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Hey Rupert, the War on Terror Called and It Wants Its Propaganda Back
It’s a pretty old trick for both a Republican administration and its unofficial public relations agents in the Murdoch press to simply label free speech as out of bounds because it “supports terrorism.”
Mar 21, 2025
The arrest and possible deportation of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a Green Card holder with a student visa, for his organizing role at Gaza solidarity protests last year has sent shockwaves throughout American society.
As I wrote at Haaretz (3/11/25), Khalil’s arrest is an intense blow to free speech, as punishment for speech and other First Amendment-protected activities will create a huge chilling effect. In a piece denouncing Khalil’s arrest, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg (3/10/25) quoted American Civil Liberties Union senior staff attorney Brian Hauss saying, “This seems like one of the biggest threats, if not the biggest threat, to First Amendment freedoms in 50 years.”
The Murdoch press has been celebrating the misery visited upon Khalil in a way that hearkens back to the “War on Terror” days.
In a letter (In These Times, 3/18/25) dictated over the phone from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana, Khalil said, “My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”
While a judge blocked his deportation, as of this writing, Khalil is still in ICE custody (Al Jazeera, 3/19/25). AP (3/9/25) reported that his arrest is the first known “deportation effort under Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that swept college campuses” last year. The Trump administration argues, according to the news service, that people like Khalil, whose Green Card was revoked by the State Department, “forfeited their rights to remain in the country by supporting Hamas.”
Alarms Raised
Many in the media have raised alarms about the extreme threat to free speech represented by Khalil’s arrest. Even the editorial board (3/12/25) of the increasingly Trump-panderingWashington Post warned, “If the secretary of state can deport a legal resident simply because he dislikes his or her views, whose First Amendment rights are next?” Other corporate newspapers and outlets (Bloomberg, 3/11/25; USA Today, 3/13/25; Boston Globe, 3/14/25; Financial Times, 3/14/25) published similar defenses of Khalil’s First Amendment rights, arguing that his arrest fundamentally threatens American liberty.
There is a good reason for the outcry. Khalil has not been charged with a crime, but the executive branch, without consulting a judge, revoked his legal status based on his political speech. As The Intercept (3/13/25) described, the federal government is invoking the Immigration and Nationality Act, in which the secretary of state has
the authority to request the deportation of an individual who is not a U.S. citizen, if they have “reasonable ground to believe” the individual’s presence in the country hurts the government’s foreign policy interests.
The Department of Homeland Security justified the arrest on its claims that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas.” In other words, the Trump administration has revoked Khalil’s green card, arrested him, and intends to deport him based on his constitutionally protected protest activities.
Rupert Murdoch’s outlets, rather than speak out against this shredding of the First Amendment, have been promoting the Trump administration line. The Murdoch press has been celebrating the misery visited upon Khalil in a way that hearkens back to the “War on Terror” days.
‘Inimical to the U.S.’
The New York Post (3/10/25) ran the cover headline “ICE Knowing You!” Its editorial board (3/9/25) childishly wrote that “ICE has put fresh teeth on President Donald Trump’s crackdown on campus hate. Hooray!” It said that the anti-genocide protest “movement was never merely about protest.”
Two scholars at the right-wing Manhattan Institute, Ilya Shapiro and Daniel DiMartino, took to the Post op-ed page (3/11/25) to counter the free-speech defense of Khalil. They deemed the Gaza protests “illegal,” saying that stripping permanent residents of the legal protections for those “who reject our values or are hostile to our way of life” doesn’t threaten constitutional freedom.
If demanding a cease-fire in Gaza is pro-Hamas, then a lot of Americans would be guilty, too.
While admitting “we don’t know the details of the due process he’s been given”—which is a crucial consideration when it comes to constitutional protections—the duo said, “But one thing is clear: The executive branch has the authority to vet noncitizens based on their views, thanks to the laws Congress has passed and the Supreme Court has upheld.”
The Post piece repeats a point Shapiro made at the conservative City Journal (3/7/25): “While the government can’t send foreigners to jail for saying things it doesn’t like, it can and should deny or pull visas for those who advocate for causes inimical to the United States.” Who decides what are “causes” that are “inimical”? Secretary of State Marco Rubio, apparently.
Fox News (3/12/25) also referred to Khalil as “pro-Hamas,” reporting that the Department of Homeland Security said “that Khalil ‘led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.’” The link between Khalil’s participation in protests and supporting Hamas is spurious on its face. If demanding a cease-fire in Gaza is pro-Hamas, then a lot of Americans would be guilty, too. Younger Americans, in particular, stand out for their support of Palestinians in the current war (Pew Research, 4/2/24).
Not ‘Really About Speech’
The more erudite but no less fanatically right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board (3/12/25) said, “A green card comes with legal obligations, including the disavowal of terrorism,” and that “Khalil seems to have violated that obligation.” The board matter-of-factly stated, “The case against Mr. Khalil will depend on the facts of his support for Hamas.”
Matthew Hennessey, the Journal’s deputy editorial features editor (3/12/25), also called him a “pro-Hamas Columbia agitator,” adding, “If he didn’t love [the U.S.], why didn’t he leave it? The world is big. It has many elite universities.” Hennessey added, “When you’re a guest, it’s more than bad manners to cheer the slaughter of your host’s friends.” There’s no proof offered that Khalil did anything illegal, only that he said some things Hennessey didn’t like.
Journal columnist William McGurn (3/10/25) also dismissed the free speech concerns, saying that these protests went beyond speech—again, offering no evidence other than that the president said so. And he warned that pesky judges who stick too close to the Bill of Rights and the rule of law will get in the way of Khalil’s deportation. He said:
“So I bet what will happen,” says Berkeley law professor John Yoo, “is that even though the immigration law says the alien students can be deported, there will be a district judge somewhere who says that the president cannot use that power to punish people based on their First Amendment-protected beliefs and speech. But the Supreme Court will ultimately uphold the law.”
These “protests” weren’t really about speech. If all the “protesters” had done was stand outside waving Palestinian flags and chanting anti-Israel slogans, no one would be talking about deportation. Mr. Trump laid out his rationale on Truth Social: “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump administration will not tolerate it.”
‘War on Terror’ Playbook
Feeling some déjà vu? The right-wing media’s defense of arresting and deporting a green-card holder for engaging in protest rests on simply labeling him and the protests as “pro-Hamas,” the idea being that any criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza is an endorsement of the Palestinian militant group that the U.S. State Department designates as a terrorist organization.
As I told CNN International’s Connect the World (3/12/25), the situation feels similar to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, when it was common for supporters of George W. Bush, including his allies in the right-wing press, to label antiwar protesters as endorsers of anti-American terrorist violence.
Oppose the invasion of Afghanistan? You must be pro-Al Qaeda. Oppose the invasion of Iraq? You must be supportive of Saddam Hussein’s regime. This helped brand any questioning of the administration as treasonous, helping to build consensus not just for aggressive military imperialism at abroad, but in curtailing civil liberties for Americans at home (Extra!, 9/11).
So it’s a pretty old trick for both a Republican administration and its unofficial public relations agents in the Murdoch press to simply label free speech as out of bounds because it “supports terrorism.” Calling Khalil and the anti-genocide protests, which include thousands of supporters of many backgrounds—prominently including Jews—“pro-Hamas” is just another tired trick in the “War on Terror” propaganda playbook.
To understand how shallow this tactic is, keep in mind that Khalil has been on record about his politics and the issue of antisemitism. As a key negotiator for the protests, he had appeared on CNN and was asked about the protests and their impact on the Jewish community. The network (CNN, 4/29/24) summarized:
“I would say that the liberation of Palestine and the Palestinians and the Jewish people are intertwined. They go hand in hand. Antisemitism and any form of racism has no place on campus and in this movement,” Khalil said, noting that some members of Columbia’s encampment are Jewish and held Passover seders earlier this week, led by Jewish Voices for Peace.
“They are an integral part of this movement,” Khalil said of the organization.
Helping to Crush dissent
Note that the Journal‘s McGurn sought comments from Yoo, who is identified only as a law professor, and not a Bush administration attorney who notoriously supported the torture of detainees in the “War on Terror” (NPR, 2/23/10), or as an advisor to the first Trump administration on its aggressive anti-immigration methods (Guardian, 7/20/20). Yoo is also a proponent of applying the unitary executive theory to the Trump administration, which for Yoo, according to the Los Angeles Review of Books (11/1/20),
becomes a springboard to justify Trump’s authoritarian policies on war, immigration, deregulation, executive branch appointments, pardons, and the supervision of Justice Department investigations.
Israel’s own record on respecting freedom of speech is spotty, and has gotten worse since it launched the assault on Gaza (Democracy Now!, 11/9/23; CBC, 5/30/24; 972, 6/24/24; Freedom of the Press Foundation, 10/25/25; Times of Israel, 3/12/25). Israel, however, does not have a constitution, and activists and scholars have chronicled the nation’s erosion of democratic norms (Human Rights Watch, 4/27/21; Journal of Democracy, 7/23; Haaretz, 8/1/23; Deutsche Welle, 11/28/24). The United States is supposed to be governed by a constitution that, at least on paper, sets the gold standard among nations in protecting freedom of speech.
Alas, in the name of patriotism, the Murdoch press wants to erode that part of America’s tradition in order to help the Trump administration amass power and crush dissent.
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I Resigned 22 Years Ago Over the Iraq War... And Wish I Had More Resignations to Give!
I resigned two decades ago due to criminal U.S. policies and now I am in my 22nd year of resistance to criminal policies of successive administrations.
Mar 20, 2025
Twenty-two years ago, on March 19, 2003, I resigned from the U.S. Department of State. I was the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and the third U.S. government employee to resign in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq. I resigned on the day the Bush administration began the 10-year U.S. war on Iraq on March 19, 2003.
22 Years Later, I Don’t Regret My Decision One Bit
Former President George W. Bush, like the presidents before and after him, lied. His specific lie was about the reason for the U.S. to attack and kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
In 2003, Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s lie was about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction when international weapons inspectors were very clear in their statements that after their exhaustive investigation there were no weapons of mass destruction.
Four Presidential administrations after I resigned—Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump—another roadmap for domestic and international lawbreaking and chaos is guiding a president: Project 2025.
Instead, Bush was following the advisers who wrote the guidebook Project for the New American Century, which called for the overthrow of seven countries in the Middle East, and Iraq was the first to be overthrown.
The names of the authors of this war on the world, the “War on Terror,” still live in infamy: Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and of course, Vice President Dick Cheney.
Bush had already lied about the reason to send the U.S. military into Afghanistan. Instead of mounting an international police dragnet for the leaders of al Qaeda that planned and executed the events of 9/11, the Bush administration wanted to have a platform next to Iran from which to conduct a war on Iran. But, the small, underfunded, poorly-trained Taliban kept the U.S. military and the highly trained and poorly motivated Afghan Army on the run for the 20 years that the U.S. was in Afghanistan.
I was a part of the team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in December 2001. Our small group of diplomats realized very quickly that going after al Qaeda was not the main objective of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan. The focus of U.S. policies and funding in 2002 was elsewhere… and it turned out to be in overthrowing Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
If I had one more resignation…. no, two more resignations...
One Resignation Over Biden’s Complicity in the Genocide of Gaza
In the next 22 years there have been numerous times I felt that if I had still been in the U.S. government, I would have resigned.
Former President Joe Biden’s complicity in the Israeli genocide of Gaza which began in October 2023 deserved resignation… and 14 U.S. government employees have resigned over the weapons and encouragement the Biden administration gave to the Israeli government in the genocide of Gaza with over 60,000 Palestinians killed and tens of thousands still under the rubble by the time Biden left office, with no attempt at getting the Israeli government to stop the killings.
And, let’s not forget the Obama-Biden complicity in the U.S. orchestrated events in Ukraine, including the 2014 right-wing, nationalist overthrow of the government and broken promises to Russia that Ukraine would not become a part of NATO that led to the terrible war between Ukraine and Russia and the fueling of that war by the Biden administration with weapons and total lack of any attempt to bring an end to the dangerous conflict.
Another resignation over Trump’s Actions Domestically and Internationally-Project 2025
And right now, another resignation would be coming from me if I were still in the U.S. government.
Four Presidential administrations after I resigned—Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump—another roadmap for domestic and international lawbreaking and chaos is guiding a president: Project 2025.
While Trump, like Bush before him, disavowed knowledge of any plan cooked up by advisers, Trump is playing into the hands of those with an agenda that will haunt him, an agenda much more wide-ranging than the one Bush allowed to happen.
The rails are off for the destruction of the U.S. government with massive firings of civil servants. Reasonable government reform and downsizing has become government destruction led by unelected Elon Musk, the world’s richest person who has some of the largest government contracts (many of which have been under investigation) leading a team of very young technology mavericks who have no knowledge of the government and are taking over the computer information of the entire U.S. government firing tens of thousands of employees with a keystroke.
Trump is emboldened by the lack of congressional outrage and now is threatening to invade Panama and Greenland and is bullying Canada about becoming a state of the United States, to which the Canadian public and officials have rightly responded with a hockey warning to Trump: “Elbows up!”
Shamefully, the “peace” candidate Trump humiliated and bullied Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House in a meeting over the sale of Ukrainian minerals to pay the U.S. for its weapons in its war with Russia.
While the “peace candidate” Trump’s go-to-envoy, billionaire real-estate investor Steve Witkoff, did hammer out a much-needed cease-fire in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the cease-fire has now ended in an Israeli two-week blockade of Gaza of food, water, shelter, and electricity and continuation of massive bombing of Gaza and $12 billion more from the U.S. in killer weapons. As the cease-fire came into effect, Trump, true to his style, told the world that Palestinians need to leave Gaza so it can be built back into something “wonderful”... but without them.
And, don’t get me started on the kowtowing by government agencies, universities, and corporations to Trump on the elimination of DEI—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—as his henchmen erase mentions of women, minorities, disability, and gender in his white male nationalist agenda, seemingly spearheaded by the very unqualified (on every level) Secretary of Offensive Pete Hegseth.
So many issues… and opportunities for resignation and resistance.
From Resignation to Resistance
I resigned two decades ago due to criminal U.S. policies and now I am in my 22nd year of resistance to criminal policies of successive administrations.
Working with many, many organizations on the local (Hawaii Peace and Justice, World Can’t Wait, Students and Faculty for Palestine, Hawaii For Palestine: Under the Olive Tree), national (CODEPINK: Women For Peace, Veterans For Peace, Shut Down Drone Warfare), and international levels (International Peace Bureau, NO to NATO, No to War, World Beyond War, Women Cross DMZ, Pacific Peace Network, Ban Killer Drones) has given me outlets for protest and, very importantly, being with others who are deeply concerned about U.S. administration actions here in our own country and around the world.
You Must Resist
If you are not yet resisting, please join the millions who are on the streets, in Congress, at town hall meetings, writing emails, and calling to end the assault on our country and the world. I have put links to many of the organizations with which I work. Please join us!!!
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'Big Day... for Justice': US Jury Finds Contractor CACI Liable for Abu Ghraib Torture
"This victory is a shining light for everyone who has been oppressed and a strong warning to any company or contractor practicing different forms of torture and abuse," said one of the Iraqi plaintiffs.
Nov 12, 2024
In a landmark verdict cheered by human rights defenders around the world, a federal jury in Virginia found a U.S. military contractor liable for the torture of three prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison during the invasion and occupation of Iraq in the early 2000s.
The jury ordered CACI Premier Technology to pay each of the three Iraqi plaintiffs $3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages, for a total of $42 million. It is the first time that a civilian contractor has been found legally responsible for abusing Abu Ghraib detainees.
The lawsuit against CACI—filed in 2008 by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of Suhail Al Shimari, Asa'ad Al Zuba'e, and Salah Al-Ejaili—alleged that company officials conspired with U.S. military personnel in subjecting the plaintiffs to torture and other crimes.
As CCR noted Tuesday:
The plaintiffs brought their case under the Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 federal law that allows foreign nationals to seek redress in U.S. courts for certain violations of international law. This historic outcome follows 16 years of litigation, more than 20 attempts by CACI to have the case dismissed, and a previous trial in which the jury was unable to reach a verdict. Never before this case had survivors of U.S. post-9/11 torture testified in a U.S. courtroom. It also featured testimony from U.S. generals, CACI employees, and former [military police officers] involved in the torture.
"Today is a big day for me and for justice," said Al-Ejaili. "I've waited a long time for this day."
"This victory isn't only for the three plaintiffs in this case against a corporation," he added. "This victory is a shining light for everyone who has been oppressed and a strong warning to any company or contractor practicing different forms of torture and abuse."
CCR legal director Baher Azmy said that "our clients have fought bravely for 16 years in search of justice for the horrors they endured at Abu Ghraib, against all of the challenges this massive private military contractor threw in their way over the years to avoid basic accountability for its role in this shameful episode in American history."
"We are awed by our clients' courage and by the power of their testimony in court, and we are grateful that this jury knew enough to credit their story over the deflections of CACI," Azmy added. "We thank the jury for affording our clients the measure of justice they came to a United States court to seek."
Like Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib became a byword for U.S. torture during the Bush administration as it waged a worldwide war on terrorism following the September 11, 2001 attacks. The prison's worldwide notoriety stems from the leak and publication in 2004 of photos showing U.S. troops torturing and abusing Abu Ghraib detainees, both living and dead, often with smiles on their faces.
A 2004 investigation by U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Anthony Jones and Maj. Gen. George Fay found that CACI employees participated in and encouraged the torture of Abu Ghraib prisoners.
Investigators found that employees of CACI and Titan Corporation (now L3 Technologies) tortured Abu Ghraib detainees and encouraged U.S. troops to do likewise. Dozens of Abu Ghraib detainees died in U.S. custody, some of them as a result of being tortured to death. Abu Ghraib prisoners endured torture ranging from rape and being attacked with dogs to being forced to eat pork and renounce Islam.
A separate U.S. Army report concluded that most Abu Ghraib prisoners were innocent, with the Red Cross estimating that between 70-90% of inmates there were wrongfully detained. These include women who were held as bargaining chips to induce suspected militants to surrender.
Eleven low-ranking U.S. soldiers were convicted and jailed for their roles in Abu Ghraib torture. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the prison's commanding officer, was demoted. No other high-ranking military officer faced accountability for the abuse. Senior Bush administration officials—who had authorized many of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used at prisons including Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay—lied about their knowledge of the torture. None of them were ever held accountable.
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