Memo to Republicans: 9/12 changed nothing!

 

by Dirk McQuigley [Subscribe] [Edit Diary]

   

Tue May 12, 2009 at 01:57:27 PM EDT

Listening to Dick Cheney or any other torture enthusiast attempting to justify war crimes because 9/11 changed everything is perhaps the most blatant example of American exceptionalism. Terrorism was not invented on Sept. 11, 2001 as citizens of the United Kingdom, Israel, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, El Salvador, Italy, Japan, and South Korea can all experienced attacks against their countries BEFORE 9/11.

The myopic Cheney and other torture defenders are so blissfully ignorant of the facts that they ignored a number of terrorist attacks both against American citizens abroad and those that occurred in the United States. A quick search of the internets led to me finding an interesting nugget on the U.S State Department website under the heading "Significant Terrorist incidents, 1961-2003: A Brief Chronology."

Follow me below the fold for details, including terrorist attacks IN the United States.

• Dirk McQuigley's diary :: ::

The entire list may be seen here, but I will limit the scope of my diary to: attacks against American citizens; attacks on American soil; and major attacks abroad resulting in the loss of more than 50 people.

A similar list can be found on the website of the U.S. Army, under the heading of "Timeline of Terrorism", which covers the period from 1960 through 2006.

According to the State Department's Office of Historian, the first terrorist attack during this period specifically targeting an American citizen was the assassination of John Gordon Mein, the Abassador to Guatemala, who was gunned down by rebels in Guatemala City Aug. 28, 1968. Mein, killed only one block from the U.S. consulate was the first American Ambassador to be assassinated.

The pattern of terrorist attacks against Americans  abroad for the next 13 years seemed to be limited to American diplomats and ancillary staff. These included the assassinations of the Ambassador to the Sudan in 1973 and the Ambassador to Cyprus a year later.

According to the State Department, January, 1975 marks the first Domestic terrorist attack although several sources indicate the first attack that the FALN of Puerto Rico claimed credit for took place three months earlier.

All told, FALN and other factions from Puerto Rico conducted a terror campaign which were responsible for:

... resulted in 72 actual bombings, 40 incendiary attacks, 8 attempted bombings and 10 bomb threats, resulting in 5 deaths, 83 injuries, and over $3 million in property damage.

Similar to the FALN, the existence of the Macheteros became publicly known when the group sent a communiqué to the United Press International in which they claimed credit for the death of a Puerto Rican police officer on August 24, 1978. The goals of the Macheteros were complete autonomy and sovereignty for Puerto Rico. In order to achieve their goals, the Macheteros conducted an armed struggle against the United States Government, mainly represented through attacks on military and police, in several cases causing the death of U.S. servicemen. In a January 1981 attack, Macheteros commandos infiltrated a Puerto Rican Air National Guard base and blew up 11 planes, causing approximately $45 million in damages.

Other diplomats murdered in the 1970's included the Ambassadors to Lebanon and Afghanistan.

There was a terrorist attack in the United States in September of 1976, directed against the  former Foreign Minister of Chile, Orlando Letelier, which also killed his American assistant in a car bombing in Washington, D.C.

A major terrorist attack at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, killed more than 250 people and wounded 600 more, in Nov. 1979.

What is noteworthy about this attack is the involvement of the Bin Laden family:

At the time, the Grand Mosque was being renovated by the Saudi Binladin Group in what was the most prestigious construction contract in the Islamic world. An employee of the organization was able to report the seizure to corporate headquarters before the insurgents cut the telephone lines. A representative of the Binladin Group was thus the first to notify King Khalid.

Suspicion of the Bin Laden family playing a role in those attacks continues to this day:

In the 1960s Osama bin Laden's half-brother Mahrous bin Laden joined a rebel group opposed to the Saudi government. With his assistance, in 1979 the rebels smuggled weapons into Mecca, Saudi Arabia, using trucks belonging to the bin Laden family company. 500 rebels then seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca (sic), Islam's holiest mosque in its holiest city. They try, but fail, to overthrow the Saudi royal family. All the men who took part are later beheaded except Mahrous. Eventually he is released from prison because of the close ties between the bin Ladens and the Saudi royal family. Mahrous apparently abandons the rebel cause and joins the family business. He is eventually made a head of the Medina branch and a member of the board. He will still hold these positions on 9/11. But a newspaper reports that "his past [is] not forgiven and most important decisions in the [bin Laden family business] are made without Mahrous' input."

Steven Coll, author of Ghost Wars, reported that weapons were brought to the mosque BEFORE the takeover. Because Bin Laden company trucks were common in the mosque, which had been under renovation since 1973, there presence did not arouse any suspicion.

More suspicion of Bin Laden family involvement centers around the crackdown on secular images and the imposition of Sharia law in Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the attacks. The theory is that the Bin Laden family provided plans of the mosque to the Royal Saudi Family in exchange for the strict adherence to Sharia law, which continues to this day in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

In the 1980's, attacks against Americans abroad intensified, beginning with the brutal rape and murder of three nuns and a lay missionary inEl Salvador.

The [1993] U.N.-sponsored report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador concluded that the abductions were planned in advance and the men responsible had carried out the murders on orders from above. It further stated that the head of the National Guard and two officers assigned to investigate the case had concealed the facts to harm the judicial process. The murder of the women, along with attempts by the Salvadoran military and some American officials to cover it up, generated a grass-roots opposition in the U.S., as well as ignited intense debate over the Administration’s policy in El Salvador. In 1984, the defendants were found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison. The Truth Commission noted that this was the first time in Salvadoran history that a judge had found a member of the military guilty of assassination.

There were three significant terrorist attacks in the 1980'son airliners, with each killing several hundred passengrs. In 1985, an Air India jet exploded over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 329 aboard. In 1987, North Korean agents killed 118 on Korean Airlines Flight 858 . Three years later, Pan AmFlight 103 blew up near Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all of 259people on board. Eleven more people were killed in Lockerbie, by debris from the wreckage.

The rest of the 1980's was marked by increased attacks on American citizens abroad, especially military personnel:

Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut, April 18, 1983: Sixty-three people, including the CIA’s Middle East director, were killed and 120 were injured in a 400-pound suicide truck-bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Naval Officer Assassinated in El Salvador, May 25, 1983: A U.S. Navy officer was assassinated by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front.

Bombing of Marine Barracks, Beirut, October 23, 1983: Simultaneous suicide truck-bomb attacks were made on American and French compounds in Beirut, Lebanon. A 12,000-pound bomb destroyed the U.S. compound, killing 242 Americans, while 58 French troops were killed when a 400-pound device destroyed a French base. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Naval Officer Assassinated in Greece, November 15, 1983: A U.S. Navy officer was shot by the November 17 terrorist group in Athens, Greece, while his car was stopped at a traffic light.

Kidnapping of Embassy Official, March 16, 1984: The Islamic Jihad kidnapped and later murdered Political Officer William Buckley in Beirut, Lebanon. Other U.S. citizens not connected to the U.S. government were seized over a succeeding two-year period.

Restaurant Bombing in Spain, April 12, 1984: Eighteen U.S. servicemen were killed and 83 people were injured in a bomb attack on a restaurant near a U.S. Air Force Base in Torrejon, Spain.

TWA Hijacking, June 14, 1985: A Trans-World Airlines flight was hijacked en route to Rome from Athens by two Lebanese Hizballah terrorists and forced to fly to Beirut. The eight crew members and 145 passengers were held for seventeen days, during which one American hostage, a U.S. Navy sailor, was murdered. After being flown twice to Algiers, the aircraft was returned to Beirut after Israel released 435 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners.

Attack on a Restaurant in El Salvador, June 19, 1985: Members of the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) fired on a restaurant in the Zona Rosa district of San Salvador, killing four Marine Security Guards assigned to the U.S. Embassy and nine Salvadorean civilians.

Berlin Discothèque Bombing, April 5, 1986: Two U.S. soldiers were killed and 79 American servicemen were injured in a Libyan bomb attack on a nightclub in West Berlin, West Germany. In retaliation U.S. military jets bombed targets in and around Tripoli and Benghazi.

Servicemen’s Bar Attack, December 26, 1987: Catalan separatists bombed a Barcelona bar frequented by U.S. servicemen, resulting in the death of one U.S. citizen.

Kidnapping of William Higgins, February 17, 1988: U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel W. Higgins was kidnapped and murdered by the Iranian-backed Hizballah group while serving with the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization (UNTSO) in southern Lebanon.

Naples USO Attack, April 14, 1988: The Organization of Jihad Brigades exploded a car-bomb outside a USO Club in Naples, Italy, killing one U.S. sailor.

Attack on U.S. Diplomat in Greece, June 28, 1988: The Defense Attaché of the U.S. Embassy in Greece was killed when a car-bomb was detonated outside his home in Athens.

Assassination of U.S. Army Officer, April 21, 1989: The New People’s Army (NPA) assassinated Colonel James Rowe in Manila. The NPA also assassinated two U.S. government defense contractors in September.

This is quite the long list and I haven't yet mentioned the first World Trade Center attacks on Feb. 23, 1993 or the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 20, 1995.

Other attacks against Americans and in the U.S. BEFORE Sept. 11, 2001, include:

Khobar Towers Bombing, June 25, 1996: A fuel truck carrying a bomb exploded outside the US military's Khobar Towers housing facility in Dhahran, killing 19 U.S. military personnel and wounding 515 persons, including 240 U.S. personnel. Several groups claimed responsibility for the attack.

Abduction of US. Citizen by FARC, December 11, 1996: Five armed men claiming to be members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) kidnapped and later killed a U.S. geologist at a methane gas exploration site in La Guajira Department.

Empire State Building Sniper Attack, February 23, 1997: A Palestinian gunman opened fire on tourists at an observation deck atop the Empire State Building in New York City, killing a Danish national and wounding visitors from the United States, Argentina, Switzerland, and France before turning the gun on himself. A handwritten note carried by the gunman claimed this was a punishment attack against the "enemies of Palestine."

Murder of U.S. Businessmen in Pakistan, November 12, 1997: Two unidentified gunmen shot to death four U.S. auditors from Union Texas Petroleum Corporation and their Pakistani driver after they drove away from the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi. The Islami Inqilabi Council, or Islamic Revolutionary Council, claimed responsibility in a call to the U.S. Consulate in Karachi. In a letter to Pakistani newspapers, the Aimal Khufia Action Committee also claimed responsibility.

U.S. Embassy Bombings in East Africa, August 7, 1998: A bomb exploded at the rear entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 12 U.S. citizens, 32 Foreign Service Nationals (FSNs), and 247 Kenyan citizens. Approximately 5,000 Kenyans, 6 U.S. citizens, and 13 FSNs were injured. The U.S. Embassy building sustained extensive structural damage. Almost simultaneously, a bomb detonated outside the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 7 FSNs and 3 Tanzanian citizens, and injuring 1 U.S. citizen and 76 Tanzanians. The explosion caused major structural damage to the U.S. Embassy facility. The U.S. Government held Usama Bin Laden responsible.

Hutu Abductions, March 1, 1999: 150 armed Hutu rebels attacked three tourist camps in Uganda, killed four Ugandans, and abducted three U.S. citizens, six Britons, three New Zealanders, two Danish citizens, one Australian, and one Canadian national. Two of the U.S. citizens and six of the other hostages were subsequently killed by their abductors.

Attack on U.S.S. Cole, October 12, 2000: In Aden, Yemen, a small dingy carrying explosives rammed the destroyer U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39 others. Supporters of Usama Bin Laden were suspected.

The State Department did not count the terrorist activities of Eric Rudolph or James Kopp, even though they were both considered terrorists by law enforcement.

If one were to only count terrorist atacks against Americans or ON American soil BEFORE 9/11, the death toll would be more than 700 Americans and at least 500 foreign nationals murdered by terrorists.

These are very significant numbers that should never be discounted, especially with those idiots like Cheney that think no one was ever a victim of terrorism before that September morning in New York and Washington.  At minimum it is historical amnesia, but at worst, this is American exceptionalismrun amuck.

The basis most commonly cited for American exceptionalism is the idea that the United States and its people differ from other nations, at least on a historical basis, as an association of people who came from numerous places throughout the world but who hold a common bond in standing for certain self-evident truths, like freedom, inalienable natural and human rights, democracy, republicanism, the rule of law, civil liberty, civic virtue, the common good, fair play, private property, and Constitutional government; and that through these values America diverged from the rest of the world at least during its early years.

The term is also used by United States citizens to indicate that America and Americans have different states of mind, different surroundings, and different political cultures than other nations, and still others use it to refer to the American dream and the slow yet continuous journey of the people of the United States, sharing a nation and a destiny, to build a more perfect union, to live up to the dreams, hopes, and ideals of its founders, so that "these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this Earth."

So the next time, a wing nut tries the hackneyed argument that 9/11 changed everything, you can effectively counter that by citing some or all of the above examples You can even mention that infamous Aug. 6, 2001 PDB "Bin Laden Determined to Attack U.S." but the Bush Administration decided to blow that off until after the fact.

Even if you limited to just the attacks on American soil, the changed everything argument is absurd because it ignores the 1993 WTC attacks which ultimately led to 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing, which should have changed everything but didn't.

The other thing you could point out to torture fans is that the Bush Administration's ability to protect us from terrorist attacks AFTER 9/11 was a meager one week — those anthrax attacks that they have convenient amnesia — and not the eight years that Cheney and the rest of his goons are claiming.

A version of this diary appears on Daily Kos under the byline of Dirk McQuigley.

Republican Circular Reasoning 101

If you watched yesterday's network talk shows or the past week of cable television, Republicans seem to have two simultaneous talking points concerning torture: no crimes were committed by those that crafted the legal opinions which "legalized" torture; and that  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is guilty because she "knew about the torture which wasn't "torture."

This ride on the GOP circular reasoning ferris wheel is so tortured (PUN clearly intended) that I feel my head will explode listening to the inherent contradictions in these simultaneous arguments.

Glenn Greenwald wrote how American Exceptionalism is coloring how the Traditional Media cover "torture" in other countries. Greenwald describes how the New York Times, in an obituary of a Korean War veteran that was captured and imprisoned by the Chinese and was subject to torture, but when Americans are accused, the paper only calls it "enhanced interrogation techniques."

This is how the Times described the treatment of former pilot Charles Fischer:

From April 1953 through May 1955, Colonel Fischer — then an Air Force captain — was held at a prison outside Mukden, Manchuria. For most of that time, he was kept in a dark, damp cell with no bed and no opening except a slot in the door through which a bowl of food could be pushed. Much of the time he was handcuffed. Hour after hour, a high-frequency whistle pierced the air.

After a short mock trial in Beijing on May 24, 1955, Captain Fischer and the other pilots — Lt. Col. Edwin L. Heller, First Lt. Lyle W. Cameron and First Lt. Roland W. Parks — were found guilty of violating Chinese territory by flying across the border while on missions over North Korea. Under duress, Captain Fischer had falsely confessed to participating in germ warfare.

 

Greenwald mocks how hypocritical Mainstream Media organs like the Times have been, especially after their completely non-objective cheerleading for war against Iraq.

So that's torture now?  To use the prevailing American mindset:  a room that doesn't meet the standards of a Hilton and some whistling in the background is torture?  My neighbor whistles all the time; does that mean he's torturing me?  It's not as though Fischer had his eyes poked out by hot irons or was placed in a coffin-like box with bugs or was handcuffed to the ceiling.

Also, using the editorial standards of America's journalistic institutions -- as explained recently by the NYT Public Editor -- shouldn't this be called "torture" rather than torture -- or "harsh tactics some critics decry as torture"?  Why are the much less brutal methods used by the Chinese on Fischer called torture by the NYT, whereas much harsher methods used by Americans do not merit that term?  Here we find what is clearly the single most predominant fact shaping our political and media discourse:  everything is different, and better, when we do it.  In fact, it is that exact mentality that was and continues to be the primary justification for our torture regime and so much else that we do.

Opposition to torture is not ideological by nature. Not every American clamoring for torture prosecutions is some pajama wearing lefty blogger like myself.  John Sifton, writing in the center-right blog, the Daily Beast, makes perhaps the most compelling point as to why torture is a crime and is ALWAYS a crime. 

A simple fact is being overlooked in the Bush-era torture scandal: the number of cases in which detainees have been tortured to death. Abuse did not only involve the high-profile cases of smashing detainees into plywood barriers (“walling”), confinement in coffin-like boxes with insects, sleep deprivation, cold, and waterboarding. To date approximately 100 detainees, including CIA-held detainees, have died during U.S. interrogations, and some are known to have been tortured to death.

 I have a theory about the torture cum homicide. Now I not a lawyer, but we have a very basic concept in this country called Felony Murder. For example, if I drive the getaway car in a bank robbery and a police officer is killed during the heist, I could be prosecuted for Felony Murder even though I personally did not kill the officer.

The rule of felony murder is a legal doctrine in some common law jurisdictions that broadens the crime of murder in two ways. First, when an offender kills accidentally or without specific intent to kill in the course of an applicable felony, what might have been manslaughter is escalated to murder. Second, it makes any participant in such a felony criminally liable for any deaths that occur during or in furtherance of that felony. While there is some debate about the original scope of the rule, modern interpretations typically require that the felony be an inherently dangerous one, or one committed in an obviously dangerous manner. For this reason, the felony murder rule is often justified by its supporters as a means of deterring dangerous felonies.

According to some commentators, the common law rule dates to the twelfth century and took its modern form in the eighteenth century. Because the rule requires no intent to kill, it has been criticized as unjust. Conversely, it may be argued that the inherent danger of violent felony such as arson or rape suggests an intent to cause or risk serious harm and that thus, all perpetrators should be held accountable for the outcomes of their acts.

Whether or not individuals like Judge Bybee, Steven Bradbury, and John Yoo would personally be charged with Felony Murder hinges on the degree of participation of the individuals that committed the felony:

In the United States, felony murder is generally first degree murder, and is often a capital offense. When the government seeks to impose the death penalty on someone convicted of felony murder, the Eighth Amendment has been interpreted so as to impose additional limitations on the state power. The death penalty may not be imposed if the defendant is merely a minor participant and did not actually kill or intend to kill. However, the death penalty may be imposed if the defendant is a major participant in the underlying felony and "exhibits extreme indifference to human life".

I would suppose that the individuals that attempt to craft a legally defensible position out of something which is always illegal under both American and International law could reasonably be called Major participants.

Daily Kos front pager McJoan notes that the Homicide was foreseeable: 

The official sanction of torture, in fact, not just the sanction of torture but the before-the-fact decision to use torture as a policy tool had this inevitable consequence: homicide. Torturing people to death wasn't official policy, but once unleashed it was inevitable that abuse would spread and intensify and result in murder. And that should demand a criminal investigation, not just of those directly responsible for the deaths, but of those who authorized them. 

Sifton is not willing to concede all deaths caused by the interrogations were torture, but he argues that clearly many of them were:

It would be overly simplistic to suggest that every detainee death in U.S. custody and every act of abuse was part of an authorized and ordered interrogation program designed and run from the highest levels of the Bush administration. Some deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan appear to have involved military or CIA personnel going “off the rails” and engaging in abusive conduct beyond what even White House lawyers had in mind when they crafted their “enhanced interrogation” policies. And some torture techniques were already in use in Afghanistan and spread there earlier than they were even formally approved.

Yet directly or directly, abuse spread and worsened—detainees started dying. Unlike torture, however, homicide is an uncomplicated crime. A criminal homicide occurs when a person or set of persons simply causes the death of another without legal justification. There is little nuance, little room for escape. Once a person is dead, the killer and those assisted him, those who solicited his crime or aided or abetted it, are accomplices.

The bottom line is that many detainee homicides in Iraq and Afghanistan were the direct result of approval and orders from the highest levels of government, and that high officials in the government are accomplices. Any meaningful investigation of those homicides would reveal the initial authorizations and their link to the homicides (my emphasis).

Homicide presents legal issues impossible to ignore. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice cannot conclude their deliberations about Bush-era torture policies without closely investigating the homicide cases tied to them. One cannot speak glibly of “policy differences” and “looking forward” and “distraction” when corpses are involved.

And yet, the same people who insisted that we follow the" Rule of Law" a decade ago when President Clinton received  consensual — albeit creepy and inappropriate — oral pleasure from an adult woman. We kept hearing that the impeachment was due to the perjury, which we all know was crap since the judge hearing Jones v. Clinton determined that the alleged perjury — while clearly an untrue statement — was immaterial to the case at hand. Nonetheless, the Republican Party and the lawyers for Paula Jones schemed for the next three and a half years to create a perjury trap for the President of the United States because we had to follow the "Rule of Law."

What the torture enthusiasts are arguing NOW is that the rule of law doesn't matter. Not only that but somehow the criminality, which they dispute is actually criminal, is moot because we supposedly stopped attacks as a result of torture.

If only that last point was actually true. New documents released today seem to undercut the argument about attacks being stopped. The torture supposedly stopped an attack on a Los Angeles skyscraper that was featured in the movie Independence Day except that that attack was foiled by the FBI a full six months before the torture actually "worked."

The problem with this logic is that real life is not an episode of "24." The same people who were willing to blow themselves up in order to destroy the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are not going to confess when they are tortured.  These men were all told that they would be martyrs and that 72 virgins awaited them in Heaven. Capitulating to torture would mean a dishonorable death with no Heaven and no 72 virgins — not even a 72 YEAR OLD virgin.

The torture enthusiasts always like to cite that fictional ticking time bomb scenario, but given the fact that these men believe they will be martyrs makes that point absurd. Besides, giving false information would purposely waste time and resources chasing leads that only  ensure that the bomb will go off.

A quick review of these torture enthusiast talking points is: torture is only a crime committed by foreigners and not Americans; this wasn't torture because lawyers working for the Bush Administration said so; the killing of roughly 100 men was neither torture nor homicide because the same people who crafted the torture policy said so; and last, even though torture was not a crime, the fact that Nancy Pelosi knew that torture was committed not only makes her complicit but that and only that is a crime. 

How ordinary Americans end up on the Terrorist Watch List

The FBI should be renamed the Federal Bureau of Incompetence. The gang that failed to investigate suspicious middle eastern men at flight schools BEFORE Sept. 11, bungled the investigation of the anthrax attacks for three years before then fingering the wrong man, and who insisted an Oregon lawyer was linked to deadly terrorist attacks in Madrid five years ago, is back in the news with a  story which will reinforce the notion that they are a bunch of Barney Fife's.

A report released yesterday by the Department of Justice lambasted the Bureau for failing to clear as many as 24,000 Americans that were mistakenly put on the Terrorist Watch List. 

The report strongly criticized law enforcement for relying on outdated and incorrect information in the cases of both innocent and suspected terrorist suspects.

According to Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times, more than one third of the nearly 70,000 records reviewed by DoJ Inspector General Glenn Fine, were wrong. Equally troubling was a Fine's review of 216 actual terrorism cases , that 35 individuals or 15 percent, should have rightfully been added to the TWL but had not been.

In one case, for instance, a Special Forces soldier was investigated and ultimately convicted of stealing some 16,500 rounds of ammunition, C-4 explosives and other matériel from Afghanistan and shipping them to the United States in what investigators suspected might be the makings of a domestic terrorist plot. Yet the suspect was not placed on the watch list until nearly five months after the investigation opened.

“We believe that the F.B.I.’s failure to consistently nominate subjects of international and domestic terrorism investigations to the terrorist watch list could pose a risk to national security,” the inspector general said.

In my opinion, the Bush Administration's reliance on an algorithm known as Mosaic theory was the main problem with the TWL.  The idea behind Mosaic is that guilt or innocence of any terror suspect is moot because potentially some useful information may be gleamed from the investigation.  This is quoted directly from an FBI affadavit:

The business of counterterrorism intelligence gathering in the United States is akin to the construction of a mosaic. At this stage of the investigation, the FBI is gathering and processing thousands of bits and pieces of information that may seem innocuous at first glance. We must analyze all that information, however, to see if it can be fit into a picture that will reveal how the unseen whole operates (My emphasis). The significance of one item of information may frequently depend on knowledge of many other items of information. What may seem trivial to some may appear of great moment to those within the FBI or the intelligence community who have a broader context within which to consider a questioned item or isolated piece of information. At the present stage of this vast investigation, the FBI is gathering and culling information that may corroborate or diminish our current suspicions of the individuals who have been detained. The Bureau is approaching that task with unprecedented resources and a nationwide urgency. In the meantime, the FBI has been unable to rule out the possibility that respondent is somehow linked to, or possesses knowledge of, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. To protect the public, the FBI must exhaust all avenues of investigation while ensuring the crucial information does not evaporate pending further investigation."

So in other words, it didn't matter under Mosaic Theory whether or not people actually belonged on the TWL. I should point out that many of the so-called Enemy Combatants captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere were detained under Mosaic Theory, and of course because the Northern Alliance often got as much $500 per detainee. 

Much as we learned that the torture programs of the Bush Administration were designed to create false confessions. Mosaic seemed to be used to trumpet the prowess of law enforcement, covert agents, and the military in fighting the war on terror. The validity of the charges did not matter because under Mosaic, anything had the potential to be useful, regardless of the fact  of whether or not it actually was.

Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said her group’s monitoring of watch lists indicated that the problems identified at the F.B.I. were endemic to the entire system.

“What this report really shows is that on both ends, the lists are really overinclusive and underinclusive,” Ms. Fredrickson said in an interview. “With 1.1 million names, there’s all sorts of problems that have larded it up, and the whole thing just really needs to be torn down and start a new system.”

Indeed, the TFL needs to be completely overhauled when Senator Kennedy, Congressman John Lewis, the Washington director of the ACLU and the wife of a Republican Senator are mistakenly placed on the list.

The increasingly irrelevant Republican Party

A prominent Republican pollster is questioning the strategy of the GOP's congressional leadership, saying it put the party at risk of being out of touch and irrelevant.

Blogger Greg Sargent is reporting that Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio criticized the tactics of House Minority Leader John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as outdated.

"What are we in a time machine," Fabrizio said.  "We just got clobbered in two successive elections and lost majorities in both houses and the leadership continues to play the same cards."

Sargent noted that Fabrizio took exception to an RNC web ad called "Day 101" which suggests that the current Obama Administration has actually made America less safe and more vulnerable to attack because the President has promised to close Gitmo and no longer will allow interrogators to torture prisoners there.  In addition, the ad features smoldering images of the Pentagon in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Most people are looking to Washington to see how they are going to solve the financial and banking crisis," said Fabrizio.

Besides looking out of touch and irrelevant, the central thesis of the ad is flawed because it reminds viewers that it was the Bush Administration that was in power during Sept. 11 and that those attacks took place nearly nine months into the first term of George W. Bush. Moreover, the ad unwittingly exposes the Republican Party to rank hypocrisy for being hyper critical of the first 100 days of the new Obama Administration while the Bush Administration ignored repeated warnings of potential terrorist attacks, including the now-infamous Aug. 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief "Bin Laden Determined to attack U.S."

The shrill infantile tone that the Republicans have adopted since their historic landslide defeat in the 2008 elections has backfired as the majority of polls suggest that President Obama and the Democrats have actually gained support in the face of continued GOP attacks while the support for the Republican agenda has been eroding.