Tag: the war of terror

Antifa Just Showed Everyone Why Trump Labeled Them a Domestic Terror Group

We saw some of the liberal media’s talking points regarding Antifa. Some genuinely don’t know what it is, which shows how dense the bubble they live in is. It’s an unhinged group of progressives that has been around for years. They’ve attacked conservatives, police officers and are organized. They’re getting marching orders, folks. It’s not some loose confederation of keyboard warriors. These people are nuts. President Trump signed an executive order designating them a domestic terror group, which led to some mockery, of course, but they’re not calling for their supporters to attack ICE facilities. This call to arms came before Joshua Jahn, 29, opened fire on one in Dallas, Texas, this week. Mia Cathell, formerly of Townhall, has more (via Washington Examiner): 

Antifa agitators are calling for further attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, as ICE agents already face an unprecedented wave of left-wing violence. 

AnarchistNews.org, an anarcho-communist propaganda site popular among antifa militants, issued a call this week instructing “all anarchists across the country” to converge in the streets and “wage a carnival of war against ICE.” 

“Every fist that hurls a piece of concrete through a bank or an ICE agent’s car window has the potential to ignite a wildfire,” reads the call-to-action. 

[…] 

“[C]hannel hopelessness into a frenzy of outbursts,” the communiqué says, listing off accelerant acts, such as “nocturnal smash and grabs or spontaneous attacks on institutions,” to bring about a state of lawlessness. “With the ammunition of love and rage, we reclaim our lives with every momentary rupture against a world that can never be voted away.” 

[…] 

Similar calls for attacks against ICE are appearing on Reddit as well, particularly on left-wing pages. 

[…] 

“Shoot first. Ask later. Those are kidnappers. Take them out,” one Redditor wrote in the comments section. 

“Lot of dudes not wearing Kevlar…[I’m just saying],” another account said of the arresting ICE agents depicted in the now-removed Reddit post. 

“There are more on the Left with the pew pews [guns] than you might think,” a separate Reddit profile commented. “Karl Marx was very pew pew.” In the replies, a Redditor remarked, “Well since the king just took the capital city by force with the military,” referring to Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to combat crime in Washington, D.C., “perhaps it’s time to fight back if these people exist.” 

Under a 50501 discussion thread reacting to a Customs and Border Protection agent shooting at a vehicle that sped off during an immigration stop after allegedly driving into two officers, Redditors took a more militant, accelerationist approach. 

“They shot first,” one of the Reddit replies said. “It’s now open season on ICE!” 

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Trump To Sign EO Targeting ‘Domestic Terror Networks’ After “Despicable” Attack At Dallas ICE Facility

Civil terrorism expert Jason Curtis Anderson explains the broader, alarming trend of left-wing radicals becoming activated, which reflects a form of nihilistic accelerationism.

The trend here is alarming. Anderson explains:

Earlier today, Joshua Jahn, the shooter at the Dallas ICE facility, shot three people before taking his own life.

This incident reflects what many call nihilistic accelerationism—a rising phenomenon in domestic extremism that mirrors the martyrdom embraced by jihadist terrorists. These are individuals who feel so driven by their extremist beliefs that they are willing both to kill and to die for their cause.

Many conversations must take place, and much work remains to be done, but none of it can begin until Democrats acknowledge that far-left extremism exists, and recognize the importance of toning down political rhetoric.

This is not the first time left-wing extremists have attempted to assassinate ICE officers, a recurring theme the left has used to rally voters against the current administration.

The federal government has significant catching up to do, and an interagency approach will be necessary to address the problem.

Far-left extremism extends far beyond groups like Antifa. There is an entire revolutionary (marxist) ecosystem of interconnected entities: billion-dollar progressive NGOs, anarchist networks, political organizations such as the DSA, foreign influence operations like the Singham network, gaming platforms, Discord servers and reddit threads, the dark web, and even civil-rights organizations staffed with “movement lawyers” fully dedicated to waging war against the West until it collapses.

Until the government addresses the root causes, it will only be treating the symptoms. Experts must be brought in to dismantle this machine before it’s too late.

As soon as we have more government leaders with the same pro-Luigi worldview as the DSA, Hasan Piker, and Taylor Lorenz, political assassination will become normalized in the same way that we decriminalized crime in major cities.

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Trump To Designate More Leftist Groups As Terrorists

President Trump has announced plans to designate not only Antifa but also other radical left-wing groups as terrorist organizations, signaling a renewed commitment to combating what he described as a “vast domestic terror movement” threatening American safety. 

Trump made the announcement during an Oval office briefing in front of the press.

“We have others we’re going to designate too, but we’re going to look at the people that FUNDED Antifa, see who they are, where they came from and why they did it,” he urged.

This move comes just days after the tragic assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, at the hands, it appears, of a suspect linked to left-wing extremism, and builds directly on Trump’s long-standing warnings about Antifa’s role in fomenting chaos.

Trump declared, “Antifa and their radical allies have crossed every line—it’s time to call them what they are: terrorists. We’re designating Antifa as a major terrorist organization, and we’ll go after every group funding or supporting this sick, dangerous radical left disaster.” 

He further emphasized the breadth of the initiative, adding, “This isn’t just about one group; it’s about the entire network of left-wing extremists who’ve turned our streets into battlegrounds.”

“We’ll root them out to protect every American,” he added.

These words, delivered with the gravitas of a leader under siege, underscore Trump’s determination to wield executive authority against domestic threats, echoing his 2020 pledge that never fully materialized due to bureaucratic hurdles.

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President Trump Designates ANTIFA as a “Major Terrorist Organization”

It’s about time!

President Trump on Wednesday evening announced he designated Antifa a “major terrorist organization.”

“I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump said on Truth Social.

President Trump on Monday told reporters that he is “100%” willing to designate Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination last week.

“I think it would start with Pam [Bondi],” Trump said.

Charlie Kirk, 31, was assassinated by a leftwing terrorist, later identified as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, during a speaking event at Utah Valley University last Wednesday. The shooter was revealed by law enforcement to have engraved his ammunition casings with Antifa and transgender slogans.

Trump said he will designate Antifa and other far-left radical groups as domestic terror organizations and said he wants RICO charges brought.

“Are there other groups that you can think of?” a reporter asked President Trump.

“There are other groups, yeah, there are other groups. We have some pretty radical groups, and they got away with murder. And also, I’ve been speaking to the Attorney General about bringing RICO against some of the people that you’ve been reading about that have been putting up millions and millions of dollars for agitation. These aren’t protests. These are crimes what they’re doing, where they’re throwing bricks at cars of ICE and Border Patrol. They come in a beautiful new car. They’re so proud and it’s Border Patrol, ICE, you know, it’s got whatever it is, and they’re throwing rocks at it. And after 50 yards, it looks like an old, beat up vehicle. It was just brand new. It was just bought for the purposes, and they don’t have to take that anymore. Let it be known, we’ll take responsibility. They don’t have to take it anymore, and they don’t want to take it. They were told by a past administration, it became almost a culture, if somebody throws a rock at you, do nothing. If somebody spits in your face, do nothing. And I say when they spit, you hit. Do whatever you want. You do whatever the hell you want,” Trump told reporters.

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The Strange Case of Summary Execution of Eleven Suspects in Caribbean Waters

The U.S. government has been executing suspected terrorists without indictment, much less trial, since the dawning of the Drone Age, on November 3, 2002. On that day, the George W. Bush administration used a Predator drone to dispatch six alleged terrorist suspects in a car driving down a road in Yemen, far from any battlefield. This unprecedented act of extrajudicial execution was precipitated by the attacks on U.S. soil of September 11, 2001, which set the stage for a new, sanguinary, period of military history.

Officials such as John Brennan, Barack Obama’s CIA director, and former CEO (from 2005 to 2009) of a private military contracting firm, the Analysis Corporation, assumed the lethal authority to incinerate potentially dangerous human beings, including U.S. citizens such as Anwar al-Awlaki. Officials at the helm of what became a literal killing machine adamantly insisted on the necessity of deploying deadly force wherever they ordered missile strikes. The psychological climate in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, powerfully suppressed criticism, and the new techno-killers enjoyed the benefit of the doubt on the part of both the mainstream press and most of the populace. After years of launching missiles covertly, under a pretext of State Secrets privilege, the summary execution of suspects came eventually to be openly acknowledged by President Obama and widely accepted as completely normal, a standard operating procedure, whether carried out by the Pentagon or the CIA.

Even while thus terrorizing millions of innocent people, the perpetrators of the relentless targeted killing campaigns always characterized them as antiterrorism initiatives. As the nugatory, counterproductive “Global War on Terror” dragged on, fomenting anger among locals and creating more radical jihadists than it eliminated, the so-called battlefield expanded to include countries where war was never officially waged, as it had been by President George W. Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq. The inhabitants of Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Mali, and other parts of the Middle East and Africa were also regularly terrorized by the lethal drones flying above their heads, never knowing when or where the next missile would make contact with human beings on the ground.

Each successive president insisted that the AUMFs (Authorizations for Use of Military Force) granted by Congress to George W. Bush in 2001 and 2002 sufficed to make any suspected terrorist or associate identified by U.S. government authorities fair game for summary execution. Among the “authorities” enlisted to create kill lists were privately contracted analysts with financial incentives to locate persons suspected of terrorist acts, whether past or, preposterously, potentially in the future. Despite a long list of documented incidents involving the U.S. government’s annihilation of entirely innocent persons, and often their families as well, such as the case of Zemari Ahmadi in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 29, 2021, so-called suspects continue to be “lit up” by missile strikes, provided only that whoever happens to be the commander in chief either agrees with the lethal determination or has delegated his war-making authority to those in his employ.

Many of the missiles have been launched by remote control, from unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), a.k.a. remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs), to eliminate persons in places where no ground troops would ever have been sent in to kill the suspects, because, among other reasons, they were not acting as armed combatants at the time of their death. The targets were not provided with the opportunity to surrender (most were not armed anyway) and in fact met their demise at the hands of the drone warriors only because of the development of the technological capacity to kill by remote control. No officials in the executive branch of the federal government ever publicly debated whether rejecting the advances made in the Magna Carta, the presumption of innocence, the very concept of due process, and the post-World War II Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a good idea. Instead, We Kill Because We Can became the U.S. government’s guiding principle throughout the Global War on Terror, as it evidently continues to be today.

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‘Nihilistic Violent Extremism’ Spreads: FBI’s Patel Confirms 1,700 Domestic Terrorism Cases Being Investigated

Over the last few months, we have routinely brought readers’ attention to the rise of so-called ‘nihilistic violent extremism’ in America (here and here most recently):

Nihilistic violent extremism refers to acts of violence driven by a belief in the meaninglessness or futility of existence, often rejecting societal norms, values, or institutions.

It’s rooted in nihilism, a philosophy that denies inherent meaning or purpose in life, but when paired with violent extremism, it manifests as destructive acts aimed at disrupting or dismantling systems perceived as meaningless or oppressive.

Individuals or groups engaging in this type of extremism may target governments, communities, or symbols of authority, often with no clear alternative vision or goal beyond destruction.

Unlike ideological extremism (e.g., driven by religious or political motives), nihilistic violent extremism lacks a constructive agenda and may be fueled by despair, alienation, or a desire to impose chaos.

And now, as Jack Phillips reports via The Epoch Times, FBI Director Kash Patel has brought the term into the mainstream.

Patel confirmed on Tuesday that the bureau is investigating more than 1,700 domestic terrorism cases, as he was speaking before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“We have 3500 international terrorism investigations … 1700 domestic terrorism investigations, a large chunk of which are nihilistic violent extremism … those who engage in violent acts motivated by a deep hatred of society,” Patel told lawyers in a prepared statement.

The FBI has experienced a “300% increase in cases opened this year alone versus the same time last year.”

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US Mourns The Victims of 9/11, But What Of The Victims Of The “War On Terror”?

In a video reportedly from 2006, a young Iraqi child was captured asking a U.S. soldier why America killed his dad. The soldier being questioned responds that it wasn’t him who killed the young boy’s father. When the child continues his line of questioning, the soldier turns the question around, asking him “do you hate Americans?” and “do you want to shoot me?” Elsewhere, graffiti on a wall in Sanaa, Yemen, depicts a U.S. drone and text written in Arabic and English by a child that says “why did you kill my family.”

Thousands of miles away, Hussein Al-Marfadi, one of many Muslim men who were incarcerated at Guantánamo Bay without charge, was transferred after 12 years in detention to Slovakia — a country where he had no roots. Lamenting his predicament, he said the Americans “killed our youth in Guantánamo and then they tossed us away like garbage.”

At another notorious prison, Abu Ghraib, a prison that the U.S. took over after it destroyed and occupied the country in 2003, Iraqis were subjected to the most egregious torture at the hands of Americans. Commenting on how his experience at the prison impacted him, Talib al-Majli — an Iraqi man who was incarcerated there for 16 months and never charged with anything — stated that “To this day I feel humiliation for what was done to me … The time I spent in Abu Ghraib — it ended my life. I’m only half a human now.”

Amid the violence of the U.S.’s war on terror, these stories, and hundreds of thousands more like them, are a reminder that Muslim people and communities have been rendered disposable as a means to the U.S.’s national security ends.

Unfortunately, the violence of the war on terror, which has been marked by militarism, draconian immigration policies, surveillance, federal terrorism prosecutions, detention, and torture has, thus far, continued unbated. This has resulted in the ongoing targeting and victimization of Muslim and other marginalized communities. Moreover, since Donald Trump began his second tenure as president, he has executed the “war on terror” with even greater fervor — expanding the post 9/11 “forever wars” and constructing new “security threats.”

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US Bombs Somalia for 75th Time This Year

US Africa Command said in a press release on Thursday that its forces launched airstrikes against al-Shabaab in the Shabelle Region of southern Somalia on September 9, marking at least the 75th time the US has bombed the country this year as the Trump administration has shattered the previous record for annual airstrikes in the country.

AFRICOM offered no details about the strikes other they saying they were launched in support of the US-backed Mogadishu-based Federal Government. “Specific details about units and assets will not be released to ensure continued operations security,” the command said.

AFRICOM stopped sharing details about casualties and assessments of civilian harm earlier this year, telling Antiwar.com at the time that it was withholding such information as the new Trump administration “settles in.”

AFRICOM told New America, an organization that tracks the US air war in Somalia, that although it stated it launched “airstrikes,” only one strike was actually launched during two engagements. AFRICOM told Antiwar.com on September 8 that it had launched 74 airstrikes in Somalia so far in 2025, and the September 9 strike brings the total to 75. The previous record for total US airstrikes in Somalia was 63, which President Trump set in 2019.

Garowe Online reported on Wednesday that Somali forces had killed a member of al-Shabaab who was allegedly behind an assassination attempt against President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. The report said the operation was conducted in the Lower Shabelle region and was supported by “international partners,” suggesting it could have been the strike announced by AFRICOM, though it remains unconfirmed.

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The Roots Of Trump’s Continued Wars On Terror Trace Back To 9/11

The U.S. military recently launched a plainly illegal strike on a small civilian Venezuelan boat that President Trump claims was a successful hit on “narcoterrorists.” Vice President JD Vance responded to allegations that the strike was a war crime by saying, “I don’t give a shit what you call it,” insisting this was the “highest and best use of the military.”

This is only the latest troubling development in the Trump administration’s attempt to repurpose “War on Terror” mechanisms to use the military against cartels and to expedite his much vaunted mass deportation campaign, which he says is necessary because of an “invasion” at the border.

Unfortunately, more than two decades of widely-accepted, bipartisan laws and norms first laid the groundwork for this to occur.

After 9/11, the Bush administration created the Specially Designated Global Terrorists list, and Congress expanded the pre-existing Foreign Terrorist Organization list. These lists allow the executive branch, at its sole discretion, to add and remove individuals and groups to standing lists of “terrorists,” a term that is defined broadly.

The Trump administration has exercised this authority to formally designate transnational cartels as “terrorists” due in part to their role in the flow of people and drugs across the southern border into the United States. They have leveraged this designation to justify a range of actions, including deploying troops to Los Angeles and deporting immigrants to a brutal Salvadorean prison without due process.

Another post-9/11 legal invention that paved the way to what the Trump administration is doing today was the USA PATRIOT Act’s updates to immigration law that allowed deportation of not just those involved in actual violent acts of terrorism, but also those loosely associated with designated “terrorist groups,” even if those associations were peaceful and law-abiding or involuntary and a result of duress. People who have previously been excluded from the United States by these provisions include Iraqi interpreters for U.S. troops, victims of forced labor by violent armed groups in El Salvador, and even Nelson Mandela. These provisions mean that not just alleged members of cartels, but also cartel victims could be denied entry into the United States or deported if already here.

These same post-9/11 immigration law amendments also allow for revoking or denying immigration benefits to foreign nationals who “endorse or espouse” “terrorist activity,” defined broadly. The Trump administration has already revoked the visas of several immigrant students and scholars solely for their nonviolent activities criticizing the U.S.-Israel genocide in Gaza, as part of what they call a “zero-tolerance” policy for terrorism. The administration has primarily leaned on an older and more obscure provision of immigration law to carry out these attacks on immigrants’ free speech rights. But if current efforts are blocked by courts, or they wish to go further, post-9/11 immigration law may give them the tools to justify doing so.

The original decision to treat the 9/11 attacks not as crime but as warfare, and to launch a literal “war on terror” in response, remains the primary post-9/11 legal innovation on which so many abuses are made possible. Under this global war paradigm, the Obama administration carried out ruthless drone killings, including one that targeted a U.S. citizen, and justified the strikes with a mish-mash of legal standards that applied rules of war outside of actual war zones, and expansively interpreted what constitutes an “imminent threat” and resulting “self-defense” powers.

Every post-9/11 president has claimed wide authority to use military force so long as it serves a vague “national interest.” We can see echoes of this in the Trump administration’s insistence that the small Venezuelan boat blown up by the U.S. military posed an “immediate threat to the United States,” that the strike complied with the laws of war, and was “in defense of vital U.S. national interests.”

Commentators are entirely correct to denounce these assertions of legal authority. But policymakers have spent more than two decades accepting a war paradigm against whomever presidents determine to be “terrorist,” making it politically and legally all the more difficult to push back against what the Trump administration is doing now.

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The Freedoms Lost Under the Patriot Act

The Patriot Act was drafted and pushed through with lightning speed, something that could not have been written overnight. This was the beginning of warrantless surveillance, indefinite detention, and a wholesale reversal of constitutional rights. I have said many times: governments do not waste a good crisis. They wait for the right moment to impose measures that would never pass during normal times. Americans may be unaware of the freedoms that have been stripped away from them after October 26, 2001, when the Patriot Act was signed into law.

The Patriot Act, officially titled “the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001,” provided the government with unlimited surveillance powers. Terrorism became the premise to bypass the checks and balances of the legal system. Need a warrant? One could be obtained in any district or area where terrorism was suspected. Of course, warrantless searches were permitted under the guise of terrorism and deemed “sneak and peek” searches, where the government could enter a business or personal residence immediately and without warning to conduct an investigation.

Neither party has repealed the Patriot Act, and politicians on both sides of the aisle will NEVER relinquish these powers. The Patriot Act destroyed the Fourth Amendment and legally permitted the NSA to spy on all Americans. October 26, 2001, marked the day that the United States of America officially became a surveillance state. We The People were branded as potential terrorists, and “the land of the free” was permanently placed under the watchful eye of government. “The War on Terror” has no clear end or defined enemy. The real target was always domestic — the American people themselves. By creating an atmosphere of fear, Washington justified trillions in spending, the invasion of foreign countries, and the slow strangulation of the very liberties the terrorists supposedly hated.

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