reflectivepundit

Strongman al-Assad is Gone. What Now?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

During the last decade, the al-Qaeda related al-Nusra Front was in Syria a minor player in comparison to what was for several years the far larger ISIS organization. Like anyone else following the news, I was surprised by the rapid fall of Syria’s strongman Bashar al-Assad last weekend. I was far more surprised by the leading role that al-Nusra’s successor group Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS) played in the rebellion against Assad.

What now? HTS is among those entities that are designated terrorist organizations in the U.S., the United Kingdom, and other Western countries. HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani is among Washington’s most wanted terrorists with a $10 Mill. reward for information that would lead his arrest.

HTS and al-Jolani seem in control of Damascus, other big cities, and a big chunk of Syrian real estate. According to their Telegram channel and in public declarations they try to keep enough of the institutions of government working so that the country does not suffer the same fate as others after the fall of their authoritarian rulers. Just think what happened in Iraq and in Libya after the fall of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi—endless civil wars between a multitude of factions.

For several years now, al-Jolani has denounced al-Qaeda’s global terrorist agenda and instead embraced the liberation of Syria from the strongman Assad rule as his and his group’s only objective. Today, in Damascus, he dropped his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani and reclaimed his real name Ahmed al-Shara—I suppose to signal his change from terrorist to a now celebrated freedom fighter.

Whether one believes that this man has changed or not, he is now perhaps the most important player in efforts to prevent another horrific consequence in the wake of another strongman’s fall from power. To that end, I understand why London, Paris, and Washington are considering the removal of HTS from their lists of terrorist organizations which would facilitate diplomatic contacts with the new power holder in Damascus.

Initially, at least, there are signs of a swift cooperation between the victorious rebels and high officials of the al-Assad government. The first goal is to establish and maintain order and security. The HTS leader has asked bureaucrats and police to return to work.

Making progress domestically will depend also on the role of former government officials and all kinds of professionals who are now returning from abroad ready to join in the rebuilding of a stable state and one in which the rights of ethnic and religious minorities are assured.

It will be difficult for Ahmed al-Shara to keep the various groups involved in the rebellion united.

What neighboring countries and the international community of nations can and will do and what the fall of strongman Assad means for the new geopolitical realities in the Middle East and the rest of the world, poses another set of questions without definitive answers.

A New Phase in the Israel-Hamas War?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The targeted killing of Saleh al-Arouri, a deputy Hamas leader, along with several leaders of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, and the withdrawal of several IDF brigades from Gaza in the last few days could signal a new phase in the war between Israel and Hamas.

In reaction to the horrific October 6 Hamas attack on Israeli civilians the Netanyahu government left no doubt that the goal of its military response was the complete destruction of Gaza’s de facto ruling group. And there is no doubt that the IDF destroyed major Hamas facilities, including parts of their extensive tunnel system, and part of the group’s military hardware.

Besides the women, children, and men tortured, murdered, and taken hostage by Hamas on October 6, Gazan civilians have been the victims of the hostilities. The Gaza strip is mostly destroyed and its civilian population experiences a humanitarian nightmare.

Hamas leaders were in safe places—often underneath civilian facilities—or abroad.

This week, Israel’s intelligence community and the IDF were able to pinpoint the whereabouts of important Hamas leaders and take them out via drone attack. This action confirmed that an all-out war is less likely to decapitated a terrorist entities leadership than targeted missions carried out by strong intelligence and military capabilities. While such actions may kill at times some innocent civilians, they cannot be compared to the collateral damage in an all-out war. Taking out the second in command and a few other leaders is a big loss for Hamas. But it is not a fatal blow. In the past decades, Hamas has recovered repeatedly and rather quickly from the targeted assassination of several of the top leaders. Losing more important figures in the leadership strata could weaken the group.

The simultaneous withdrawal of thousands of Israeli soldiers from Gaza along with tanks and other military equipment may be another sign that the Netanyahu government might be  changing its war strategy against Hamas in a direction that President Biden and other Western friends and allies have pushed for.

Ultimately, however, taking out Hamas’s leaders, facilities, and weaponry will not solve the conflict between the people in Israel proper and the Palestinian territories.

This will take a political solution that all parties can live with—peacefully.

Supporting Israel—Yes, Supporting Netanyahu—No

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The U.S. government continues to support Israel’s fight against the terrorist entity Hamas and its mission to destroy the state of Israel. In response to Hamas’s unspeakable assault on and brutal killing spree against Israeli civilians on October 7, the United States along with other Western countries recognized and supported the right of Israel to defend its people and its very existence—including militarily. 

I agreed right after the attack. And I agree today. However, there are troubling caveats concerning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and extremists within his cabinet.   

In their private and public appeals President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have been tireless in asking Netanyahu to change the IDF’s conduct of war to prevent or at least minimize the killing and suffering of Gazan civilians as required by international law.  

There are no signs that Netanyahu and his cronies in the cabinet give a damn about Washington’s plea. Nor do they respond to the outcries of fellow-Israelis whose family members are still held hostage somewhere in Gaza. The longer these children, women, and men are held by terrorists, the more likely it is that they will be killed or maimed.

After Biden called repeatedly for a two-state post-war solution, Netanyahu countered with the declaration that Gaza will remain under Israeli military control after the war ends.

The refusal to agree to a two-state solution and thus Palestinian self-rule has been part and parcel of Netanyahu’s and his extremist government’s open and hidden decisions. Among the most questionable policies was according to the New York Times the following:

“For years, the Qatari government had been sending millions of dollars a month into the Gaza Strip — money that helped prop up the Hamas government there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel not only tolerated those payments, he had encouraged them…

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gambled that a strong Hamas (but not too strong) would keep the peace and reduce pressure for a Palestinian state.”

When the Israeli intelligence community got hold of Hamas’s detailed plan to invade Israel and kill citizens and IDF members months before the actual attack, higher ups called the plan “utopian” instead of hardening their defensive lines. They also ignored intelligence reports of military exercises on Gazan territory. Obviously, they were guided by their government’s conviction that Hamas was busy with governing and not with plotting big time terrorist violence. The money flow from Qatar into Gaza, blessed by Netanyahu, financed Hamas’s military hardware.  

These failures on the highest level of the government led to the death of more than 1,330 Israelis on October 7, hundreds of injured persons, and the captivity of  200 victims. It led to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas that killed and injured thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians and displaced millions.

In the weeks and months before October 7, Netanyahu and his government were the targets of massive protests because of their efforts to weaken the Israeli Supreme Court and make more room for their authoritarian designs. Since then, opinion polls show that the prime minister’s disapproval increased.

The war gives Netanyahu a protective shield. It should not.

MAGA Attack Dogs in the House Are Ideological Brethren of Violent Far-Right Extremists

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In 1978, the founder of the Hitler-worshipping, neo-Nazi organization “National Alliance” William Pierce self-published book titled “The Turner Diaries” under the pseudonym Andrew MacDonald. For the last fifty years, the book has been the most influential how-to-do guide for violent far-right extremists. The poorly written diary of a fictious White supremacist named Earl Turner describes how members of the revolutionary “Organization” attack and eventually defeat the hostile U.S. government or what they call the “System.”   

The revolutionaries’ first major target is the F.B.I. headquarters building in Washington, D.C. in order to weaken the System’s law enforcement muscle. One of Turner’s comrades drives a fertilizer truck bomb into the building. According to the diary, “approximately 700 persons were killed in the blast or subsequently died in the wreckage…” He justifies the mass killing by blaming the failure of the “System” to “preserve a White America. Before long, Earl Turner becomes a member of “The Order,” the System’s elite unit.

A few years after the “Turner Diaries” were published, Robert Matthews called his break-away group from the neo-Nazi “Aryan Nations” organization “The Order” signaling his plan to bring Earl Turner’s narrative into the real world. There were several shoot-outs between Matthew’s group and F.B.I. agents. In the early 1980s, Matthews along with Louis Beam, an Aryan Nations leader, and several other White supremacists planned the bombings of F.B.I. field offices in several cities, among them Denver, Kansas City, New Orleans, Minneapolis, and St. Louis. The F.B.I. arrested them, before they could strike.

Ten years later, Timothy McVeigh was inspired by the “Turner Diaries” to detonate a fertilizer truck bomb near the Federal Building in Oklahoma City that housed an F.B.I. field office and other federal agencies. 168 persons were killed, hundreds injured. McVeigh left no doubt that his number one target was the F.B.I. office.

For Earl Turner’s Organization, Robert Matthew’s The Order, McVeigh’s leaderless two-person cell with militia connections, and contemporary violent far-right extremists, the common denominator is propaganda to delegitimate and violence to weaken the federal government and especially the F.B.I.  

This anti-government ideology was for many decades limited to fringe groups—from the Ku Klux Klan to the Patriot and Militia movements and the contemporary White nationalists.

But during the Trump presidency and thereafter the MAGA devotees in the Congress have embraced the dangerous anti-government ideology of violent far-right groups and QAnon conspiracy theorists.

During Wednesday’s hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, the Republican members led by committee chair Jim Jordan, showed this mindset, when they altered a testimony session with F.B.I. director Christopher Wray into an ugly inquisition. Wray, a life-long Republican, was appointed by then ex-president Donald Trump. As the New York Times reported, “Even though Mr. Wray sat alone at the witness table, his Republican interlocutors made it clear the entire bureau, and its 38,000 employees, was in effect on trial.”

Representative Chip Roy (R-Tex.) called the FBI “tyrannical” and Jordan cited in his opening statement a recent Louisiana Court ruling that states ludicrously, “The United States government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian Ministry of Truth” and singled out the F.B.I.  

While the bomb throwing in the contentious hearing was rhetorical, it signaled a more dangerous threat than actual terrorist bombs: The extreme right MAGA faction in the GOP, among them elected members of the U.S. Congress, and presidential candidates for 2024, consider the FBI an enemy and talk about defunding the agency. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is reportedly considering the impeachment of Attorney General Merrick Garland.

These are serious threats to democracy which needs law enforcement agencies and an overall judiciary system independent of partisan manipulation.  

For Trump’s GOP Violence is “Political Discourse”

When it comes to violence, we know for a long time that Donald Trump is like the emperor without cloths: he does not hide his love of brutal force for the sake of his own power. He does not hide most of his illegal actions but describes and celebrates them in public. He is naked, when it comes to any shame. He is an empty vessel, when it comes to a moral compass.  

And now, the Republican Party, already on bended knees, has revealed its complete surrender to its fascist leader and his complete disregard of the legal anchor of this nation: The Republican National Committee censored their members Rep. Liz Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger for participating in the congressional investigation of the January 6^th events. They charged the only two Republicans courageous enough to stand up for democracy for taking part in the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

However incredible it is: One of the two major political parties in the oldest continuous democracy declared today openly that terrorist and insurgent violence is “legitimate political discourse” among “ordinary citizens.” Obviously, the leading GOP party hacks felt the urgent need to second Donald Trump’s promise to January 6^th terrorists, insurgents, and fellow-plotters in the White House and elsewhere that he might pardon them all, when back in power.

50 years ago, Hannah Arendt wrote about violent movements,

If goals are not achieved rapidly, the result will be not merely defeat but the introduction of the practice of violence into the whole body politic. …The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world.

That’s exactly what we are experiencing now: When Trump and his MAGA movement failed to overturn the election and keep him in office on January 6^th, 2021, violence became part of body politic in America.

Neo-Nazis march now openly in American streets, display swastikas, and attack Jewish Americans. The violent Far Right and its organized groups have friends in high places claiming to provide security.

Violence as political discourse has no place in democracy. Embracing violence as is a giant step to fascism.

Especially, when it becomes the doctrine of a major political party.

The Two Decades since 9/11 Changed the Country for the Worse

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The attacks of September 11, 2001, by far the worse deadly strikes on the American mainland from the outside, are rightly remembered on the 20^th anniversary as a dark day in the history of the United States. But 9/11 was also a heroic day as far as first responders were concerned many of whom lost their lives as they tried to rescue fellow-Americans from the falling Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

9/11 was also a day, when true patriotism overcame the shock of what seemed an unimaginable act of evil masterminded by Al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden and his henchmen. Yes, true patriotism. About nine months after the U.S. Supreme Court decided the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush, a very controversial decision, partisan and ideological differences made room for unity. When members of Congress appeared jointly in front of the Capitol, there was no division. The message was clear: Leaders in Washington and elsewhere—and we, the people, were not Democrats or Republicans now, they and we were first of all Americans.

As time went by, for sure, rumors and conspiracy theories circulated. The so-called Truthers sought and claimed to have found proof for a CIA/government plot that destroyed the WTC and part of the Pentagon. But while Trutherism found many believers in the post 9/11 era, these conspiracy theorists did not violently invade the U.S. Congress and threaten Democratic governors and state legislators.

Instead, in our own communities, common sense for the good of the whole prevailed. Most of the time. Especially, when problems and issues concerned our children and grandchildren. In school board meetings, parents disagreed. But they did not threaten and physically attack each other or the teachers of their children. 

Today, twenty years after 9/11, the “Stop-the-Steal” and QAnon conspiracy theories continue to fuel political and social polarization. While Al Gore gave a gracious concession speech and pledged his full support to George W. Bush, the former president and his supporters continue to spread the Big Lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. The Big Lie motivated lawless right-wingers to attack the very foundations of our democracy.

On September 11, 2001, 3,000 innocent Americans lost their lives. Reason enough to commemorate the victims and the courageous first responders.

Twenty years later, the Covid-19 pandemic has taken so far 660,000 lives in the United States—220 times more deaths than on 9/11. Of late, close to 1,500 Covid-19 infected persons die in this country every day. One 9/11 in two days!

And yet, given the political and social polarization, there is no nation-wide pulling together as Americans first.  

On 9/11, America was attacked by foreign terrorists.

Today, America is threatened by home-grown terrorists. By White Supremacists/Neo-Nazi groups and radicalized individuals who talk about a coming civil war. They feel emboldened by one ex-president and one political party that continue to downplay the breach of the Capitol on January Sixth.

Yes, the two decades after 9/11 did change the country—change it for the worse.

Women’s Liberation reached the White Supremacy/Neo-Nazi Movement: Females had Leading Roles in the Capitol Breach

By Brigitte L. Nacos

“I can’t predict. I don’t understand the resolve of the Deep State. Biden may still yet be our president. If he is, our way of life as we know it is over. Our Republic would be over. Then it is our duty to fight, kill and die for our rights.” This was the answer given by Jessica Watkins, the self-described commander of an Ohio militia affiliate of the Oath Keepers, when asked by one of her recruits after the 2020 presidential election what she predicted for the new year 2021.

Following the violent assault on the Capitol earlier this year, Watkins received a great deal of news coverage because of her prominent role in the preparation for and execution of the violent invasion. Along with eight others in the Watkin’s led group she was indicted by a Grand Jury of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia with conspiracy to stop, delay, and hinder the congressional certification of the Electoral College vote and four other crimes.

Lost in the “breaking news” barrage in the post-January 6^th days and weeks was the starring role of a surprisingly large number of females among the first wave of violent intruders. Four of the nine members of the Watkins group were women—besides Army veteran Jessica Watkins who is 38 years old, the others were significantly older females: Laura Steele (52), Connie Meggs (59), and Sandra Parker (60).  As surveillance video from the Capitol shows, these four women were in the thick of the crowd pushing into the Rotunda.

 While important as supporting cast, women did not participate directly in violence in right-extremist movements of the past, including White Supremacy/neo-Nazi movements. That was in stark contrast to violent left-extremist movements and groups starting with the anarchists of the 19^th century and more pronounced in the Marxist terrorist organizations of the 1970s and 1980s. Some of the latter, such as the Red Army Faction in then West Germany, had at times more women in the leading strata than men. And females were instrumental in planning and carrying out brutal terrorist attacks. Thus, a saying in some police circles was, “Shoot the women first…”

Now, it seems that female White nationalists are no longer excluded from violent activities of their movement. On the first Friday in March, there were a total of 259 persons charged with crimes in the January 6^th breach of the Capitol according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Columbia.

More remarkable, of those 259 defendants, 31 were women. When adding Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran, who was shot by Capitol police as she forcefully tried to enter the Speaker’s lobby near the House chamber, 12,4% of those forcefully storming into the Capitol were females as aggressive as their male counterparts—in deeds and words as the following examples show:

A Likely Blue Print for the Horrific Invasion of the Capitol

By Brigitte L. Nacos

“Despite all the noise and smoke and wreckage caused by our attack on the Capitol, only 61 persons were killed… But the real value of all our attacks today lies in the psychological impact,    not in the immediate casualties…More important, though, is what we taught politicians and the bureaucrats. They learned this afternoon that not one of them is beyond our reach…All the    armed guards and bulletproof limousines in America cannot guarantee their safety…”

The above sentences in “The Turner Diaries” describe the beginning of a catastrophic global race war that American White Supremacists  and their counterparts in Europe fought and won within eleven months by the destruction of democratic systems, non-Whites, and "hostile" Whites in order to establish a pure White empire.  

Written in the late 1970s by William Pierce, founder of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald, the “novel” became a bestseller among militia circles in the 1990s. For Timothy McVeigh the book was a blue print for planning and carrying out the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995 that killed 168 persons and injured many more.

It has been suggested that ISIS may have influenced the playbook of the organized elements that stormed and invaded the Capitol last week. While that might be the case with respect to certain aspects, for example, ISIS’s savvy exploitation of social media platforms, Pierce’s gruesome prescriptions contain more clues for the present state of mind of organized White Supremacy/neo-Nazi groups and their plans for their short- and long-term objectives.

One of the main differences between ISIS and the various White Supremacy and neo-Nazi groups in the United States has been their unwillingness or inability to unite. The “Unite the Right” demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the summer of 2017 were an effort of “alt-right” ideologists to pull the groups together. It failed.

But President Trump whose starring role in the racist anti-Obama birther conspiracy theory years ago and the anti-immigrant policies as president managed to become the idol behind whom White Supremacy groups finally united. The thousands of men and women whose violence shocked the nation as they forced their ways into the halls of the Congress the other day were united in responding to Mr. Trump’s calls to come to Washington and march to the Capitol in order to prevent the “enemy” from taking the non-existing election victory and the presidency away from Trump and them.

Although indicating that he would march with them, the President retreated to the White House. In that he followed the script of other violent movements’ leaders. Hitler and Mussolini never fought along their parties’ brown and black shirts in the streets; bin Laden and al-Baghdadi did not carry out acts of violence they propagated.

Even after four years of the Trumpian war against the intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security communities some institutional memory still exists in the FBI and other security agencies. Some FBI agents, for sure, remember that “The Turner Diaries” motivated McVeigh and guided his logistical planning. For them and their colleagues it might be worthwhile to read or reread the “novel” as blue print for further violence.

Trump’s Hateful Rhetoric and Political Violence

By Brigitte L. Nacos, Robert Y. Shapiro, and Yaeli Bloch-Elkon

On September 29, 2019, with his impeachment looming, President Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump) retweeted a warning by the Evangelical Pastor Robert Jeffress, “If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” Two days later, U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert, a Republican of Texas, warned Democrats that their “coup” was “pushing America into a civil war.”[1] On far-right websites Trump supporters suggested drastic and even violent actions against the “enemy” within. Some warned that they may need to exercise their Second Amendment rights—in other words, take up arms against the traitors. Responding to one of Trump’s daily Twitter attacks on Adam Schiff, the leading U.S. Representative in the impeachment inquiry, his followers seconded the President’s rhetorical assaults. One male commenter attacked Schiff as “a co-conspiratory [sic] in a coup attempt. This is treason.” That same day, a 52-year old man in Tucson, Arizona, left a death threat on Schiff ’s voice mail. “I’m gonna f_ing blow your brains out,” he warned.[2] The would-be attacker told police officers that “he watches Fox News and likely was upset at something that he saw on the news.” He also stated that “he strongly dislikes the Democrats, and feels they are to blame for the country’s political issues.”[3] In his residence, the police found an AR-15 assault rifle, two pistols, and 700 rounds of ammunition.[4] Although these examples of hate speech and threats of violence seemed shocking, they were merely iterations of Trumpian rhetoric and signposts for significant increases in right-extreme violence and school bullying in the United States. Our research found that Trump’s online and off-line hate speech corresponded with his followers’ aggressive rhetoric, violent threats, and actual violence against Trump’s declared “enemies,” most of all, minorities, the news media, and oppositional politicians.

For the comprehensive research report on the links between Trump's aggressive words and the growth of right-extreme violence read our just published article in the online journal Perspectives on Terrorism.

When a Weak Draft-Dodger Plays Military Strongman

By Brigitte L. Nacos

When civil unrest breaks out in countries ruled by authoritarian leaders, protesters are attacked, injured, and killed by heavily armed police or, more often, by military forces. In democracies top leaders recognize legitimate grievances of peaceful protesters, talk to activists, cool down the heat, and leave the law and order part to local and state leaders—especially with respect to terrorist and criminal violence perpetrated by a small minority of extremist intrudes that exploit these situations for their own causes.

In the last nine days, the U.S. President has not acted like the leader of a democracy and certainly not the American democracy. Instead of recognizing the rightful grievances of African Americans and all people of color—not only concerning the documented police violence, he exploits the violent destruction and looting of properties for his own interests.

In his tweets and public statements this president blames the radical left Antifa for carrying out violence. The fact is that some anarchists are responsible for violent acts designed to increase unrest and weaken the glue that holds citizens and their governing institutions and actors together. But this leaderless movement has at best a few hundred activists. The president does not talk at all about the more serious threat: the many extreme right groups that fit under the umbrella of the alt-right: White Supremacist, Neo-Nazis, White Nationalists—many of them heavily armed and militarily trained. Last weekend, three members of the far-right "Boogaloo" movement were arrested in Las Vegas with Molotov cocktails in their possession as they mingled with “Black Lives Matter” protesters. Boogaloo members, as some other organized right-wing extremists, want to provoke a civil war and turn it into a race war against minorities.

But neither the President nor his Attorney General are interested in countering the political violence, terrorism in other words, by intensifying the work of the very capable counterterrorism community. Instead, it seems that the President and his Enablers consider the violent part of the powerful protest movement in the streets as an opportunity. As Rush Limbaugh said last week, “Trump is having fun watching the fires.”

Fun? Opportunities?

Just think of Monday this week, when military forces were moved into Washington, D.C. and used raw force to remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Park. The uniformed force charged the crowd, beat a team of Australian reporters, and used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. A blackhawk helicopter hovered low over buildings and streets to scare the hell out of ordinary citizens

For Donald Trump, the cowardly draft-dodger, this was a beautifully staged scene to pose as military strongman along the lines of all the autocrats around the world he admires.

We know that nothing will change in Trump’s rhetoric and behavior. Therefore, it is most frightening that his supporting cast plays all roles according to the president’s script. A Defense Secretary who calls American cities “battle spaces” that need to be “dominated.” By force. A chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who marches in camouflage uniform along with the President in the park just “liberated” from citizens. For a macabre photo opportunity that is already fashioned into a campaign ad. Docile Republicans in Congress condoning Trump’s misdeeds by silence or excuses that they are “late for lunch.”

November 3^rd is Election Day. Trump mentioned this date often. I pray and hope that there are more voters on the side of our constitutional rights of “peaceably to assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances” than on the side of a would-be strongman that commands the military.