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As the U.S. expands military operations in Syria, we look at the Khorasan group, the shadowy militant organization the Obama administration has invoked to help justify the strikes. One month ago, no one had heard of Khorasan, but now U.S. officials say it poses an imminent threat to the United States. As the strikes on Syria began, U.S. officials said Khorasan was "nearing the execution phase" of an attack on the United States or Europe, most likely an attempt to blow up a commercial plane in flight. We are joined by Murtaza Hussain of The Intercept, whose new article with Glenn Greenwald is "The Khorasan Group: Anatomy of a Fake Terror Threat to Justify Bombing Syria."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The United States is continuing to expand its military operations in Iraq and Syria. Late last week, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel deployed a division headquarters unit to Iraq for the first time since the U.S. withdrawal in 2011. The 200 soldiers from the Army’s 1st Infantry Division headquarters will joins 1,200 U.S. troops already inside Iraq. Overnight, U.S.-led warplanes hit grain silos and other targets in northern and eastern Syria. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the attacks killed a number of civilians working at the silos.
While the United States has been bombing areas in Syria controlled by the Islamic State, it has also struck targets connected to a separate militant group that U.S. officials are calling the Khorasan group. If you never heard of the group before this month, you’re not alone. The Associated Press first reported on this new entity on September 13th. In the article, unnamed U.S. officials warned of a shadowy, terrorist group that posed a more imminent threat than the Islamic State. The AP described the group as, quote, "a cadre of veteran al-Qaida fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan who traveled to Syria to link up with the al-Qaida affiliate there, the Nusra Front." It went on to say the group poses a, quote, "direct and imminent threat to the United States, working with Yemeni bomb-makers to target U.S. aviation." Soon, major TV networks began echoing these claims about the Khorasan group.
FOX NEWS REPORTER: They say that they were facing a, quote, 'imminent threat' from the Khorasan group here in the United States.
JEFF GLOR: We are learning about a new and growing terror threat coming out of Syria. It’s an al-Qaeda cell you probably never heard of. Nearly everything about them is classified.
BARBARA STARR: The reason they struck Khorasan right now is they had intelligence that the group of al-Qaeda veterans was in the stages of planning an attack against the U.S. homeland.
AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the Khorasan group, we’re going to go to Toronto, Canada, where we’ll be joined by Murtaza Hussain, a reporter with The Intercept. He wrote a piece with Glenn Greenwald called "The Khorasan Group: Anatomy of a Fake Terror Threat to Justify Bombing Syria." We’ll go to Murtaza Hussain after this break.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We turn right now to Murtaza Hussain, a reporter at The Intercept who, together with Glenn Greenwald, wrote the piece "The Khorasan Group: Anatomy of a Fake Terror Threat to Justify Bombing Syria."
Murtaza, welcome to Democracy Now! Murtaza is joining us from Toronto. Can you talk about what you’ve learned about the so-called Khorasan group?
MURTAZA HUSSAIN: So, the Khorasan group is a group which first came up in the media around September 13th, roughly a week or so before the U.S. bombing campaign of Syria began. Heretofore, no one had heard of this group. It was not known in intelligence circles or among people who follow Syria. And suddenly we saw in the media that this was being described as the major terrorist threat emanating from that country and a direct threat to the U.S. homeland, unlike ISIS. So, this ended up being one of the main justifications for the war on Syria or the military airstrikes which are conducted on Syria, and it became the major media narrative justifying that action.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about, well, for example, where the Khorasan group got its name.
MURTAZA HUSSAIN: So, the Khorasan group, the name itself does not denote any group within Syria that anyone has familiarity with or has heard of before. It’s a name that was developed within the U.S. government to describe a certain set of groups—individuals within the group Jabhat al-Nusra, which is one of the opposition factions fighting the Syrian government. Jabhat al-Nusra is also believed to be a franchise of al-Qaeda within Syria, but unlike al-Qaeda proper, it’s focused exclusively on fighting the government of Bashar Assad. So, in order to justify these strikes against this group, the U.S. had to create a new name to designate these few individuals within that group that they’re looking to target, so they developed this name, the Khorasan group, which identified several fighters who, they say, planned to wage attacks against the United States, as opposed to the government of Bashar Assad, and they conducted the strikes under that justification.
Now, within Syria, people view this group as being indistinguishable from the regular group of Jabhat al-Nusra, and it’s being viewed as an attack on that group, which is why yesterday you saw a statement from that group’s leader vowing revenge for the deaths of his commanders.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to CNN’s Pentagon reporter Barbara Starr talking about the Khorasan group.
BARBARA STARR: What we are hearing from a senior U.S. official is the reason they struck Khorasan right now is they had intelligence that the group of al-Qaeda veterans was in the stages of planning an attack against the U.S. homeland and/or an attack against a target in Europe. And the information indicated that Khorasan was well on its way, perhaps in the final stages, of planning that attack.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Barbara Starr of CNN. Your response?
MURTAZA HUSSAIN: So, in the days leading up to the attack, several anonymous sources suggested that an attack was imminent. They suggested that there were a threat against airliners using toothpaste bombs or flammable clothing. And they said that, like Barbara Starr mentioned, they were in the final stages of planning this attack. After the strikes were carried out, several U.S. officials started walking back that estimation quite far and saying that the definition of "imminent" is unclear, and when we’re saying is a strike about to happen, we’re not sure what that means exactly. So, in retrospect, this definition of a strike being imminent and this characterization of a threat coming from this group, which is very definable and very clear, became very unclear after the strikes, and they suggested through The New York Times the strikes were merely aspirational and there was no actual plot today existing against the United States. So, the actual justification for the strikes was completely negated after the strikes ended, which was something quite troubling.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you mean, negated right after the strikes began, right after the justification worked.
MURTAZA HUSSAIN: Right. So, after the strikes happened and there were statements saying that people were killed and the group had been scattered, James Comey and many others within the U.S. establishment started saying that, "Well, you know, we said the strikes were imminent from this group, but what does 'imminent' really mean? Could be six months, could be a year.’" And other anonymous officials started saying there was not any threat at all, there was not any plan in the works to attack the United States. And then, further it came to light that the Khorasan group itself, which we had been hearing about in the media was a new enemy and was a definable threat against the United States, did not really exist per se; it was simply a group of people whom the U.S. designated within a Syrian opposition faction as being ready to be struck. So, the entire narrative that had been developed, and within the media developed, was completely put to a lie after the strikes. And it was interesting that Ken Dilanian reported the story first in the Associated Press, saying that this was a new threat and a new group, and he was one of the first people to break the story afterwards saying that U.S. officials are now adding more "nuance," is the word he used, to their previous warnings about the group. So, it was kind of a really egregious case of media spin, whereby the media had taken up this narrative of a threat from a new terrorist, and then, after the strikes had been conducted which justified this group, they immediately took the opposite tack, saying that in fact there was no threat that was imminent and the group itself did not exist per se. So, it was really quite a failure of the media, which we’ve seen several times in the past, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned Ken Dilanian of AP. Now, Intercept just put out another story, "The CIA’s Mop-Up Man: L.A. Times Reporter Cleared Stories with Agency Before Publication." Ken Silverstein writes, "A prominent national security reporter for the Los Angeles Times routinely submitted drafts and detailed summaries of his stories to CIA press handlers prior to publication, according to documents obtained by The Intercept." He goes on to say, "Email exchanges between CIA public affairs officers and Ken Dilanian, now an Associated Press intelligence reporter who previously covered the CIA for the Times, show that Dilanian enjoyed a closely collaborative relationship with the agency, explicitly promising positive news coverage and sometimes sending the press office entire story drafts for review prior to publication. In at least one instance, the CIA’s reaction appears to have led to significant changes in the story that was eventually published in the [Los Angeles] Times. Your response to that piece?
MURTAZA HUSSAIN: Right. So, essentially, the administration will seek out reporters who are pliant and willing to work with them to leak stories like this. So, in the sense of those CIA stories, this reporter had his stories vetted. He promised favorable coverage in exchange for access. And again here, the Khorasan group stories first came out with this reporter. And, you know, the media’s role is to ask questions and to vet these claims quite thoroughly, but instead the claims were put out through reporters who were known to give favorable coverage and who were known to, you know, take the administration’s line in exchange for access. And it seems like this happened again, in the sense that here was a reporter who put out the story, they did not vet who the Khorasan group is, what the veracity of these claims are, but they put it out in the media, and it became a media story on its own. So I think that you’re seeing the same narrative replay as happened as we detailed in the previous story, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to another piece that you wrote, Murtaza, "Why the Islamic State is Not Really Islamic," which refers to a letter that has been signed by many Muslims. Can you explain who has written this letter and who it was sent to?
MURTAZA HUSSAIN: So, there was an open letter published to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, from over 120 of the most prominent religious scholars among Muslim scholars in the world. And there was the mufti of Egypt, Bosnia, Nigeria and many other countries around the world, including the United States. And they published an open letter condemning point by point the practices of the so-called Islamic State. And it was purely from a theological standpoint, and they had given a very rigorous critique of the group and found it, by their standards, to be un-Islamic. Now, this goes back to the question of what is or is not Islamic. Islam is not a monolith; it’s subject to interpretations of the people who take part in it. And, you know, this group found them to be decidedly un-Islamic. I think most Muslims around the world would find them to be un-Islamic, despite their pretensions to the contrary.
So, the point I was making in the article is that when you identify them as being Islamic and you say that they are the definition of Islam, you’re playing to their narrative. That’s the legitimacy they want and which today they don’t have, and they’re rejected broadly by Muslims around the world. So it’s important to say that while, you know, they may partake in Islamic dialogue and they may use the symbols of Islam, we cannot let any one group of extremists anywhere define a faith or a civilization which is, you know, identified with by over a billion people around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’ll link to your pieces at democracynow.org. I want to thank you for being with us. We’ve been talking to Murtaza Hussain, who is a reporter with The Intercept. His latest two pieces, "The Khorasan Group: Anatomy of a Fake Terror Threat to Justify Bombing Syria" and "Why the Islamic State is Not Really Islamic." This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.
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As U.S. strikes on Syria expand, Human Rights Watch says a bombing last week on the town of Idlib should be investigated for possible violations of the laws of war. The strikes killed at least seven civilians, including five children, in the early morning hours of September 23 in the village of Kafr Deryan in northern Idlib province. Local activists at the scene of the attack collected and videotaped the remnants from the weapons used in the strikes. Human Rights Watch reviewed the footage and identified the remnants as debris of a turbofan engine from a Tomahawk cruise missile, a weapon that only the U.S. and British governments possess. "Witness accounts suggest that the attack on the village harmed civilians but did not strike a military target, violating the laws of war by failing to discriminate between combatants and civilians, or that it unlawfully caused civilian loss disproportionate to the expected military advantage," HRW details. The group has called on the U.S. government to investigate the allegations and publish its findings. We are joined by Nadim Houry, Human Rights Watch senior researcher for Lebanon and Syria.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Overnight, U.S.-led warplanes hit grain silos and other targets in northern and eastern Syria. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the attacks killed a number of civilians working at the silos. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch is calling for an investigation of possible unlawful U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria last week. According to the group, at least seven civilians, including five children, died in the early morning hours of September 23rd in the village of Kafr Deryan in northern Idlib. Local resident Abu Ossamah said the victims were displaced civilians who had fled the Assad regime.
ABU OSSAMAH: [translated] The military headquarters are far from the city, in the mountains. There are no military headquarters inside the city. All the people who were killed today were displaced civilians from Aleppo fearing the bombs of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president.
AMY GOODMAN: Local activists at the scene of the attack collected and videotaped the remnants from the weapons used in the strikes. Human Rights Watch reviewed the footage and identified the remnants as debris of a turbofan engine from a Tomahawk cruise missile, a weapon only the U.S. and British governments possess. Human Rights Watch put out a statement reading in part, quote, "Witness accounts suggest that the attack on the village harmed civilians but did not strike a military target, violating the laws of war by failing to discriminate between combatants and civilians, or that it unlawfully caused civilian loss disproportionate to the expected military advantage," unquote. The group has called on the U.S. government to investigate the allegations and publish its findings. On Thursday, two days after the attack on the village, Pentagon spokesperson Rear Admiral John Kirby said there had been no "credible" reports of civilian deaths from U.S.-led strikes in Syria.
Well, for more, we’re going to Beirut, to Lebanon, where we’re joined on the telephone by Nadim Houry. He is the Human Rights Watch senior researcher for Lebanon and Syria and the director of the Beirut office.
Nadim Houry, welcome to Democracy Now! Tell us what you have found.
NADIM HOURY: So we were able to speak with three local residents in the village of Kafr Deryan, who told us that there were actually two separate strikes that evening on the village—one that hit, actually, a Nusra group of buildings outside the village, and shortly thereafter, missile strikes that destroyed two homes in the village, that killed seven civilians, as well as two men. There is some contradictory information about the identity of these two men. One person said they may have been Nusra, while others said they were civilians. This is what we know. We also were able to review photographs and footage taken from one of the activists on the ground. We were able to speak to him on Skype. He shared with us his footage from the site where the two homes were destroyed, and we saw evidence of the remnants of the Tomahawk cruise missile that was used on those homes.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, talk about the significance of this, Nadim.
NADIM HOURY: Well, I mean, the first step is, what we need is more clarity exactly what happened. This is why we’re calling for an investigation. Right now, we’ve got local testimonies. The area is very hard for us to reach. It’s very dangerous, so we’re not able to go there ourselves. But we believe that the U.S. should disclose what information it has and should investigate, because there is credible information that civilians were killed and that these strikes may have been illegal, because there’s no evidentiary—evidence of any military target.
Secondly, I think that there’s a very important issue here to be discussed, which is these strikes are supposed to be about protecting civilians and countering terrorists. But if they are killing civilians, they are going to actually attract more support for groups like Nusra and ISIS in northern Syria, and ultimately will be self-defeating of any initiative to protect civilians. So I think it’s very important to have full transparency about these strikes and also to remember that, you know, really, they have to—the U.S., in its strikes, has to respect international humanitarian law, distinguish between civilians and military, but also take all precautionary measures to minimize civilian harm.
AMY GOODMAN: Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the military is aware of the reports of civilian casualties from U.S. airstrikes in Syria, but skeptical of their accuracy. He told the Associated Press, quote, "We don’t believe that there’s much reason to be too concerned about any collateral damage, you know, to civilian property, that kind of thing. But on the civilian casualty issue, certainly we take that seriously, and we’ll continue to look at that and review that as we work through the damage assessment process." Is that enough for you, Nadim Houry?
NADIM HOURY: Not at this stage. You know, we still don’t know—you know, so we’ve got accounts coming from local residents saying there were two different areas targeted—one outside the village, one inside the village. The U.S. still has not disclosed what they were trying to hit. You know, the sort of dismissiveness that we’ve seen over the last few days is not very encouraging. Of course it may take time, but clearly, you know, this was very expensive weaponry that was used, so clearly they were trying to hit something. And it’s important to understand what it was and what measures are being taken to minimize the civilian harm.
So we’re hoping that the U.S. administration would give more details, would conduct an investigation and actually give their answers. And we have not come out with a definite answer about what was hit. We’re saying we’ve got very credible information from three separate sources indicating at least seven civilians were killed, including five children. We’ve got their names. We’ve got images for some of the victims. And we also have a video evidence that what destroyed these homes, where these kids were, was most likely a U.S. Tomahawk missile. Now, you know, the sort of burden shifts now on the U.S. Army to sort of say, "OK, these are the precautionary measures that we took, and this is why we think, you know, there’s no credible reporting that there were civilian casualties," because clearly we find the information to be credible.
AMY GOODMAN: Nadim, this report from Reuters today: "U.S.-led air strikes hit grain silos and other targets in Islamic State-controlled territory in northern and eastern Syria overnight, killing civilians and wounding militants ... The aircraft may have mistaken the mills and grain storage areas in the northern Syrian town of Manbij for an Islamic State base," according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Do you have any more information on this?
NADIM HOURY: Not yet. We’ve seen the reports, and we’re trying to confirm the information. It’s very hard to reach people in Manbij these days. But what I can tell you is people in Manbij had—one person in particular had contacted us because they have a relative in that town, and they were very worried, because some relatives are actually being detained by the Islamic State, they’re civilians, and they were worried that the U.S. would be striking these prisons. So there’s a lot of fear in northern Syria today that some of these strikes will injure civilians. We have to investigate these particular claims about civilians being killed. But, you know, ISIS is not just present outside of towns. They have administration buildings in the middle of towns that they operate. Some of them are military installations. Others are being used by ISIS to administer the towns, including courts, including prisons, where they’re holding inmates and so forth. And we just have to, you know, gather more information.
But clearly there’s a high risk for civilian casualties, and this is why our call is for the U.S. to take maximum precautions to minimize civilian harm and to avoid, you know, any strike that would directly target civilians or a strike that would have a disproportionate impact on civilian victims versus the military advantage that would be had. I think this is very important for the lawfulness of these strikes, but also ultimately also very important for what the U.S. is trying to achieve in Syria at the end of the day. These sort of strikes will end up alienating a lot of civilians in northern Syria. But again, we still don’t know enough, and this is why we’re calling on maximum transparency from the U.S. Army.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the shifting alliances here? You have the Syrian president, Assad, voicing his support for any international antiterrorism effort. You have people struck being people who are fleeing from the Assad regime. Can you talk about what’s happening in Syria right now?
NADIM HOURY: Obviously, it’s very complicated. I think the first point to keep in mind is the issue is not just, you know, there are the good guys and the bad guys, and let’s figure out who the good guys are or not. We have seen, for example, the Assad regime, its army has committed systematic crimes against humanity. We have also seen some groups, such as ISIS and also the Nusra Front, commit crimes against humanity. We’ve also seen some rebel groups commit violations, as well, that are very grave. The key here is, you know, that a lot of these alliances are localized. What we’re seeing now is a lot of this, my enemy—you know, the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. So we see the Syrian government is quite happy to see strikes coming down on ISIS, particularly Nusra, as well, while at the same time they’re clearly—you know, the U.S. government has made it very clear that they don’t consider the Assad government to be a legitimate partner in their alliance. We’ve also seen opposition groups, more mainstream groups, divided in their views. Some have welcomed U.S. strikes on ISIS, because they have also been attacked by ISIS, while others are afraid that what the U.S. strikes will end up doing is reinforcing Assad, the Assad government. So, yes, it is confusing on one level. But for us, the main guiding principle should be, at this stage, protection of civilians. I think if one keeps this principle in mind, it will actually clarify and make it easier to pursue certain priorities in Syria.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Nadim Houry, I want to thank you for being with us, Human Rights Watch’s senior researcher for Lebanon and Syria, director of the Beirut office, where he is speaking to us from in Beirut, Lebanon.
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In an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday, President Obama acknowledged the United States has underestimated the rise of the Islamic State. With the U.S. military operation in Iraq and Syria now expanding, we are joined by Raed Jarrar, Iraqi-American blogger, political analyst, and policy impacts coordinator at the American Friends Service Committee. "The U.S. military force to deal with extremist groups has been tried before, and it has failed miserably," Jarrar says. "The U.S. military intervention is delaying and making a political solution harder."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As we turn now to continue to talk about the U.S. military operations in Iraq and Syria, we turn to President Obama speaking on CBS’s 60 Minutes last night, saying the U.S. underestimated the rise of the Islamic State.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria. Essentially what happened with ISIL was that you had al-Qaeda in Iraq, which was a vicious group, but our Marines were able to quash with the help of Sunni tribes. They went back underground. But over the past couple of years during the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swaths of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos.
AMY GOODMAN: That was President Obama on 60 Minutes. Joining us now in Washington, D.C., Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi-American blogger, political analyst, also the policy impacts coordinator at the American Friends Services Committee.
Raed, your assessment of what’s happening right now and President Obama’s statement that they underestimated the strength of the Islamic State?
RAED JARRAR: I think there is evidence that facts on the ground suggest the contrary, that the U.S. and its allies have been exaggerating the threat of ISIS, especially the threat of ISIS to the United States. So there are very credible analyses coming from the United States itself, from the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center, saying that there is no imminent threat to the U.S. coming from ISIS. Actually, even the United States’ official memo to the U.N. last week justifying its intervention in Syria did not really mention ISIS as a group that is posing threat to the U.S., but rather mentioned the other made-up group, Khorasan, as the group that is threatening the U.S., and therefore the U.S. had to go in in self-defense. So, I think the realities on the ground is that ISIS is definitely a problem. It is an extremist group, and it is a manifestation of a humanitarian, political and military disaster in Iraq. But ISIS doesn’t really pose any threat that is credible to neighboring states, such as Turkey or Iran or Saudi Arabia or Jordan, let alone states that are thousands of miles away, in Europe and the United States. So I would agree with the president’s statement that there was some miscalculation, but I think it was the other way around. It continues to be the other way around. It’s a miscalculation of exaggeration rather than underestimation.
AMY GOODMAN: Raed Jarrar, if war was not an option, what do you feel the U.S. should do? What would be a peaceful solution to what’s happening right now in Iraq and Syria?
RAED JARRAR: Sure. I mean, I think war is one of the options all the time for the U.S., but war is not working. It’s not a good idea. And the use of military force has been tried before to deal with extremist groups in Iraq and elsewhere, and it has failed miserably. So the premise that we can bomb a country into moderation, it doesn’t really have evidence on the ground. We’ve never done that in the past. And usually, military intervention, especially foreign military intervention by the United States, has very devastating political and humanitarian implications on the ground. So if we look at the situation in Iraq and Syria, I just want to give a couple of examples of how the U.S. military intervention is delaying and making a political solution harder.
In Syria, as was mentioned earlier, the U.S. is bombing both ISIS and al-Nusra Front. Al-Nusra Front is one of the main rivals of ISIS. Some of the most bloody battles that happened in the last couple of years happened between al-Nusra and ISIS. So the fact that the U.S. is bombing these two rivals, on the one hand, it’s making the opposition as a whole weaker, because they’re bombing the opposite sides of this inter-rebel fighting. But on the other hand, which is even more important, the U.S. is helping unite these extremist groups, that have been fighting, rather than help draw a wedge between them and keep them separate. So now al-Nusra and ISIS are on their way to unite against what they see as a common enemy. Other groups, even those who are vetted by the U.S., have been condemning the U.S. attacks against al-Nusra, because they see al-Nusra as one of their allies. So there was a public statement by the Free Syrian Army a couple of days ago condemning the U.S. strikes. So you can see that the U.S. attack is making things more complicated in Syria.
In Iraq, it’s the same. There are very legitimate groups in the Sunni areas that fell out of the control of the Iraqi government earlier in the year. And these groups have legitimate grievances that can be addressed through the political process. By bombing them and by funding and training Shiite and Kurdish militias, who are as bad as ISIS when it comes to their atrocities in Iraq, what we are doing, the U.S. is helping unite ISIS with these more legitimate actors, who have been tolerant—not big fans of ISIS, but they’ve been tolerant to ISIS, because they thought they can use it as leverage. Our bombs are helping unite ISIS with these actors rather than isolate them. So, these are the problems.
I think the real solution, the real, lasting solution, will be a political and social one. In Iraq, there were many prospects of social and political solutions in the last couple of years. The U.S. did not really help push that agenda forward, and it kept the situation deteriorating in Iraq, although it had some leverage. But until now, I think there are some possibilities for a real political and social solution in Iraq that would rejoin—would help rejoin all of the Sunni legitimate actors who have been pushed out of the political system, and isolate political extremism and military extremism, including the one that is coming from ISIS. But while we are bombing Iraq and Syria, I don’t think that—I don’t think that will happen. I think the bombs will delay any real solutions, if not make them very complicated and hard to accomplish.
AMY GOODMAN: Raed, I want to thank you for being with us. Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi-American blogger, political analyst, who works with the American Friends Service Committee in Washington, D.C.
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Protests continue in Ferguson, Missouri, calling for the arrest of Darren Wilson, the officer who killed the unarmed African-American teenager Michael Brown. On Friday, officers dismantled an encampment where activists had been living in the weeks since Brown’s death. Some accused police of excessive force. More protests took place over the weekend, including one outside the Ferguson Police Department Sunday night. Two officers were wounded in separate shootings, but police say they were unrelated. The Justice Department has ordered local police to stop wearing bracelets in support of the officer who shot Michael Brown, which read "I Am Darren Wilson." Ferguson officers have also been instructed to stop hiding their identity through obscured nametags or not wearing them at all, saying it conveys a message that "officers may seek to act with impunity." We are joined by Patricia Bynes, Democratic committeewoman of Ferguson Township.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn to Ferguson, Missouri, where protests are continuing over last month’s police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Tension escalated over the weekend when a Ferguson police officer was shot in the arm in an incident that was unrelated to the protests. A new round of protests erupted Thursday after Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson released a video apologizing to Brown’s family more than six weeks after he was killed.
POLICE CHIEF THOMAS JACKSON: I want to say this to the Brown family: No one who has not experienced the loss of a child can understand what you’re feeling. I’m truly sorry for the loss of your son. I’m also sorry that it took so long to remove Michael from the street. The time that it took involved very important work on the part of investigators who were trying to collect evidence and gain a true picture of what happened that day, but it was just too long, and I am truly sorry for that.
AMY GOODMAN: Hours later, Chief Jackson addressed protesters directly, as they shouted questions at him.
POLICE CHIEF THOMAS JACKSON: You don’t have to accept that. That came from my heart. I had to get off that my chest. That’s been sitting there for two months. OK?
PROTESTER 1: Why? Why two months? Why two months? That’s [inaudible].
POLICE CHIEF THOMAS JACKSON: I know. I know it was. I know everybody’s pissed off.
PROTESTER 2: Why did you put him on paid leave? Why did you put him on paid leave?
AMY GOODMAN: After this exchange, Ferguson Police Chief Jackson accepted protesters’ request to join in their march. But almost immediately, his fellow officers began shoving demonstrators and creating what many observers described as a melee. A few people were arrested. The parents of Michael Brown told the Associated Press Saturday they were unmoved by Chief Jackson’s apology.
LESLEY McSPADDEN: I wouldn’t talk to him. I don’t want words. I want action.
MICHAEL BROWN SR.: Apology will be when Darren Wilson has handcuffs, processed and charged with murder. They say that this is America, but we’re not getting treated like we’re Americans. Our fight here is just to open other eyes to understand how we’re feeling and trying to get something done about it.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to St. Louis, where we’re joined by Patricia Bynes, Democratic committeewoman of Ferguson Township, now doing weekly workshops on civic engagement with Ferguson United, which includes several state representatives and Fergusons’s only African-American city councilmember, Dwayne James.
Patricia Bynes, it’s great to have you back again. We were with you on the streets of Ferguson. Can you talk about what’s taken place over these last few days—the apology from the police chief, the parents’ responses we just heard, and even the shooting of the officers this weekend, although it’s not considered related to the protest?
PATRICIA BYNES: Correct. Hi. Yes, good morning. Thursday was a very busy day, with the apology, and then, later on that night, it seemed like the officers instigated a fight. There was several arrests that night. One of them, a woman was even knocked unconscious by the police, and she was carried by her hands and her feet to jail. So, Thursday—after Thursday, it was very apparent that we were going to have a very long weekend. That’s exactly what we had.
Friday, out on the protest site, it was very silent. It wasn’t too much activity. And I think that’s because everyone was tired—the protesters and the officers.
But Saturday night, when those officers were shot at, which was unrelated to the protests—they were not anywhere near the protest site—of course, it’s horrible that people are shooting at police officers. That’s never something that needs to happen. And it’s getting very scary. It’s raising the tension of the officers and also of the community. So we’re not in a very good place.
And even last night, at the protest, we had what was called a "white allies rally," because we wanted to show that this is not just a black issue. This is a human issue. There were eight arrests made last night. They dove into the crowd to pick people who they wanted to arrest, based on basically prior activity and how they were acting that night. And things are still high.
AMY GOODMAN: To be clear, one of the officers who was shot in the arm, he was investigating something at the Ferguson Community Center. Another was not a Ferguson officer, a St. Louis officer who was off duty, in his own clothes, in his own car, on the highway, and there was some kind of drive-by shooting that broke the glass, and he was not seriously injured. And again, even the police are saying this is not related. I wanted to ask you about the photo that surfaced last week on social media that allegedly depicts a Ferguson police officer wearing the "I Am Darren Wilson" bracelet in support of the officer who killed Michael Brown. Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson confirmed the bracelets’ existence and said they were a personal statement for the officers wearing them. On Friday, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division sent a letter to Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson indicating he had agreed to prohibit Ferguson officers from wearing the bracelets while in uniform and on duty. The letter said Jackson had said he would make sure the other municipal agencies working in Ferguson would prohibit their officers from wearing the bracelets, as well. Your response, Patricia Bynes?
PATRICIA BYNES: I certainly agree with that request. We are still having problems here with officers of the law being in proper uniform. On Thursday night, I personally observed officers not wearing their name tags. On Friday, I called the chief of police of the municipality that he represented and asked what’s being done about this, since the Justice Department came out with a statement on Wednesday saying that officers are supposed to be wearing name tags. Last night—I cannot say this for myself, but the protesters said that they saw an officer wearing an "I Am Darren Wilson" bracelet. And I went and I spoke with the line commander and asked him to please investigate that. So we are still having problems with law enforcement showing up in proper uniform, and this is a problem. The seriousness of the "I Am Darren Wilson" bracelets is that it helps just incite and causes tension, which that’s not a part of police professional uniform. So, what they do on their personal time and how they choose to dress, that’s one thing. But when we are in a situation we’re protesting, that’s just not appropriate. And that was a very good call from the Department of Justice. But we’re still having problems, and I am personally going to be following up and asking questions. When I see officers without name tags on, I will be calling their chiefs of police and notifying the Department of Justice.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to also ask you about another protest over a death in police custody. On September 19th in the nearby town of Pagedale, police said they found 21-year-old Kimberlee Randle-King dead in her jail cell. The death was ruled a suicide, which prompted protests from skeptical family and their supporters. This is her sister, Kandice King, and god-sister, Rachel West.
KANDICE KING: They said she strangled herself with her shirt.
REPORTER: I’m sorry?
KANDICE KING: They said she strangled herself with her shirt.
UNIDENTIFIED: And there’s no way.
KANDICE KING: No way.
UNIDENTIFIED: There’s no way possible for her to do it, and I know it.
KANDICE KING: No way possible.
RACHEL WEST: We need answers. We need how. We need why. They’re just following answers. We’re not asking for much. We need solid answers.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Kandice King and god-sister Rachel West on KMOV. Patricia Bynes, do you more about this, as we wrap up in our last minute?
PATRICIA BYNES: I know that protests are continuing to happen about this incident. I know that the family is saying that it’s not like she was suicidal or anything. And she was just brought in for a traffic ticket. So when I see people being knocked unconscious for myself by the police, when I see people being body-slammed and bruised, it really makes me wonder the amount of force that’s taking place. And we have—we’re well past the point of having a serious problem with police enforcement here in the St. Louis County area.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, the grand jury decision on whether to indict Darren Wilson, when that will come down?
PATRICIA BYNES: I have not heard anything other than still thinking that there’s a chance for that to happen in October. And I feel like it should. They should—I believe that October is a fair enough time frame to give as much a thorough—to go over as thoroughly and transparently as possible of this evidence, to stop having this community feel like it’s being held—
AMY GOODMAN: Haven’t they said November or even January, or at least the grand jury would be extended ’til then?
PATRICIA BYNES: That is what they said. And when they found out how angry it made the community, all of a sudden prosecutor Bob McCulloch started doing interviews, saying that, well, it’s still very possible that we could get something back in early October.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Patricia Bynes, I thank you for this update.
PATRICIA BYNES: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Democratic committeewoman of Ferguson Township, who continues to spend her time both in the streets and working on reconciliation in the community and monitoring the police.
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We air a remembrance of Jacob George, an Afghanistan War veteran and peace activist who took his own life on September 17. He was 32 years old. George co-founded the Afghan Veterans Against the War Committee, part of Iraq Veterans Against the War. George was also a musician who biked around the country playing music for peace, a campaign he called "A Ride Till the End." In 2012, at the NATO summit in Chicago, he was among the veterans who hurled their military medals toward the summit gates in an act of protest against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. George spoke openly about his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and with getting Veterans Affairs counselors to understand what he saw as a "moral injury" from his time in Afghanistan. In a storybook that accompanied his musical album "Soldier’s Heart," George wrote: "A wise medicine woman from Arkansas once told me that grief is pain trying to leave the body. If you don’t allow yourself to grieve, it gets stuck. But once you grieve, the body can heal itself. I won’t lie, some of this stuff is heavy. But telling my story is a part of my healing process. And it’s not just veterans who need to heal: all of us need to heal from war and the roster of ailments produced by a nation at war." Hear George playing the banjo and singing his song, "Soldier’s Heart."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We end the segment with a remembrance of Jacob George, an Afghanistan War veteran and peace activist who took his own life earlier this month. George co-founded the Afghan Veterans Against the War Committee, part of Iraq Veterans Against the War. In 2011, he and fellow veteran Brock McIntosh returned to Afghanistan to meet with young Afghan peace activists. McIntosh remembers George bonding with a 15-year-old Afghan boy, who, like George, was a farmer. Together, they discussed, quote, "the absurdity of poor farmers being sent to kill poor farmers while people are starving," McIntosh said. George was also a musician who biked around the United States playing music for peace, a campaign he called "A Ride Till the End." In 2012, at the NATO summit in Chicago, he was among the veterans who hurled their military medals toward the NATO summit gates in an act of protest against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
JACOB GEORGE: My name is Jacob George. I’m from the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas. I’m a three-tour veteran of the Afghan War, paratrooper and sergeant. And I have one word for this Global War on Terrorism decoration, and that is "shame."
AMY GOODMAN: Jacob George spoke openly about his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and with getting VA counselors to understand what he saw as a "moral injury" from his time in Afghanistan. In a storybook that accompanied his musical album, Soldier’s Heart, Jacob George wrote, quote, "A wise medicine woman from Arkansas once told me that grief is pain trying to leave the body. If you don’t allow yourself to grieve, it gets stuck. But once you grieve, the body can heal itself. I won’t lie, some of this stuff is heavy. But telling my story is a part of my healing process. And it’s not just veterans who need to heal: all of us need to heal from war and the roster of ailments produced by a nation at war," he said.
Jacob George killed himself on September 17th, one week after President Obama unveiled the new U.S. military mission against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. George was 32 years old. We go to break with Jacob George singing "Soldier’s Heart."
JACOB GEORGE: [singing] Now, I’m just a farmer from Arkansas.
There’s a lot of things I don’t understand,
Like why we send farmers to kill farmers
In Afghanistan.
Now I did what I was told
For my love of this land,
And I come home a shattered man
With blood on my hands.
And now I can’t have a relationship,
I can’t hold down a job.
Oh, while some may say I’m broken,
I call it a soldier’s heart.
Because every time I go outside,
I’ve got to look her in the eyes,
Oh, and knowing that she broke my heart,
And it turned around and lied.
Oh, I said red, white and blue,
I trusted in you,
And you never even told me why.
Now in the summer of 2002,
I just got off the Pakistan border...
AMY GOODMAN: Jacob George singing "Soldier’s Heart." You can link to the whole song on our website at democracynow.org. He committed suicide on September 17th, an Afghan War veteran. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
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Headlines:
•More Civilian Deaths Reported as U.S. Expands Strikes on Syria
The United States continues to expand military operations in Iraq and Syria with new deployments and bombings. Overnight, U.S.-led warplanes hit grain silos and other targets in northern and eastern Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the attacks killed a number of civilians, though the toll is unknown. Video has emerged of apparent civilian deaths in Idlib, Aleppo and Raqqa. In Aleppo, one witness claimed a bombing hit a residential neighborhood. The U.S.-led offensive also expanded to hit Islamic State positions around the town of Kobani, which has come under a relentless Islamic State assault. The ISIS shelling appeared to intensify over the weekend, forcing more residents to flee. More than 150,000 Syrian Kurds have sought refuge in Turkey over the past week.
•U.S. Deploys New Unit to Iraq; Pentagon Says 15,000 Rebels Needed for Syria Win
In Iraq, the Pentagon has deployed a division headquarters unit for the first time since the U.S. withdrawal in 2011. The 200 soldiers from the Army’s 1st Infantry Division headquarters will joins the estimated 1,200 U.S. troops already inside Iraq. Speaking at the Pentagon, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, said he believes as many as 15,000 rebels will be needed to defeat ISIS in Syria. The United States is currently training around 5,000.
General Martin Dempsey: "There has to be a ground component to the campaign against ISIL in Syria, and we believe that the path to develop that is the Syrian moderate opposition. Five thousand has never been the end state. We’ve had estimates anywhere from 12,000 to 15,000, is what we believe they would need to recapture lost territory in eastern Syria. And I am confident that we can establish their training if we do it right."
•Nusra Front Threatens to Attack U.S. for Syria Bombings
As the U.S.-led strikes continue, an al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria, the Nusra Front, has vowed for the first time to retaliate against the United States. In a video statement, the group’s leader said: "People of America, Muslims will not stand watching their children bombed and killed and you staying safe in your homes." The Nusra Front had previously focused its efforts on the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
•Hong Kong Protests Swell After Harshest Crackdown to Date
Pro-democracy demonstrations have grown in Hong Kong after a police crackdown on student protesters. Thousands of college students launched a class boycott last week after the Chinese government rejected demands for free elections. After police forces moved in on the students, the crowds swelled to tens of thousands of people in the downtown area. Police responded with tear gas and pepper spray in their harshest crackdown since China took control of Hong Kong in 1997.
•Indian PM Greeted by Massive Crowd, Counter-Protest in New York City
President Obama is hosting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House today for their first meeting since Modi’s election in May. On Sunday, Modi appeared before thousands of Indian Americans and dignitaries at New York City’s Madison Square Garden arena. Modi’s visit comes less than a decade after he was barred from the United States over his role in anti-Muslim riots that left more than 1,000 dead. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat, where the killings occurred. He has never apologized for or explained his actions at the time. At a counter-protest outside the arena, Prachi Patankar of the South Asia Solidarity Initiative criticized Modi’s visit.
Prachi Patankar: "As South Asians concerned for advancing basic standards of democracy and human rights in India and universally, we believe that it is our moral responsibility to refuse to go along with the Modi euphoria and continue to voice our concerns and criticisms of bigotry and violence. Not doing so not only justifies this bigotry, but normalizes the acceptance of hateful ideologies and future repressive policies."
On the eve of Modi’s visit, a lawsuit was filed in a U.S. court seeking to hold him to account for the 2002 anti-Muslim riots. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said it would not interfere with the trip because of diplomatic immunity.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest: "Sitting heads of government enjoy immunity from lawsuits in American courts while in the United States. Sitting heads of government also enjoy personal inviability while in the United States, which means they cannot be personally handed or delivered papers to begin the process of a lawsuit. In addition, as a matter of treaty, the heads of delegations to the U.N. General Assembly enjoy immunity while in New York to attend U.N. events. So this means I don’t anticipate that it’s going to have any impact on his very important visit here to the U.S. and to the White House."
On Saturday, Modi addressed tens of thousands of concertgoers attending the anti-poverty Global Citizen Concert in Central Park.
•Cuba Denounces Obama Admin for Extending Embargo
Cuba has denounced the Obama administration for extending the more than 50-year embargo. The White House authorized the trade embargo for another year in a little-noticed move earlier this month. Speaking before the U.N. General Assembly, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said U.S. restrictions on Cuba have worsened under President Obama.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez: "The State Department has again included Cuba in its unilateral and arbitrary list of states that sponsor international terrorism. Its true purpose is to increase the persecution of our international financial transactions in the whole world and justify the blockade policy. Under the present administration, there has been an unprecedented tightening of extraterritorial character of the blockade, with a remarkable and unheard-of emphasis on financial transactions through the imposition of multi-million fines on banking institutions of third countries."
The General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to condemn the U.S. embargo against Cuba each year for more than two decades.
•Protests Continue in Ferguson; Justice Dept. Orders Halt to "I Am Darren Wilson" Armbands
Protests continue in Ferguson, Missouri, calling for the arrest of Darren Wilson, the officer who killed the unarmed African-American teenager Michael Brown. On Friday, officers dismantled an encampment where activists had been living in the weeks since Brown’s death. Some accused police of excessive force.
Tef Poe: "We witnessed the raids of peaceful encampments, officers with no badges."
Taurean Russell: "I saw a woman hog-tied. I saw a young kid, Josh. He was choked."
Tef Poe: "Police used detainees as a bargaining chip last night, promising their release if people would stop standing in the street."
More protests took place over the weekend, including one outside the Ferguson Police Department Sunday night. Two officers were wounded in separate shootings, but police say they were unrelated. The Justice Department, meanwhile, has ordered local police to stop wearing bracelets in support of the officer who shot Michael Brown, which read "I Am Darren Wilson." Ferguson officers have also been instructed to stop hiding their identity through obscured name tags or not wearing them at all, saying it conveys a message that "officers may seek to act with impunity."
•California Ends Forced Sterilizations in State Prisons
California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a measure to end the practice of forced sterilizations in prisons. The move comes after the Center for Investigative Reporting revealed last year nearly 150 female prisoners were surgically sterilized without required state approvals between 2006 and 2010.
•Docs: Top Corporations Paid for Access to GOP Donors
The Republican Governors Association has accidentally disclosed documents showing wealthy donors were able to pay for increased access to the governors’ mansion in several states. According to the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, Republican documents outline how top companies have donated millions of dollars to the secretive Republican Governors Public Policy Committee, which is tax-exempt and not required to list its donors. The top group, known as the Statesmen, gave over $250,000 apiece, with members including Aetna, Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil, Koch Companies Public Sector, Microsoft, Pfizer, UnitedHealth Group and Wal-Mart. In return, donors were given access to private meetings and gatherings with Republican governors to discuss policy. Despite the secrecy, The New York Times reports none of the practices were illegal.
•Senators Call for Probe of New York Fed After Leaked Recordings Suggest Bank Leniency
Two Democratic senators are calling for hearings to probe new allegations the New York Federal Reserve Bank has grown too close to the institutions it is supposed to oversee. A report from ProPublica and This American Life discloses secret audiotapes made by Carmen Segarra, a former Fed employee now suing for wrongful termination. Segarra says she was fired for challenging her colleagues’ deferential treatment of the banks they are tasked with regulating. In one recording, a colleague says he worries the Fed is being too hard on Goldman Sachs.
Unidentified: "I think we don’t want to discourage Goldman from disclosing these types of things in the future. Therefore, maybe some comment that says, ’Don’t mistake our inquisitiveness, and our desire to understand more about the marketplace in general, as a criticism of you as a firm necessarily.’ Like, I don’t want to hit them on the bat with a head, and then they’re going to say, 'Screw it, we're not going to disclose it again. We don’t need to.’"
In response to the recordings, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown are calling for Senate hearings when Congress returns in November
•15 Wounded in Miami Nightclub Shooting
Fifteen people were wounded over the weekend in a shooting at a Miami nightclub. The victims were as young as 11 years old.
•Ghani Sworn in as Afghan President; Cabinet Includes Ex-Warlord
Afghanistan has sworn in Ashraf Ghani as its new president. A former World Bank official, Ghani was declared the winner after a lengthy dispute with opponent Abdullah Abdullah. Ghani’s first vice president is Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek warlord whom Ghani himself once described as a "known killer."
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