Fredrick Schroeder CIA Fighter Pilot?

Fredrick Schroeder, formerly a pilot for Shenzhen Airlines, now claims to be flying combat missions in Libya. To obtain this position, Schroeder claims he had to be approved by both the FBI and CIA. If the story is a lie, then he is grossly delusional. If it is true, I suspect he shouldn’t be telling people about it.

If you’ve been following the sad tale of Fred Schroeder over the last three years, you would know he agreed to fight me, but backed out 27 times. At least three of those fights were pro fights, two of which, tickets were already on sale for, another one was a TV fight. Apparently somewhere between talking on the internet and actually showing up and fighting, Fred’s balls took a detour. In between each of these fights he sends me messages and calls me telling me that satan is raping my mother who died when I was a baby. He also said he dug up her corpse and raped it. He insults the Christian religion and tells me that he is God. As payment for agreeing to show up for one of our fights, he asked for a photo of my dead mother which he then defiled and emailed back to me. On another occasion he asked for the location of her grave so he could “drop a deuce on it”. Through this entire process, he has maintained the fiction that he can beat me easily and that he is not afraid of me. He has said repeatedly that he will kill me and rape me, although he never shows up for these fights.

At one point, Fred told me that he had moved to Khartoum to work as a pilot. A few months ago, there was an internet rumor that he had gone to somewhere in the Middle East to be a combat pilot, having lied about his qualifications. The story said that it didn’t take his employers long to find out he was unqualified, and he was fired. More recently, he told me directly that he was flying combat missions in Libya and that he had to be approved by both the CIA and FBI. Fred also said that his social media was being monitored and that I would be in trouble for asking why he has never showed up at any of our scheduled fights. On the same, allegedly, monitored social media, he threatened my life, agreed to fight and backed out, and said something violently sexual about my mother and some of my friends. if his social media is being monitored it is obviously not monitored for morality.

A military psychiatrist reviewed a collection of the messages which Fred sent me and his determination was that Fred is seriously disturbed and shouldn’t be flying a plane. Fred’s ex-friend from high school reported Fred to the FAA and said that he was unfit to fly. The friend then told me that Fred is bi-polar. When I asked Fred if his new employers were aware of his being bi-polar and if they were fine with that, he said that they were aware and that they “don’t care.”

The transcript of the latest social media exchanges are available upon request. Previous exchanges, insults, threats, and fight dates are available online simply by Googling Fred Pilot Schroeder, the coward.

Will Fred ever fight me? Is he a CIA operative? Is his cover blown? Will the FAA finally realize that he is incredibly disturbed and pull his license? Stay tuned to find out.
Hey Fred Schroeder, please fight Antonio “Brooklyn Monk” Graceffo

Iran: Overcoming a Rentier Economy

By Antonio Graceffo
Shanghai Jiaotong University, China MBA
PhD Candidate, Shanghai University of Sport
Contact: Antonio_graceffo@hotmail.com
Prepared for the course: Constitutional Struggles in the Muslim World,
University of Copenhagen

About one third of Iran’s GDP is dependent on a single asset, oil, which has turned Iran into a classic example of a rentier economy (Graeber 2015). Rentier economies can be based on control of natural resources, property, financial assets, or intellectual property. (Standing 2014). Rentier states are capable of generating income without developing businesses. As a result, “When a country becomes a rentier state, it loses the incentive to diversify and expand other sectors of its economy, remaining stagnant in the raw materials sector.” (Sha’er 2015).

This paper will provide a detailed description of the problem the rentier economy poses Iran. Next, it will propose solutions, including sub-steps that make the solutions politically realistic. Then, it will identify potential opponents to the solutions, as well as potential allies. Finally, in the conclusion, this paper will stress that these solutions are both necessary and politically feasible.
Read the full paper on Aacdemia
https://www.academia.edu/s/1f338c2f09?source=link

The Oklahoma City Bombing, was it terrorism?

By Antonio Graceffo

Shanghai Jiaotong University, China MBA

PhD Candidate, Shanghai University of Sport

Contact: Antonio_graceffo@hotmail.com

Prepared for the course, Terrorism and Counter Terrorism, University of Leiden

 

Table Contents

1.	Introduction
2.	The Attack
3.	The Verdict
4.	Use of the terms ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’
5.	Analysis using Academic Consensus Definition of terrorism
6.	Conclusion
7.	Bibliography
8.	About the author

 

 

 

1. Introduction

 

Terrorism is an emotionally charged issue which has been prominent in both the media and political rhetoric since the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. One of the issues with any discussion of terrorism is that there is no universally accepted definition of the term. The lack of a specific definition impedes international cooperation on anti-terrorism. It also negatively impacts terrorism research, analysis, convictions, and prevention.

 

Terrorism expert, Alex Schmid, Director of St Andrews Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV) and former Officer-in-Charge of the Terrorism Prevention Branch of the United Nations, has proposed a twelve-point Academic Consensus Definition of terrorism.

 

This paper seeks to give a brief recount of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, including the judge’s verdict. It will then assess whether the terms ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ were used with regard to the perpetrator and the incident. Finally, this report will apply the elements of Alex Schmid’s Academic Consensus Definition of terrorism, to determine if the attack qualifies as an act of terrorism.

 

 

2. The Attack

 

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh, a Gulf War veteran parked a rented truck loaded with improvised explosives, made from fertilizer in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He detonated the fuse, and several minutes later 168 people were dead, 19 of them children. Hundreds more were wounded. It was the worst act of domestic terrorism in the history of the United States. Less than 90 minutes later, in an unrelated event, police stopped McVeigh for a traffic violation, when it was discovered that he was illegally carrying a weapon. He was arrested, and while he was in jail, the FBI determined that he was the primary suspect in the bombing (FBI n.a.).

 

3. The verdict

 

Already in custody for traffic and weapons charges, Timothy McVeigh was later recognized as the suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing. He was charged with conspiracy and for the deaths of eight federal agents (Cnn.com 1997). In 1997, the jury turned in a verdict of guilty, on 11 counts of conspiracy and murder (Thomas 1997). The jurors unanimously recommended that the judge impose the death penalty (Cnn.com 1997). Timothy McVeigh was executed by lethal injection, on June 11, 2001, in federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana (Fox News 2001).

 

4. Use of the terms ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’

 

A 1997 CNN report used the word “terrorism” calling the attack “the worst case of terrorism in U.S. history” (Cnn.com 1997). The Washington Post used the word “terror”, describing the attack as shattering “a complacent nation’s belief that the face of random political terror could never be American” (Kenworthy and Roman 1997). The same story went on to explain that “McVeigh was tried under a 1994 federal anti-terrorism statute that has yet to be tested at the Supreme Court. McVeigh’s was the first case under that statute to proceed to sentencing” (Kenworthy and Roman 1997). NBC also used the words “terrorist” and “terrorism” in an article about the 20 year anniversary of the attack: “which until Sept. 11, 2001, was the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil and is the worst act of domestic terrorism in American history” (Chuck 2015).

 

5. Analysis using Academic Consensus Definition of terrorism

 

That the attack was clearly an act of terrorism can be proved by applying the Academic Consensus Definition of terrorism by Alex Schmid (2012).

 

1. Terrorism refers, on the one hand, to a doctrine about the presumed effectiveness of a special form or tactic of fear-generating, coercive political violence and, on the other hand, to a conspiratorial practice of calculated, demonstrative, direct violent action without legal or moral restraints, targeting mainly civilians and non-combatants, performed for its propagandistic and psychological effects on various audiences and conflict parties; (Schmid 2012)

 

Rule 1 applies because of the attack was one of violence and conspiracy which was carried out without “legal or moral restraints, targeting mainly civilian non-combatants.” The term “fear-generating” also applies as McVeigh’s target was the US government, not the individuals he attacked. McVeigh referred to the children he killed as “’collateral damage,’ regretting only that their deaths detracted from his bid to avenge the Branch Davidian raid and Ruby Ridge” (latimes 2001) Attacking civilians with the intent of hurting a government would be a clear example of both “fear-generating” and “propagandistic and psychological effects.”

 

2. “Terrorism as a tactic is employed in three main contexts: (i) illegal state repression, (ii) propagandistic agitation by non-state actors in times of peace or outside zones of conflict and (iii) as an illicit tactic of irregular warfare employed by state- and non-state actors;” (Schmid 2012)

 

The Oklahoma City bombing matches rule 2.ii, McVeigh was a non-state actor, in time of peace, perpetrating propagandistic agitation. Both CNN and the FBI stated that McVeigh was angry because of the 1993 siege near Waco, Texas, where roughly 80 members of the Branch Davidian cult were killed in a gun battle with the FBI. (Cnn.com 1997 and FBI N.A.) McVeigh told ABC News that he was also angry about a 1992 shootout at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, where the family of separatists were killed during a shootout with federal agents (ABCNews n.a.).

 

5. At the origin of terrorism stands terror – instilled fear, dread, panic or mere anxiety – spread among those identifying, or sharing similarities, with the direct victims, generated by some of the modalities of the terrorist act – its shocking  brutality,  lack of discrimination,  dramatic or symbolic quality and disregard of the rules of warfare and the rules of punishment;

 

Killing innocent civilians, and particularly children, matches rule number 5.

 

Finally, the fact that McVeigh attacked innocent civilians, as a result of his anger against the US government matches the definitions of rules 6 and 7.

 

6. “The main direct victims of terrorist attacks are in general not any armed forces but are usually civilians, non-combatants or other innocent and defenceless persons who bear no direct responsibility for the conflict that gave rise to acts of terrorism;” (Schmid 2012)

 

7. “The direct victims are not the ultimate target (as in a classical assassination where victim and target coincide) but serve as message generators, more or less unwittingly helped by the news values of the mass media, to reach various audiences and conflict parties that identify either with the victims’ plight or the terrorists’ professed cause;” (Schmid 2012)

 

6. Conclusion

 

For his 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City,   Timothy McVeigh was convicted of murder and conspiracy under an antiterrorism law and sentenced to death. The media, both then and now, referred to the act as terrorism. The bombing constitutes an act of terrorism, according to Academic Consensus Definition of terrorism by Alex Schmid (2012). The attack, perpetrated by a non state actor, during time of peace, carried out against innocent civilians, motivated by an anti-government ideology matches rules 1, 2.ii, 5, 6, and 7.

 

7. References

 

ABCNews. ‘Primetime: Mcveigh’s Own Words’. ABC News. N.p., n.a. Web. 26 Nov. 2015.

Chuck, Elizabeth. ‘Where Are They Now? The People In The Oklahoma City Bombing’. NBC News. N.p., 2015. Web. 25 Nov. 2015.

Cnn.com,. ‘CNN – Mcveigh Sentenced To Die For Oklahoma City Bombing – June 13, 1997’. N.p., 1997. Web. 25 Nov. 2015.

FBI,. ‘Oklahoma City Bombing’. Web. 25 Nov. 2015.

Fox News,. ‘Timothy Mcveigh Put To Death For Oklahoma City Bombings | Fox News’. N.p., 2001. Web. 27 Nov. 2015.

Kenworthy, Tom, and Lois Roman. ‘Washingtonpost.Com: Oklahoma City Bombing Trial Report’. Washingtonpost.com. N.p., 1997. Web. 25 Nov. 2015.

latimes,. ‘Mcveigh Labels Young Victims ‘Collateral Damage”. N.p., 2001. Web. 27 Nov. 2015.

Schmid, Alex. ‘The Revised Academic Consensus Definition Of Terrorism’. Perspectives on Terrorism 6.2 (2012): n. pag. Web. 25 Nov. 2015.

Thomas, Jo. ‘Mcveigh GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS IN THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING; JURY TO WEIGH DEATH PENALTY’. Nytimes.com. N.p., 1997. Web. 27 Nov. 2015.

 

8. About the author

 

Brooklyn Monk, Antonio Graceffo is a lecturer at Shanghai University. He is also a PhD candidate at Shanghai University of sport, writing his dissertation on comparative forms of Chinese wrestling, in Chinese, with expected graduation in June of 2016. He is expected to graduate his China MBA, from Shanghai Jiaotong University, in January, 2016. Antonio is the author of the books, “Warrior Odyssey”, “The Monk from Brooklyn,” and several others. He has published hundreds of articles in the fields of linguistics: second language acquisition, as well as martial arts. Antonio is the host of the web TV show, “Martial Arts Odyssey,” which traces his ongoing journey through Asia, learning martial arts in various countries.

The Monk from Brooklyn, the book which gave Antonio his name, and all of his other books, the book available at amazon.com. His book, Warrior Odyssey,  chronicling Antonio Graceffo’s first six years in Asia, including stories about Khmer and Vietnamese martial arts as well as the war in Burma and the Shan State Army,  is available at http://www.blackbeltmag.com/warrior_odyssey

See Antonio’s Destinations video series and find out about his column on  http://www.blackbeltmag.com

Twitter: Brooklynmonk

http://twitter.com/Brooklynmonk

Facebook: Brooklyn Monk fan page

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brooklyn-Monk/152520701445654?fref=ts

Brooklyn Monk on YOUTUBE

http://www.youtube.com/user/brooklynmonk1

Brooklyn Monk in Asia Blog

https://brooklynmonk.wordpress.com/

Books by Antonio Graceffo

http://www.amazon.com/Antonio-Graceffo/e/B001JP12L6/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1447842711&sr=1-2-ent

Brooklyn Monk in Asia Podcast (anti-travel humor)

http://brooklynmonk.podomatic.com

 

 

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