regretted his participation: Michael Powell, “In Shift, Police Say Leader Helped with Anti-Islam Film and Now Regrets It,” New York Times, January 24, 2012.
Journalist George Joseph: Spencer Ackerman, “DHS Uses Wartime Mega-Camera to Watch Border,” Wired, April 2, 2012. Spencer Ackerman, “To Protect and Observe,” Playboy, December 2011. George Joseph, “Racial Disparities in Police ‘Stingray’ Surveillance, Mapped,” Bloomberg CityLab, October 18, 2016.
When They Call You a Terrorist: Tyler Estep, “Gwinnett Sheriff Issues Scathing Statement: ‘All Lives Matter,’ ” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 15, 2015. Fox & Friends, October 23, 2015. WECT News-6 Staff, “Ex-Police Chief Responds to Retirement after ‘Black Lives Matter’ Post: ‘I Have Done Nothing Wrong,’ ” WECT News-6, September 15, 2015. “MPD Union Leader: ‘Black Lives Matter Is a Terrorist Organization,’ ” CBS-4 WCCO Minnesota, June 1, 2016.
“turn-key tyranny”: Greenwald, MacAskill, and Poitras, “Edward Snowden.”
Chapter Seven: The Decadent Phase of the War on Terror and the Rise of Trump
One detainee, Obaidullah: Paul Harris, Tracy McVeigh, and Mark Townsend, “How Guantánamo’s Horror Forced Inmates to Hunger Strike,” Guardian, May 4, 2013.
Rumsfeld Pentagon holdover: Carol Rosenberg, “Qurans at Crux of Guantanamo Hunger Strike,” Miami Herald, April 5, 2013.
lubricated with olive oil: Spencer Ackerman, “Guantanamo Use of Olive Oil in Force Feedings ‘Astonishing,’ Doctor Tells Court,” Guardian, October 7, 2014.
inserted a catheter: Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, “Gitmo Is Killing Me,” New York Times, April 14, 2013.
a war of national survival: Andrew DeGrandpre, “Gen. John Kelly, SOUTHCOM Chief and Gold-Star Dad, to Retire,” Military Times, October 25, 2015.
Lietzau warned Kelly: Bill Chappell, “Violence Hits Guantanamo Bay as Inmates Continue Hunger Strike,” NPR, April 14, 2013. Reprieve press release, “Tear Gas and Shotguns—Guantanamo Detainee Gives First Inside Account of Raid,” May 2, 2013. SOUTHCOM press release, “Commander Orders Single-Cell Detention at Guantanamo Bay for Continued Health and Safety,” April 13, 2013. Charlie Savage, “Mounting Tensions Escalate into Violence at Guantanamo Bay,” New York Times, April 13, 2013. Paul Harris, Tracy McVeigh, and Mark Townsend, “How Guantanamo’s Horror Forced Inmates to Hunger Strike,” Guardian, May 4, 2013. A senior defense official who worked with Kelly shared recollections with the author.
explained the blackout: Charlie Savage, “Guantanamo Hunger Strike Is Largely Over, U.S. Says,” New York Times, September 23, 2013. Carol Rosenberg, “Military Imposes Blackout on Guantanamo Hunger-Striker Figures,” Miami Herald, December 3, 2013.
Neglect favored the Guantanamo status quo: Nancy Youssef, “General Hides Gitmo Detainees,” Daily Beast, December 15, 2015.
unsubtle as Kelly was: Charles Levinson and David Rohde, “Special Report: Pentagon Thwarts Obama’s Effort to Close Guantanamo,” Reuters, December 29, 2015.
1 million Iraqis: Physicians for Social Responsibility, Body Count (Washington, D.C., Berlin, Ottawa: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 2015), 15. Available at www.ippnw.de/commonFiles/pdfs/Frieden/Body_Count_first_international_edition_2015_final.pdf.
more intrusive Security State: Spencer Ackerman, “Top U.S. Spy: Don’t Blame Us for Boston,” Wired, April 25, 2013.
Representative Steve King: David M. Herszenhorn, “Delegates Visit Moscow for Insight on Boston Attack,” New York Times, June 2, 2013.
purging the Islamophobic training material: Robert Spencer, “The Human Cost of Jihad Denial,” FrontPage, May 1, 2013. The piece ends with a plea: “How many more have to die before the bloody legacy of Farhana Khera, John Brennan, Spencer Ackerman and Barack Obama is decisively rejected?”
“put on weight”: Unbylined, “GOP Rep.: ‘No Crisis’ at Gitmo, Detainees Have ‘Put on Weight,’ ” MSNBC, May 26, 2013.
Pompeo’s point was to dictate: Rep. Mike Pompeo, “The Silence of Muslim Leaders Is Deafening,” 113th Congress, 1st Session, Congressional Record 159, no. 82, June 11, 2013. Kevin Eckstrom, “Muslim Leaders: We Stand Against Terrorism,” Religion News Service/Washington Post, April 19, 2013. CAIR California, “Boston Bombing: Islam Condemns Violence, Muslim Leader Reiterates,” April 19, 2013.
“Is the Boston killer eligible”: Donald Trump (@realdonaldtrump), “Is the Boston killer eligible for Obama Care to bring him back to health?” Twitter, April 19, 2013, 9 p.m., https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/325413682379120640, accessed March 21, 2020.
thwart FOIA lawsuits: Spencer Ackerman, “No Looking Back: The CIA Torture Report’s Aftermath,” Guardian, September 11, 2016. Jason Leopold, “GOP Senator Wants to Make Sure the Full Torture Report Never Sees the Light of Day,” Vice, January 21, 2015. Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo, “Classified Report on the CIA’s Secret Prisons Is Caught in Limbo,” New York Times, November 9, 2015.
misstatements “Flynn facts”: Nicholas Schmidle, “Michael Flynn, General Chaos,” The New Yorker, February 18, 2017.
Saudi royal family: In Maqdisi’s 1989 work al-Kawashif al-Jaliyya fi Kufr al-Dawla al-Saudiyya. The author wishes to thank Maqdisi scholar Joas Wagemakers for this reference and this timeline.
Camp Bucca’s commanding officer: Michael Daly, “ISIS Leader: ‘See You in New York,’ ” Daily Beast, June 14, 2014.
Their theology was heavy: Hassan Hassan, “The Sectarianism of the Islamic State: Ideological Roots and Political Context,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 13, 2016.
Baghdadi marched his: Ehab Zahriyeh, “How ISIL Became a Major Force with Only a Few Thousand Fighters,” Al Jazeera, June 19, 2014.
Committed jihadis were apoplectic: Reuters staff, “Al Qaeda Splinter Group Declares Islamic ‘Caliphate,’ ” Reuters, June 29, 2014.
“The gangs of al-Baghdadi”: Associated Press via Guardian liveblog, June 30, 2014, www.theguardian.com/world/middle-east-live/2014/jun/30/isis-declares-caliphate-in-iraq-and-syria-live-updates, accessed March 26, 2020.
“accept the Islamic project”: Hassan, “The Sectarianism of the Islamic State,” citing Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Regan Arts, 2016), 222.
The 9/11 hijackers: Peter Bergen and Swati Pandey, “The Madrassa Myth,” New York Times, June 14, 2005.
“The actions in New York”: Shiv Malik, Mustafa Khalili, Spencer Ackerman, and Ali Younes, “How ISIS Crippled al-Qaeda,” Guardian, June 10, 2015. Malik, Khalili, Younes, and Ackerman, “The Race to Save Peter Kassig,” Guardian, December 18, 2014. Mike Giglio, Shatter the Nations: ISIS and The War for The Caliphate (New York: PublicAffairs, 2019), 80, 89.
twenty-three hundred U.S.-made Humvees: Nicola Smith, “ISIS Waterboards Hostages Who Try to Escape, Says Cantlie,” Times (London), October 26, 2014. Rukmini Callimachi, “The Horror Before the Beheadings,” New York Times, October 25, 2014. Agence France-Presse, “Iraq Lost 2,300 Humvee Armoured Vehicles in Mosul: PM,” May 31, 2015.
“jayvee squad [in] Lakers uniforms”: David Remnick, “Going the Distance,” The New Yorker, January 20, 2014. Mark Landler and Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Scrambles to Help Iraq Fight Off Militants as Iraq Is Threatened,” New York Times, June 12, 2014.
a tacit accommodation: Spencer Ackerman, “U.S. Warplanes Begin Airstrikes on ISIS in Iraqi City of Tikrit,” Guardian, May 25, 2015.
an exhausted United States: Author’s interview with Ben Rhodes, July 13, 2020. Rhodes credits Dempsey, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as the architect of By, With, and Through. Interviews with senior U.S. diplomats for Iraq contemporaneous with the ISIS campaign corroborate Rhodes, December 18 and 22, 2020, though they also credit then-general Lloyd Austin for embracing the concept.
with the aid of Joe Biden: Loveday Morris and Liz Sly, “Iran Endorses Haidar al-Abadi as Iraq’s New Prime Minister, Spurning
Nouri al-Maliki,” Washington Post, August 12, 2014. Michael R. Gordon, “New Iraqi Premier Backs U.S. Air Campaign, within Limits,” New York Times, September 25, 2014.
count its membership: Spencer Ackerman, “U.S. Has Trained ‘Four or Five’ Syrian Fighters against ISIS, Top General Testifies,” Guardian, September 16, 2015.
recast his humiliation: Michael Flynn, “The Military Fired Me for Calling Our Enemies Radical Jihadis,” New York Post, July 9, 2016.
Petraeus’s army mentor and surge architect: Ashley Killough, “Strong Reaction to Obama Statement: ‘ISIL Is Not Islamic,’ ” CNN, September 11, 2014. Senate Armed Services Committee, “Global Challenges and the U.S. National Security Strategy,” January 27, 2015, available at www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/15-01-27-global-challenges-and-us-national-security-strategy.
“its profound distrust”: Moni Basu, “A Gunman Killed His Brother. Now Farris Barakat Is on an American Journey,” CNN, February 9, 2018. Margaret Talbot, “The Story of a Hate Crime,” The New Yorker, June 22, 2015.
67 percent rise in hate crimes: Mazin Sidahmed, “FBI Reports Hate Crimes against Muslims Surged by 67 Percent in 2015,” Guardian, November 14, 2016.
scheduled CVE summit: Spencer Ackerman, “Documents Support Fears of Muslim Surveillance by Obama-Era Program,” Guardian, March 16, 2017.
September 2014 press conference: Pamela Constable, “U.S. Muslim Leaders Denounce Islamic State, Pledge to Dissuade Youth from Joining,” Washington Post, September 10, 2014.
convinced her to convert: Rukmini Callimachi, “ISIS and the Lonely American,” New York Times, June 28, 2015.
counterterrorism chief, Michael B. Steinbach: Eric Lichtblau, “FBI Steps Up Use of Stings in ISIS Cases,” New York Times, June 7, 2016.
Comey and his allies: Spencer Ackerman, “James Comey Remained at Justice Department as Monitoring Went On,” Guardian, June 27, 2013.
ISIS’s social-media presence: Pierre Thomas, Mike Levine, Jack Date, and Jack Cloherty, “ISIS: Potentially ‘Thousands’ of Online Followers inside U.S. Homeland, FBI Chief Warns,” ABC News, May 7, 2015.
Before a judge: Spencer Ackerman and Danny Yadron, “FBI May Have Found Way to Unlock San Bernardino Shooter’s iPhone without Apple,” Guardian, March 22, 2016.
south of Paris: Adam Nossiter, Aurelien Breeden, and Katrin Bennhold, “Three Teams of Coordinated Attackers Carried Out Assault on Paris, Officials Say; Hollande Blames ISIS,” New York Times, November 14, 2015. “Three Hours in Paris, Moment by Moment,” New York Times, updated November 9, 2016, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/13/world/europe/paris-shooting-attacks.html, accessed April 3, 2020.
white nativist appetite: Adam Weinstein, “Breitbart.com Is Sure This Adidas Shirt Is an Islamo-Mexican Terror Rug,” Gawker, July 10, 2014.
“The front line with ISIS”: W. James Antle III, “How Immigration Became the Latest Front in the War on Terror,” Washington Examiner, January 23, 2016. Sessions/Cruz press release, “Chairmen Sessions, Cruz Ask Feds to Provide Immigration Histories of Terrorists Operating Inside U.S.,” August 12, 2015. Southern Poverty Law Center, “Stephen Miller’s Affinity for White Nationalism Revealed in Leaked Emails,” November 12, 2019.
migrants from “Somalia”: Stephen Dinan and Dave Boyer, “U.S. General Warns Ebola Could Cross Southern Border,” Washington Times, October 9, 2014. Posture Statement of General John F. Kelly, USMC, Commander, U.S. Southern Command, before the 114th Congress Senate Armed Services Committee, March 12, 2015. Nick Carey, “U.S. Republicans Look to Gain Election Ground on Ebola,” Reuters, October 21, 2014. Tom Jacobs, “Ebola Fears Helped the GOP in 2014 Election,” Pacific Standard, June 14, 2017.
CIA’s Zarqawi targeters: Spencer Ackerman, “Obama Maintains al-Qaida and ISIS Are ‘One and the Same’ despite Evidence of Schism,” Guardian, October 2, 2014.
Sanders called for a vote: Statement of Bernie Sanders on Iraq and Syria, September 8, 2014. The air strikes began on August 8, sixty days shy of the limit set for unilateral military strikes under the 1973 War Powers Resolution.
Brennan’s deputy Avril Haines: Carol Morello, “U.S. Surpasses Syrian Refugee Goal Set by Obama, Expects More Next Year,” Washington Post, September 27, 2016. Spencer Ackerman, “The Proxy War over a Top Biden Adviser,” Daily Beast, July 7, 2020.
“Texas will not accept any Syrian”: Ashley Fantz and Ben Brumfield, “More Than Half the Nation’s Governors Say Syrian Refugees Not Welcome,” CNN, November 19, 2015.
sink Iranian boat swarms: Daniela Diaz and Jeremy Diamond, “Donald Trump on Iran Ship Behavior: ‘They Will Be Shot out of the Water,’ ” CNN, September 9, 2016.
analysis applies equally: “Full Text: Donald Trump Announces a Presidential Bid,” Washington Post, June 16, 2015. Eliza Relman, “The 25 Women Who Have Accused Donald Trump of Sexual Misconduct,” Business Insider, October 9, 2019. Daniel Denvir, All-American Nativism: How the Bipartisan War on Immigrants Explains Politics as We Know It (London and New York: Verso 2020), 256.
Stephen Miller was so excited: Imtiyaz Delawaya, “What ABC News Footage Shows of 9/11 Celebrations,” ABC News, December 4, 2015. Nick Gass, “Trump: We Have to Take Out ISIL Members’ Families,” Politico, December 2, 2015. Tim Haines, “Trump’s Updated ISIS Plan: ‘Bomb the Shit Out of Them,’ Send in Exxon to Rebuild,” Real Clear Politics, November 13, 2015. Matthew Weaver and Spencer Ackerman, “Trump Says Torture ‘Absolutely’ Works but Experts Warn of Its ‘Potentially Existential’ Costs,” Guardian, January 25, 2017. David Weigel, “Trump: Maybe Cuba Should Take Over Guantanamo ‘and Reimburse Us,’ ” Washington Post, February 23, 2016. Tom McCarthy, “Donald Trump: I’d Bring Back ‘a Hell of a Lot Worse than Waterboarding,’ ” Guardian, February 7, 2016. Nick Gass, “Trump: ‘Absolutely No Choice’ but to Close Mosques,” Politico, November 18, 2015. Jessica Taylor, “Trump Calls for ‘Total and Complete Shutdown of Muslims Entering’ the U.S.,” NPR, December 7, 2015. Robert Costa, “Top Sessions Aide Joins Trump Campaign,” Washington Post, January 25, 2016.
Even Bill O’Reilly was discomfited: Jeremy Diamond, “Trump Lavishes Praise on ‘Leader’ Putin,” CNN, December 18, 2015. Sophie Tatum, “Trump Defends Putin: ‘You Think Our Country’s So Innocent?’ ” CNN, February 6, 2017.
“the radical right suddenly felt”: Joe Helm, “This White Nationalist Who Shoved a Trump Protester May Be the Next David Duke,” Washington Post, April 12, 2016. Adrian Florido, “The White Nationalist Origins of the Term ‘Alt-Right’—and the Debate around It,” NPR, November 27, 2016. Cassie Miller and Howard Graves, “When the ‘Alt-Right’ Hit the Streets: Far Right Political Rallies in the Trump Era,” Southern Poverty Law Center, August 10, 2020.
“Donald the Dove”: Maureen Dowd, “Donald the Dove, Hillary the Hawk,” New York Times, April 30, 2012.
Sean MacFarland, a Petraeus-favored officer: Spencer Ackerman, “U.S. Military Commander in Iraq and Syria Rejects GOP Pledges to ‘Carpet-Bomb’ ISIS,” Guardian, February 1, 2016.
self-reflection from signatories: “Open Letter on Donald Trump from GOP National Security Leaders,” War on the Rocks, March 2, 2016. David E. Sanger and Maggie Haberman, “50 GOP Officials Warn Trump Would Put Nation’s Security ‘At Risk,’ ” New York Times, August 8, 2016.
“tough and smart”: Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump), “A suicide bomber has just killed U.S. troops in Afghanistan. When will our leaders get tough and smart. We are being led to slaughter!” Twitter, December 21, 2015, 1:08 p.m., https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/679000573241393154?lang=en, accessed April 22, 2020.
BLM cofounder Patrisse Khan-Cullors: Fernando Alfonso III, “4Chan Pranksters Are Behind Petition to Label Black Lives Matter a Terrorist Organization,” Forbes, July 12, 2016. Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele, When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017), 7.
“I will nev
er let you down”: Eric Bradner, “Trump Praises 9/11 Truther’s ‘Amazing’ Reputation,” CNN, December 2, 2015.
played “Real American”: Ben Schreckinger, “A Tale of Two Rallies: My Summer with Bernie and Trump,” Politico, August 23, 2015.
marathon Benghazi session: Jon Cohen and Aaron Blake, “Hillary Clinton Reaches New Heights of Political Popularity,” Washington Post, January 23, 2013.
Saudi Arabia wasn’t paying: Andrew Prokop, “Read Bernie Sanders’ Speech on Democratic Socialism in the United States” Vox, November 19, 2015.
“part of our homeland security”: Mohamed Hassan, “Muslim Americans Express Disappointment over 2016 Debate Rhetoric Tying Muslims to Terrorism,” NBC News, October 10, 2016. Ryan Teague Beckwith, “Transcript: Read Hillary Clinton’s Speech on Fighting ISIS,” Time, November 19, 2015.
“Hillary Clinton’s more muscular brand”: Mark Landler, “How Hillary Clinton Became a Hawk,” New York Times Magazine, April 21, 2016.
explicitly prohibiting use: Josh Gerstein, “Clinton Private Email Violated ‘Clear Cut’ State Dept. Rules,” Politico, March 5, 2015.
Russian intelligence sent messages: Robert S. Mueller, Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election (Washington, D.C.: US Department of Justice, 2019), 49 (hereafter “Mueller Report”).
“a grave counterintelligence threat”: Sharon LaFraniere and Julian E. Barnes, “Report Details Manafort’s Ties During 2016 Trump Campaign to a Russian Agent,” New York Times, August 18, 2020.
from Russia to Clinton: Mueller Report, 67–120.
stolen DNC user credentials: Ellen Nakashima, “Russian Government Hackers Penetrated DNC, Stole Opposition Research on Trump,” Washington Post, June 14, 2016.
Assange denied it: Mueller Report, 36–49. Raffi Katchadourian, “Julian Assange, a Man without a Country,” The New Yorker, August 14, 2017. Kevin Poulsen and Spencer Ackerman, “ ‘Lone DNC Hacker’ Guccifer 2.0 Slipped Up and Revealed He Was a Russian Intelligence Officer,” Daily Beast, March 22, 2018.
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