Tag: terrorism

Chiquita found liable for financing paramilitary group

A Florida jury on Monday found banana company Chiquita Brands International liable for financing the Colombian paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).

The jury in the civil case, in federal court in the Southern District of Florida, found that “Chiquita knowingly provided substantial assistance to the AUC to a degree sufficient to create a foreseeable risk of harm to others.”

Chiquita, one of the world’s largest banana producers, has been ordered to pay a total of $38.3 million to the families of eight victims of the AUC, which was a far-right paramilitary group that was designated a terrorist organization by the US. The group disbanded in 2006, according to Stanford University’s Mapping Militants Project.

In an amended Florida lawsuit, which was filed in 2008, the plaintiffs alleged payments from Chiquita to the AUC propped up the paramilitary group’s violence in Colombia and that the company should be held liable for the group’s murders.

In a statement to CNN, Chiquita said it planned to appeal to jury’s verdict.

“The situation in Colombia was tragic for so many, including those directly affected by the violence there, and our thoughts remain with them and their families. However, that does not change our belief that there is no legal basis for these claims,” the company’s statement said. “While we are disappointed by the decision, we remain confident that our legal position will ultimately prevail.”

In 2007, Chiquita pleaded guilty to making over 100 payments to the AUC totaling over $1.7 million despite the group being designated a terrorist organization. Chiquita recorded the AUC payments as “security services,” though the company never received any actual services from these payments, according to a US Justice Department press release from the time. The company agreed to pay the US government a $25 million fine, the US said in its release.

An unnamed company executive had told the Justice Department that the payments had been made under the threat of violence, according to the release. However, the Florida jury ruled that Chiquita failed to “act as a reasonable businessperson would have acted under the circumstances.”

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Blinking in disbelief at Boulder’s tribute to terror

The deaths of six young, militant activists in Boulder a half-century ago — who evidently blew themselves up by accident with time bombs they intended to plant and set off — were of course sad.

Not because they died for a noble cause. They did not.

But because, as with any untimely passing amid the bloom of youth, they likely could have amounted to much more in life. If only these self-styled warriors of that era’s Chicano movement had given themselves a chance to mature, to put their political passions into broader perspective. Instead, they cut their own lives short in a misguided crusade of violence.

Fortunately, the fledgling terrorists — suspected in other local bombings besides the two that took their lives — didn’t wind up harming others. It could have turned out much worse.

All of which could be regarded as no more than a morbidly interesting if obscure page from Colorado history — if today’s political opportunists didn’t insist on turning them into martyrs.

Last week, amid the 50th anniversaries of the May 27 and May 29, 1974 botched bombings, the city of Boulder dedicated a memorial to the culprits. They now are lionized as “Los Seis de Boulder,” by the way. There’s also a memorial to The Boulder Six nearby on the University of Colorado-Boulder campus — in front of the building authorities believe the six had hoped to blow up — and a scholarship at CU has been established in the bombers’ memory.

Yes, really.

That the “Six” put the lives of untold innocent bystanders and passersby at grave risk — presumably, to make some sort of statement about society’s inequities — doesn’t seem to matter. Indeed, only the Six’s incompetence prevented dozens, maybe hundreds of casualties.

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Is This Suburban New York Charity a Terrorist Front Group?

At first glance, the Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation (WESPAC) seems unremarkable: a sleepy community organization with just one part-time staffer, a modest office in White Plains, N.Y., and little by way of public events.

But the group raked in $2.4 million in 2022—more than three times as much as it raised in 2020, according to public tax filings. The charity in 2022 spent nearly $1.5 million on “office expenses,” a category the IRS says should only cover “supplies, telephone, postage.”

“This is all very strange, it seems like they’re trying to obfuscate what they’re really spending their money on,” said former IRS tax law specialist and nonprofit consultant Patrick Sternal. “This doesn’t look like a particularly transparent organization, this filing raises all sorts of questions.”

A new lawsuit could point to some answers.

In May, families of the victims of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel filed suit against National Students for Justice in Palestine and American Muslims for Palestine, both of which, the plaintiffs allege, are “collaborators and propagandists for Hamas.” Buried in the suit is a brief reference to WESPAC, which the suit names as the “official ‘fiscal sponsor'” of National Students for Justice in Palestine.

“The financial interactions between WESPAC and its anti-Israel clientele is intentionally opaque to largely shield from public view the flow of funds between and among them,” the lawsuit reads.

Fiscal sponsorships are IRS-designated arrangements in which parent organizations accept donations on behalf of their subsidiaries. Legally speaking, there is no distinction between WESPAC and National Students for Justice in Palestine. If the latter is indeed proven to be a Hamas collaborator, the former would be as well.

The IRS created the “fiscal sponsorship” designation so that established charities could help incubate new initiatives that would spin off into their own independent organizations after a certain period of time. But in recent years, fiscal sponsorships have become a critical tool for left-wing activists and donors such as George Soros and Pierre Omidyar to quickly mobilize “grassroots” campaigns on hot-button issues while hiding donors behind the causes.

For decades, WESPAC’s fiscal sponsorship has helped it to avoid scrutiny leveled at similar groups. According to its annual tax filings, WESPAC is just a small charity devoted to “current affairs education.” The group has even managed to remain under the radar as fiscal sponsorships connected to the left-wing Tides Foundation have been linked to a number of illegal protests.

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How CIA and MI6 Created ISIS

Within just 24 hours of the horrific mass shooting in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall on March 22nd, which left at least 137 innocent people dead and 60 more critically wounded, US officials blamed the slaughter on ISIS-K, Daesh’s South-Central Asian branch. For many, the attribution’s celerity raised suspicions Washington was seeking to decisively shift Western public and Russian government focus away from the actual culprits – be that Ukraine, and/or Britain, Kiev’s foremost proxy sponsor.

Full details of how the four shooters were recruited, directed, armed, and financed, and who by, are yet to emerge. The Kremlin claims to have unearthed evidence that Kiev’s SBU were the ultimate architects, which the agency denies, charging that Russian authorities knew about the attack and permitted it to happen, in order to ramp up its assault on Ukraine. It has been reported that the killers received funds from a cryptocurrency wallet belonging to ISIS’ Tajikistan wing.

Whatever the truth of the matter, it is certain that the four individuals responsible had no clue who or what truly sponsored their monstrous actions. Contrary to the group’s mainstream portrayal, as inspired by fanatic, extreme religious fundamentalism, ISIS are primarily guns for hire. At any given time, they act at the behest of an array of international donors, bound by common interests. Funding, weapons, and orders reach its fighters circuitously, and opaquely. There is almost invariably layer upon layer of cutouts between the perpetrators of an attack claimed by the group, and its ultimate orchestrators and financiers.

Given ISIS-K is currently arrayed against China, Iran, and Russia – in other words, the US Empire’s primary adversaries – it is incumbent to revisit their “parent” group’s origins. Emerging seemingly out of nowhere just over a decade ago, before dominating mainstream media headlines and Western public consciousness for several years before vanishing again, at one stage the group occupied vast swaths of Iraqi and Syrian territory, declaring an “Islamic State”, which issued its own currency, passports, and vehicle registration plates.

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Orwellian Sydney Police: We Will Be the “Source of Truth”

Offering a fresh perspective on the fallout of a recent Sydney stabbing attack, residents have expressed their anger and mistrust toward the police who have insisted they alone should be the arbiter of truth in this incident. These sentiments stem from a press briefing given by New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb last Thursday.

Webb, who was sharing information about a 16-year-old male being accused of terrorism following the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel of Christ The Good Shepherd Church, asserted that the police will be the utterly reliable source of updates. She warned against “misinformation,” but decided not to elaborate on what she was alluding to.

“I also want to stress that there is misinformation being communicated across social media, and people should not share any of that information,” Webb said. “The source of information should be from police and law enforcement authorities. And if people have concerns they should check our websites, our socials, and any other direct news from law enforcement about current information. If we have current credible information about any risk or threat to the community, we will let them know, we will share that with the community. But please be assured that police will be the source of truth and not social media and misinformation.”

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Is There A CIA Link To The Crocus City Center Terrorist Attack?

Real life is better than the movies. No doubt. Today’s surprise comes out of Moscow, with an announcement from the State organization charged with investigating major crimes that the Ukrainian company Burisma was involved with financing terrorists:

Russia’s top investigative body announced Tuesday that it has launched a criminal probe into senior officials in the United States and NATO member countries who are suspected of “financing terrorism.”

Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said it has “established” that money from commercial organizations had been used to “eliminate prominent political and public figures” inside and outside Russia in recent years, as well as to “inflict economic damage” against the country. . . .

The top law enforcement body named the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings as one of the implicated organizations. U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden served as a member of Burisma’s board of directors between 2014 and 2019.

So, what’s the big deal. We already knew about Hunter. What does that have to do with the CIA? Does the name Cofer Black ring a bell?

International Energy Group Burisma has expanded its Board of Directors to include an expert in the field of security and strategic development. Joseph Cofer Black, a former Director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center and Ambassador at Large for counter-terrorism recently joined the Board as an independent director at Burisma Group. Ambassador Black resigned from public service in 2005 after a 30 year career  and is considered a  leading expert and significant figure on  U.S. and international security issues.  

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Moscow Accuses Hunter Biden-Linked Company Burisma Of Financing Terror Attacks

Russia says it has uncovered more damning evidence connecting the US and NATO to recent terror and assassination campaigns in Russia, including making connections to the March 22 Crocus City Hall terror attack which resulted in over 140 Russians dead and hundreds more wounded and injured.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, which is the country’s top investigative body, announced Tuesday that it has launched a criminal probe into senior US and Western officials who are believed to be “financing terrorism”. 

The formal statement claims that an ongoing investigation has “established” that money from commercial organizations tied to NATO were used to “eliminate prominent political and public figures” inside and outside Russia, as well as to “inflict economic damage” against the country. Lately there’s also been a spate of devastating cross-border attacks on refineries, ports, and oil facilities.

Another major event and probe which is high on the Kremlin’s agenda is the August 20, 2022 assassination of Darya Dugina outside of Moscow, in a car bombing which authorities believe was likely intended to kill her father, Alexander Dugin, prominent philosopher and pundit who is seen as a close ally of President Putin. There’s also the assassination of famous pro-Kremlin military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, killed in an April 2023 cafe bombing in St. Petersburg..

While it is nothing new that Russian officials would raise suspicions that such targeted attacks had covert NATO support, whether directly or indirectly, what is new – and a bit surprising – is that the name Burisma Holdings appears in the fresh statement of the Russian Investigative Committee. 

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Intel Community Warns Of “Possible Threats To Public Gatherings” Across US

In early March, FBI Director Chris Wray warned a Senate panel that dangerous individuals had entered the United States illegally at the southern border.

“We have had dangerous individuals entering the United States have a variety of sources,” Wray said at the annual “Worldwide Threats” congressional hearings. 

Fast forward to Friday, an ABC News report citing a US intelligence bulletin warns that “radicals in the US might respond to ISIS calls for similar attacks in the wake of last month’s deadly terrorist attack at a concert hall in Moscow.” 

The bulletin said “lone wolves” might be compelled to attack public venues following the attack at a popular concert hall complex near Moscow last month. It warned that individuals who are not members of ISIS could also unleash attacks. 

Given this new warning, and what has the national intelligence community up at night, is President Biden and Democrat’s disastrous open southern borders that flooded the nation with millions of unvetted migrants – some of whom are military-aged men from countries that deeply hate America. 

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Uncomfortable Truth: The US Is The World’s Most Prolific Sponsor Of Terrorism

Upon reading the title of this article many might reflexively click off, going straight to the comments section to voice their disapproval, to vitriolically chastise the perceived lack of patriotism and the insinuation that the United States of America is anything but the greatest bastion of freedom and liberty in the world. A beacon of light in the dark protecting democracy from the dregs of despotism.

It is a reaction that has been programmed into many of us, one that even among the “liberty community” many, including yours truly, espoused at one time or another. Since birth we are programmed via nationalistic propaganda to have such a worldview.

Every single day of our schooling for at least 12 years we are indoctrinated to place our hands over our hearts and pledge our allegiance to the nation, in other words our loyalty to the government, or more specifically — given the origins of the pledge itself — the ideologies of colonialism in honoring Christopher Columbus, Anglo-American ethno-nationalism, and later, a reinforcement of US political and religious moral superiority, that is itself inherent to the government and its systemic norms.

Denoting these sentiments under a negative connotation will as well likely spark the ire of many who still refuse to acknowledge the role of settler-colonialism in the American experiment, but we digress.

The point is, we as Americans have been institutionally inculcated our entire lives with sentiments of nationalism and American exceptionalism which have subsequently, with assistance in no small part from the heavily controlled corporate mainstream media and the centralized education system, blinded huge swaths of the population from the realities of the innumerable crimes committed by the American government. Both in the past, and the present day.

Chief among these misbehaviors would be the ways in which America would behave itself with regard to it’s foreign policy, both early in its existence as a burgeoning superpower and today as the leader of a globe spanning unipolar hegemon.

Beginning with the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 wherein the US asserted itself as being the sole authority in the entirety of the Western Hemisphere, It would slowly go on to refine this doctrine as justification for intervention and expansionism, first in Latin America and expanding outward to the rest of the world.

As the US would continue to expand its power and influence over its global neighbors the destabilization of sovereign governments that Washington viewed as being at odds or potentially deleterious to its agendas of regional control became standard procedure.

We recently elaborated upon this briefly with regard to the century of US intervention in Haiti and the long history of US backed regime change.

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Mayorkas Pressed to Explain Terror-Listed Illegal Immigrants Released Into US

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is facing renewed pressure to explain the circumstances of inadmissible aliens on the terrorist watchlist being released into the United States rather than being held in custody until deportation.

A group of Homeland Security Republicans expressed serious concern in an April 3 letter to Mr. Mayorkas about unanswered questions regarding DHS’s current practices in processing and releasing known or suspected terrorists into the United States.

“We are now facing a consistent stream of cases highlighted in the news of aliens allegedly on the terrorists watchlist either being apprehended at the border or discovered in the interior,” they wrote.

Their concern comes as U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data show that there’s been a whopping 3,000-plus percent increase (comparing former President Donald Trump’s term and that of President Joe Biden’s so far) in the number of people on the FBI’s terror watchlist caught trying to enter the country illegally.

The lawmakers—including House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) and Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence Chairman August Pfluger (R-Texas)—expressed particular concern about the number of terrorist gotaways.

The number of terrorist gotaways could be alarmingly high if it tracks with the 3,000-plus percent rise in the number of apprehended illegal immigrants on the terror watchlist between the Trump and Biden presidencies.

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