The lack of any terrorism-related basis for keeping Cuba on the list that long is reflected in how the authors of the annual State Department report on terrorism strained each year to come up with rationales for keeping Cuba in the state sponsor section of the report.
Breakdowns in vetting systems in the United States and Saudi Arabia occurred at virtually every step of the way. The Times examination, including a review of government records and interviews with more than two dozen current and former American officials and friends and relatives of Lieutenant Alshamrani, found that:
Saudi
security services failed to detect early clues from Lieutenant
Alshamraniâs online life that might have disqualified him from joining
the military and prevented him from receiving clearance to apply for the
American training program.
The
American vetting system operated by the State Department and the
Pentagon, with access to vast U.S. intelligence and law enforcement
data, failed to spot a pattern of troubling social media activity that
connected him with extremist ideology.
An
insider threat program developed by the Pentagon after the shootings at
Fort Hood in Texas in 2009 and the Washington Navy Yard in 2013 did not
monitor his movements and actions once the lieutenant arrived in the
United States â because officials had not extended it to cover military
trainees from foreign countries.
Lieutenant
Alshamrani was in contact with Al Qaeda beginning two years before
coming to the United States for training, and remained so up until the
night before the shooting.
A psychologist who helped to design and execute the CIAâs âenhanced interrogation techniquesâ testified in open court for the first time on Tuesday in connection with the trial of five men accused of planning the 9/11 attacks.
âI suspected from the beginning that I would end up here,â James Mitchell told a Guantánamo Bay courtroom. Dressed in a charcoal suit and bright red tie, Mitchell stated that although he could have testified over a video link, he had chosen to come in person. âI did it for the victims and families,â he told James G. Connell III, an attorney for Ammar al-Baluchi, one of the accused plotters. âNot for you.â
He added: âYou folks have been saying untrue and malicious things about me and Dr. (Bruce) Jessen for years.
Mitchell and his colleague Jessen were previously questioned in videotaped depositions in a civil case, but the proceedings underway at the military court complex in Guantánamo represent the first courtroom appearances by the two psychologists as witnesses. On Tuesday, the accused architect of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, sat just yards from the men who waterboarded him 183 times in a CIA black site in Poland in March 2003. (...)
While President Donald Trump insists he’s bringing home Americans from “endless wars” in the Mideast, his Pentagon chief says all U.S. troops leaving Syria will go to western Iraq and the American military will continue operations against the Islamic State group.
They aren’t coming home and the United States isn’t leaving the turbulent Middle East, according to current plans outlined by U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper before he arrived in Afghanistan on Sunday. The fight in Syria against IS, once spearheaded by American allied Syrian Kurds who have been cast aside by Trump, will be undertaken by U.S. forces, possibly from neighboring Iraq.
Esper did not rule out the idea that U.S. forces would conduct counterterrorism missions from Iraq into Syria. But he told reporters traveling with him that those details will be worked out over time.
Trump nonetheless tweeted: “USA soldiers are not in combat or ceasefire zones. We have secured the Oil. Bringing soldiers home!”
But he defeated the Islamic State! destroyed their Caliphate.
While President Donald Trump insists heâs bringing home Americans from âendless warsâ in the Mideast, his Pentagon chief says all U.S. troops leaving Syria will go to western Iraq and the American military will continue operations against the Islamic State group.
They arenât coming home and the United States isnât leaving the turbulent Middle East, according to current plans outlined by U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper before he arrived in Afghanistan on Sunday. The fight in Syria against IS, once spearheaded by American allied Syrian Kurds who have been cast aside by Trump, will be undertaken by U.S. forces, possibly from neighboring Iraq.
Esper did not rule out the idea that U.S. forces would conduct counterterrorism missions from Iraq into Syria. But he told reporters traveling with him that those details will be worked out over time.
Trump nonetheless tweeted: âUSA soldiers are not in combat or ceasefire zones. We have secured the Oil. Bringing soldiers home!â
While President Donald Trump insists heâs bringing home Americans from âendless warsâ in the Mideast, his Pentagon chief says all U.S. troops leaving Syria will go to western Iraq and the American military will continue operations against the Islamic State group.
They arenât coming home and the United States isnât leaving the turbulent Middle East, according to current plans outlined by U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper before he arrived in Afghanistan on Sunday. The fight in Syria against IS, once spearheaded by American allied Syrian Kurds who have been cast aside by Trump, will be undertaken by U.S. forces, possibly from neighboring Iraq.
Esper did not rule out the idea that U.S. forces would conduct counterterrorism missions from Iraq into Syria. But he told reporters traveling with him that those details will be worked out over time.
Trump nonetheless tweeted: âUSA soldiers are not in combat or ceasefire zones. We have secured the Oil. Bringing soldiers home!â
(...) Far too often, way more routinely than Americans are apt to remember, US aircraft have subsequently slaughtered civilians â thereby bolstering Taliban narratives and recruitment, and sowing distrust of the U.S.-backed Kabul regime. Nevertheless, youâd never know it back here in the safety of the homeland. These war crimes hardly crack mainstream media and the macabre photo evidence barely raises an American eyebrow. Thatâs apathy manifested as tragedy.
So consider this modest piece of mine, this brief history lesson and connection to contemporary US empire, a plea of sorts to the teachers of America. Want to be a true patriot, a forceful educator, and decent human being? Well, do your students a favor: post the photos of recent US military airstrikes upon civilians in Afghanistan â the war crimes of the 21st century â on your classroom walls. Du Bois, and Twain, would be proudâ¦and thatâs hardly bad intellectual company to keepâ¦
Terrific kill ratio! Dead civilian to soldier ratio.
Mission accomplished! When it comes to slaughtering civilians, nobody does it quite like the USA. Except, the Nazis would slaughter civilians when resistance forces sabotaged infrastructure or hurt soldiers. Any similarity is pure coincidence.
Besides the Americans do not understand mathematics so they always kill civilians by accident. (I call it LOVE.)
Now President Trump can stand up and say in a low, steady voice: "See, the Taliban should not have disrespected us."
"Wait for it. The Taliban will come crawling on their knees begging for peace now. You'll see."
I want there to be some accountability. I donât want people just to look at the soldiers and Marines as hapless victims that were sent out there, and it was just the big politicians that are responsible. No. I think the soldiers are responsible, the politicians are responsible, but also the American people are complicit. Our tax money funded the war. Itâs not just the soldiers and the politicians. Itâs the everyday citizens. Weâre all responsible because we didnât really give a shit. We didnât notice it. We didnât pay attention.
Worse yet, once upon a time, spending well over 5% of GDP on military expenditures could be justified by the real existential threat posed by the industrially powerful Soviet Union and some communist ideologies.
Since the Soviet Union imploded, what is the purpose of the US military budget? Provide support for the Israeli occupation and settlement of the West Bank? Defend Israel's annexation of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights?
To the extent Americans believe in a) using force and violence to procure land and resources and b) discriminating against peoples based on ethnicity, race or some other sectarian differences, then the money is well spent.
As long as most Americans support the Israeli nuclear weapons backed, affirmative action ethnic cleansing terrorist nation-building process then those expenditures can be easily justified even if some of us might find the resulting cost-benefit equation to be absolutely insane.
