As I thought. It’s the “adherents” that catch us up in such a “sticky” situation.

Since the current war is no longer called the “war on terror” or the “Global War on Terrorism,” what exactly IS it called these days?

I have discovered more Al Qaeda Adherents and Material Supporters. Actually, Sibel Edmonds did the discovering. It is just Operation Gladio, Forever. We have always…

Al Qaeda adherents include the FBI, the CIA, Department of Justice, State Dept, MI6, NATO, the Sunday Times, and Jamie Gorelick. Actually, I included Gorelick because she helped Al Qaeda at the DOJ. And Gorelick wants to suppress the First Amendment.

Edmonds claimed that Ayman al-Zawahiri, current head of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’s deputy at the time, had innumerable, regular meetings at the U.S. embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, with U.S. military and intelligence officials between 1997 and 2001, as part of an operation known as ‘Gladio B’. Al-Zawahiri, she charged, as well as various members of the bin Laden family and other mujahideen, were transported on NATO planes to various parts of Central Asia and the Balkans to participate in Pentagon-backed destabilisation operations…

In the course of her work, Edmonds became privy to evidence that U.S. military and intelligence agencies were collaborating with Islamist militants affiliated with al-Qaeda, the very forces blamed for the 9/11 attacks – and that officials in the FBI were covering up the evidence…

Edmonds said that the Pentagon operations with Islamists were an “extension” of an original ‘Gladio’ programme uncovered in the 1970s in Italy, part of an EU-wide NATO covert operation that began as early as the 1940s.

Central Asia….That would include Chechnea and Dagestan. So I would suggest Graham Fuller is another Al Qaeda Adherent.

I’ve just finished reading Rosa Parks testimony [pdf] from the Armed Services committee hearing and found her description of how the reading of the AUMF expanded very clear. For example, beginning on page 8 with:

Congress bears some responsibility for enabling the executive branch to assert such virtually unlimited authority to use force […]

There is so much useful information in just her one well argued testimony, that it should shame the Administration to have sent 4 people with just one six page press release [pdf] between them.

And Jennifer Daskal and Steve Vladak, who titled their proposal “After the AUMF” didn’t even get invited.

“or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act, or has directly supported hostilities, in aid of such enemy armed forces.”

Does Rumsfeld lobbying as a board member for ABB to sell light water reactors to North Korea, or send chemical weapons to Iraq fit this definition?
http://www.democracynow.org/2003/5/2/did_donald_rumsfeld_aid_north_koreas

Now, in point of fact, this war against “adherents” is not new.

OK this makes my head heart, do they even know what the word “adherents” means?
—
“Treason of adherence to an enemy was old in the law. It consisted of breaking allegiance to one’s own king by forming an attachment to his enemy. Its scope was comprehensive, its requirements indeterminate. It might be predicated on intellectual or emotional sympathy with the foe, or merely lack of zeal in the cause of one’s own country. That was not the kind of disloyalty the framers thought should constitute treason. They promptly accepted the proposal to restrict it to cases where also there was conduct which was “giving them aid and comfort”.”
Cramer v. United States, 325 US 1, 28 (1945)

Adherents to what Islam?

@lefty665: And where did WD-40 come from? A defense contractor:

It was developed in 1953 by Norm Larsen, founder of the Rocket Chemical Company, in San Diego, California. . . .

Larsen was attempting to create a formula to prevent corrosion in nuclear missiles, by displacing the standing water that causes it. He claims he arrived at a successful formula on his 40th attempt. WD-40 is primarily composed of various hydrocarbons.

WD-40 was first used by Convair to protect the outer skin, and more importantly, the paper thin “balloon tanks” of the Atlas missile from rust and corrosion. . . .

WD-40 first became commercially available on store shelves in San Diego in 1958.

@Peterr: Thanks Peterr. My recollection is that some of the early Atlas’s needed more help than WD-40 could give them, but they got better.

WD-40 the un-adherent. Not just for rockets and sticky wickets any more. DHS approved.

…I don’t have time to go through each Brennan speech to find the references to adherents, but I’ll do one.

Here is the part of the speech – in full – that deals with topics he relates to “Al-Qa‘ida, its affiliates and adherents”:

Finally, I want to close on a security challenge closer to home, in Europe and the United States — the threat posed by violent extremists who seek to justify the killing of innocents. Of course, Al-Qa‘ida, its affiliates and adherents pose the preeminent terrorist threat in the world today. In America and across Europe, al-Qa’ida seeks to inspire our citizens to violence, and at times they have succeeded.

Sadly, the threat of violent extremism did not start — and will not end — with al-Qa‘ida. On both sides of the Atlantic, we have a long, painful history of violent extremism, from violent anarchists to violent white supremacists to neo-Nazis. This summer, we saw a white supremacist in Wisconsin kill six worshippers and wound four others at a Sikh temple. Last year in Norway, we saw Anders Breivik — steeped in a racist and xenophobic ideology — murder 77 innocent men, women and children in a tragedy that truly shocked the world.

As nations, our challenge is to meet the full range of violent extremist threats in our communities, regardless of ideology. In the United States, our strategy focuses on empowering local communities because it is these communities that are being targeted by violent extremists and terrorists. We want to help these communities prevent their members — their sons, their daughters — from being radicalized in the first place. And it is these communities that know best how to reach their members and help them resist being radicalized. It is an approach based on years of experience and lessons learned in meeting a wide range of threats to public safety, both in the United States and in other countries, including in Europe.
Broadly speaking, our efforts fall into three main areas: engaging communities directly, so they better understand how they are being targeted by violent extremist groups; improving training so that our law enforcement officials are true partners with communities; and undermining extremist narratives by showing how our nation is enriched by diverse communities. Over the past year, we have also increased our collaboration with our European partners — not just governments, but civil society and community leaders — and we will continue to do so, because countering violent extremism is a challenge that requires that we learn from each other.

The bottom line — on both sides of the Atlantic — is that we have to work with communities rather than stigmatize them. That is especially true when it comes to our fellow citizens who are Muslim. In word and deed, we need to show Muslim communities that they are just as much a part of our countries as people of any other faith. This is a message of inclusion and opportunity that President Obama has conveyed on many, many occasions. As he has said, the United States is not and never will be at war against Islam; our nation is strengthened by all its citizens, including those who are Muslim. We are at war against al-Qa’ida — a band of thugs who offer nothing but death and destruction. And when it comes to preventing violent extremism and terrorism in our countries, Muslim communities are part of the solution.

…And here is the part of that where he addresses whom we are at war with:

We are at war against al-Qa’ida — a band of thugs who offer nothing but death and destruction.

Note that that statement does not refer to adherents. And note that essentially all of what he has to say about dealing with the part of the threat that stems from adherents (among others) outlines efforts that involve means that are (decidedly) not warfare – Muslim community engagement most prominently.

You can say that that is all, in practice, hogwash. I wouldn’t resist that contention all that strongly, even. But if it’s about what the the speeches say, well, that is what this speech says. It says what we’re doing to address the threat coming from (among others) adherents of Al Qaeda – and that doesn’t mention warfare and highlights efforts that are very distinct from warfare – and then says who we are are at war with – and that turns out to be Al Qaeda, with no mention of adherents.

@MikeDrewWhat

The old classic song “Compared To What” comes to mind. Trying to make it (adherence) real….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzvlivbptXk

We are all adherents now.

And now the GOP simply carries the torch a bit further in progression, yet the center and left will never admit it’s something the Pres and congress led the way with in the war in error.

http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2013/05/23/tom-cottons-attack-on-the-constitution#readerComments

“as early as the 1940s” is a questionable usage. Since NATO was founded in April of 1949, yes it could have been, technically, in the ’40s, but, of course, just barely, despite the sense the phrase gives.

When I see such usages, it makes me very skeptical of what else is being said.