WaPo: Homegrown radicals opposed "US actions in the Muslim world". See what they did there?

I have hardly had any time lately to blog (or much of anything leisure-related, honestly), but I’ve been trying to keep an eye on how the media’s been reporting on the Boston Marathon bombing. With Glenn Beck and the rest of the right-wing desperate to make this bombing about Islam, to fuel the rampant anti-Muslim racism in the States presently, this particular news article jumped at me as just a little too blatant about drawing links that aren’t there. It takes some ridiculous contortions to make the Boston bombing suspects’ actions have anything whatsoever to do with Islam, and the Washington Post was more than willing to pretzel themselves in an article purporting to explain how the brothers are essentially home-grown domestic terrorists with non-existent ties to outside influence.

The wording here is just too precious:

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation, said Dzhokhar and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed by police as the two attempted to avoid capture, do not appear to have been directed by a foreign terrorist organization.

Rather, the officials said, the evidence so far suggests they were “self-radicalized” through Internet sites and U.S. actions in the Muslim world. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has specifically cited the U.S. war in Iraq, which ended in December 2011 with the removal of the last American forces, and the war in Afghanistan, where President Obama plans to end combat operations by the end of 2014.

Emphasis mine.

Continue reading “WaPo: Homegrown radicals opposed "US actions in the Muslim world". See what they did there?”

WaPo: Homegrown radicals opposed "US actions in the Muslim world". See what they did there?
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Maddow: Paul Ryan Pals Around with Right-Wing Terrorists

Hey, remember the whole “palling around with terrorists” argument, about Bill Ayers? Yeah, it was misdirection.

Rachel Maddow has to do a lot of framing — over ten minutes — to give the scope of this issue before getting to the “punchline”, being Paul Ryan’s latest nonsense and the Right Wing Conspiracy Theorists’ latest outrages.

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Maddow: Paul Ryan Pals Around with Right-Wing Terrorists

Only terrorists take photos at the Mall of America

From Alternet:

Mall of America officials say their security unit stops and questions on average up to 1,200 people each year. The interviews at the mall are part of a counterterrorism initiative that acts as the private eyes and ears of law enforcement authorities but has often ensnared innocent people, according to an investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting and NPR.

In many cases, the written reports were filed without the knowledge of those interviewed by security. Several people named in the reports learned from journalists that their birth dates, race, names of employers and other personal information were compiled along with surveillance images.
[…]
On Nov. 9, 2008, the Bloomington resident videotaped a short road trip from his home to the Mall of America. Van Asten, now 66, planned to send it to his fiancée’s family in Vietnam so they could see life in the United States.

As he headed down an escalator, camera in hand, mall guards caught sight of him.

“Right away, I noticed he had a video camera and was recording the rotunda area,” a security guard wrote in a suspicious activity report. “When he got to second floor [sic] he turned to the overlook of the park while still videotaping.”
[…]
Bobbie Allen, now 47, headed to the Mall of America on June 25, 2007, for lunch with a woman. As he waited for her, Allen sat alone writing in a notebook, which caught the attention of security. Counterterrorism experts sometimes instruct police and security personnel to look for suspicious note-taking, as it may indicate attack planning.

So, taking videos or writing things in notebooks means you’re a terrorist. What about taking photos?

ZOMG TERRISM

The last time we were in Minnesota, the Zvans took us to the Mall of America, that monument to American capitalism (owned by Canada-based Triple Five Group, by the by). I had someone snap a photo of opportunity in front of an oxygen bar so I could blog about it later. I hadn’t gotten around to it til now, but I was expecting this post would take a different vector.

How many of your freedoms have you given up in building your surveillance state, America? How much would you be willing to bet that after we did our touristy thing, some mall cop didn’t build a portfolio filled with every shred of info they could find on us? Given that we’re bloggers, atheists, and we lean populist and anti-woo, I’m a little surprised Stephanie and I made it out intact and without some sort of “enhanced interrogation”. Especially with my being a foreigner.

Only terrorists take photos at the Mall of America