Who's A Terrorist?

The government de-terrorists an ISIS & al-Qaeda fighter while applying the term to Trump's critics.

The hypocrisy of the United States of America is no secret. The State Department will accuse Russia of violating the Rules-Based International Order one week and then arm Israeli colonial settlers the next. Politicians pledge to ‘spread democracy to the Middle East’ while restricting voting rights in Alabama. Though America is globally known for its hollow posturing, rarely is there a single day on which the Empire’s moral bankruptcy is so clearly displayed.

September 22nd, 2025, was such a day.

In Washington, D.C., President Trump signed a national security directive designating antifa a ‘domestic terrorist organization.’ It’s the first declaration of a ‘domestic’ terrorist organization, marking an escalation in the administration’s ongoing war against dissidence and the 1st Amendment. As many have pointed out, antifa isn’t a coherent group but an umbrella term for anti-fascists movements. (Antifa is ‘anti-fascist’ shortened.) Still, this should trouble us. Because no American is a member of this non-existent organization, it makes it easier for the Department of Justice to argue that anyone is part of it. If antifa held meetings and sent fundraising emails, it’d be clear who was and wasn’t a card-carrying member. As no such structure exists, Trump can attach the designation to any opponent or accused, as he did with Luigi Mangione, who allegedly shot United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.¹

Trump signs a declaration marking antifa a ‘domestic terrorist organization’ on September 22nd. (Reuters, Ken Cedeno)

The ploy to characterize any organized critic of the president as a ‘terrorist’ was greatly expanded last week by the seventh National Security Presidential Memorandum of Trump’s term (NSPM-7), Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence. Unlike Trump’s executive orders, NPSM-7 and the antifa declaration aren’t fodder for a Sean Hannity monologue to enthuse the nation’s nursing homes. NSPMs are a directive for executive agencies. According to journalist

Ken Klippenstein

, by issuing NSPM-7, Trump is commanding the FBI, DOJ, and National Joint Terrorism Task Force to preemptively attack people or groups that are “anti-American,” “anti-capitalist,” “anti-Christian,” those with “extremist” views on immigration, race, gender, or are “hostile to traditional American views on family, religion, or morality.” In other words, if you’re politics aren’t represented on Truth Social, the American government now considers you a terrorist — a term with extraordinary political and propaganda power. If legally applied, it can block access to American and global financial systems. Colloquially, calling someone a terrorist dehumanizes them as a ruthless savages undeserving of human rights (which is wrong, even if they’ve engaged in terrorism), so the American government can arrest, torture, or extrajudicially execute them without public backlash. But it’s not just superlative labels I’m most concerned about. NSPM-7 includes far-reaching directions for investigators to disrupt even ‘indirect financial supporters’ of this expanded terrorism definition. Combined with NSPM-7’s wide-ranging classification, this means an American who’s given $15 to the ACLU or a left-of-center political campaign could now be on a government watchlist. Make no mistake about it. This is a frightening encroachment on 1st Amendment protections and other treasured civil liberties by the most anti-free speech presidency of my lifetime.

While Donald Trump was busy designating Republicans’ opponents terrorists, a different political spectacle was working to strip the label from an individual far more dangerous than anyone Trump included.

On September 22, the Concordia Annual Summit showcased a mind-baffling interviewer-interviewee pairing that highlighted America’s fickle commitment to principled anti-terrorism. On a New York City stage, retired Army General and CIA Director David Petraeus interviewed Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa. Al-Sharaa ascended to the presidency after toppling the Assad regime last December. Before that, he was a terrorist. Not in a radical-anti-capitalist-that-scares-grandpa kind of way, but in a chop-the-heads-off-Shia-Muslims kind of way. As the pair jokingly acknowledged, al-Sharaa, who adopted the nom de guerre al-Fatih Abu Mohammad al-Jolani (or Muhammad al-Jawlani), fought for al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2005 against the American forces, which were led by David Petraeus. Al-Sharaa was captured and imprisoned by the American occupation from 2005 to 2011. Whether he was released or escaped from prison is unclear.²

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa (formerly Muhammad al-Jawlani) and his former captor, retired Army General David Petraeus. (Andres Kudacki/AP)

During his incarceration, al-Sharaa brushed elbows with other influential Islamist extremists. His most notable fellow inmate was ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Once free, al-Sharaa received funding from al-Baghdadi to set up al-Nusrah Front, a joint ISIS/al-Qaeda operation to fight against the Syrian Armed Forces of then-President Bashar al-Assad. Despite being designated as a terrorist group by the U.S., al-Nusrah Front was openly supported by our “closest ally,” Israel. (Israel has sketchy connections to ISIS-linked groups. In 2017, the former IDF chief admitted ISIS had ‘apologized’ for accidentally shooting at Israeli troops, which raises a host of questions.³) You can watch

Mehdi Hasan

press Israel’s ex-Mossad chief on their support for al-Nusrah Front, below.

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In 2017, under al-Sharaa’s direction, al-Nusrah reformed as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to distance itself from al-Qaeda and attract secular militias into the anti-Assad coalition. Though the al-Qaeda break was public, the groups remained well-connected behind the scenes. In 2018, the State Department updated its al-Nusrah Front terrorist organization to reflect the new alias, writing:

In January 2017, al-Nusrah Front launched the creation of HTS as a vehicle to advance its position in the Syrian uprising and to further its own goals as an al-Qaeda affiliate. Since January 2017, the group has continued to operate through HTS in pursuit of these objectives.

The Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Ambassador Nathan A. Sales, noted that “today’s designation serves notice that the United States is not fooled by this al-Qaeda affiliate’s attempt to rebrand itself. Whatever name al-Nusrah chooses, we will continue to deny it the resources it seeks to further its violent cause.”⁴

Even in its new ‘moderate’ form, al-Sharaa continued the oppressive rule and terrorism of his infamous parent organizations. According to a 2022 report from the Syrian Network for Human Rights, al-Nusra/HTS killed over 500 civilians between 2012 and 2021 through military strikes on civilians, torture, inhumane confinement, and extrajudicial executions.

Courtesy of the Syrian Network for Human Rights

To the surprise of no one, Syrian President Ahmed al-Shara holds the same regard for human life as al-Qaeda commander Ahmed al-Sharaa: little, if not none. Since he became president, al-Sharaa’s forces have barbarically attacked Druze, Christian, and Alawite communities. (The Assad family is Alawite, making them a frequent target of anti-Assad sentiment.⁵) Torture, rape, mutilation, and executions are common.⁶⁷ Despite a past and present of committing definitional terrorism (political violence against civilians to spread fear), Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked the terrorist declaration from HTS and al-Nusrah Front earlier this year.⁸ Though the American government, capitalists at Concordia, and David Petraeus want us to believe ongoing massacres are a bump on the road to Syrian democracy, al-Sharaa’s first year of his yet-to-be-defined term has been inline with his previous statements intending to build an Islamist Syria with no place for non-Muslims.⁹ As always, this doesn’t mean Assad’s forces were (or are) acceptable. The former dictators crimes are well documented, and his loyal holdouts commit many atrocities of their own. But the cartoonish hypocrisy of the United States’ heel turn on al-Sharaa is too much to ignore. The U.S. Syrian embassy still has a post up offering a $10 million reward for the now-president’s capture, calling him an ‘al-Qaeda affiliate’ and citing his ‘multiple terrorist attacks throughout Syria, often targeting civilians’ as justification for his arrest.

Don’t worry guys I found him.

The two developments of September 22nd, one applying the terrorist designation to law-abiding, Republican-critical Americans and the other attempting to remove it from an ISIS mass-murderer, shows the chaotic, fascist nature of post-War on Terror America. The same could be said of the Israeli government that considers Palestinian civilians killable, but materially supports al-Qaeda and ISIS operations. As always, governments are the ones to print the “This Guy’s A Terrorist!” sticker label, but the media slaps it on and rubs out the air bubbles.

Seizing the attention from the right’s campaign to label any left-wing opposition as illegitimate violence, Axios recently published this purposefully misleading stacked bar chart implying left wing attacks outnumbered right wing attacks.¹⁰ By placing the smaller value (left wing terrorist attacks, orange) on top of the larger value (right wing terrorist attacks, gray), the graph misconstrues the ideological nature of domestic terrorism. For example, there were twenty-nine right wing attacks in 2023 and a single left wing attack. But the formatting misuse (it’s too obvious to be considered a mistake) implies there were thirty left wing attacks.

According to the U.S. government, I’m a terrorist for writing this article critical of America’s ‘traditional views on morality.’ But Stephen Miller ordering the military to bomb any boat leaving Venezuela is given no-such designation.¹¹ Just as Donald Trump did not create the racist, oligarchical, and reactionary tendencies that elevated him to commander in chief, the American government’s distorting designation of who is and is not a ‘terrorist’ is not new. However, like those bigotries, Donald Trump is amplifying the tactic to troubling affect.

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1. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn83151z0xno

2. https://www.ft.com/content/8aa819a3-2fc7-4790-be00-b42f21ed1c4e

3. https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/middle-east/isis-israel-defence-force-apology-attack-unit-golan-heights-defense-minister-moshe-ya-alon-a7700616.html

4. https://2017-2021.state.gov/amendments-to-the-terrorist-designations-of-al-nusrah-front/

5. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Alawite

6. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/07/syria-president-al-sharaa-must-publish-full-investigation-into-civilian-killings/

7. https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/08/1165649

8. https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/07/revoking-the-foreign-terrorist-organization-designation-of-hayat-tahrir-al-sham

9. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-10-2025-001071_EN.html

10. https://www.axios.com/2025/09/28/left-wing-terrorism-far-right-violence-research

11. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/29/stephen-miller-venezuela-drug-boat-strike