Exclusive: Hiding and near death, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev reportedly scrawled on the inside of a boat that he did what he did to avenge innocent Muslims killed by U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a rare look…
Tag: Al-Qaeda
Obsessing Too Much on ‘Terror’
After the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. intelligence community threw extraordinary resources into the hunt for al-Qaeda terrorists, so much so that some experts fear a possible new blindness to other threats, a dilemma addressed by ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Drone Danger: Making War Too Easy
The lethal-drone debate’s focus on the legality of killing Americans in al-Qaeda obscures the larger problem of waging war indiscriminately and thus creating new enemies. In that view, President Obama has stretched his legal authority past the breaking point, says Independent…
Locking In the Abuses of War
After the 9/11 attacks, the smart response might well have been to denounce the killings as a monstrous crime and treat al-Qaeda as outlaws to be brought to justice. But President Bush’s tough-guy response was to declare the crime a…
Profiting Off the Terror Threat
Since the 9/11 attacks, few politicians and pundits have had the courage to question the endless demands for more money to “protect the American people.” But hyping the terror threat has been a way for some financial and ideological interests…
Neocons Regroup on Libyan War
From the Archive: The assault by radical Islamists on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, killing U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and three of his aides, underscores the under-reported risk of the U.S.-backed military campaign against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, as Robert…
The Neocons and 9/11
Special Report: The emerging history of 9/11 reveals that President George W. Bush’s failure to protect the nation resulted from neocon insistence that Iraq was the real threat, not al-Qaeda. The political relevance today is that the neocons want back into power under…
How al-Qaeda Exploits Palestine Cause
Exclusive: When U.S. Special Forces raided Osama bin Laden’s compound last year, they grabbed al-Qaeda documents describing internal debates, including how the terror group should continue exploiting Israel’s abuse of Palestinians as a crucial recruitment pitch, reports Robert Parry.
Bin Laden Files Dispel Iran-Qaeda Link
To build support for “regime change” in Iran, neocon operatives and U.S. officials have tried to link al-Qaeda to Iran by exaggerating intelligence and ignoring evidence of mutual hostility, including new data in Osama bin Laden’s captured files, writes Gareth…
Not Explaining the Why of Terrorism
Exclusive: President Obama signed a U.S.-Afghan strategic agreement on May 1, committing U.S. combat forces to withdraw by the end of 2014 while leaving behind U.S. counter-terrorism teams for another decade. But Obama and his aides still duck a full debate over the causes of terrorism, writes…