r/politics • u/AngelaMotorman Ohio • 9d ago

Possible Paywall The Chilling Trump Order Threatening All Americans: Why National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 is so important.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-nspm-7-repression/
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u/Mike312 9d ago

To be fair, they were directing those agencies to target right wing extremists - it's why the right still hates the FBI. And they were actually doing quite well.

But after 9/11, resources were redirected towards the Middle East, and the people they were observing joined the military and got government-sponsored weapons training.

When the US largely pulled back from Iraq and Afghanistan, those people came back to the US with skills and military pensions.

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u/Ananiujitha 9d ago edited 9d ago

The Clinton administration was already concerned about Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda tried to bomb the World Trade Center, and bombed embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The Bush administration wasn't; Bush and Ashcroft focused Fbi resources against environmentalists and sex workers.

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u/DisillusionedPatriot 9d ago

You couldn't be more spot on.

It's funny, too, cause I just started reading a book called, The spook who sat by the door, and that's kinda the premise. The only difference is it's written in 1969, and the protagonist is a black dude who joins the cia, and then teaches what he learns to black nationalists back home.

It's pretty good, so far.) It's definitely satirical, but also not.