Tag: the war of terror

America’s Perpetual Foreign-Policy Crises

Ever since the federal government was converted from a limited-government republic to a national-security state after World War II, America has lived under a system of ongoing, never-ending, perpetual foreign-policy crises. That’s not a coincidence. The national-security establishment — i.e. the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — need such crises to justify their continued existence and their ever-growing taxpayer-funded largess. 

An interesting aspect of this phenomenon is that oftentimes the crises are ginned up by the national-security establishment itself. Once the crisis materializes, the Pentagon and the CIA play the innocent. “We had nothing to do with ginning up this crisis,” they cry. “We are totally innocent.” 

After the end of the Cold War, the Pentagon and the CIA were desperately in need of a crisis that could replace the Cold War crisis, which they were convinced would last forever. That’s when they began going into the Middle East and killing people. When that massive killing spree, which included killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, ended up producing terrorist blowback, the national-security establishment had its new crisis — terrorism, which replaced communism as America’s big official enemy. 

The “war on terrorism” replaced the Cold War’s “war on communism.” Americans began fearing the terrorists (and the Muslims) almost as much as they feared the Reds. With the new crisis, the national-security establishment, including its army of “defense” contractors, was assured of continued existence and ever-expanding taxpayer-funded largess.

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False Flag Incoming? FBI Warns Of “Dirty Bomb” and “Civil War”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation says that the threat of a civil war is increasing. A bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security and FBI was sent to law enforcement agencies warning of increased threats following the FBI’s execution of the search warrant at former President Trump’s Florida estate.

The DHS and FBI also said that a threat involved a “dirty bomb” that would be placed in front of FBI headquarters.

In the days since the warrant at Mar-a-Lago was executed, the FBI and DHS have allegedly seen an increase in “violent threats” against law enforcement, judiciary, and government personnel, including a particular threat to “place a so-called Dirty Bomb in front of FBI headquarters,” according to the bulletin.

This could be a glaring red warning that there could be a false flag event coming to set up a civil war. If the rulers cannot and do not succeed, they will invent a civil war and commit any number of false flags to make sure people believe it’s happening.

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Report: post-9/11 era one of the most militarily aggressive in US history

The United States has conducted nearly 400 military interventions since 1776, according to innovative research by scholars Sidita Kushi and Monica Duffy Toft. 

Half of those conflicts and other uses of force – including displays and threats of force as well as covert and other operations – occurred between 1950 and 2019, the last year covered in a new dataset, introduced by Kushi and Toft in a Journal of Conflict Resolution article published earlier this week. More than a quarter of them have taken place since the end of the Cold War.    

The United States has carried out 34 percent of its 392 interventions against countries in Latin America and the Caribbean; 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific region; 14 percent in the Middle East and North Africa; and just 13 percent in Europe and Central Asia, according to a newly refined version of the Military Intervention Project (MIP) dataset — a venture of the Center for Strategic Studies at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. 

In addition to providing the most accurate count ever of U.S. military interventions — doubling the number of cases found in existing data, while also employing rigorous sourcing methods — the MIP offers 200 variables that allow for complex analyses of drivers and outcomes of wars and other uses of force.

Crucially, Kushi and Toft, the director of the Fletcher School’s Center for Strategic Studies, found that U.S. interventions have “increased and intensified” in recent years. While the Cold War era (1946–1989) and the period between 1868–1917 were the most “militaristically active” for the United States, the post-9/11 era has already assumed third position in all of U.S. history.  

Unlike earlier eras in which displays and threats of force were employed, such posturing short of military violence has been absent in recent years. The United States, they found, has actually “engaged in 30 interventions at level 4 (usage of force) or 5 (war).”

Until the end of the Cold War, note Kushi and Toft, U.S. military hostility was generally proportional to that of its rivals.  Since then, “the U.S. began to escalate its hostilities as its rivals deescalate it, marking the beginning of America’s more kinetic foreign policy.”  This recent pattern of international relations conducted largely through armed force, what Toft has termed “kinetic diplomacy,” has increasingly targeted the Middle East and Africa.  These regions have seen both large-scale U.S. wars, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, and low-profile combat in nations such as Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, and Tunisia. 

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Man Killed in Standoff After Trying to Break Into Ohio FBI Building Was on Radar of Federal Authorities for Months Because He *Might Have* Attended a Trump Rally

As previously reported by TGP’s Cassandra Fairbanks, Ohio State Highway Patrol exchanged gunfire with an armed man attempting to break into the FBI building in Cincinnati on Thursday morning.

The man, now identified as Navy veteran Ricky Schiffer, 42, was allegedly carrying an AR-15 and shooting into the building with a nail gun.

“At approximately 9:15 EST, the FBI Cincinnati Field Office had an armed subject attempt to breach the Visitor Screening Facility (VSF),” FBI Cincinnati said in a statement. “Upon the activation of an alarm and a response by armed FBI special agents, the subject fled northbound onto Interstate 71.”

At about 12:30 p.m. local time, the agency said Schiffer was “contained” but not in custody, according to a report from NBC News.

Schiffer took off on I-71 towards Columbus and the pursuit eventually ended near W. State Route 73, according to a report from Fox 8.

The standoff ended in a cornfield.

Ricky Schiffer was killed in the standoff.

On Friday it was reported that Schiffer was on the radar of federal authorities for months because he may had been at the US Capitol on January 6.

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Whistleblower Names Another FBI Official Who Allegedly Pressured Agents to Pad Domestic Extremism Stats

A whistleblower came forward with the name of a second FBI official who allegedly pressured agents to label cases as “domestic violent extremism” to boost case numbers, according to House Judiciary Committee Republicans.

Jill Sanborn, a now-Roku employee who worked at the FBI for more than two decades, is one of now two officials a whistleblower has identified as having “exerted pressure on agents to reclassify cases as DVE [domestic violent extremism] matters,” according to a letter sent to Sanborn on Wednesday and obtained by Breitbart News.

The letter, written by Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and committee member Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), comes on the heels of the whistleblower contacting Jordan’s office in July and accusing another FBI official, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault, of also seeking to inflate domestic violent extremism case numbers.

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The China Syndrome: CIA Reportedly Shifts Resources From ‘Counterterrorism’ to Concentrate on PRC

The Central Intelligence Agency launched a China-focused mission center in October. Agency Director William Burns indicated at the time that the CIA would hold “weekly” meetings on the “geopolitical challenge” posed by Beijing going forward.

The CIA’s “counterterrorism” mission center is being stripped of money and personnel to redirect the agency’s focus toward the new China mission center, the Associated Press has reported, citing sources said to be familiar with the matter.

CIA Deputy Director David Cohen was said to have informed senior officials from the Counterterrorism Center at a meeting held in July that while fighting al-Qaeda* and other extremists would remain a priority, resources would be shifted to the China center in search of ways to better “understand” and “counter” Beijing.

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Al Qaeda Leader Ayman al-Zawahiri Is Dead…for at Least the 4th Time

Notorious Al Qaeda terror group leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was reported to have died in a drone strike over the weekend in Kabul, Afghanistan. President Biden announced the news from the balcony of the White House. But you’ll forgive some people if they fall into the “trust but verify camp” on al-Zawahiri-is-dead news.

You see, the world was also told that al-Zawahiri died before. Task and Purpose inserted natural skepticism about Monday’s news in a story headlined, “Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda deputy is totally dead for real this time.” The military website acknowledged that “after mistakenly being declared dead several times in the past, Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri’s death has been officially announced – presumably for the final time – by President Joe Biden on Monday.”

Zawahiri was also thought to be dead in 2020. Democrat think tank The Brookings Institution said, “al-Zawahri may be dead or at least appears to be ‘completely off the grid,’ according to journalist and veteran jihadi-watcher Hassan Hassan. These reports come at the same time as the killing of another very senior al-Qaida leader, Abu Muhammad al-Masri, in Tehran, reportedly by Israeli agents at the behest of the United States.”

It wasn’t until the following year that the world learned that reports of his demise were premature. Zawahiri appeared in a video to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that killed 2,977 Americans in three airplane attacks.

In 2008, Zawahiri was reported dead by Pakistani intelligence — making the story immediately suspect to western sources. Longwar Journal’s Bill Roggio reported at the time that “rumors of Zawahiri’s death or wounding began four days after what appears to be a US Predator unmanned aerial vehicle strike on a madrassa in the village of Zeralita in the Azam Warsak region of South Waziristan.” Roggio recounted that “six people, including three Arabs, were reported killed in the attack. The madrassa was said to be a safe house and meeting place for senior al Qaeda commanders.” CBS later reported that Zawahiri was gravely wounded in the attack. Yet, Zawahiri miraculously rose from the dead or hospital bed.

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Ashli Babbitt, Betsy Ross Flag, and Liberty Tree Tied to Violent Extremism in Leaked FBI Bulletin

A leaked FBI internal bulletin on domestic terrorism lists U.S. Capitol shooting victim Ashli Babbitt as someone considered a “martyr” by militia violent extremists (MVE) and the Second Amendment as how militias “justify their existence” because of a reference to a “well-regulated Militia” and the right to bear arms.

The “Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide” was leaked to Project Veritas, which released images of the bulletin on its website and social media on Aug. 2. It includes such common images as the Gadsden flag, the Betsy Ross flag, and the Liberty Tree.

The document includes terms and symbols that are very familiar in conservative, law enforcement, and military circles. In the introduction, the FBI stressed that simply using the terms or symbols is not evidence of wrongdoing.

“The use or sharing of these symbols alone should not independently be considered evidence of MVE presence or affiliation, or serve as an indicator of illegal activity, as many individuals use these symbols for their original historic meaning or other non-violent purposes,” the bulletin reads.

Many on the right, however, are likely to see the bulletin as further evidence of federal government acrimony for conservatives in the wake of Jan. 6 unrest at the Capitol.

“Widespread use of symbols and quotes from American history, especially the Revolutionary War, exists within MVE networks,” the bulletin says. “Historic and contemporary military themes are common for MVE symbols.”

The document is marked “unclassified/law enforcement sensitive” and “for internal use only.”

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Former security chief ‘skeptical’ on timing of al Qaeda leader’s death: ‘Let me throw some cold water on this’

Fred Fleitz, who is the former chief of staff of Trump’s National Security Council and a 19-year veteran of the CIA, is not convinced that President Biden actually succeeded in killing al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike in Afghanistan.

Fleitz claims he is “skeptical” that a CIA drone strike took out the terrorist a year after the botched Afghanistan withdrawal. There has been no proof of death yet. Only the bragging over the dispatching of the monster by an administration that has reportedly had to walk back a number of similar claims.

In a strike that appeared to Fleitz to be far too convenient, Zawahiri was said to have been taken out on a balcony outside of Taliban-controlled Kabul by the CIA using a drone, according to multiple reports. Although the Taliban confirmed there was a drone strike, they notably did not confirm that Zawahiri was killed.

When interviewing Fleitz on “Special Report,” Fox News host Bret Baier commented that U.S. intelligence officials have been hunting for Zawahiri for years and have never been able to pin him down. He asked Fleitz what he thought of the claim that Zawahiri was no more.

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