Ten years on after the Iraq Invasion; Three things I was writing back then...

What Does Iraq's Oil Law say About an Invasion

2007
By Cody Lyon from OMNI
Amman, Jordan, is set to play host to a three-day economic trade show, a corporate meet and greet between powerful, well-moneyed investors and those who the guard the gates of vital decision-making government ministries in perilous but oil-rich Iraq.

On its Web site, loosely defined organizer Iraq Development Program (IDP) calls the Jordan gathering a "historic landmark event" Officially titled the Iraq Oil, Gas, Petrochemical and Electricity Summit, the three days of face to face meetings that begins on May 28 could impact Iraq's economic future for years to come.
Link to full story


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Al Qaeda and Iraq: The Panel and the President
2004

Letter from Cody Lyon- New York Times

While it is upsetting that President Bush and his administration used fear, anger and manipulation to intimidate the American people into believing that Iraq played a role in Sept. 11, it is even more disturbing that many Americans accepted his word as fact.

Link to NYT


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Notes on a Thursday in Spring- Before Memorial Day
2007

From my blog

The weather goes from cool to warm and the sun is bright this particular Thursday in New York’s East Village. At a Mexican takeout shop, beef tacos are purchased, then eaten sitting on a bench in Tompkins Square Park, under a tree that appears very lush, and filled with chirping birds.

The park is crowded, the playground full of kids, the grass covered with sun bathers, the dog run is noisy, chaotic.

At the dog run, people gather, watching the dogs, apparently a fight has broken out, first between dogs then it spreads among humans. One man pushes another, barks and shouts are traded, as all the dog owners yell at an older man, because of what they say is an aggressive dog.

But the cell phone rings, it’s a friend in Alabama, she says hello and the conversation lasts for a while.

She’s been dating a new guy, she thinks she really likes him and he’s taking her on a trip to Las Vegas.

Link to the post

U.S. Taxpayers May Have Paid for Some Iraq Insurgent Weaponry (CBS NEWS)

CBS News Investigative reporter Armen Keteyian reveals that the "CIA has photographic evidence that Austrian-made Glocks intended for Iraqi security forces and paid for by U.S. taxpayers are now in the hands of Iraqi insurgents -- in numbers that the intelligence community believes are in the thousands." ...
LINK TO VIDEO REPORT AT CBSNEWS

House Rejects Permanent Bases in Iraq

The United States House of Representatives approved a resolution that would prohibit the establishment of permanent US Military Bases in Iraq. Here's a link to coverage of this important vote as reported by Dan Robinson of "Voice of America".

Al Queda and Iraq: The Panel and The President

Here's a link to a letter published in the June 18th,2004 edition of the "New York Times" regarding flawed intelligence and failures by the mainstream press.
"Times" Letter to the Editor

FRONTLINE'S "GANGS OF IRAQ"

PBS FRONTLINE’S “Gangs of Iraq”, part of the network’s “America at a Crossroads” series, reveals in gripping detail the complicated turmoil and horror that defines much of what Iraq has become today. With remarkable honesty, meticulous detail and stunning imagery and sounds, questions are raised about an exit strategy dependent on the training of Iraqi security forces.

As the program’s website notes of the plan: “But despite a four-year training effort -- costing $15 billion and producing more than 300,000 Iraqi soldiers and national police -- the violence in Iraq has only intensified.”

Simply put, this is a very important window into the conflict in Iraq that all Americans should watch closely. Fortunately, one can watch the entire series online at the PBS.ORG website. Here’s a link below:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gangsofiraq

What Does Iraq's New Hydrocarbon Law say About the War?

BY CODY LYON (note: also published in April at OH MY NEWS INTERNATIONAL)

On May 28th, Amman Jordan is set to play host to a 3 day economic trade show, a corporate meet and greet between powerful, well moneyed investors and those who the guard the gates of vital decision making government ministries in the perilous but oil rich place called Iraq.

On its website, ‘The Iraq Development Program’, loosely defined organizers, call the Jordan gathering “historic” and “landmark”. Officially titled an Oil, Gas, Petrochemical & Electricity Summit, the three days of face to face meetings could impact Iraq’s economic future for years to come.

Efforts to contact IDP directly and understand the origin of their funding and purpose were not successful, but the group’s stated mission is to “aid Iraq as an economic force.”

The Iraq Development Program’s web page says ‘following declaration of new foreign investment laws for the extractive industries, noting that the government is now finalizing its new hydrocarbon laws’ to which promoters of the event say “the timing of this summit could not be better.

Iraq’s new oil- hydrocarbon law, and the push to see it quickly passed, has begun to raise serious questions among observers and critics.

The Iraqi cabinet approved the hydrocarbon law on February 26^th and sent it on to Parliament where it now sits. If fully approved, Iraq’s oil reserves would be opened to investment from foreign multinational oil companies. The current legislation would also provide oil companies the option for long term contracts of up to 30 years. The laws would set up a Profit Sharing Agreements or PSA’s arrangement, where revenue is based on the profit after oil companies’ deduct their production costs. Reportedly, remaining profits would then be divided among the Iraqi provinces.

Critics charge the law offers excessive and unfair profits to the oil companies

.Others worry that since Iraq is now a country experiencing horrific turmoil, the time is not right to debate such important economic legislation..

Supporters of the oil law disagree. They say the regulatory, legal and tax structure the oil law sets up, will invite the necessary outside investment the country needs to jump start its economy. They see the law as an enabler of market based economic infrastructure that will produce streams of revenue, helping restore stability and prosperity for the Iraqi people.

In the background, outspoken opponents of the war, say the push for such a law is evidence that that the war had more to do with gaining access to oil than what the public was told.

“This story raises so many more questions than it answer” said Dr. Louay Bahry, Adjunct scholar of Public Policy at the non partisan Middle East Institute in Washington D.C.

“As I read it, these foreign companies are fighting to get to Iraqi oil” said Dr. Bahry noting such practices would be new.

On Background, oil company representatives were clear about hopes to enter Iraq but stressed security, democracy and an oil law that included investment incentives are necessary.

PSA’s are a primary incentive of the oil laws.. According to the International Energy Agency, 12 percent of the world’s oil reserves are subject to Profit Sharing Agreements.

“This would completely break from normal practice in the region where all the major oil producing industries are in the public sector” said Greg Mutitt, co director of the British research and watchdog organization, Platform London. Mutitt said Iraq would be the only major Middle Eastern oil producing nation where production is controlled by foreign companies.

Platform London’s “Unraveling the Carbon Web” project states that it seeks to reduce the environmental and social impact of oil corporations and help citizens gain a say in decisions that affect them.

According to Muttit, oil companies have been lobbying hard to get what they want in Iraq by working with both the US and UK governments, and through the International Tax and Investment Center.

Mutitt, who authored a chapter in a new book called “A Game as Old as the Empire” says that ExxonMobil, Chevron, Total and ENI funded ITIC’s efforts at influencing the oil legislation in Iraq..

Founded in 1993, after the fall of the former Soviet Union, The International Tax and Investment Center is a Washington D.C non profit research and education foundation with some of the world’s largest corporations as sponsors. Co chair’s of the organization are former Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering and The Rt. Hon Lord Walker, MBE, PC, former UK Secretary of Trade and Industry.

“Our purpose is to improve tax and investment regimes” said Daniel Witt, President of the ITIC in Washington DC. The organization works with economies in transition and according to Witt, Iraq fit that profile perfectly.

Witt says the challenge in Iraq was, how to attract investment where there is no stable economic infrastructure? In Iraq, ITIC commissioned a number of experts and looked at contract and fiscal options in the petroleum sector.

“Make no mistake, donor money is important in transition periods” said Witt.

But, he says both the oil companies and the people of Iraq, stand to benefit from ITIC’s recommendations.

In 2004 ITIC published its Petroleum and Iraq’s Future: Fiscal Options and Challenges report that said every $1 increase in oil sales may translate into an extra $2 for the country’s Gross Domestic Product. The report said the Iraqi government should write legislation that will create a framework where resources, rent and risk are shared between the investor, consistent with underlying economic potential and drawing on current industry norms and best practice.

The study says that profits based systems tend to align parties toward common objectives.

Beyond rebuilding the country, oil company representatives say Iraqi oil plays another necessary role, meeting the world’s energy demands.

“Given the scale of Iraq’s resources and ambitions, we find it hard to see a future in which production of these resources will not play a significant role in meeting the global energy challenge” said a representative from Shell International in London this past March 29th.

But a number of critics worry the Iraqi people will be short changed. Some Iraqis see the oil companies as trying to gain partial ownership of the country’s primary source of revenue.

“These laws give these foreign oil companies the right to actually have shared ownership of the oil” said Raed Jarrar, Iraq Project Consultant with The American Friends Committee.

Jarrar says that since the laws do not set any limits of the percentage shared, over the next 30 years or so, the PSAs could cost Iraq billions of dollars.

Privatization proponents disagree, arguing that Iraqis will maintain ultimate control over their reserves of oil while benefiting from world market trends.

According to Daniel Witt at International Tax and Investment Center, “as oil prices go up or down, you have these dynamics in the contracts but Iraq is not surrendering sovereign rights” over the oil he said.

In 1972, Iraq nationalized all assets of the country’s private oil consortium, the Iraq Petroleum Company, or IPC, after years of disagreements over revenue. In the past, Iraq relied on oil for up to 90 percent of foreign exchange earnings.

According to a CIA memo that same year, Iraq’s move to nationalize was the result of 11 years of tensions that resulted from the IPC’s refusal to satisfy Iraq’s demands for back payments it claimed the consortium owed.

The Iraq Petroleum Company, or IPC, included French, Dutch, British and United States oil firms including British Petroleum, Shell, Mobil, Standard and Compagnie Francaise des Petroles.

Nationalization meant that one hundred percent of oil revenues went directly to the central government, a move that many in the Middle East saw as a move towards greater economic self determination, a step that stood to benefit the Iraqi people directly through social programs, healthcare an education.

Nationalization set’s up a system whereby foreign oil companies buy oil from the state, under the state’s terms.

The move set the stage whereby Western oil companies, and the powerful economies they supply, found themselves in even more vulnerable positions, subject to the whims of oil rich countries.

The Central Intelligence Agency 1972 memo expressed its displeasure calling the move “sudden and dramatic.”

Some say that multi national oil interests have been anxious to get back to Iraq ever since.

Public debate over the law, both in Iraq and the United States, has remained hidden beneath front pages filled with daily death and destruction.

According to Greg Muttit at Platform London the majority of Iraq’s citizens have no idea that this important law is being discussed.

“Most Iraqi’s would be extremely angry about this if anyone had bothered to tell them this was being done” he said.

He says that those who are, MPs, trade unions and oil experts, are actively organizing against it.

“The oil companies and governments are planning to take advantage of the occupation and the general weak position of Iraqi state institutions to push through deals on highly profitable terms, at the expense of the Iraqi people” said Muttit.

A few Iraqi political leaders have raised opposition.

A March 13^th, “Voices of Iraq” report said Iraqi National Slate Party member Hussein al-Fallui was arguing that it was not the right time to be dealing with the issue.

“Socio-political and security circumstances do not allow such a step now, as the draft would allow investment companies to re-wield power over Iraqi oil” Falluji told Parliament according to the “VOI” report.

ITIC’S Daniel Witt disagrees, saying the time is right to invite new investment that will re start the stalled economy.

“Given the lack of infrastructure needed to jump start the economy, and get investment in now, verses waiting 10 or 15 years so they (the Iraqis) can debate these laws til kingdom come” he said.

But some have questioned whether the law takes into account Iraq’s reality on the ground.. They worry about tensions that might arise between the various, deeply divided provinces once the market system is in place.

Dr. Louay Bahry says there is a great deal of opposition from both the sunnis and shite regarding the law. He says the Kurds, who apparently offer the most support, would prefer total freedom, and see revenue from their region go directly to them.

“When it comes to revenue sharing, the law is not clear how exactly that is going to happen” said Dr. Louday Bahryl.

He says that 80 percent of the country’s oil specialists have fled the country.

“We have so many oil specialists from Iraq, but they are no longer there” he said.

Raed Jarrar goes further, saying the law will exacerbate those divisions. He calls the law a marriage of convenience between the Bush Administration and Iraqi separatists who are monopolizing power within the Iraqi government.

“The oil law threatens the concept of a unified Iraq’s existence” because the law “decentralizes” most of the important authority of signing oil contracts he said.

The recent surge by American troops has raised eyebrows as some ask whether the increase is an attempt to buy time so outside oil interests can have a chance to gain a greater foothold over the direction of the fragile economy.

An April 5^th analysis report in “Iraq Updates” by UPI’s Pamela Hess, said US officials are planning “a range of options to maintain the troop increase, from late summer through early spring 2008” whereby the hope is to quell the violence long enough in Iraq for the nascent government to address some of the ‘underlying causes of the conflict, including the oil wealth sharing law.

Supporters of Iraq’s current hydrocarbon law cross both sides of the American political spectrum. They see the law as not only as business friendly, but a chance to bring Iraq into the world marketplace which they believe will foster democracy.

“The only way to fuel economic growth is through an engine of private sector investment” and “the sad part is, advocating state run equals slower economic growth which also equals slower improvement in quality of life” said Daniel Witt.

Recommendations 62 and 63 of Baker/Hamilton Iraqi Study Group recommends that the United States assist the Iraqi in drafting an oil law that helps privatize the industry and encourages investment.

One of the Study Group’s members, Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta plugged the law in an April 4^th “New York Times” op-ed.

In the article, Panetta listed the eventual approval of Iraq’s oil law as one of a number of steps the Iraqis could take to encourage democracy and achieve national reconciliation.

In his April 3^rd Rose Garden Press conference, President Bush told reporters he had spoken to Iraq’s Prime Minister about the ‘oil law’ earlier.

In a March 27^th speech to the Washington Institute’s Public Policy forum, David Satterfield, a Senior Advisor to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, called the national hydrocarbon law part of the Bush Administration’s “New Way Forward” in Iraq.

On March 3, 2007, US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad wrote in the "Washington Post" that the national hydrocarbon law “is a significant achievement for Iraqi’s national reconciliation.”

The Bush Administration appears to have been interested in an oil law friendly to foreign investment since the invasion began in 2003. But, some have pointed to clues that a push to gain easy access to Iraq’s oil has been underway for years.

In 1999, Vice President Dick Cheney, while still CEO of Halliburton, said in a speech to the Institute of Petroleum that the “Middle East, with two thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.”

In 2003, four months after the March invasion had begun, The US Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded Mc Lean Virginia consulting firm Bearing Point, a nine million dollar contract to support activities and policies undertaken by the Coalition Provisional Authority, designed to create a competitive private sector.

Platform London’s Carbon Web wrote in July 2006, that the US government had hired advisers from Bearing Point to help in drafting the oil law.

Bearing Point spokesperson Steve Lunceford said the firm was doing what it has done in the past in places like Kosovoand Poland, providing assistance in the review of a number of economic policy efforts.

“This included providing a single expert that consulted to the government on its oil industry” said Lunceford this past week.

“Note, this does not equal ‘drafting’ the proposed hydrocarbon law” he wrote in an email message.

Some Invasion opponents see Bearing Point’s role in helping draft the law, as part of a bridge of suggestive evidence that crosses over to the controversial period before the war, when talk of how to gain control over Iraq’s oil was quietly bubbling in pockets around the world, primarily the United States and Britan

In his 2002 “American Prospect” profile of Ahmed Chalabi, America’s original choice for a high leadership position in a new Iraq, Robert Dreyfus offers a snapshot of alleged oil ambition playing a role in an eventual invasion.

Dreyfus’ story quotes former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James E. Akins as saying conservative think tanks and multinationals have denationalization in mind, and the parceling of “Iraqi oil out to American oil companies.”

Chalabi, a member of the Iraqi National Congress, had allegedly met with US oil company officials and guaranteed lucrative contracts if the US overthrew Saddam Hussein.

According to the “American Prospect” 2002 story, when asked about such meetings one US oil executive said “I can’t discuss that, even on background.”

Later, in a July 2003 interview with PBS television program FRONTLINE, Chalabi admitted being “close” to Bush Administration members Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith confirming he’d had easy access to Vice President Cheney’s office.

When confronted by FRONTLINE with a direct quote from the “London Observer” where he assured US oil companies lucrative contracts for removing Saddam, Chalabi said “no, that’s not true” arguing he’d said Iraq’s oil needed investment to increase production.

Leading back to present day, where a number of observers and invasion opponents allege that the hydrocarbon law, and the contracts it encourages, lend evidence to the “blood for oil” charge as Green Party Chairman Jim Coplen did in a March 5^th press release.

The hydrocarbon law’s supporters caution against making such allegations.

Of those who attempt to draw correlations between the new hydrocarbon law and the motive for the invasion, Daniel Witt at ITIC says “they are trying to connect dots that aren’t there” arguing such controversial theory provides a platform to advance their long stated objectives.

“They have a fundamentally different view of the world than me” but “history has proven that people are better off with economic growth.”

Now That Scooter Libby's Name Is "Patsy"

by CODY LYON

Now that Scooter Libby’s name change to “Patsy” is complete, the perfect opportunity has arisen for Democrats to wake up, take a shot of testosterone, and open a real, binding investigation as to why the United States was led into the quagmire of Iraq.

Mr. Libby’s guilty verdict on four of five counts, including perjury and obstruction of justice is certainly good to see. Hopefully Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson will sleep better at night now that it’s clear Libby was carrying out dirty deeds for higher ups in the White House. But ultimately, Libby’s trial will probably go down in history as a simplistic, un-ambitious but certainly entertaining Washington soap opera. Players from journalists to lower level White House officials stole this show, as the focus of the event changed quicker than the day’s top stories at CNN. Unfortunately, the trial of Scooter Libby was a diversion from where the real digging should have been taking place, which is in the halls of Congress, a dig for real truths about what has proven to be a tragic turn of events, on view for all Americans to see.

The Libby trial was a diversion from the more serious questions that still need to be answered and aired before the public. In the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, was the White House angry that its intelligence assessment was being challenged, and if so, why?

Today, Congress, a body with subpoena power, has a wide opening of noble but difficult opportunity. Members on both sides of the aisle could eat humble pie, take a deep breath and dive right into what could prove to be a national epiphany. A complete investigation of the actions by players in the White House, could turn out to be a very valuable lesson for the most important players of all, the American people. But, understandably, a number of those in Congress continue to wallow and whine in a sea of denial, blame and embarrassment tainted by self-serving politics regarding the decision to follow the Pied Piper to Iraq.

As it stands now, come January 2008, Libby will get his pardon, and the current crew in the White House will scurry off into their private financially secure lives, leaving behind the mess they led us to in Iraq. And, the administration also leaves behind, several thousand maimed, blinded, limbless souls, another several thousand dead sons and daughters, who, God only knows, what they may have contributed to this world, had they lived and not been sacrificed in a war that was based on arrogance, manipulated intelligence and fear, sold to a people shattered from an attack carried out by individuals who had absolutely no connection to the country called Iraq.

Scooter Libby’s trial spelled out the obvious, that Vice President Cheney was upset the Bush Administration message of fear was being challenged. Without fear, the White House didn’t have a case for the invasion of Iraq. Congress, afraid of constituent reaction for challenging a popular White House, fell for, or at least went along with the message, as did a large portion of the media, and hence, the public, the rest is history.

But painful as it may be, it would be nothing short of sinful for Congressional leaders, here and now, to not seek out all facts and come clean on the allegedly lie filled road to Iraq. In the same way that individuals learn from their mistakes, so too do governments.

And, Congress has a duty to the men and women of our armed forces to prove that the system of checks and balances has more meaning than a simple sound bite. Sticking one’s head in the sand and carrying on as if looking back and airing the truth stifles progress or corrupts morale, will in the end, only grow the putrid distrust that many Americans now feel about Washington.

Beating An Old Horse Named Tragedy

Beating an Old Horse Named Tragedy
By Cody Lyon



Calling the findings of a new Pentagon Inspector General report on Pre Iraqi invasion intelligence, a devastating condemnation of inappropriate activities, Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, charged what many war opponents have held as truth. Intelligence used to justify an invasion of Iraq, was manipulated.

In response to the dramatic language Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia countered, saying he was “still trying to figure out why we’re here” arguing that “we’re beating this horse one more time” said Chambliss.

This coming from a man who whipped the same horse for his own political gain, back when he blasted decency from the Georgia Senate race in 2002. As you may recall, Chambliss ran television attack ads filled with suggestive simultaneous images of Saddam, Osama and his Democratic opponent, Max Cleland, a US war vet who lost limbs in Vietnam, but as a Senator, happened to be critical of Bush Administration policy.

Regardless, Chambliss’ question is legitimate. What purpose does it serve for the Senate to beat this sore old horse one more time and study and air the findings of Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble?

The answer is simple.

The American people deserve to know if their trust was violated. What could be wrong with finding out whether arrogance and reckless cherry picking of key intelligence was used to sell fear, subsequent foreign policy and military action. Beating this horse once again might lead all Americans to some conclusive, probably painful, but necessary answers about how we arrived at our latest tragedy, Iraq.

The dots continue to be confirmed and connected.

Think back to a 2002 "CBS News" report by correspondent David Martin that reported just hours after the planes of 9/11 had struck New York and the Pentagon Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s began instructing aides to find links between Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

According to the cited notes taken by Don Rumsfeld’s aides, the Defense Secretary said he wanted the “best information fast” that would “judge whether good enough to hit Saddam Hussein”.

“Go massive” and “Sweep it all up. Things related and not” said Rumsfeld in the notes according to the CBS.

The new Gimble report shows how those instructions might have shot down the chain of command to then Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz. According to the report, Wolfowitz then instructed Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith to access links between Al Queda and Iraq.

The group went to work, digging for links.

According to the “Washington Post”, in July 2002, the Feith led group then put together a position paper that was later transformed into a briefing.

But red flags were raised about the report/briefing’s contents, accuracy and verifiability.

The CIA was warning that portions of the briefing were flawed, the most high profile nugget of information being the highly publicized story that there had been contacts between 9/11 hijacker-terrorist Mohammed Atta and Iraqi intelligence agents.

Gimble said, when the Feith report was complete, the CIA called the ‘Atta’ part of the report “contradictory at best”.

In fact, according to the “Los Angeles Times”, Gimble’s Inspection says analysts from the CIA and other agencies actually disagreed with “more than 50% of 26 findings the Feith Pentagon team laid out in its eventual position paper”

But the team forged ahead turning the requested information over to high-level members of the Bush Administration.

Armed with what now appears to have been flawed evidence, the stage was set for one of the most deceptive, misleading, spook based sales campaigns ever offered to a 9/11 tragedy soaked, traumatized and confused nation.

The Administration led a PR offensive intent on implying links between 9/11 and Iraq, a campaign that manifest itself in speeches, television appearances and press conferences.

From the 2001 “Meet the Press” Cheney quote where he said it was “pretty well confirmed” that Atta met with a senior Iraqi agent to his later assertion that “the Iraqi intelligence service had a relationship with al Queda stretching back through most of the of the 90’s” the Vice President was in sell mode.

And the President was close behind.

During a March 2003 prime time news conference President Bush himself mentioned September 11th eight times as he appeared to ‘justify’ Iraqi war plans with the American people. The President mentioned Saddam Hussein several more times than that, often in the same sentence that he spoke of September 11th. And, then there is a certain passage within the State of the Union speech, now flagged as flawed.

In what could be seen as one of the more exploitive moments in American history, the Republicans decided to co-opt tragedy for political gain and use the city where much of the events of 9/11 took place, as a vivid backdrop of tragedy, a shameless launching pad for what now appears as justification for why more tragedy was on the way.

Unfortunately, much of the press and doubtful politicians were neutered or intimidated, and in the end, the selling of tragedy was a smashing success, as much of a bruised nation bought flawed, un-tested merchandise. This is a sale that eventually led to the violent quandary that has now cost thousands of American lives, thousands more innocent Iraqis, taxed our defense forces, cost billions of dollars and divided our own people.

So, as Americans hear and read subtle suggestion of justification for future conflict, how critical should we be of rhetoric coming from tragedy and fear salespeople, politicians like the Senator from Georgia who now complains of beating horses?

Keep in mind, that in November 2001, Georgia’s Saxby Chambliss once told emergency responders in Valdosta Georgia that the sheriff “should arrest every Muslim that crosses the state line.”