The Philip DeFranco Show - MS 3.12 The Insane True Stories of Non-Combat IS Members, US Policy, Prosecution & Justice

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to your Extra Morning News Show. My name is Philip DeFranco, and today we're gonna be talking about some of the most interesting stories about people joining the Islamic State, or IS. Right, because most people, when they think of IS members, they think of bloodthirsty terrorists, right?

Starting point is 00:00:12 People that would be in the streets shooting, blowing things up, but there are also a couple of people who have traveled to join IS for nonviolent reasons. And looking at their specific cases, it brings up a couple of important questions. One, exactly how IS members brought back to the US are punished, and the other is about the complications of waging an undeclared war on a terrorist organization.

Starting point is 00:00:29 Politicians, lawyers, and advocates have all been arguing over these questions for a long time now, and so with that said, let's just jump into it. So where we're going to start is with some context about how big the organization is and was. And around this, it is hard to get numbers on a terrorist organization that has lost nearly all of its territory

Starting point is 00:00:45 But in August 2018 report from the UN said that anywhere between 20,000 to 30,000 IS members were in Iraq and Syria now on the other hand back in early 2015 when IS held a great deal of territory in its so-called caliphate There were reportedly around 22,000 foreign terrorist fighters in Syria and Iraq alone these foreign fighters came from more than a hundred countries Overall there have reportedly been somewhere between 5,000 to 6,000 Europeans who traveled to Iraq and Syria to join IS, while US authorities have referenced around 250 to 300 from the United States.

Starting point is 00:01:13 And out of those 250 to 300 Americans who reportedly traveled to Iraq and Syria to join IS, 153 of them were arrested on charges related to IS involvement from 2011 to 2017. And a very detailed 2018 report from George Washington University's program on extremism provides a lot of important information about Americans who joined IS. And there are even a handful of people who claim to have

Starting point is 00:01:32 joined for non-violent reasons. This is Warren Christopher Clark, and there wasn't a lot of information available about him when that report from George Washington University came out in February of last year. But the researchers did receive a small clue found in a house in Mosul, Iraq. And it's a cover letter to the Islamic State.

Starting point is 00:01:47 It's pretty poor resolution, but it's from Clark's alias Abu Muhammad Al-Ameriki. And it says in part, Dear Director, I am looking to get a position teaching English to students in the Islamic State. I have always loved teaching others and learning from others as well. I believe that a successful teacher

Starting point is 00:02:00 can understand students' strengths and weaknesses and is able to use that understanding in order to help students build on their knowledge of the English language. It would be my goal to create a supportive classroom environment and to guide my students in building a solid English foundation." He also reportedly included a resume which included his email address, education, and work experience on that resume. And researchers determined that this person was actually Clark, an American from Texas who claims he entered Syria in mid-2015. And the thing with Clark's situation is he never actually fought for IS. He admitted to NBC News that he offered to work for the group

Starting point is 00:02:28 but he claimed that he was detained and let go almost a dozen times for refusing to fight. Eventually in January of this year though, Clark was reportedly apprehended by the Syrian Democratic Forces who passed him off to US custody. But before returning to the United States for prosecution, NBC News interviewed Clark and when asked

Starting point is 00:02:42 why he decided to join, he had this to say. I want to actually go see exactly what the group was about and, you know, what they were doing. But when you went in the spring of 2015, it was already pretty clear what ISIS was all about. They had already committed atrocities that they were putting out in video after video. Yeah, of course I saw the videos, you know. You know, I think, you know, with the beheadings,

Starting point is 00:03:08 okay, that's execution. You know, I'm from the United States, from Texas. They like to execute people too. Okay, no. Sorry, this is just me speaking. That may be the king of false equivalency. But yeah, Clark says he doesn't regret what he did. And as of recording this video,

Starting point is 00:03:23 he is facing up to 20 years for what is called material support of a terrorist organization. Then you have the instance of another American who joined IS for what he says were non-violent reasons, and his story is arguably even more ridiculous. We only know him as Moe, but he's also been interviewed by NBC News, and before joining IS, Moe went to Columbia University, and reportedly he wanted to live somewhere that practiced Sharia law. So, he first looked into moving to Saudi Arabia, but he was unable to. Over time he began to engage more and more with IS propaganda online. He was especially interested in how the Islamic State's quote community was being portrayed. Telling researchers after the fact quote, there were all these videos showing the public works IS was taking part in.

Starting point is 00:03:58 It looked like a good Islamic community to raise a family. Regarding what he was saying there, according to the researchers, this was before graphic videos of IS beheadings had surfaced. But with that said, even though the FBI recognized Mo's online activity and actually tried to intervene, he booked a flight in June of 2014 and made it to a town near the border of Turkey and Syria. Like Clark, he had no network to enter Syria or IS, but eventually connected with a smuggler online. Now Mo claims he never traveled to IS territory to fight, but he quickly realized that's why IS wanted him. And as far as how he realized, reportedly there was a training camp intake form that Moe had to fill out. It offered him three roles, fighter, suicide bomber, or a frontline fighter with a suicide vest.

Starting point is 00:04:34 And so Moe says he quickly realized he had made a huge mistake after entering the ideological and military training camp, saying he even attempted to convince his commanders that he wasn't a fighter and was more of a thinker. At one point, to buy him time to get out, he reportedly pitched an idea to make an EMP device that could take down fighter jets.

Starting point is 00:04:49 Now, he didn't have the first clue about how to actually do that, but eventually his commanders shifted him into a logistical role. And after his change of heart, after about four months of being in IS territory, Moe eventually attempted and failed to escape across the Turkish border.

Starting point is 00:05:01 Soon after, he covertly contacted the FBI, seeking extraction and a complete exoneration. But on that note, the FBI said that they couldn't help him since he was in Syria. But Mo caught a big break though. The taxi driver who brought him back from his first failed attempt was also a smuggler and had offered to help.

Starting point is 00:05:15 So several days later, that same driver dropped him off near the border where he was reportedly guided into Turkey by a young boy. And so finally, Mo made it to the US consulate in Turkey where he surrendered himself in November of 2014. Moe pleaded guilty to charges of providing material support to a terrorist organization and receiving military training from a terrorist organization.

Starting point is 00:05:32 Following that, he began working with the US government, providing what the government considers valuable details about IS and the other members he spent several months with. And so because of all of this, as of June 2018, he was sentenced to supervised release instead of the 25 years of imprisonment he was initially facing. And reportedly as recent as 2016, he was sentenced to supervised release instead of the 25 years of imprisonment he was initially facing. And reportedly as recent as 2016,

Starting point is 00:05:48 the FBI deployed him to intervene with a minor who appeared to support IS. And once again, the reason we're talking about this is the majority of those who joined IS, they wanted to fight. And as far as Moe and Clark, their stories stand out as these weird, unique exceptions. But their cases also relate to a couple of important aspects

Starting point is 00:06:03 of the American justice system and policy when combating terrorism. The first part is the material support part that both Moe and Clark were charged under in court. The law essentially states that it's not only a crime to be a terrorist, but to also support a terrorist. And so we spoke with Paul Rosenzweig, professor at George Washington University's Law School and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in George W. Bush's Department of Homeland Security, to help us understand exactly what is prohibited. So it does include food, for example, money, not just guns and ammunition. It sometimes has even been read to include support that's provided under coercion. So if I put a gun to your head and say, drive me somewhere, you drive me somewhere, I'm the terrorist in this instance, that you're still providing me with material support. But an important 2010 Supreme Court case called Humanitarian Law Project that actually wanted to go and try and teach conflict resolution techniques to certain terrorist organizations, to educate them on how

Starting point is 00:07:14 not to be terrorists. And the U.S. government said, no, that's material support as well, and you can't do that. And if you do do that, if you do that, you will be engaging in potentially criminal activity. And we can't guarantee that we won't try and put you in jail for that. And if we're talking about Clark's and Moe's cases, according to Professor Rosenzweig, there's practically no question that even though they traveled to the Islamic State for so-called non-combat reason, they are just as guilty. And he even said that it's pretty simple to prove in cases like theirs. No, especially not in places like the Islamic State, where the state is the terrorist organization.

Starting point is 00:07:53 Almost by definition, any activity you undertake inside the Islamic State is support for its endeavors. And so almost by definition, being there would constitute material support for a terrorist organization. There's no, I've changed my mind, I don't want to be part of Nazi Germany anymore, exception to the material support rules. The other aspect in Moe and Clark's fate that relates to U.S.

Starting point is 00:08:18 policy is something called an Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or AUMS. Both Moe and Clark retried the American civil court system and not as so-called enemy combatants of terror organization. The U.S. government has carried out attacks against the Islamic State using the legal authority of two AUMFs, passed in 2001 and 2002. But those AUMFs were actually passed

Starting point is 00:08:35 to authorize force against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government, so technically not IS. And those AUMFs have also allowed the United States to detain people at Guantanamo Bay as enemy combatants. And so we spoke with Patricia Stottlemyer, Rule of Law and Human Rights Fellow at Human Rights First, to understand more about the debate over their legal authority. Whether ISIS is reached by any of the existing authorizations for use of military force is a subject of a lot of debate. The Obama administration first advanced a theory that the existing authorizations for use of military force would reach ISIS around 2014.

Starting point is 00:09:11 And the theories evolved, but they were two main theories. One was that ISIS was an associated force of al-Qaeda, which is a group covered under the 2001 AUMF. And the second theory was that ISIS was a successor force of al-Qaeda, meaning that it grew out of a group that was covered under the 2001 AUMF. Now, even though the Obama administration used those arguments, experts have pointed out that those justifications are shaky, including the timing of when IS merged and split with al-Qaeda. But still, the Trump administration has continued to use the same legal reasoning as the Obama administration. The 2001 AUMF provides statutory authority for ongoing U.S. military operations against al-Qaeda,

Starting point is 00:09:54 the Taliban, and associated forces, including against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria or ISIS. The president's authority to use force against ISIS is further reinforced by the authorization for use of military force against Iraq, or in more plain terms, the 2002 AUMF. But here's the important part. Courts haven't ruled on the legality of the 2001-2002 AUMFs being used against IS, and they haven't ruled whether IS members members like Mo and Clark could be detained as enemy combatants. There was however almost a case that would have decided this. Back in September of 2017 an American and Saudi citizen known as John Doe in public court documents was captured by Kurdish forces and detained by the US military. And he claims he went to Syria to be a freelance journalist but he was arrested by IS. And saying after that he worked as an administrator and oil field guard for IS to get out of prison. On the other hand the FBI claims that he was actually listed as a fighter on an Islamic state recruit file.

Starting point is 00:10:48 But when the ACLU learned that he was being detained as an the 2001 AUMF, the 2002 AUMF, or any other executive branch claimed authority reached ISIS. But after a lengthy back and forth between the ACLU and the government and 13 months military detainment, the government relented for a number of reasons. The US government cancelled his US passport and set him free in Bahrain, where his family reportedly lives. And so in that process, the courts never answered the question of whether the war against IS was covered under previous AUMFs and whether he could be legally detained as an enemy combatant like Al-Qaeda and Taliban members.

Starting point is 00:11:35 And so essentially, the US government avoided a massive question. So while the reasons that these people joined ISIS sound very ridiculous, they do lead to big legal questions about how the American judicial system prosecutes terrorists and how the US wages undeclared war. Right now, the Islamic State's caliphate has practically been destroyed and the group

Starting point is 00:11:50 has essentially transitioned to an underground terrorist network, but that doesn't mean that these questions are just going to go away. Instead, they might actually become bigger, especially if we continue to carry out attacks against a group with no borders. But with all of that said, that's the story, that's the thing that we are looking at today,

Starting point is 00:12:03 and of course, I to talk to you. I want to know your thoughts on a number of things. I mean, do you have any sympathy for people like Moe and Clark? For both, neither, maybe one, not the other. Do you think that the material support clause should extend to teaching things like English or conflict resolution to terrorist groups? Also, do you think the United States should continue to carry out airstrikes against the Islamic State, even with a controversial legal authority? And if not answers to those questions, just general thoughts about this, because one of the reasons that we wanted to talk about it is it was just so weird and interesting. But with that said, that's where I'm ending it today.

Starting point is 00:12:30 Of course, if you like this video, you like our deep dives, Philip DeFranco Show, let us know, hit that like button. Also, if you're new here, you want more of these daily videos, be sure to hit that subscribe button, definitely ring that bell to turn on notifications. But with that said, of course, as always,

Starting point is 00:12:42 my name's Philip DeFranco, I love your faces, I hope you have a fantastic day, and in fact, I'll see you later today right here on this channel with a brand new Philip DeFranco show.

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The Philip DeFranco Show - MS 3.12 The Insane True Stories of Non-Combat IS Members, US Policy, Prosecution & Justice

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