FBI eyes Hizbollah in US as tensions with Iran rise

[uppityperson]

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-07-18T210731Z_01_N18440948_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-HIZBOLLAH-USA.xml

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The FBI is trying to ferret out possible Hizbollah agents in the United States amid concerns that rising U.S.-Iranian tensions could trigger attacks on American soil, FBI officials said.

Relations between Washington and Tehran, which soured after the 1979 Islamic revolution, have deteriorated further recently over Iran's nuclear program and its support for Hizbollah, the militant Islamic group whose capture of two Israeli soldiers last week prompted Israel to launch retaliatory strikes in Lebanon.

American law enforcement officials are concerned the Lebanon-based Hizbollah, which has so far focused on fund-raising and other support activities inside the United States, could turn to violence in solidarity with Iran. "If the situation escalates, will Hizbollah take the gloves off, so to speak, and attack here in the United States, which they've been reluctant to do until now?" said William Kowalski, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI in Detroit.

Detroit is home to one of the largest Muslim communities in the United States...(more@link including no imminent attack by Hizbollah in USA and American Muslims are worried about anti-arabic/anti-muslim crap again.)

[shadowknows69]

1. Here comes the pre-WWIII round up

and incarceration of anyone muslim or arabic looking that doesn't have an american flag tatooed on their ass (read wallet).

[rubberducky]

2. Somewhere........

I got the crazy idea "we" were a tolerant nation.

[Deja Q]

3. Justified.

Iran has already said it wants to blow Israel off the face of the map. Funny how they didn't say the US, but I highly doubt they have any kind thoughts for us.

I wish the FBI well in this venture. Particularly for accuracy as there are Iranians and Muslims who are no threat at all.

Or think of it this way too: If it is true there are whacko suicide killers out there who are waiting for the word to die and kill as many of us along with themselves as tghey possibly can, what if your neighborhood was a target? Or you? In a way, all of us already is.

I'm not going to get paranoid, but should nothing be done and a bunch of people get blown up? Hasn't enough of that already occurred? I'm not out to get or suggest paranoia, but some common sense wouldn't come amiss either.

Either way, it's out of our hands. Nothing much we can do about it except go about our daily lives and hope and wish for and even pray for the best.

[uppityperson]

5. I hope that they do not use this as an excuse to target Muslims or others

I guess getting your library records doesn't bother you either? If you had nothing to hide, why be afraid? I wish that I could believe that they would be looking for those people who actually do want to do harm, whether white, black, brown or purple, Muslim, Christian or whomeverist. But I do not trust this government to do so. Common sense ain't common a lot of times. That is my concern. And when people like HypnoToad says things like you just wrote as it seems the same stuff I have heard from others about things like PATRIOT Act and other spy programs. Scary times.

[BushOut06]

8. Just curious - is ANY level of scrutiny acceptable?

Just because we have a bunch of assclowns in charge of our government, doesn't mean that there aren't people in this country who want to do us harm. And no, I'm not talking about those kids they caught down in Miami - that's pretty laughable. I fear that there really are terrorist cells in this country who are waiting until the right time to carry out their attacks.

It's not because of anything Bush has done that we haven't been attacked again. The neocons love to throw that around to prove how effective their policies have been. The fact is that Al Qaeda typically waits several years before launching their attacks. It's not because we've done anything to stop them, it's because it just hasn't fit their timetable yet.

There are legitimate methods that authorities can use to track down terrorists - we've had these abilities all along. We have courts that can grant warrants when need be, and they can be applied retroactively in cases. We don't have to turn our society into George Orwell's 1984, but at the same time, we can use common sense and awareness.

[uppityperson]

10. Legitimate scrutiny by people who are actually doing it right, yes

Let's take the easily seen scrutiny of airplanes. You take off your shoes, put them and your carryon through an x-ray machine, walk through a beeping machine, sometimes get "extra" wanded or your carryon hand searched. Little cargo is screened. A family member carried a pocketknife through a couple times and didn't get found, even with a hand search, though they did check out my hearing aid batteries quite closely. A couple wks ago TSA screener stopped an arabic man with hollowed out shoes and electronic components in his carryon but the local police let him go since their computers were down and they couldn't run a further check on him.

I do not trust them to do what they should do as they should do it.

[Spazito]

9. Hell, why not just round up everyone of Arab extraction or looks

like they might be Arab and put them in Gitmo, why bother picking and choosing, you might miss one! Oh, wait a minute, what if there is a non-Arab looking supporter of Hezbollah, oh crap, .....whew, we will just set up multiple camps with the names Hezbollah, Hezbollah supporters, maybe Hezbollah supporters, readers of Arab papers and websites, just in case they might think they might be sympathetic to the Lebanese cause because we KNOW they are one and the same.

[BushOut06]

12. Where in his post does he suggest that?

Not even close, in fact it was quite the opposite.

I don't understand your line of thinking. We know that Hezbollah wants to attack us - hell, they've done it before. They've announced their intentions of doing so again. Why is it so wrong to have the FBI monitor Hezbollah and its affiliated groups here in the US? Nobody has suggested rounding up all Arabs or Muslims.

[Spazito]

14. Where do you stop once you start profiling? Do you believe all of

those who are incarcerated in Gitmo are dangerous terrorists? Do you believe those tortured in Abu Graib were dangerous terrorists? Were they arrested and incarcerated on the chance they MAY be? The FBI has been monitoring all suspect groups already, including Mormons, protesters, you name it, in the US. The term used in the article is "ferret out", what do you think that means given they have been monitoring suspect groups for years?

Do you trust the FBI, the government currently in power to be "accurate" in their investigations? Given what I have read and seen over the past 5 years, I sure wouldn't.

[BushOut06]

17. So what's the answer?

Put our heads in the sand and pretend there is NO threat at all? Just hope and pray that *maybe* they will decide not to ever attack us again?

And who said anything about profiling? If you know that certain specific people - and I'm not making generalized statements here - are affiliated with groups like Hezbollah, doesn't it make sense that you would monitor those individuals? Nobody's talking about monitoring ALL Arabs or Muslims. Let's put it another way - if we knew that neo-Nazi groups were plotting to attack US targets, we would be monitoring groups such as Aryan Nations, National Alliance, etc. It's the same thing here.

But hell, I guess I could be wrong. Maybe we're better off with NO monitoring of anybody whatsoever.

[Spazito]

18. The FBI has ALREADY been monitoring suspected groups, this

is not something new, it has been happening for years. The article talks about "ferreting out", what do you think that means given the FBI has ALREADY been monitoring suspected groups. Do you honestly believe that they have not and are only NOW considering monitoring them?

The history of the current government in the US is NOT one of restraint, not one who believes in civil rights, not one that believes in adhering in international law, hell, they don't even believe in adhering to their OWN laws yet you seem to believe all will be well, there will be NO abuse, no profiling, no incarceration of innocent civilians without charges. Riiiiight.

[IndianaGreen]

19. Yes, the FBI has antiwar groups under surveillance

those dastardly Quakers always agitating against war and calling for peace, they are a threat to Oceania's Long War. What do they think they are?

Agent Mike: While you spend all your time watching us, who is sleeping with your wife?

[Spazito]

21. LOL re Agent Mike! n/t

[Igel]

15. They're going to be looking, I suspect, at many of the

people that they're evacuating.

A large chunk of the Americans in Lebanon are Lebanese. Of those, a large chunk will inevitably be Shi'ite. Some expats have been killed already in the bombing of villages that are firmly in the Hezbollah camp; their families will be greatly displeased.

Given the general assumption that Israel and the US are the same, really, one being the extension of the other, and the kind of vitriol that spews from Hezbollah's mosques ...

Probably won't lead to anything. But I'd like to know the FBI and others are checking.

[Tight_rope]

23. Iran may be says its...but the US is doing it!

I'm so sick of the ignorance of American's. As American, I'm embarrassed, ashamed and disgusted with who are today and what this nation has become.

[BushOut06]

4. I am honestly surprised we haven't had suicide attacks yet

You don't need to hijack jumbo-jetliners, set off backpack nukes, or release Ebola to cause mass panic in this country. All you would need is a handful of suicide bombers around the country - a shopping mall in Los Angeles, downtown cafe in Dallas, Space Mountain at Disney World, etc. Before anyone jumps down my throat, give me one good reason why this couldn't happen here. It's happened many places around the globe, and it's really not that damned hard to get into this country.

[uppityperson]

6. Timothy McVeigh blew up a bunch of people, and it will happen here again

by people of all colors and sects who hate what the gvt, the military, the whomever in the USA has done, or they think has done.

[bemildred]

7. No need to kill yourself.

Weapons and explosives are easy to come by here. Have you heard of the DC snipers? Tim McVeigh? The Unibomber? It's actually quite a long list.

[rastafan]

11. "Second 9/11": Cheney's "Contingency Plan"

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060222&articleId=2032

"Second 9/11": Cheney's "Contingency Plan"

While the "threat" of Iran's alleged WMD is slated for debate at the UN Security Council, Vice President Dick Cheney is reported to have instructed USSTRATCOM to draw up a contingency plan "to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States". This "contingency plan" to attack Iran uses the pretext of a "Second 9/11" which has not yet happened, to prepare for a major military operation against Iran.

The contingency plan, which is characterized by a military build up in anticipation of possible aerial strikes against Iran, is in a "state of readiness".

What is diabolical is that the justification to wage war on Iran rests on Iran's involvement in a terrorist attack on America, which has not yet occurred:

The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing—that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack—but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections. (Philip Giraldi, Attack on Iran: Pre-emptive Nuclear War , The American Conservative, 2 August 2005)

Are we to understand that US military planners are waiting in limbo for a Second 9/11, to launch a military operation directed against Iran, which is currently in a "state of readiness"?

Cheney's proposed "contingency plan" does not focus on preventing a Second 9/11. The Cheney plan is predicated on the presumption that Iran would be behind a Second 9/11 and that punitive bombings would immediately be activated, prior to the conduct of an investigation, much in the same way as the attacks on Afghanistan in October 2001, allegedly in retribution for the role of the Taliban government in support of the 9/11 terrorists. It is worth noting that the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan had been planned well in advance of 9/11. As Michael Keefer points out in an incisive review article:

"At a deeper level, it implies that “9/11-type terrorist attacks” are recognized in Cheney’s office and the Pentagon as appropriate means of legitimizing wars of aggression against any country selected for that treatment by the regime and its corporate propaganda-amplification system.... (Keefer, February 2006 )

(continued)

[54anickel]

16. That article was the first thing that popped into my head when I read the

headline. I was just finishing up reading it from another thread. Sheesh, sounds like Cheney would be willing to blame Iran for the next hurricane if he had to.

[CJCRANE]

20. This is closer to the

truth of the situation than the FBI scaremongering.

I doubt Hezbollah has any interest or capability to launch attacks on America. Let's face it al-Qaeda didn't have the capability either but they were facilitated by the deliberate lowering of US defenses and funding from Bushco allies.

[joeclay]

22. Second 9/11

Hmm. Very interesting. Could there be more to Israel's "overreaction" to the captured soldiers than meets the eye? Did Iran ever open that mercantile exchange -- the one that the Iranian government said was going to price its energy in euros instead of dollars and use a Persian Gulf oil as its pricing standard instead of West Texas Intermediate?

[IndianaGreen]

13. This was called the "Red Scare" in the 1950s

The government whips up paranoia about Emmanuel Goldstein, we get a new crop of Joe McCarthys on TV, and all dissenters are quickly accused of being "fellow travelers."

[underpants]

24. Speaking of TV-The Today Show lead with.....

"Can Hezbollah strike here?"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1681854&mesg_id=1681854

[IndianaGreen]

25. Soon they will be calling us "fellow travelers" for calling for ceasefire

and opposing the war in Lebanon, and resisting the neocon/neolib calls for war on Syria and Iran.