Terrorism
Life after the settlements
When Israel withdraws from the Gaza Strip in August, Palestinians will contend with a society shattered by occupation and the powerlessness of its own leadership.
Topics: Middle East, Terrorism
In a small bit of plastic foil, Misbah Shamalach, 65, keeps crumpled pieces of paper that signify both his past and his future. When Israeli soldiers drove him from his land, when his 12-year-old nephew Abd al-Samad was shot and bled to death in his field, when everything seemed to be lost, even then Shamalach held on to these pieces of paper, the only documents he has to prove that he is the owner of his land. Ever since he fled from Nezarim, where his father and grandfather plowed their fields, to this place, this bare, shabby house on the outskirts of Gaza City, he has held on to his documents. An emaciated donkey stands next to a makeshift chicken coop of wire and corrugated metal. The barren, rocky soil between the dilapidated houses in his neighborhood can barely support a few stray onions.
Continue Reading CloseSenate Democrats heroically fund TSA
Democrats score the dumbest political victory of 2012
Topics: Democratic Party, Homeland Security, Terrorism, Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Senate, War on Terror
(Credit: Reuters/Frank Polich) On Tuesday, a Senate Appropriations Committee vote effectively highlighted everything that is stupid about politics.
The Transportation Security Administration, a universally loathed government agency, is facing a shortfall, despite its more than $8 billion budget. Instead of having a debate over what effective airport security might actually look like and how much should reasonably be spent on the honestly rare threat of commercial-air-travel-based terrorism, there was a debate over how best to come up with the money needed for all the radioactive naked picture machines and bomb-sniffing dogs. The Democrats suggested passing on the cost of ineffective, cumbersome and intrusive security theater to citizens, via higher fees on airfares. The Republicans, even more predictably, suggested cutting spending that directly helps poor people to ensure there is enough to spend on stopping imaginary future 9/11s.
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Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.
Police arrest artist setting up ‘I Love NY’ work
The installation included a plastic bag with a battery inside of it, hanging from a tree
(Credit: http://tmiyakawadesign.com/) NEW YORK (AP) — An artist who was setting up an “I Love New York”-themed public art display in Brooklyn was arrested after the wired contraption was mistaken for an explosive device.
Takeshi Miyakawa, a visual artist and furniture designer, was arrested Saturday after placing the installation in two separate areas of the same New York City neighborhood. His lawyer and employer both called the arrest a misunderstanding.
The first apparatus was found Friday morning after a caller reported a suspicious package to police. It consisted of a plastic bag that contained a battery and was suspended from a metal rod attached to a tree. The bag, which had the classic “I Love New York” logo printed on it, was connected by a wire to a plastic box that contained more wires.
Continue Reading CloseBehind the underwear bomb
The latest airplane terror plot wouldn't have been foiled without airport security -- but not the kind we all know
Topics: Air Travel, Ask the Pilot, Terrorism
Travelers line up at a TSA checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport.
(Credit: Reuters/Danny Moloshok) Another deadly plot taken down in the planning stages. This time, thanks to the work of a CIA double agent, officials were able to infiltrate a Yemen-based al-Qaida plot to destroy a U.S.-bound jetliner using a nearly undetectable underwear bomb.The moral of the story: Airport security works!Am I being facetious? Not necessarily. It depends on your definition of airport security.
In my mind, the key to keeping airplanes safe is, and always has been, stopping acts of sabotage while they are still in the planning stages. Here in the age of the TSA checkpoint, with its toothpaste confiscations and obsession with pointy objects, we tend not to think this way, preoccupied instead with a kind of airport Kabuki — the tedious, fanatical screening of passengers and their carry-ons. Real airport security takes place offstage, as it were. It is the job of the folks at the CIA and the FBI, working together with foreign authorities. And while TSA has an important role here too, we can do without the spectacle of airport guards rifling through innocent people’s bags in a pathological hunt for what are effectively harmless items.
Continue Reading ClosePatrick Smith is an airline pilot. More Patrick Smith.
Hiding 9/11′s last secrets
The military tribunal for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed means the American people will never know what drove him to terror
Topics: 9/11, Department of Justice, Editor's Picks, Terrorism
(Credit: Reuters//Brennan Linsley) After a Navy SEAL team killed Osama bin Laden at his Pakistan hideout a year ago this week, it flew his body to the Arabian Sea, weighted it down, and slid it silently off an aircraft carrier into the watery depths.
For many Americans, the secret raid provided a measure of revenge and catharsis for the strikes of Sept. 11, 2001. But it didn’t provide the kind of justice and official reckoning that the country needs to gain real closure. Now the government has a chance to achieve that through a full, fair and open trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants, so the world can finally see the evidence against him as the true architect of the attacks on New York and Washington. The trial kickoff — an arraignment for the men — is scheduled for this Saturday at the U.S.-run detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Continue Reading CloseJosh Meyer is the author, with Terry McDermott, of the new book, "The Hunt for KSM: Inside the Pursuit and Takedown of the Real 9/11 Mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.’’ More Josh Meyer.
FBI heroically locks up ridiculous anarchists on May Day
Feds stop inept radicals from carrying out a plot feds helped them conceive and carry out
Topics: Anarchism, FBI, Occupy Movement, Terrorism
U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach, left, and FBI special agent in charge Stephen Anthony walk past a map showing the location of a bridge on Ohio Rt. 82. Five men, pictured on the wall behind the map, have been arrested for conspiring to blow up the bridge. (Credit: AP/Mark Duncan) Happy May Day, fellow travelers! If you’re not currently disrupting capitalism and/or having your wrists zip-tied for exercising your right to freely assemble, you probably read about the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s latest, not-at-all suspiciously timed terror sting. The Bureau, in an inspired bit of early-20th century nostalgia, has railroaded a bunch of dangerous anarchists. (Or “dangerous” “anarchists.”) America will not waver in the face of the Galleanist threat!
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Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.
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