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Glenn Greenwald on How to Be a Terror "Expert": Ignore Facts, Blame Muslims, Trumpet U.S. Propaganda
Who are the so-called terrorism experts? In the wake of the Paris attacks, the corporate media has once again flooded its news programs with pundits claiming authority on terrorism, foreign policy and world events. We discuss the growing and questionable field of "terrorism experts" with three guests: Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and co-founder of The Intercept; Lisa Stampnitzky, social studies lecturer at Harvard University and author of "Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented 'Terrorism'"; and Luc Mathieu, foreign affairs reporter for the French newspaper Libération.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: As we continue to cover the fallout from last week’s attacks in Paris, we turn now to look at the growing field of so-called terrorism experts.
REV. AL SHARPTON: Back with me is NBC News terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann.
EVAN KOHLMANN: The cleavages that exist in French society between Muslims and non-Muslims are far more severe than they exist here in the United States.
BROOKE BALDWIN: He is Samuel Laurent, live from Paris. He is the author of The Islamic State and al-Qaeda in France.
SAMUEL LAURENT: The landscape of jihadism and terrorism is deeply changing, and it’s proving to be a much harder task than it used to be for the intelligence service, because it’s very, very difficult now to spot and to stop the threats.
SEAN HANNITY: Joining me now, terrorism expert Steve Emerson.
STEVE EMERSON: Throughout Europe, Sean, you have no-go zones. When I was in Brussels a year ago, when I asked the police to take me to the Islamic zone or the Islamic community area, they refused. They say, "We don’t go there." This goes on in Belgium. This goes on in Sweden, in the Netherlands, in France. It goes on in Italy. I mean, it goes on throughout Europe. So, there are no-go zones.
AARON MATÉ: A few of the so-called terrorism experts who have appeared on television over the past week. That last voice was Steven Emerson, who made international headlines this weekend after this appearance on Jeanine Pirro’s show on Fox News.
JEANINE PIRRO: Developing tonight, new reports that terrorist sleeper cells may have been activated in France. This as we’re learning new details about hundreds of no-go zones across France and other countries that are off-limits to non-Muslims. Steve Emerson, founder of the Investigative Project, joins us.
STEVE EMERSON: These no-go zones exist not only in France, but they exist throughout Europe. They’re sort of amorphous. They’re not contiguous, necessarily, but they’re sort of safe havens. And they’re places where the governments, like France, Britain, Sweden, Germany, they don’t exercise any sovereignty. So, you basically have zones where Sharia courts are set up, where Muslim density is very intense, where the police don’t go in, and where it’s basically a separate country almost, a country within a country. And—
JEANINE PIRRO: You know what it sounds like to me, Steve? It sounds like a caliphate within a particular country.
STEVE EMERSON: It certainly does sound like that. ... And in Britain, it’s not just no-go zones; there are actual cities, like Birmingham, that are totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.
AMY GOODMAN: While Steve Emerson claimed the British city of Birmingham was totally Muslim, it’s in fact a predominantly Christian city. Emerson, who describes himself as, quote, "one of the leading authorities" on Islamic extremist networks, appeared on the BBC Monday and apologized.
STEVE EMERSON: I relied on incorrect research. It was totally irresponsible for me not to have fact-checked the information that I obtained. And it was not done out of any malice, but out of a total irresponsible journalistic practice, which I usually and uniformly don’t practice.
NICK OWEN: Are you aware that our prime minister has called you a complete idiot?
STEVE EMERSON: Yes, I’m aware.
NICK OWEN: What does that make you feel?
STEVE EMERSON: Not great. You know, mistakes are made. What can I tell you?
AMY GOODMAN: While Steve Emerson is making headlines today, many questions have been raised about the entire field of so-called terrorism experts. Another so-called expert, Evan Kohlmann, has been described as "the Doogie Howser of terrorism" for building a career based on essays he wrote on al-Qaeda as an undergrad.
We’re joined now by two guests who have closely analyzed this issue. Joining us from Boston is Lisa Stampnitzky. She’s a lecturer on social studies at Harvard University and author of the book Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented "Terrorism." And from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, we’re joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, co-founder of The Intercept and author of No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State.
Glenn, let’s begin with you. The terror attacks, the Paris attacks took place last week, and the so-called terror experts are in—very prominent all over the networks. Can you talk about who we are hearing from?
GLENN GREENWALD: The concept of terrorism is a very widely debated concept all over the world, and there are incredibly divergent opinions, even about what terrorism is, about who it is who’s perpetrating it, about how it is that you define it and understand it, and whether or not there’s even a meaningful definition of the term at all. And yet you have all of these so-called terrorism experts employed by leading American television networks—all of them, really—and on whom most establishment newspapers rely, who are called terrorism experts and yet who are incredibly homogenous in their views, because they spout the very homogenized American conception of all of those questions.
It’s an incredibly propagandized term. It’s an incredibly propagandistic set of theories that they have. And that’s really what these media outlets are doing, is they’re masquerading pro-U.S. propaganda, pro-U.S. government propaganda, as expertise, when it’s really anything but. These are incredibly ideological people. They’re very loyal to the view of the U.S. government about very controversial questions. They certainly have the right to express their opinions, but the pretense to expertise is incredibly fraudulent. And that’s why they have not just Steve Emerson, the Fox News strain, but really all of them who are held up as the most prominent terrorism experts in the U.S. have a really shameful history of incredible error and all sorts of just very dubious claims, because they’re really just rank propagandists.
AARON MATÉ: And so, Glenn, what allows them to continue perpetuating these myths that you describe? What is the dynamic that allows this expert industry to keep going?
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, there are several aspects to it. I mean, one is the United States government obviously has an interest in making people believe that its very particular and self-serving views of terrorism are not subjective or debatable, but are in fact just objective expertise, and so they do all sorts of things to prop these people up. They give them contracts. They pay them lots of money to teach people inside the government about terrorism. Really most disturbingly of all, they continuously call them as, quote-unquote, "experts" at terrorism trials. And all of these experts then dutifully march forth and say whatever the government wants about the Muslim defendants who are on trial, and help the government obtain conviction after conviction, and get a lot of money in the process.
Part of it is just the role that think tanks play in Washington, which is to lend this kind of intellectual artifice to whatever the government’s policy is or whatever the government wants. And so you have a lot of them who work at think tanks, like Brookings Institute, which employs Will McCants, who misled American media outlets into believing for a full day and then telling the world that the Anders Breivik attack in Norway was actually the work of a jihadist group. Even the more respectable ones are people who generally spout the conventional orthodoxies of the American government about terrorism, and therefore it’s very much in the interest of the U.S. government and these media outlets to continue to depict them not as polemicists and highly opinionated, you know, just participants in debates, but as actual academic experts. And that’s where the fraudulent aspect comes in.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring in Professor Lisa Stampnitzky. Again, your book is called Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented "Terrorism." What do you mean by "disciplining terror"? You carried out one of the first empirical studies of these so-called terror experts on television.
LISA STAMPNITZKY: That’s right. So, "disciplining terror" has a dual meaning. On the one hand, it refers to the attempts of states to get control over the problem of terrorism. On the other hand, it refers to the attempt to develop a discipline of terrorism studies. And that problematic field is the story that I’m telling in the book.
AARON MATÉ: What’s your assessment of the merits of this field in terms of its level of expertise and its seriousness?
LISA STAMPNITZKY: I mean, one of the conclusions I draw is that it’s a very peculiar field in terms of fields of expertise, because there is no strict boundary around it, there is no control according to who can be an expert. There’s no credentialing. And so, you have people coming on TV who are just sort of spouting hysteria and not drawing on any real expert knowledge. And even those who are more serious in the field have no ability to regulate who gets called an expert.
AMY GOODMAN: In 2008, self-described "terrorism consultant" Evan Kohlmann was interviewed on the public radio newshour The Takeway. Host John Hockenberry challenged Kohlmann on his level of expertise.
EVAN KOHLMANN: This is a far-ranging international conspiracy that began, you know, as many as two decades ago, involves hundreds of different people spread around, you know, various different places in the world, and it’s also based in a language and a culture that, you know, to be honest with you, very few Americans are familiar with.
JOHN HOCKENBERRY: Right, and in speaking of that, do you think, now that the movie has been played in open court, and, you know, you’ve achieved a certain amount of notoriety, that it might be time to learn Arabic, maybe go to Afghanistan or Pakistan—
EVAN KOHLMANN: Well, I mean, I—I mean, I—
JOHN HOCKENBERRY: —or familiarize yourself with the culture?
EVAN KOHLMANN: Well, I have a degree in Islam. And, I mean, I do speak some Arabic; I’m not fluent. But, you know, in terms of traveling to Pakistan, trying to do this research right now in Pakistan is extremely difficult. Trying to even get into Pakistan right now to do this is extremely difficult.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Evan Kohlmann, an NBC News analyst. Glenn Greenwald, your comment?
GLENN GREENWALD: And there are so many of them like that. I mean, he’s one of the people called by the U.S. government in these prosecutions, these really dubious prosecutions, of American Muslims for really remote charges of material support for terrorism. And his expertise is basically just that he gets called an expert by the U.S. government. And the more he gets called to testify, the more that expertise builds. That’s really the only foundation for it, is that some people call him an expert because it’s in their interest to do so. There’s another one like him, Matthew Levitt, who was profiled in Harper’s, who has a long history of unbelievably erroneous claims that he makes in service of this agenda. They get paid a lot of money, too. I mean, he goes on—they go on NBC News. They get held up as a terrorism analyst. They get paid for that. They get called as an expert in court. And yet, as that tape said and as Lisa said, there’s really no foundation for the expertise. There’s no Ph.D.s that they have in terrorism studies.
There’s not even agreement about what the word "terrorism" means, which is why the old cliché that one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist is, though clichéd, is so resoundingly true. You can have debates about what terrorism is, about who perpetrates it, and yet all of these so-called experts simply assume the answers to those questions, because if they were, for example, to say that the U.S. government is a state sponsor of terrorism by virtue of its support for death squads in El Salvador or the Contras in Nicaragua or any of the other groups across the United States—across the world that the United States continues to support that engages in violence against civilians for political ends, you would immediately have them eliminated. No major network like CNN or MSNBC or NBC would ever call somebody like that a terrorism expert, even though that’s a very plausible claim to make. It’s an extremely ideological and politicized view that gets called expertise. And they don’t even have the basic attributes of what we generally consider that makes somebody an expert.
AARON MATÉ: Glenn, do you personally use the word "terror," or do you avoid it entirely?
GLENN GREENWALD: I generally avoid it. I mean, you could probably find instances in my writing where I’ve invoked the term, usually just ironically or to refer to the fact that somebody else is using it. But I do think that until we have an understanding of what the term means, it really is a term that ought to be avoided.
There is some amazingly great scholarly research by Rémi Brulin, who was at the Sorbonne and then NYU, where he traces, essentially, the history of this term in political discourse. And what he has described, in a very scholarly way, is that the term "terrorism" really entered and became prevalent in the discourse of international affairs in the late '60s and the early ’70s, when the Israelis sought to use the term to universalize their disputes with their neighbors, so they could say, "We're not fighting the Palestinians and we’re not bombing Lebanon over just some land disputes. We’re fighting this concept that is of great—a grave menace to the world, called 'terrorism.' And it’s not only our fight, it’s your fight in the United States, and it’s your fight in Europe, and it’s your fight around the world."
And there are all these conferences in the late '60s and early ’70s and into the 1980s even, where Israelis and Americans and neocons are attempting to come up with a definition of the term "terrorism" that includes the violence that they want to delegitimize, meaning the violence by their adversaries, while legitimizing—excluding the violence they want to legitimize, namely our violence, the violence of Israel, the violence of our allies. And it was virtually impossible to come up with a definition, and that's why there really is no agreed-upon definition. The term is incredibly malleable, because it’s typically just meant as a term that says any violence we don’t like is something we’re going to call terrorism. And at this point it really just means violence engaged in by Muslims against the West. That’s really the definition of the term "terrorism," the functional definition. It has no fixed definition.
AMY GOODMAN: Glenn, I remember at the beginning, at the Oklahoma City bombing attack, when two names of Arab men were floated. It turned out they were New York taxi drivers who had gone to Oklahoma City to renew their licenses. But those names were put out by the media, and then there was the question: Was this a terrorist attack? When it turned out it was Timothy McVeigh—Timothy McVeigh, who worked with other people, had all the—you know, all the definition of a terrorist attack—then it wasn’t. "Oh, no, it was Timothy McVeigh, and he did this, a white Christian man." No longer did we refer to it as a terrorist attack.
GLENN GREENWALD: Right. I mean, that happens all the time. First of all, it was Steve Emerson, the very same Steve Emerson who just said that Birmingham was an all-Muslim city that no non-Muslims can enter, who was working at the time—either at the time for CNN or just afterwards, who went on, on the air, and was the most influential comment shaping what you just described. And he said the attempt here was to kill as many people as possible, which is a Middle East attribute, and therefore we should assume or highly speculate that this is likely an attack perpetrated by someone from the Middle East, someone who is Muslim. That’s how that narrative actually started. Steve Emerson’s career didn’t suffer at all from that.
But, you know, if you watch how these attacks are discussed, every time there’s an attack where the assailant or the perpetrator is unknown, the media will say it’s unknown whether or not terrorism is involved. And what they really mean by that is: It’s unknown whether or not the perpetrator is Muslim. And as soon as they discover that the perpetrator is a Christian or is American, a white American, they’ll say, "We now have confirmation that this is not a terrorist attack." It’s something else—someone who’s mentally unstable, some extremist, something like that. It really is a term that functionally now means nothing other than Muslims who engage in violence against the West.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, we have a perfect example right now in Colorado Springs. There was a bomb that was affixed that blew up outside the NAACP. The media is not saying right now, as the man is looked for, there is a search for a terrorist going on right now on our own soil in Colorado.
GLENN GREENWALD: Yeah, I remember there was an individual named Joseph Stack who flew an airplane into a government building in Texas, into the side of the IRS, actually. And for the first several hours of the reporting, it was said that the suspicion is that this is a terrorist attack, because it was on a government facility. And then when it was discovered that he was actually a right-wing, anti-tax, anti-government American, they said, actually, this isn’t a terrorist attack, this is just kind of this crazy person who did this for political ends.
You know, I was in Canada about two months ago when those two attacks happened, first one in Quebec and then the other one at the Parliament in Ottawa. And the first one, in the outskirts of Quebec, was somebody—two people who had waited two hours in a car to see a soldier, a Canadian soldier, and then targeted him and ran him over. And that was instantly branded a terrorist attack, even though they purposefully avoided targeting civilians and targeted a soldier of a country that is at war. It really is a term that is so muddled and confused in terms of how it’s used, and it is used for very specific agendas and very ideological purposes.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and then come back to this discussion. We are talking to Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept. We’re also speaking with Lisa Stampnitzky. She is a lecturer at Harvard University, author of Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented "Terrorism." Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Aaron Maté. Our guests are Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept, Lisa Stampnitzky of Harvard University, who wrote the book Disciplining Terror. And we’re joined from Paris by Luc Mathieu, the foreign affairs reporter for the French newspaper Libération, who has written critically of so-called terrorism expert Samuel Laurent. He appeared on CNN last week with host Brooke Baldwin. This is Samuel Laurent.
BROOKE BALDWIN: He is Samuel Laurent, live from Paris. He is the author of The Islamic State and al-Qaeda in France. Samuel, nice to see you, sir. Here’s my question. You know, Fareed was making the point about how this totally seems to be changing the game, the face of terror. These are, you know, seemingly local, perhaps French natives from perhaps a much larger organization. When you watch the video, very trained. What’s your read on this?
SAMUEL LAURENT: Mm-hmm. Well, basically, what you have to understand is that the situation has changed a lot from the time of al-Qaeda. Basically, Qaeda was operating cells. They were breeding them, and they were targeting a specific objective. Nowadays with the Islamic State, what has changed is that the caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is supposed to be the leader of the believers, so therefore he issues some orders at wide. And basically, some of his orders in October and November has been to kill the French, by any possible means. That was his words.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Samuel Laurent, often seen on CNN. Luc Mathieu, you’re with the French newspaper Libération. You have written about who Samuel Laurent is. Can you talk about him?
LUC MATHIEU: Well, it’s difficult to talk about him, because he is not a journalist. He is not an analyst. He is not a former diplomat. He is not a former member of an intelligence community. I mean, he’s describing himself as an international consultant, which doesn’t mean any—which doesn’t mean nothing. So, he wrote like three books, and one was culturally interesting, which was Al-Qaeda in France. So I investigate on that book, and basically nothing is holding together. I mean, facts are not matching. Places he’s supposed to go are not matching. So, there are a lot of mistakes and a lot of approximations and a lot of nonsense in his books.
AARON MATÉ: Lisa Stampnitzky, I want to ask you, what do you think the experts are missing? What issues should they be looking at that these so-called experts are not?
LISA STAMPNITZKY: I mean, I think one of the key difficulties is, A, as Glenn mentioned, that there is no settled definition of what terrorism is, and that insofar as there is a common understanding of what terrorism is, it tends to be that it’s violence that we don’t like. And one of the most interesting things that I show in my book is that that wasn’t always the case. I look at debates on terrorism from the 1970s until 2001. And if you look at when people were first starting to talk about terrorism in the early 1970s, they were talking about it in a very different way.
So, Glenn mentioned this cliché: One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. And that seems almost obvious today, that these are opposed, that you can’t be a terrorist and a freedom fighter. But if you look at the way that people were talking about terrorism or political violence of this sort in the late '60s and early 1970s, this wasn't considered to be in opposition. There wasn’t this assumption that acts of terror as a tactic were necessarily something that was done by people who we think are evil. There was not this moral overlay over it. And this has come to be understood as so basic to understanding of terrorism now that it really clouds any attempt to understand the issue.
AMY GOODMAN: And let me go back to Luc in Paris—first of all, our condolences—and what you’re writing about right now in Libération, what you feel these terrorism experts do not bring us that we should understand about what’s happening in France.
LUC MATHIEU: It’s perhaps too early to say and to be sure of it. We have to look back at al-Qaeda history, because it comes from al-Qaeda in Yemen. We have to look deeply into Islamic State, because one of the three assailants said he was from Islamic State. So, it’s a lot—it’s very messy right now in France, because a lot of people are trying to know exactly where those guys come from, where they went, what they wanted to do exactly. So it’s a bit early to say. I think we are missing. We are missing that. We are still searching a lot.
AARON MATÉ: I want to go back to Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, a former prosecutor. This is from her show on Saturday.
JEANINE PIRRO: We need to kill them. We need to kill them, the radical Muslim terrorists hell-bent on killing us. You’re in danger. I’m in danger. We’re at war, and this is not going to stop. After this week’s brutal terror attacks in France, hopefully everybody now gets it. And there’s only one group that can stop this war: the Muslims themselves. Our job is to arm those Muslims to the teeth, give them everything they need to take out these Islamic fanatics. Let them do the job. Let them have at it. And as they do, we need to simply look the other way.
AARON MATÉ: That’s Jeanine Pirro of Fox News, a former prosecutor in Westchester, also a former judge. Glenn Greenwald, it’s easy to make fun of Fox News, but your response to this? And how does—how do attitudes like these play out in the corporate media, generally?
GLENN GREENWALD: I mean, you know, if you listen to her, Jeanine Pirro, that clip you just played, I mean, she’s obviously psychotic. I mean, that’s just like bloodthirsty fascism in its purest, you know, expression. But I don’t really think that the substance of what she’s saying, to the extent one can attribute substance to those comments, is really all that rare or even controversial in the U.S. I mean, we have been a country that has declared ourselves at war with some formulation of Islam, radical Muslims, whatever you want to call it, something that John Kerry actually just affirmed a few days ago, that the French president and others have embraced, as well, over the last week.
And I think this is one of the most pernicious aspects of these so-called terrorism experts and terrorism expertise, which is, if you are an American citizen or if you’re a French citizen or if you’re a British citizen, you have a greater chance of being killed by slipping in the bathtub tonight and hitting your head on the ceramic tile, or being struck by lightning—literally—than you do dying in a terrorist attack. And yet these terrorism experts have it in their interest to constantly hype and exaggerate the threat and fearmonger over it, because that’s how they become relevant. They become relevant in terms of their work. They become relevant in terms of their government contracts and in terms of the money that they make. And it really has infected large parts of Western thinking to view terrorism as a much, much greater threat than just rationally and statistically it really is. And I think that’s—a big part of that is at the feet of these so-called terrorism experts.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank Luc Mathieu, speaking to us from Paris, from Libération. I also want to thank Lisa Stampnitzky, who wrote Disciplining Terror, speaking to us from Boston, Harvard lecturer.
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The FBI and federal prosecutors have recommended felony charges against former CIA director David Petraeus for allegedly providing classified information to a woman with whom he had an extramarital affair. Petraeus resigned in 2012 after admitting to cheating on his wife with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. The recommendation of charges stems from a probe into whether Petraeus gave Broadwell access to his CIA email account and other sensitive material. Attorney General Eric Holder was supposed to have decided by the end of last year on whether to indict. According to The New York Times, the delay has frustrated some federal officials "who have questioned whether Petraeus has received special treatment at a time Holder has led a crackdown" on government whistleblowers. On Sunday, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California urged the Department of Justice not to bring criminal charges against Petraeus, saying "the four-star general of our generation" and "very brilliant man" has "suffered enough." We are joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, who calls Feinstein’s comments "one of the most disgusting you will ever hear. What she’s actually saying is that because David Petraeus is a really important person, that he should be immunized from consequences for his lawbreaking … Dianne Feinstein has called for the prosecution of all sorts of leakers, and yet she exempts David Petraeus."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: But, Glenn, I’d like to ask you to stay with us to talk about another issue. I want to ask you about General Petraeus. The FBI and federal prosecutors have recommended felony charges against former CIA director David Petraeus for allegedly providing classified information to a woman with whom he had an extramarital affair. Petraeus resigned in 2012 after admitting to cheating on his wife with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. The recommendation of charges stems from a probe into whether Petraeus gave Broadwell access to his CIA email account and other sensitive material. Before leading the CIA, Petraeus directed troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Attorney General Eric Holder was supposed to have decided by the end of last year on whether to indict. According to The New York Times, the delay has frustrated some federal officials, quote, "who have questioned whether Petraeus has received special treatment at a time Holder has led a crackdown," unquote, on government whistleblowers.
Speaking on CNN Sunday, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California urged the Department of Justice not to bring criminal charges against General Petraeus.
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: This man has suffered enough, in my view. He’s the four-star general of our generation. I saw him in Iraq. He put together the Army Field Manual. He put together the Awakening and how it worked out. He, I think, is a very brilliant man. People aren’t perfect. He made a mistake. He lost his job as CIA director because of it. I mean, how much do you want to punish somebody?
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein saying General Petraeus isn’t perfect, he’s a very brilliant man, so he shouldn’t be indicted. Your response to this, Glenn Greenwald?
GLENN GREENWALD: I mean, even though Dianne Feinstein is a really good Democrat, and even though what she just said she used just kind of soft tones to say it, it’s actually one of the most disgusting remarks you’ll ever hear. And, I mean, I didn’t actually even realize the full extent of that until I just heard that video; I had only seen the transcript. What she’s really—what she’s actually saying there is that because David Petraeus is a really important person—she says he’s a four-star general, the four-star general of our generation, and a very brilliant man—that he should be immunized from consequences for his lawbreaking, he suffered enough.
Now, what’s so amazing about that is that, first of all, the United States imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world for trivial transgressions. You would never hear Dianne Feinstein or any of those people in Washington saying about ordinary people, "Oh, they’ve suffered enough. They’ve lost their jobs. They’ve been taken away from their family. Let’s free them from prison." But the more amazing thing is, Dianne Feinstein is someone who has called for the prosecution of all sorts of leakers, and yet she exempts David Petraeus.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain what General Petraeus did—interestingly, perhaps brought down by the very surveillance you criticize, Glenn.
GLENN GREENWALD: Right. I mean, what David Petraeus did actually wasn’t that bad. I mean, what he essentially is accused of doing is sharing classified information with his mistress and biographer, Paula Broadwell. And if you were to say to me, just in a vacuum, "Should David Petraeus face felony charges for that behavior?" I would probably say, "No, it was pretty benign. It was something he shouldn’t have done, but it doesn’t strike me as a really serious violation." The problem is, is that the Obama administration has prosecuted a whole array of leakers and put them in prison for behavior at least as innocuous, if not much more so. Stephen Kim, who was allegedly Fox News’s source for a very harmless leak on North Korea, is sitting in prison. Of course, they’ve charged Edward Snowden with felony charges, even though there’s zero evidence of any national security harm. He didn’t actually leak anything to the public; he only gave it to journalists. Dianne Feinstein wrote an op-ed calling for Julian Assange to be prosecuted for exposing war crimes; under the Espionage Act, she wants him prosecuted. And so, you have this whole array of people—
AMY GOODMAN: Of course, Chelsea Manning has been sentenced to—
GLENN GREENWALD: —who have been put in prison for leaking classified information.
AMY GOODMAN: Chelsea Manning has been sentenced to what? More than 35 years.
GLENN GREENWALD: Thirty-five years in prison, and Dianne Feinstein supports that prosecution. And so, you have these noble leakers, who have not harmed national security, endangered nobody, and they’ve been put into prison or threatened with prison for a very long time. And you have David Petraeus, who all of Washington is now acting to protect because he’s a political elite and one of them, and they don’t believe they or people like them should be subjected to the rule of law, which makes—which is what makes that Dianne Feinstein mentality so dangerous.
AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald, we want to thank you for being with us, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. His recent pieces for The Intercept include "Dianne Feinstein, Strong Advocate of Leak Prosecutions, Demands Immunity for David Petraeus" and "In Solidarity With a Free Press: Some More Blasphemous Cartoons." His most recent book, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State. And we’ll link to it at democracynow.org.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, the head of Reporters Without Borders has just flown in from Paris. We’ll speak with her, and then we’ll talk about what’s happened in Nigeria. Stay with us.
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The group Reporters Without Borders is condemning what it calls the "presence of 'predators'" in Sunday’s march over the Charlie Hebdo massacre. The group says it is "appalled by the presence of leaders from countries where journalists and bloggers are systematically persecuted" such as Egypt, Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia joined other Arab and Muslim countries in condemning the attack at the same time as it faced global outrage at the public lashing of jailed blogger Raif Badawi. On Friday, Badawi received the first 50 of 1,000 lashes as part of his punishment for running a liberal website devoted to freedom of speech in the conservative kingdom. One cartoon shared on social networks shows a pencil being flayed by whips. Amnesty International considers Badawi a prisoner of conscience who is being punished for creating an online forum for debate. We are joined by two guests from Reporters Without Borders: Program Director Lucie Morillon, who attended Sunday’s march and was at the site of the Charlie Hebdo attack shortly after it occurred; and Delphine Halgand, U.S. director of Reporters Without Borders.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: The group Reporters Without Borders is condemning what it calls the "presence of 'predators'" in Sunday’s march over the Charlie Hebdo massacre. The group says it is, quote, "appalled by the presence of leaders from countries where journalists and bloggers are systematically persecuted," such as Egypt, Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia joined other Arab and Muslim countries in condemning the attack at the same time as it faced global outrage at the public lashing of jailed blogger Raif Badawi.
AMY GOODMAN: On Friday, Badawi received the first 50 of a thousand lashes on—for punishment for running a liberal website devoted to freedom of speech in the conservative kingdom. One cartoon shared on social networks shows a pencil being flayed by whips. Amnesty International considers Badawi a prisoner of conscience who is being punished for creating an online forum for debate.
Well, joining us now in our New York studio are two guests. Lucie Morillon is the program director for Reporters Without Borders, based in Paris. She arrived in the United States Monday after attending Sunday’s march. She heads back to Paris tonight. She was at the site of the Charlie Hebdo attack shortly after it occurred. And with us also, Delphine Halgand, U.S. director of Reporters Without Borders.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Lucie, how did you get to the site of the attack so quickly?
LUCIE MORILLON: Well, at Reporters Without Borders, we were having a meeting with our director and my deputy, and one of my colleagues came in, and he was waving at us and saying something’s happening. So we told him to come in, with us. I was looking at him, saying, like, "This better be important, because we are discussing important matters." And obviously, it was. He said, "We have done something terrible. It looks like they have been fired—you know, shots fired at Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris, and there might be dead people." So, the first thing we did was to grab bags, notebooks, and to run to the scene.
When we arrived, there were very, very few people. We arrived before the official delegations, the minister of interior, the city—the mayor of Paris, and we were able to—me and our general director, Christophe Deloire, we were able get into the restricted areas with the officials. They knew who we are, and they thought it was important that Reporters Without Borders was there. So we were in front of the office. There were still bullets on the ground. It was just very chaotic. And at some point, we were just wondering who’s dead, what happened. And a man left the office, and he just went into President Hollande’s arms. He burst into tears, and he was saying, "Charb est mort," "Charb is dead." He’s the editor of Charlie Hebdo.
AARON MATÉ: And talk about the response that we’ve seen in France since, over 3.7 million people marching on Sunday, a record for France.
LUCIE MORILLON: Absolutely. This attack, this deadly attack, was an unprecedented attack on journalists and media in France. But the response from the French society has been amazing. We’ve never seen that many people taking to the streets to call for freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and against all of those who are trying to silence journalists. And in the different gathering—we talked about Sunday, but it started on Wednesday. Reporters Without Borders and others called for a demonstration the very evening of that black day. And people went to the streets, like hundreds of thousands of people, and they were, you know, of all origin, all ages, with people who would read Charlie Hebdo and others who would not read or not like what they would publish, but at least they deemed that they had the right to do it and that they should not be losing their lives for it.
AMY GOODMAN: Among the many signs, a French Muslim woman holding a sign, "Je suis Juive," "I am Jewish."
LUCIE MORILLON: Absolutely. It started with Charlie, and then we had this terrible shooting and hostage-taking situation in this kosher shop in Paris. And the crowd was singing on Sunday, "I am a journalist. I am Charlie. I am a Jew. I am a policeman." And again, that was, you know, people from all origins.
AMY GOODMAN: And they were also saying, "Je suis Ahmed," who is the—
LUCIE MORILLON: Yes, exactly.
AMY GOODMAN: —Muslim police officer who was shot dead.
LUCIE MORILLON: Absolutely. The crowd was—and from the very early gatherings, the crowd was cheering for journalists, but also for police, who fell to protect our right to freedom of information.
AMY GOODMAN: So you flew into New York, and you’re flying right out back to Paris. Why are you here?
LUCIE MORILLON: Right. Well, I flew in because last night we had a very important thing to do in New York. There was a gathering organized by one of our board member for an American journalist. His name is Austin Tice. He has been missing in Syria for over two years. And this evening—last evening was an opportunity to call for American news organizations and people to try to help us raise awareness about his case. There’s a campaign to be launched soon by the advertising agency JWT with a blindfold. The idea is to ask for news outlets to wear on their website a blindfold to show that when journalists like Austin Tice are missing, taken hostage or targeted, this is our right to information that is targeted, this is all of us that are being blindfolded.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the U.S. government doing about Austin Tice?
LUCIE MORILLON: Well, that’s a good question. We’d like to know more about what they are doing. For now, we are really frustrated that there are no such information coming out. And this is a way. The more media coverage there will be, the more pressure on the American authorities.
AMY GOODMAN: Delphine Halgand, we last had you on Democracy Now! talking about the crackdown on journalists in the United States. Can you talk about this in light of what we’re seeing now in France?
DELPHINE HALGAND: Oh, you know, I think we all have been very moved to see so much support from the U.S. administration and from the American citizens. All these gathering in New York, in Washington, have really been relayed in France and are very important. And I think all French people know that American people are with us, in a sense, to defend our freedom. Yes, press freedom is not perfect in the U.S. It’s not—press freedom is not perfect in France. But today—on Sunday, millions of people walked in the streets in France, all around the world, to show that maybe terrorists can kill journalists, but they will never kill our freedom.
AARON MATÉ: I’m wondering if this moment in France will lead to any kind of self-reflection in terms of the criticisms that have been leveled against Charlie Hebdo for its depiction of Muslims. In large part, they’re the underclass. They feel stigmatized already. And that, critics say, contributes to the insensitivity of Charlie Hebdo in how Muslims were depicted. No one questions the right to free expression, but does an attack like this—does that lead to maybe some rethinking of how Muslims are caricatured in publications like Charlie Hebdo?
DELPHINE HALGAND: I think you should just look at all the Muslims who were gathering in the street on Sunday and who were saying, "Maybe I disagree with what you were saying, but I’m here to say that you had the right to say it." And I really believe that that’s the freedom that we are defending, and that’s the fight we are here continuing.
AARON MATÉ: What about the fact that you do have laws against anti-Semitism? And Charlie Hebdo has been accused of censoring people or firing someone who wrote something that was considered anti-Semitic?
DELPHINE HALGAND: So, you know, Charlie Hebdo was a very—and is a very provocative satirical weekly. They were mocking all religions, and they are mocking all religions, all politics. And they will continue to do so. And that’s, I think, the important message.
LUCIE MORILLON: Yeah, I mean, we’re often asked if they went too far, if they pushed the envelope on freedom of expression. But no, they just exercised this freedom of expression. Even in France—you point out to the laws we have—it is forbidden to call for hatred, to call for violence, to stigmatize people. But you can criticize religion. There’s a difference between criticizing religion and going after people, criticizing Muslims, Jews and so on. The last time Charlie Hebdo was sued, they won this case. So it means that, you know, even under French law, it was fine, and even under international standards, what they were doing was really freedom of expression. They were not abusing it as we’ve heard. And it’s important, again, that French journalists continue to tackle these issues. The last thing we should do is to resort to self-censorship, although I think all of the people who died for that would just not recognize what the French media might become. That is the next challenge.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you both for joining us. Lucie Morillon is Reporters Without Borders program director in Paris, heading back now. Also, Delphine Halgand, also French, the U.S. director of Reporters Without Borders. And we’ll link to your reports at democracynow.org, as we move to our final story today.
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As the world focused on the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, a massive atrocity was unfolding in Nigeria. On January 3, the Islamist militant group Boko Haram attacked the northern town of Baga and surrounding areas. Over the next several days, hundreds, possibly thousands, of civilians were killed. Fleeing residents were chased into the bush and shot dead, others reportedly drowning in Lake Chad as they tried to swim away. Scores of homes were burned to the ground, and bodies were strewn in the streets. Estimates of the death toll range from around 500 to up to 2,000. Some 30,000 people were also displaced. Amnesty International says the assault on Baga could be the deadliest of the Boko Haram’s six-year insurgency. The group has waged relentless violence in a bid to establish an Islamist state in northern Nigeria. We are joined by Adotei Akwei, managing director of government relations for Amnesty International USA.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: As the world focused on the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, a massive atrocity was unfolding in Nigeria. On January 3rd, the Islamist militant group Boko Haram attacked the northern town of Baga and surrounding areas. Over the next several days, hundreds, possibly thousands, of civilians were killed. Fleeing residents were chased into the bush and shot dead, others reportedly drowning in Lake Chad as they tried to swim away. Scores of homes were burned to the ground, and bodies were strewn in the streets. Estimates of the dead range from around 500 to up to 2,000. Some 30,000 people were also displaced.
AMY GOODMAN: Amnesty International says the assault on Baga could be the deadliest of the Boko Haram’s six-year insurgency.
For more, we’re joined by Adotei Akwei, managing director of government relations for Amnesty International USA, joining us from Washington.
Adotei, thank you for joining us. Talk about what you understand at this point has taken place in Nigeria.
ADOTEI AKWEI: Thank you for having me. As Aaron said, there was a major offensive by Boko Haram about two weekends ago. They overran the Nigerian forces, who ran out of supplies and basically started to flee. And Boko Haram, after consolidating control over the town, the village of Baga, began to systematically execute people, first executing all potential male fighters that could oppose them, but then beginning a rather indiscriminate slaughter of the elderly and of people who could not flee. And to this day, we do not have access to Baga, because it’s too dangerous. The Nigerian forces have not tried to retake the town. And all we’re—we’re just trying to piece together information about how bad the killings were.
AMY GOODMAN: The Nigerian military responded to the Baga massacre by appealing for international support. In a statement, a government spokesperson suggested the attack should end critics of the army’s own alleged abuses, saying, quote, "The attack ... should convince well-meaning people all over the world that Boko Haram is the evil all must collaborate to end, rather than vilifying those working to check them." Adotei Akwei, this appears to be a message to groups like Amnesty International who have accused the military of war crimes during its fight against Boko Haram and other armed groups.
ADOTEI AKWEI: That’s absolutely correct. The Nigerian armed forces, as well as the administration, have had a very consistent line of demanding or requesting assistance on their terms. Amnesty International has documented at least 5,000 people who have been killed by the Nigerian security forces. We’ve also had reports last—we issued a report last fall about detention where torture was basically the modus operandi, and there have been no investigations and certainly no accountability. This has been the major impediment for assistance from the United States to the Nigerian military. And so, it is rather stunning, or rather disappointing, but still stunning, that the Nigerian military is basically making the argument that the slaughter by Boko Haram is bad enough that it doesn’t matter what methods they use, which of course leaves the Nigerian civilian population at increased risk.
AMY GOODMAN: Why the disparity in the number of people that are believed dead? The Nigerian government itself is saying like 150, 160 people. You’re saying you believe 2,000 people were killed last week.
ADOTEI AKWEI: That is correct. And again, we’re working with people who are providing information, you know, and, of course, accurate, precise numbers will take some time to get to. But the Nigerian government has, first, initially downplayed the Boko Haram threat by underreporting numbers. Then they have almost—they’ve also denied actual events have taken place, and they’ve also claimed certain counteroffensives that have never been proven to have actually occurred. So, I think we’re dealing with an administration and with security forces that are determined to control the narrative and the information, and I think that that’s a disservice to the Nigerian people.
AARON MATÉ: Adotei, what accounts for the Nigerian military’s inability to stop these attacks? The Council on Foreign Relations says over 10,000 killed by the Boko Haram last year. It’s been almost a year since over 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped, spawning the "Bring Back Our Girls" campaign. Most of them have not been found. Why have they been so incapable to do anything in the north?
ADOTEI AKWEI: There are a number of reasons. The first that almost everyone agrees on is that corruption has basically weakened the capacity of the military to operate. When Boko Haram seized Baga two weekends ago, the military ran out of ammunition, and then they had to flee. And that was a similar situation in other attacks on villages. So, there’s a capacity issue, which the Nigerian military acknowledges, but does not actually reveal the extent of which. The second, I think, is the morale issue.
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.
ADOTEI AKWEI: Sure. The morale issue, I think, is reflective of some disquiet with the hard-line response that targets males in the region as if they were Boko Haram supporters until they prove themselves innocent. And I think the third is just a question of the actual tactics.
AMY GOODMAN: Adotei, we have to leave it there, Adotei Akwei with Amnesty International. Of course, we’ll continue to cover this issue.
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France Deploys 10,000 Troops to Guard Sites After Attacks
France is deploying an unprecedented 10,000 soldiers inside its own country in the wake of last week’s deadly shootings at a kosher grocery store and the magazine Charlie Hebdo. The soldiers will join nearly 5,000 police officers mobilized to guard Jewish schools, train stations and other sites. France is also taking steps to increase electronic spying. Authorities say several members of a terrorist cell suspected in the attacks may still be at large. Video footage appears to show Hayat Boumeddiene, the partner of supermarket shooter Amedy Coulibaly, arriving in Turkey days before the attack. Turkish authorities say she went to a part of Syria controlled by the Islamic State. As the victims of the killings are laid to rest, the magazine Charlie Hebdo is preparing to publish its first post-attack issue on Wednesday. The cover features the Prophet Muhammad holding a sign that reads, "Je Suis Charlie," or "I am Charlie," with the headline, "All is forgiven."
White House Admits Top Official Should Have Joined Paris March
Secretary of State John Kerry has announced he will fly to Paris later this week in a show of support for France. The Obama administration has come under fire after Obama declined to join 40 world leaders and 1.7 million people at a free speech rally in Paris Sunday. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged the administration should have sent a top official.
Josh Earnest: "Some have asked whether or not the United States should have sent someone with a higher profile than the ambassador to France. And I think it’s fair to say that we should have sent someone with a higher profile to be there. That said, there is no doubt that the American people and this administration stand four-square behind our allies in France as they face down this threat."
It is unclear why Attorney General Eric Holder, who was in Paris for meetings, did not attend the rally.
Record 25,000 Join Anti-Islam Rally in Germany; 100,000 Join Counter-Protests
In Germany, a record 25,000 people joined an anti-Islam rally in the city of Dresden. The far-right group Pegida has held weekly rallies against Islam, but Monday’s was the largest to date. Some marchers carried sign that read "Je suis Charlie," in purported solidarity with the Charlie Hebdo victims. The anti-Islam movement appears to be spreading after last week’s attacks, with hundreds rallying in Oslo, Norway, Monday and more actions planned in Austria and Switzerland. But across Germany, an estimated 100,000 people joined counter-protests against Islamophobia, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for unity.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel: "I would like to add that our former president, Christian Wulff, said that Islam belongs to Germany. This is true. I share this view. That’s why we are doing everything we can to make integration a success."
Merkel attended Sunday’s rally in Paris and is expected to attend a rally today in Berlin organized by Muslim groups to denounce both terrorism and intolerance.
Nigeria: Gov’t Claims 150, Not 2,000, Killed by Boko Haram
Nigeria has said the death toll from an attack by Boko Haram in the northeast stands at 150, including a number of militants, despite reports the toll may be far higher. The government has previously been accused of downplaying such tolls. Local officials say as many as 2,000 people may have been killed when Boko Haram attacked Baga and the surrounding area — in what may be its deadliest attack to date. The Islamist militant group is also suspected in a pair of suicide attacks over the weekend where explosives were strapped to young girls. Cameroon, meanwhile, says it killed 143 Boko Haram militants who attacked a base near the Nigerian border.
U.S. Drops Bid to Force Journalist James Risen to Testify
The Obama administration will not force New York Times investigative reporter James Risen to testify at the trial of his alleged source. Jeffrey Sterling, whose trial is set to open today, is accused of giving Risen secret information that revealed a botched CIA plot to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program. Risen had risked jail time as part of a seven-year legal battle with the administration in a case that came to symbolize its crackdown on whistleblowers. The Obama administration has pursued more leak cases than all its predecessors combined.
U.S. Central Command’s Social Media Hacked by Apparent ISIS Sympathizers
Hackers claiming allegiance to the Islamic State have penetrated the social media accounts of the U.S. military’s Central Command, which oversees U.S. strikes in Iraq and Syria. Central Command shut down its YouTube and Twitter accounts after a series of posts sympathetic to ISIS. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest downplayed comparisons between Monday’s hack and the earlier data breach against Sony Pictures, which the administration blames on North Korea.
Josh Earnest: "I can tell you this is something that we’re obviously looking into and something that we take seriously. However, just a note of caution to folks as they’re covering this story: There’s a pretty significant difference between what is a large data breach and the hacking of a Twitter account."
New Mexico: 2 Police Face Murder Charges for Shooting of Homeless Man
A New Mexico prosecutor has filed murder charges against two police officers for the killing of a mentally ill homeless man which ignited protests against the Albuquerque Police Department. The officers, Keith Sandy and Dominique Perez, will now face a public, preliminary hearing before a judge for the killing of James Boyd last March. Boyd had been confronted by police for sleeping in an unauthorized campsite. Police say he was armed with knives, but video from a police helmet camera shows Boyd apparently agreeing to surrender and turning away to pick up his belongings before officers fire a flashbang grenade, release a dog on him and open fire. At a news conference, Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg said proceedings against the officers would be more transparent than the secret grand juries in other states, which declined to indict the officers who killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
Kari Brandenburg: "Unlike Ferguson and unlike in New York City, some recent high-profile cases, we’re going to know, the public is going to have that information, you all are going to have seen the witnesses, heard the arguments, and you’ll understand, hopefully, perhaps, why the judge made the decision that he or she made."
Albuquerque police have been involved in more than 40 shootings since 2010, 27 of them fatal. Last year a scathing Justice Department probe found most of the department’s fatal shootings were unconstitutional. It is the first time Albuquerque police involved in a shooting have faced murder charges.
Report: NYPD Use of Banned Chokeholds Goes Unpunished
In New York City, a new report has found police have continued to use chokeholds like the one used against Eric Garner, even though they have been banned for more than 20 years. The report by the NYPD inspector general looked at 10 cases of banned chokeholds over the past five years. While a review board had recommended the highest levels of punishment in nine of the cases, the most officers ever faced was a loss of vacation days.
Senate Advances Bill to Approve Keystone XL Pipeline
Lawmakers in the U.S. Senate have advanced legislation to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline despite a vow by President Obama to veto it. A final vote is expected on Friday.
Romney Takes Steps Toward 2016 Presidential Bid; Ryan Drops Out
Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan has announced he will not run for president in 2016. The former vice-presidential candidate, known for promoting deep cuts in public spending, says he wants to pay "undivided attention" to his new post as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. Ryan’s former running mate, 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has signaled he may run again and has reportedly begun contacting backers in key states.
Treasury Nominee Withdraws After Warren-Led Opposition over Wall Street Ties
A Wall Street banker tapped by President Obama for a top post at the Treasury Department has removed himself from the running following opposition from progressives led by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Warren had criticized the nomination of Antonio Weiss, who has spent 20 years at the financial firm Lazard, where he worked on so-called tax inversions, whereby companies like Burger King have moved overseas to dodge U.S. taxes. More than 160,000 people had signed a petition calling for the Senate to reject Weiss’ nomination to the third highest post at Treasury. After withdrawing from consideration for that post, he has taken a job as counselor to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.
Judge Strikes Down South Dakota Same-Sex Marriage Ban
A federal judge has struck down South Dakota’s ban on same-sex marriage. Judge Karen Schreier found the ban "deprives same-sex citizens of a fundamental right," but placed her ruling on hold pending an appeal. Same-sex marriage is currently legal in 36 states and Washington, D.C.
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