Category: Terrorism

Closing Thought–23Dec20

Some troubling news for the holidays……

I know we have not heard much from those barbaric pricks of AQ and ISIS….but a report is starting circulate that these groups could be planning something big for the holiday season….

Aimen Dean, a former Al Qaeda bombmaker turned spy for the U.K.’s MI6 spy agency, is warning that the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group is preparing a wave of attacks in Britain, France, and Germany ahead of Christmas.

Dean said ISIS commander Abu Omar al-Shishani is planning to send attackers to Europe through Turkey and across the Mediterranean from North Africa, The Daily Mail reported. Speaking at the International Security Week conference, which ran from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, Dean said Shishani is primarily motivated to attack the countries over recent incidents in which depictions of the prophet Muhammad have been shared, in violation of some Islamic practices.

“The worry is that, according to people who know him, [Shishani] is planning to avenge the Prophet Mohammed cartoons in places like Germany, UK, France and all around Christmas time,” Dean said. “I’m afraid I’m not bearing good news but we need to be worried about the wave of terror that is coming from northern Syria and Libya for Christmas this year,” Dean said.

Dean derives his expertise from working as a bomb-maker for Al Qaeda and then informing on the group for eight years, the Daily Mail reported.

Dean raised a particular warning that European leaders trying to lift coronavirus related lockdowns around the Christmas holiday are only further enticing the terrorist plotters.

“This promise of no lockdown at Christmas has made it a more attractive time frame for targeting,” Dean said. “Already they have been thinking about it, already they have been looking at it and I feel this will be the next target.”

source:  American Military News

Not a surprise…but this info should be more readily available to the public…..

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Russia Or Fu Manchu?

I admit that in my younger days I was a huge Sax Rohmer fan and his arch villain Fu Manchu….I even have been watching an old TV show entitled the “The Adventures Of Dr. Fu Manchu” from 1956….one episode has the evil genius hacking into the NORAD-like defense system…..and I thought about it when I read about the latest hack in the news…..

An alarming development in the massive cyberattack on American government systems: Sources tell Politico that the agencies that maintain America’s nuclear weapons stockpile were compromised in the attack, which is strongly suspected to have been carried out by Russia. The sources say they have found evidence that hackers accessed the networks of the Energy Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The worst damage was done at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), where there is evidence of “highly malicious activity,” the officials say. The hackers are believed to have accessed systems from March onwards by compromising a SolarWinds software patch. More:

  • Department says critical defense systems not hit. Energy Department spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes confirmed that the department had been hit by the attack but denied parts of the Politico report. “At this point, the investigation has found that the malware has been isolated to business networks only, and has not impacted the mission essential national security functions of the department, including the National Nuclear Security Administration,” Hynes said in a statement. Hynes said that when vulnerable software was identified, “immediate action was taken to mitigate the risk.”
  • What Politico details: In addition to FERC, it reports the DOE and NNSA have uncovered evidence of hacking in the networks used by the Sandia and Los Alamos national labs and the Office of Secure Transportation at NNSA. Politico explains: “NNSA is responsible for managing the nation’s nuclear weapons, and while it gets the least attention, it takes up the vast majority of DOE’s budget.” Enriched uranium is moved by the Office of Secure Transportation, and the labs handle atomic research tied to both nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
  • “Grave threat” to critical infrastructure. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned that the attack poses a “grave threat” to “critical infrastructure,” Deutsche Welle reports. The agency said the damage will be very difficult to undo. CISA didn’t specify what the critical infrastructure is, but the AP offers this: “Homeland Security, the agency’s parent department, defines such infrastructure as any ‘vital’ assets to the US or its economy, a broad category that could include power plants and financial institutions.”
  • Private sector was also hit. “It’s still early days, but we have already identified 40 victims—more than anyone else has stated so far—and believe that number should rise substantially,” Microsoft president Brad Smith tells the New York Times. “There are more nongovernmental victims than there are governmental victims, with a big focus on IT companies, especially in the security industry.” Microsoft says a “heat map” of the attack shows that 80% of victims are in the US, with others in countries including the UK, Mexico, and Spain—but none in Russia.
  • Biden speaks out. President-elect Joe Biden vowed Thursday that he would make dealing with the attack a top priority from the moment he takes office, the BBC reports. “We need to disrupt and deter our adversaries from undertaking significant cyberattacks in the first place,” he said. “We will do that by, among other things, imposing substantial costs on those responsible for such malicious attacks, including in coordination with our allies and partners.” President Trump has not commented publicly on the attacks.
  • “Worst hacking case in US history.” A government official speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity says the administration isn’t ready to publicly blame Russia for the cyberattack. “This is looking like it’s the worst hacking case in the history of America,” the official says. “They got into everything.” Experts believe the attackers focused on espionage, not sabotage, and were incredibly successful.
  • Romney: “Stunning” for White House not to respond. Republican Sen. Mitt Romney said Thursday that the silence and apparent lack of action from the White House was “inexcusable,” the Hill reports. “I think the White House needs to say something aggressive about what happened,” he said. “This is almost as if you had a Russian bomber flying undetected over the country, including over the nation’s capital, and not to respond in a setting like that is really stunning.”

This ‘hack’ is another attack that I am struggling with….it seems when we need a foe the Russian hacks are always available.

Fu Manchu was thwarted…..but looks like the Russians (allegedly) are more sophisticated….

I am waiting for the rest of the story…..and now I have it….

The Trump administration informed Congress of its plans to close the last two US consulates in Russia, leaving the US embassy in Moscow as the only US diplomatic mission in the country.

The State Department sent a letter to congressional leaders on December 10th that said the US is permanently closing its consulate in Vladivostok, and temporarily halting operations at the consulate in Yekaterinburg.

According to the letter, the US is shuttering the consulates due to caps set by Moscow on the number of diplomats allowed in the country. In 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin set new limits on the number of US diplomatic employees in response to US sanctions.

The letter says the move is “in response to ongoing staffing challenges of the US Mission in Russia in the wake of the 2017 Russian-imposed personnel cap on the US Mission and resultant impasse with Russia over diplomatic visas.”

In December 2016, then-President Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats for Moscow’s alleged interference in the presidential election, which was never substantiated. Putin chose not to retaliate against Obama’s move.

The news comes at a sensitive time for US-Russia relations. Several US government agencies were targeted in a major cyberattack that many in the US are blaming on Russia, despite a lack of evidence to show Moscow was involved.

But the shuttering of the consulates does not appear to be connected to the cyberattack since the administration informed Congress a few days before the hack was reported.

(antiwar.com)

As to appear not be the gutless wonders they are…Congress is calling for retaliation…..Some senators are calling for retaliation against Russia. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) even likened it to a “virtual invasion.” (chest thumping only)

On a lighter note…..

If I peeked your interest in Fu Manchu….here are the 8 episodes from 1956…..(if interested I believe it was episode 3 or 4 that had the “hack”)

While your are finishing your shopping…..Be Well and Be Safe……

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Pan Am Flight 103

Does anyone remember this tragedy?

No?

How about the Lockerbie bombing?

Still nothing?

On December 21, 1988, on a cold and ultimately chilling evening just four days before Christmas, Pan Am Flight 103 took off from London’s Heathrow Airport bound for New York City. Among the 259 passengers and crew were 189 Americans.

They never made it home. Less than 40 minutes into the flight, the plane exploded over the sky above Lockerbie, Scotland, killing everyone on board and 11 Scots on the ground.

Until 9/11, it was one of the world’s most lethal acts of air terrorism and one of the largest and most complex acts of international terrorism ever investigated by the FBI.

Solving the case required unprecedented international cooperation—and hours upon hours of painstaking work. With the mid-air explosion 30,000 feet up, debris rained down over 845 square miles across Scotland. FBI agents and international investigators combed the countryside on hands and knees looking for clues in virtually every blade of grass, eventually turning up thousands of pieces of evidence. They also traversed the globe, interviewing more than 10,000 individuals in dozens of countries.

Participating in the investigation were an array of international police organizations from such countries as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and, of course, Great Britain (including Scotland).

Ultimately, forensic specialists from the FBI, the CIA, and elsewhere determined that one of the fragments found on the ground, no bigger than a thumbnail, came from the circuit board of a radio/cassette player. That tiny piece of evidence helped establish that the bomb had been placed inside that radio and tape deck in a piece of luggage. Another small fragment, found embedded in a piece of shirt, helped identify the type of timer.

https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/pan-am-103-bombing

The family of the person convicted of the bombing has asked for the evidence and documents to be made public……

The family of the only person convicted in the deadliest terror attack in British history say documents held by the UK government could clear his name—but the government is refusing to unseal them. Scotland’s most senior judges have ruled to uphold the secrecy order for documents connected to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people, the Guardian reports. Earlier this year, the family of former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who died in 2012, was granted permission to posthumously appeal his conviction. They say the secret papers will prove that the bombing was actually carried out by a Syria-based extremist group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, acting on orders from Iran.

The documents, which allegedly name a Jordanian intelligence agent as the bomb-maker, are believed to have been sent by King Hussein of Jordan, per the Guardian. When he issued the order protecting the documents, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said releasing them to the defense would harm national security, the National reports. “The documents were provided in confidence to the United Kingdom Government by another state,” Raab said. “Disclosure of the documents would harm the United Kingdom’s international relations with that state.” In a 2007 ruling, however, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said the documents raised questions about al-Megrahi’s conviction. His appeal at the time was abandoned before he was released on compassionate grounds in 2009.

Let me insert this before the question I have.

I am by no means saying this person was innocent of the crime….just that there are some questions on the decision to keep info classified.

Now I asked if there was a trial and a person convicted of the crime….why are these documents still secret?

What are they protecting?

Was the person railroaded?

Why not make the information public and let everyone see the evidence?

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War On Terror

I remember after the 9/11 attacks and the beginning of the War on Terror…..do you?

The question was posed….are we better off today than we were in 2001?

$6 trillion (that is trillion with a “T”) and the answer in most quarters is ….NO!

After all these years…the ordinances used and the people lost and we are not any better off?

But the M-IC is pushing hard to keep troops around the world as a deterrent to terrorism….is it really worth the cost….in lives and equipment?

The national security establishment is pushing against the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan by President Trump following almost two decades of combat. Even Republicans are warning Trump that he is repeating one of the foreign policy mistakes of Barack Obama.

One of the most astonishing recent arguments against a withdrawal from Afghanistan was made by former national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who said that terrorist groups that “pose a threat to us are stronger now” than they were before 9/11. He said the United States faces Al Qaeda and Islamic State alumni who are “orders of magnitude greater” than before and who “have access to much more destructive capabilities.”

How are we worse off than 2001? According to the Watson Institute, the war on terror has cost the United States over $6 trillion, 800,000 people have died as a direct result of the violence of these conflicts, and nearly 38 million people have been displaced or made refugees. According to the Washington Post, some 775,000 American forces have been sent to Afghanistan since 2001, and more than 2,000 of them died.

The United States poured billions of dollars into reconstruction projects in Iraq and Afghanistan under the notion that economic development would check the growth of terrorism. Yet after all this blood and treasure, one of the most senior American officials and a former combat general in the war on terror says Al Qaeda is stronger than it was before 9/11.

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/518204-the-truth-about-the-war-on-terror

Let’s look at another one of those made up wars that has done little…..the War On Drugs.

By contrast that “war” has been raging for damn near 50 years and about $1 trillion wasted with no end in sight….we just keep wasting money chasing some imaginary victory.

In my opinion and others as well…the War on Terror has wasted lives and money and has not accomplished a victory after $6 trillion (that is trillion with a “T”)…..

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Least We Forget

Closing Thought–11Sep20

I know that there is a lot of news to digest these days….but today is the anniversary of the dastardly attack on the US by those barbarians in AQ……the 9/11 attacks.

My friend Kim had a good post today……https://cadburypom.wordpress.com/2020/09/11/9-11-19th-anniversary/

It seems that most Americans are too self-adsorb to notice any more….unless it somehow benefits them personally.  So let me take you through a few things that you may not know about the attacks………

Monday marks the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, that killed 2,977 people in New York, the Pentagon and in a field in rural Pennsylvania. The attacks and the reaction to them have shaped U.S. policy for more than 15 years, leaving a nation that is far more vigilant and jittery about terrorism. Yet for all of the talk about 9/11, many elements of the attacks and the actions leading up to them have receded from the public memory. Here are 10 things you may have forgotten about 9/11:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/10/10-things-you-may-have-forgotten-911/90007376/

There are things that changed after then attacks of  9/11……

We deported half the number of people we do today. Our surveillance state was a fraction of its current size. And — perhaps hardest to believe — we didn’t have to take off our shoes to go through airport security.

America’s involvement in the War on Terror — prompted by the 9/11 terrorist attacks — resulted in a dramatic change in our nation’s attitudes and concerns about safety, vigilance and privacy.

It ushered in a new generation of policies like the USA Patriot Act,  prioritizing national security and defense, often at the expense of civil liberties.

These changes continue to have ripple effects across the globe, particularly in the Middle East, where American-led military operations helped foment rebellions and ongoing warfare throughout the region.

Below are four of the many dramatic impacts — nationwide and in California — resulting from the events of that one tragic day.

https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/14066/13-years-later-four-major-lasting-impacts-of-911

Our lives changed and not for the better…..our lives became more militaristic….and the world became a more dangerous place.

Please take a moment to remember those who died on 9/11.

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ISIS–Wave Two

These days with the news fixated on the pandemic and then those protests it has all but forgotten about the danger of ISIS….and sadly there will be a second wave of their ascendance…….

ISIS has been beaten but not defeated….they still lurk in the shadows waiting……waiting for the next wave to begin.

Today, Islamic State barely exists in Iraq and Syria, its leader is dead and its recruits are scattered, languishing in jail or hunted throughout the Middle East and Europe.

But the threat of ISIS and of extremism has not gone away. Both on the battlefield of ideas and on the real battlefield, a second wave is certainly coming.

That wave will crash first across West Africa, where clashes between militant groups and national armies are taking place in every country of the Sahel region. The coalition has recognized this; only last month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo singled out ISIS attacks in West Africa and said the United States was seeking a global fund of $700 million to continue the fight against ISIS in 2020.

A second ISIS wave is lurking in the dark

I posted last month on the possibility of ISIS scoring heavy in Africa…the Sahel region to be specific…..https://lobotero.com/2020/06/08/remember-isis/

Keep in mind….ISIS maybe be out of sight….but they are far from gone the way of the dodo……

It is only a matter of time before they return to the world stage.

Now the big question will be….Will we be ready for the return?

America’s intelligence agencies risk slipping back into dangerous pre-9/11 habits, a recently departed top counterterrorism official is warning in his first public remarks on the matter.

Russell Travers, former head of the U.S. government’s hub for analysis of counterterrorism intelligence, was so alarmed that he shared his concerns with the intelligence community’s top internal watchdog in his final weeks on the job.

“I think there are really important questions that need to be addressed, and I don’t think they have been thus far,” said Travers, who ran the National Counterterrorism Center until March of this year. “And that has me worried, because I do think we could very easily end up back where we were 20 years ago.”

Travers detailed his concerns, much of which remain highly classified, to the intelligence community’s inspector general. About a week later, he was summarily ousted, he says — and the Trump administration official who fired him didn’t explain why.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/09/travers-terrorism-warning-355734

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Bastille Day

Today, 14 July, is when the French celebrate their revolution that overthrew the corrupt monarchy…..lead by the slogan….Liberty, Equality, Fraternity…..but was it all that equal and what about liberty……

The American attitude toward the French Revolution has been generally favorable—naturally enough for a nation itself born in revolution. But as revolutions go, the French one in 1789 was among the worst. True, in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity, it overthrew a corrupt regime. Yet what these fine ideals led to was, first, the Terror and mass murder in France, and then Napoleon and his wars, which took hundreds of thousands of lives in Europe and Russia. After this pointless slaughter came the restoration of the same corrupt regime that the Revolution overthrew. Aside from immense suffering, the upheaval achieved nothing.

Leading the betrayal of the Revolution’s initial ideals and its transformation into a murderous ideological tyranny was Maximilien Robespierre, a monster who set up a system expressly aimed at killing thousands of innocents. He knew exactly what he was doing, meant to do it, and believed he was right to do it. He is the prototype of a particularly odious kind of evildoer: the ideologue who believes that reason and morality are on the side of his butcheries. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot are of the same mold. They are the characteristic scourges of humanity in modern times, but Robespierre has a good claim to being the first. Understanding his motives and rationale deepens our understanding of the worst horrors of the recent past and those that may lurk in the future.

Historians distinguish three phases of the French Revolution. The last, the Terror, ran roughly during 1793–94. It began with the fall of the moderate Girondins and the radical Jacobins’ accession to power. As the Jacobins gained control of the Committee of Public Safety, which in turn controlled the legislature (the Convention), the disputes among their factions sharpened. After an interregnum of shared power, Robespierre became dictator, and the Terror started in earnest. It took the form of the arrest, show trial, and execution of thousands of people, including the leaders of the Girondins and the opposing Jacobin factions, who were suspected of opposing—actively or passively, actually or potentially—the policies Robespierre dictated.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/why-robespierre-chose-terror-12935.html

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Those Terrorists Remain

Protests….Racism…..Pandemic…..all of the top stories from the MSM in the last couple of months…..even though they are out of mind of the media by no means they are gone….defeated….or any other term one would care to employ.

To illustrate this is the testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security…..

Thomas JoscelynJune 24, 2020Foundation for Defense of Democracies3www.fdd.org•Al-Qaeda has survived the post-9/11 wars and America’s counterterrorism campaign. The group’s base has spread from South Asia into multiple other countries. Several organizations, often described as al-Qaeda “affiliates,” serve as regional branches. These branches are each led by an emir who swears his allegiance to the head of al-Qaeda. Since Osama bin Laden’s death in May 2011, that leader has been Ayman al-Zawahiri. The official al-Qaeda branches are: al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent,and al-Shabaab in Somalia. To thislist we can add the “Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims” (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM), a wing of AQIM.Hurras al-Din in Syria is also part of al-Qaeda’s network, as are other groups based in Idlib. But al-Qaeda’s chain-of-command in Syria has been upset by a number of internal rivalries, power struggles,and arguments over jihadist strategy.2In addition, al-Qaeda works through other groups that are not official al-Qaeda branches but are nonetheless part of its web. Such groups includethe Pakistani Taliban.Still other jihadist organizations are closely allied with al-Qaeda.•ISIS and al-Qaeda remain locked in a competition for the fealty of jihadists around the globe. Much of this competition will take place at the local level, but international terrorism could play a role in the rivalry, as these groupslook to outbid one another for the affection of would-be jihadists. While there may be some cooperation between individual commanders, the two mother organizations are at odds. ISIS has developed an institutional hatred for al-Qaeda. In some areas, such as Iraq, ISIS is definitively stronger. In other areas, such as Somalia and Yemen, al-Qaeda has the upper hand. In West Africa, the two are currently close in strength, though that can change. Any assessment of relative strength in Syria is difficult due to al-Qaeda’s management problems and other factors. And an assessment of their relative positions in Afghanistan is complicated by the fact that al-Qaeda and affiliated groups areembedded within the Taliban-led insurgency. Al-Qaeda has deliberately sought to mask the extent of its operations in Afghanistan.

Click to access Thomas-Joscelyn-ISIS-AQ-testimony.pdf

Now this is a report issued by the Dept. of State……

Click to access Country-Reports-on-Terrorism-2019-2.pdf

My point is that these groups are not so much in the news these days….but they by NO means have disappeared……

Both reports are worth the read if you think that terrorism is not so much a problem these days…..

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Pakistan—Bad Partner?

The Cricket player that became the prime minister of Pakistan has had his moments but his latest statements are doing nothing to improve the views about Pakistan…..

Pakistani opposition parties criticized Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday after he told parliament that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had been “martyred” in 2011 by U.S. forces.

Bin Laden, who masterminded the 9/11 attacks on the United States, was killed in a raid on his hideout in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad after eluding detection for nearly 10 years.

Pakistan was not aware of the operation, which involved U.S. helicopters flying deep into the country from Afghanistan.

“I will never forget how we Pakistanis were embarrassed when the Americans came into Abbottabad and killed Osama bin Laden, martyred him,” Khan said in his speech while recounting the lows of the relationship between Islamabad and Washington.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/pakistani-prime-minister-under-fire-for-bin-laden-martyrdom-remark/ar-BB15Ye5e

For many decades Pakistan has done little to make the country free of jihadists influence…..

Pakistan remains a “safe haven” for a host of regional terror groups, including the Afghan Taliban and its integral subgroup, the Al Qaeda linked Haqqani Network, according the the State Department’s newly released Country Reports on Terrorism 2019.

“Pakistan continued to serve as a safe haven for certain regionally focused terrorist groups,” State notes in its opening paragraph on Pakistan.  “It allowed groups targeting Afghanistan, including the Afghan Taliban and affiliated HQN [Haqqani Network], as well as groups targeting India, including LeT [Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa] and its affiliated front organizations, and JeM [Jaish-e-Mohammad], to operate from its territory.”

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/06/29/pakistan_a_safe_haven_for_terror_groups_us_state_department_115417.html

The newest report shows that Pakistan is doing little to help with counter-terrorism…..

Washington’s annual terrorism report said Pakistan was doing too little to counter terrorist groups, particularly those taking aim at rival India and the dreaded Haqqani network operating in Afghanistan.

Islamabad bristled at the criticism in the U.S. State Department report, saying it has been relentless in its assistance to Washington as the United States brokered a peace deal with the Taliban, which it signed in February. At the time, the deal was touted as Afghanistan’s best chance in four decades of finding a lasting peace.

Amir Rana, executive director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, which tracks militant groups, said Friday the report is a warning to Pakistan that it needs to do more to target terrorist financing and dismantle terrorist networks if it wants to avoid being blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force, the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog based in Paris.

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2020-06-26/us-report-pakistan-doing-too-little-to-counter-terrorism

Once the US troops leave what will be Pakistan’s role in the War on Terror?

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The Reign Of Terror

What do we mean by the term “Reign of Terror”?

A period of remorseless repression or bloodshed……the most famous Reign of Terror was that during the French Revolution…..a period of the French Revolution, from about March, 1793, to July, 1794, during which many persons were ruthlessly executed by the ruling faction.

… the Terror was a brief but deadly period where Maximilien Robespierre, the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunals condemned thousands of people to die under the falling blade of the guillotine.

The realities of the Terror were more complex. The Reign of Terror was not driven by one man, one body or one policy. It was a child with many parents, triggered and driven by different forces and factors.

The Reign of Terror

Anyone that knows a little history will know of the barbarity committed during the French Revolution….what about the Reign of Terror here in the good old US of A?

Yes Irene there was a Reign of Terror here…..and NO it is not some condemnation of the Trump admin….ever hear of the Palmer Raids?

…

on January 3, 1920—Americans woke up to discover just how little their own government regarded the cherished Bill of Rights. During the night, some 4,000 of their fellow citizens were rounded up and jailed for what amounted, in most cases, to no good reason at all and no due process, either.

Welcome to the story of the Palmer Raids, named for their instigator, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Though largely forgotten today, they shouldn’t be. They constituted a horrific, shameful episode in American history, one of the lowest moments for liberty since King George III quartered troops in private homes.

The terror during the night of January 2-3, 1920, shocked and frightened many citizens. In her 1971 book, America’s Reign of Terror: World War I, the Red Scare, and the Palmer Raids, Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht wrote:

https://fee.org/articles/the-palmer-raids-america-s-forgotten-reign-of-terror/

But for those that would like more information on these violation by the US government….https://www.history.com/topics/red-scare/palmer-raids

And this not the first time of which actions by the government…..This wasn’t the first time the government in Washington had trampled the Bill of Rights. No less than the administration of John Adams, an American founding patriot, briefly shut down newspapers and dissenting opinion with its Alien & Sedition Acts of 1798. Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and arrested thousands of political opponents in Northern states.

The sad thing is that it is all but forgotten with all the “patriotic” BS….it is history and to ignore it means that it could happen again….and again…..

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