture-extracted testimonies will be allowed, despite their illegality and unreliability. Henceforth, judicial fairness will be null and void, replaced by political expediency that condemns innocent victims to prison hell.
Linking incidents like New York’s to designated terrorist groups makes it more likely. So does suggesting guilt by supposition or alleged association, with or without proof, let alone entrapment — what the Lectric Law Library defines as: “Enduc(ing) or persuad(ing someone) to commit a crime that he (or she) had no previous intent to commit; and the law as a matter of policy forbids conviction in such a case.” If evidence “leaves a reasonable doubt whether the person had any intent to commit the crime except for inducement or persuasion… then the person is not guilty.” Prosecutors “must prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that entrapment didn’t occur.
On May 6, McClatchy Newspapers Jonathan Landay headlined, “US officials: No credible evidence that terrorists trained Shahzad,” saying:

Four (unnamed) intelligence and counterterrorism officials and two other US officials with knowledge of the case said ‘There is nothing that confirms that any groups have been found in this (case) for certain. It’s a lot of speculation at this point… at the most, (Shahzad may have) had incidental contact with a terrorist organization, and he may have been encouraged to act.

Yet media reports scream it, like the Wall Street Journal’s May 5 editorial headlined, “From Peshawar to Times Square,” saying: Shahzad’s arrest is “proof that the world’s jihadists are still targeting the US homeland…. We will no doubt learn a great deal more about Shahzad and his links to radical groups in Pakistan, where he reportedly spent several months last year, including two weeks in or around the Taliban-saturated environs of Peshawar….One regrettable part of this investigation (is that he) has been allowed to lawyer-up and told of his right to remain silent, rather than being subjected to more thorough interrogation as an enemy combatant.”
Unfortunately, accounts like the above are more commonplace than exceptional, the media pronouncing sentence before indictments. They also suggest other “jihadists” lie waiting for their chance to attack, meaning Muslims, of course, at the wrong time to be one in a nation vilifying their religion, heritage, race and ethnicity.
With that cross to bear, bills like S. 3081 may pass, Miranda and citizenship Rights may be stripped, and constitutional protections rendered null and void for targets chosen not worthy to have them. When the rule of law no longer applies, police state justice follows, the path America’s dangerously headed down, perhaps on a fast track.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. Contact him at: lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM-1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests. All programs are archived for easy listening. Read other articles by Stephen.
This article was posted on Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 at 7:58am and is filed under 9-11, Blowback, Discrimination, Disinformation, FBI, Human Rights, Media, Police, Propaganda, Racism, Security, Torture.

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