Glenn Greenwald
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Using bin Laden's 9/11 Defense: Erasing the “Civilian” Category. PLUS: Reckless Abuse of the “pro-Hamas” Label to Justify Censorship & Stigmatize Criticism of Israel
Video Transcript
October 17, 2023
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Good evening. It's Monday, October 16. 

Tonight: in the aftermath of 9/11, the leader of al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, adamantly denied having planned the attack or played any role in it. He did, however, offer theories as to why it was morally and legally justified to target American civilians with violence. Because American citizens choose their leaders, he argued, and then choose them again, when deciding to reelect them, Americans are directly responsible for those leaders' actions, including when they bomb civilians, impose sanctions regimes that starve and otherwise kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, including children; when they destabilize other countries or work to engineer coups in other countries and when they invade and attack other countries as they did with Iraq. 

Indeed, after George W. Bush and Dick Cheney invaded Iraq and then bombed multiple other countries and tortured detainees, and implemented a program of kidnaping called “renditions,” Americans reelected them in 2004 – knowing that – and ratified all of that violence, including violence that ended up killing innocent people. Under bin Laden's theory, American civilians are not really civilians. By ratifying the violence carried out by their government, they became actively complicit in it and thus became legitimate military targets for those seeking to bring reprisals for violence by the United States against innocent people. 

Bin Laden's theory at the time provoked worldwide indignation and revulsion. After all, the category of civilian that he sought to erase was central to the entire post-World War II framework that was implemented by numerous international bodies to prevent the Holocaust or to prevent other civilian targeting atrocities that came to define that war. One reason that the 9/11 attack provoked so much anger and unity around the world was due to the consensus that civilians are civilians in all cases and can never be justifiably targeted by violence. That's called terrorism. Civilian lives are sacrosanct and they can never be deliberately targeted. This has been the consensus, the legal framework in Western morality since at least the end of World War II. 

While bin Laden's theory was widely and vehemently denounced, it has become popularized over the years and all with the same goal that he had: to find a way to justify killing civilians in large numbers, either by deliberately targeting them or dropping bombs and using violence in reckless disregard for their lives. In all wars, especially with the way they're now fought, civilian deaths are inevitable in large numbers, and we all learn the name in order to dismiss that: “collateral damage.” But what bin Laden did – as well as many others who have since followed in his footsteps – is something entirely different: it's a way of justifying either the failure to safeguard those innocent lives or to justify their targeting. If a theory can be offered as to why civilians are actually part of the military or a legitimate military target that one can legitimately destroy, then the responsibility to avoid killing civilians disappears. 

When Hamas launched its horrific attack on Israeli civilians last Saturday, they did so based on the premise that there's no such thing as an innocent Israeli civilian because they elect their governments, which then occupy or blockade Palestinian land, or because they support the killing of innocent people in Gaza, or because they serve in the Israeli Defense Forces. The category of civilian is blurred or even erased when it comes to Israel under the worldview of Hamas. That's what drove what they did in Israel on Saturday. But it's not only Hamas that has embraced this view to justify their targeting of civilians and other atrocities. Over the last week, there have been explicit statements from Israeli officials and their American supporters that promulgate a quite similar theory, namely that because the people in Gaza elected Hamas – they did so the last time an election was permitted – 16 years ago – back in 2007 when most of the population either hadn't been born yet or were far too young to vote – then it means, however, that those so-called “Palestinian civilians” are not quite civilians since they either implicitly or even expertly endorse the violence of their Hamas leaders. The growing invocation of this theory to erode and erase the concept of civilian is quite dangerous and alarming, and we think it merits a good deal of thought and analysis. 

Then: we have heard many accusations over the last week of people who are said to be “pro-Hamas,” namely, people who are said to have justified the massacres carried out against Israeli civilians or who, even worse, in general, are people who are calling for and cheering and advocating the murder of Jews. This rather pernicious label, “pro-Hamas” is often used to vilify anyone questioning, let alone opposing the actions of the Israeli and American governments – close your ears to all of that, we're told because those people are “pro-Hamas” – it's not just used to smear people's character, but it also justifies all sorts of cancel culture campaigns and even the kinds of censorship we have been reporting are now pervading the West in the wake of this new war. Echoing the left-liberal theory to justify censorship, we are told by those supporting such measures of repression: “Now about this war, we're not talking here about free speech. This is different. This is hate speech. This is incitement to violence. These people are calling for the murder of Jews.”

 Are there some people who have justified the attack by Hamas and generally endorse the killing of all Israelis? Yes, of course, there are. You can find people advocating literally any idea if you look hard enough, but as we documented last week at length, the reason it was necessary to highlight people whose names nobody knew until last week – a stray speaker at a DSA rally or some local chapter of a Black Lives Matter group or a non-tenured assistant professor no one had ever heard of – is precisely because this “pro-Hamas” view was actually quite marginalized, really reserved only to the outermost fringes Very few people – almost none with any position of power or influence – did anything other than act with disgust at what Hamas did.

The reason this phrase “pro-Hamas” is being used so indiscriminately – applied to everyone who expresses any criticism about or opposition to the acts of the Israeli and U.S. governments in response, or who insists that the lives of Palestinian civilians have the same value and worth as anybody else's – is the same reason that the people who questioned the Bush-Cheney War on Terror were called “pro-terrorist” and those who opposed the invasion of Iraq were “pro-Saddam,” those who opposed the regime change wars of the CIA in Syria and Libya stood accused of being “pro-Assad” and “pro-Gaddafi” and those who now oppose the U.S. war in Ukraine are vilified as “pro-Putin” or “pro-Kremlin.” It's all designed to create a simple-minded dichotomy – in the words of George W. Bush: “You are either with us or you're with the terrorists.” 

Exactly as it was done back in 2001 and 2002, this rancid propaganda framework is used to justify the imposition of authoritarian powers. As long as you can successfully pin the label “pro-Hamas” to the foreheads of those who dissent from the current war policies, who cares if they're censored, put on a blacklist, fired, made unemployable or worse? After all, they're “pro-Hamas,” who would possibly care what happens to such people? 

The Biden administration announced just a few hours ago – as The Wall Street Journal reported – that “The U.S. military has selected roughly 2,000 troops to prepare for a potential deployment to support Israel, U.S. defense officials said." Don't worry, though they “are not intended to serve in a combat role,” the official said. This war is already more dangerous than the war in Ukraine, and that's a very dangerous war. It's between the U.S. and Russia, the two largest nuclear powers on the planet. In this new war, regional escalation is highly possible, if not likely. The U.S. is already heavily involved, deploying aircraft carriers, providing bombs and money, deploying more aircraft carriers, and now designating troops that might be deployed. Any tactics that are designed to vilify aid, vilify good faith dissent, or worse ones that are designed to justify official state censorship – such as France's banning of all pro-Palestinian protests while still allowing all pro-Israel protests because those are aligned with the government policy – any such tactics like that deserve our scorn and our attention. So that's what we're going to give it tonight as we explore the latest developments in this war between Israel and Gaza and how it is being discussed and exploited in the United States and the West more broadly. 

For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.

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System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

 

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Minnesota Shooting Exploited to Impose AI Mass Surveillance; Taylor Lorenz on Dark Money Group Paying Dem Influencers, and the Online Safety Act
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There've been a lot of revelations over the last 25 years, since the 9/11 attack, of all sorts of secretive programs that were implemented in the dark that many people I think correctly view as un-American in the sense that they run a foul and constitute a direct assault on the rights, protections and guarantees that we all think define what it means to be an American. And a lot of that happened. In fact, much of it, one could say most of it, happened because of the fears and emotions that were generated quite predictably by the 9/11 attack in 2001 and also the anthrax attack, which followed along just about a month later, six weeks later. We've done an entire show on it because of its importance in escalating the fear level in the United States in the wake of 9/11, even though it's extremely mysterious – the whole thing, how it happened, how it was resolved. But the point is that the fear levels increased, the anger increased, the sadness over the victims increased and into that breach, into that highly emotional state, stepped both the government and their partners in the media, which essentially included all major media outlets at the time, to tell people they essentially have to give up their rights if they want to be safe from future terrorist attacks. 

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Glenn Takes Your Questions on the Minneapolis School Shooting, MTG & Thomas Massie VS AIPAC, and More
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We are going to devote the show tonight to more questions that have come from our Locals members over the week. It continues to be some really interesting ones, raising all sorts of topics. 

We do have a question that we want to begin with that deals with what I think is the at least most discussed and talked about story of the day, if not the most important one, which is the school shooting that took place in a Catholic church in Minneapolis earlier today when a former student who attended that school went to the church, opened fire and shot 19 people, two of whom, young students between eight and ten, were killed. The other 17 were wounded, and amazingly, it’s expected that all of them are to survive. The carnage could have been much worse; the tragedy is manifest, however, and there is a lot of, as always, political commentary surrounding the mass shooting attempts to identify the ideology of the shooter in a way that is designed to promote a lot of people's political agenda. So, let's get to the first question.

 It is from @ZellFive, who's a member of our Locals community. He offers this question, but also a viewpoint that I think really ought to be considered by a lot more people. They write:

 

So, I'm really glad that this is one of the questions that we got today because this is a point I've been arguing for so long. So, let me just try to give you as many facts as I possibly can, facts that seem to be confirmed by law rather than just circulating on the internet. 

So, the suspected killer is somebody named Robin Westman, who is 23 years old. After they shot 19 people inside this church, killing two young children, they then committed suicide with a weapon. The person's birth name is Robert Westman, and around 16 or 17 years old, he decided that he identified as a woman, went to court, changed the legal name from Robert to Robin, and began identifying as a trans woman, so that obviously is going to provoke a lot of commentary, and there's been a lot of commentary provoked around that. We will definitely get to that. 

 

The suspected killer also left a very lengthy manifesto, a written manifesto which they filmed and uploaded on a video to YouTube, along with showing a huge arsenal of guns, including rifles and pistols and some automatic weapons. I believe various automatic rifles as well. I don't think they used any of those weapons at school. I believe they just used a rifle and a pistol, if I'm not mistaken. But we'll see about that. 

It was essentially a manifesto both in written terms, but then they also wrote various slogans on each of these weapons and various parts of the weapons. And we're going to go over a lot of what they put there because there's an obvious and instantaneous attempt, as there always is, to instantly exploit any of these shootings before the corpses are even removed from the ground. And I mean that literally. The effort already begins to inject partisan agenda, partisan ideology, ideological agendas to immediately try to depict the shooter as being representative of whatever faction the person offering this theory most hates or to claim that they're motivated by or an adherent of whatever ideology the person offering the theory most hates. And it happens in every single case. 

Oftentimes, there's an immediate attempt to squeeze some unrelated or perhaps even related agenda in and out of it instantly. Liberals almost always insist that whenever there's a mass shooting, it proves the need for a greater gun control without bothering to demonstrate whether the gun control they favor would have actually stopped the person from acquiring these weapons in the first place, whether they were legally acquired, whether they could have been legally acquired, even with gun control measures, it doesn't matter, instantaneously exploiting the emotions surrounding a shooting like this to try to increase support for gun control. Whereas people on the right often do the opposite. 

On the right, they typically will argue that more guns would have enabled somebody to neutralize the shooter more rapidly, that perhaps churches and schools need greater security. We need more police. So, there's that kind of an almost automatic and reflexive exploitation again, almost before anything is known, but there is an even more pernicious attempt to instantly declare that everyone knows the motives of the shooter, that they know the political outlook and perspective of the shooter. They know their partisan ideology and their ideological beliefs in an attempt to demonize whatever group a person hates most. 

This is unbelievably ignorant, deceitful and ill-advised for so many reasons. The first of which is that every single political action, every single ideological movement, produces evil mass shooters. For every far-leftist mass shooter that you want to show or white supremacist mass shooters that you want to show, you can show people who have murdered in defense of all kinds of causes. And so even if you can pinpoint the ideology of the shooter on the same day the shooting happened, I mean, you can develop a clear, reliable, concise and specific understanding of the shooter that you never even heard of until four hours ago, but you're so insightful, your investigative skills are so profound, that you're able to discern exactly what the motive of this person was in doing something so intrinsically insane and evil as shooting up a church filled with young school children. 

The idea that anyone can do that is preposterous on its face. I mean, the police always say, because they're actual investigators, actual law enforcement officers who want to collect evidence that stands up for public scrutiny and also in court, “We don't know yet what the motive is; we're collecting clues.” But almost nobody on Twitter or social media or in the commentariat is willing to say that. Everybody insists immediately, no, the killer was motivated by the other party, the opposite party of the one I'm a member of, or this ideology that's not mine, or in this religion that is the one I like the most to demonize. It's just so transparent and so blatant what is being done here. And yet it's so prevalent. 

I mean, you could go on to social media and principally the social media platform where the most journalists and political pundits, influencers and the like congregate, which is X, and I could show you probably 40 different theories offered definitively with an authoritative voice. Not like, hey, this might be possibly the case, but saying clearly, we know that the killer was motivated by this particular ideology, this particular set of beliefs. And I'm not talking about random X users, I'm talking about people with significant platforms, people who are well-known. 

I could probably show you 40 different theories like that, where every person is purporting to know definitively exactly what the motive of the shooter was and by huge coincidence they all have latched on to whatever ideology or faction or motive most serves their own political worldview to demonize the people with whom they most disagree, or whatever ideology or group of people they most hate. That's always what is done. And I guess in some cases, if a shooter leaves a particularly clear and coherent manifesto, and we have had those sometimes, we have had Anders Breivik in Norway, who made it very clear that his motive was hatred for Muslim immigrants who shot up a summer camp in Norway. We had the Christchurch, New Zealand killer who attacked two mosques and mass murdered dozens of Muslims at a mosque and made clear he was doing so because it was viewed that Islam is a danger. We had the mass shooter in a Buffalo supermarket, who made manifest their white supremacist views. We've had mass shooters who are motivated by hatred of Christianity, as happened in the Nashville shooter attack on a Christian school there, I mean, I could go on and on. 

As I said, every single political faction produces mass shooters, mass killers, evil, crazy people who use violence indiscriminately against innocents in advance of their beliefs. But most of the time, and you might even be able to say all of the times – I mean, maybe I don't like the phrase all of the times because you can conceive of exceptions, but close to all the time, most of the time, people who go and just randomly shoot at innocent people whom they don't know are above all else driven by mental illness and spiritual decay, not by political ideology or adherence to a political cause. That often is the pretext for what they're doing; that may be how they convince themselves that what they are doing is justified. But far more often than not, the principle overriding factor is the fact that the person is just mentally ill or spiritually broken, by which I mean just a completely nihilistic person who has given up on life and wants to just inflict suffering on other people because of the suffering that they feel or their suffering from delusions. 

And this isn't something I invented today. This is something I've long been saying. And I just want to make one more point, which is, even though there are sometimes manifestos that are extremely clear and say, “I am murdering people in a supermarket that is African-American because I hate Black people and I don't think they belong in the United States,” or “I believe that white people are the sole proper citizens of the United States and I want to murder and kill inspired by those other mass murderers” that I mentioned, even then, it may not be the case that the person's representation of what they're is the actual motive because it could be driven by a whole variety of other factors, including mental illness, or all kinds of other issues to be able to conclude in six hours, even with a crystal-clear manifesto that the person did it for reasons that you're ready to definitively assert are the reasons is so irresponsible. It's just so intellectually bankrupt. 

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