Posts Tagged: al-Qaeda

Government / Politicking / Terror / War — No Comments
30
Nov 09

Obamastan

John Cole linked to this from Sully:

If he does the full metal neocon as he is being urged to, he should not be deluded in believing the GOP will in any way support him. They will oppose him every step of every initiative. They will call him incompetent if Afghanistan deteriorates, they will call him a terrorist-lover if he withdraws, they will call him a traitor if he does not do everything they want, and they will eventually turn on him and demand withdrawal, just as they did in the Balkans with Clinton.  Obama’s middle way, I fear, is deeper and deeper into a trap, and the abandonment of a historic opportunity to get out.  Read more...

Conspiracies / Corruption / Government / Politicking / Terror / War — No Comments
23
Sep 09

Grand Unifying Conspiracy Theory

It appears that the entirety of the blogosphere  is staying away from Sibel Edmonds explosive interview in Pat Buchanan’s American Conservative, of all places.   This is certainly understandable, given the treasonous accusations she has made.   From the article, via MeFi:

Sibel Edmonds has a story to tell. She went to work as a Turkish and Farsi translator for the FBI five days after 9/11. Part of her job was to translate and transcribe recordings of conversations between suspected Turkish intelligence agents and their American contacts. She was fired from the FBI in April 2002 after she raised concerns that one of the translators in her section was a member of a Turkish organization that was under investigation for bribing senior government officials and members of Congress, drug trafficking, illegal weapons sales, money laundering, and nuclear proliferation. She appealed her termination, but was more alarmed that no effort was being made to address the corruption that she had been monitoring.  Read more...

Government / Politicking / Terror / War — No Comments
7
May 09

Tortured Logic

Yet more news that everyone should have expected by now (Rawstory via Crooks and Liars)[Full report, PDF]:

In all, 98 detainees have died while in US hands. Thirty-four homicides have been identified, with at least eight detainees – and as many as 12 – having been tortured to death, according to a 2006 Human Rights First report that underwrites the researcher’s posting. The causes of 48 more deaths remain uncertain.

The researcher, John Sifton, worked for five years for Human Rights Watch. In a posting Tuesday, he documents myriad cases of detainees who died at the hands of their US interrogators. Some of the instances he cites are graphic.

How did we get here?  More importantly, how is it that we accept ‘here’ as being morally, legally, and ethically acceptable?

 Read more...

Civil Liberties / Corruption / Election 08 / Government / Politicking / Terror / War — No Comments
4
Apr 08

Yoo can always get what yoo want.

I’ve wanted to write something about John Yoo and the torture memos, but it’s depressing and secondly I don’t like to write things that the more well-read political junkies already know, and I’m not sure how to sum up the intricacies of the entirety of Yoo, Bush, and the law in a way that will challenge any of the uninformed, misinformed, or Bush cheerleaders.  Regardless, I’m tackling it anyway.

John Yoo, an Ivy League educated scholar, American Enterprise Institute scholar and fellow, current professor at UC Berkley, and former clerk for two Supreme Court Justices, has been a central figure in many of the central rethinking controversies of President Bush’s administration, including (via ThinkProgress):  Read more...

Politicking / Terror / War — No Comments
19
Mar 08

Happy 5th ‘Enduring Occupation’ Iraqiversary!!!

Foreign Policy has a nice chart, breaking down the war, by the numbers. Remember, ‘we’ll be greeted as liberators’, the ‘war will pay for itself with Iraqi Oil’, and no matter what any pesky Pentagon reports say, Saddam and Al Qaeda were THIS close.

Updated:  Harper’s provides the following from the ‘no-one could see this coming file’:

The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told … Itis a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster.

– T.E. Lawrence, Report to the Sunday Times (London), Aug. 2, 1920.

Daily Links — No Comments
16
Oct 07

Daily Links

Civil Liberties / Corruption / Election 08 / Government / News / OpEd / Patriotism / Politicking / Terror / War — No Comments
5
Oct 07

Iraq as Metaphor

John Stauber has a post at PR Watch that is sourced from Matt Bai's book, The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics, where former NY Governor Mario Cuomo speaks to a group of wealthy Democratic activists:

Shortly after the November 2006 election the Democracy Alliance, an exclusive group of about 100 Democratic Party millionaire activists, met in Miami, Florida. Members and their guests heard their keynote speaker and liberal legend Mario Cuomo analyze the Democratic Party in the wake of its stunning electoral victories that had given Democrats control of the US Congress. Cuomo criticized the Democratic Party for lacking vision, big ideas and a winning political argument. His recipe for future Democratic victories was simple: "You seize the biggest idea you can, the biggest idea you can understand. And this is what moves elections."

Cuomo then dared to voice an inconvenient truth: "Now it's 2006 and we're all rejoicing. Why? Because of Iraq. A GIFT. A gift to the Democrats. A lot of whom voted for the war anyway." The former New York governor challenged his partisan audience, "If Iraq is not an issue, then what issues do we have to talk about? … Where does that leave you? It leaves you in the same position you were in in 2004 – without an issue. Because you have no big idea."

Stauber goes on to illustrate why Iraq is a "gift":

The Argument is an important book but Bai muffed the title. He should have titled it “The Gift,” because as Cuomo points out it was primarily the political gift of voter anger and revulsion over a horrific, continuing war that caused them to oust Republicans.

He then goes on to lament how the current Democratic Congressional Leadership is failing to deliver on the voting public's wishes (he is, of course, correct, but that's a whole-another-post).

It's simply too easy to beat the administration over the head with their incompetence regarding Iraq, and that's even if totally ignoring the deceptions and ideology driven mechanisms that created, sold, and marketed this war.  Strangely, most pundits choose to look at the war in isolation, as though it were a unique creature born of unique circumstances.

 Read more...

Election 08 / MSM / News / OpEd / Politicking / Terror / War — 1 Comment
14
Sep 07

Iraq by the Numbers, aka The Shell-Game [Updated: What he really said...]

After the President's 'vision' speech last night, and his attempt to pass the war off on to his (likely-Democratic) successor, it's worthwhile to examine the numbers behind the war, and how much the facts diverge from the "Johnny comes marching home!" headlines appearing across the country today.

iraq_flip-flop_flim_flam1.gif

Very few tell the real story – that nothing has changed, troop levels are the same as they were prior to the surge, that there will be tens if not hundreds of thousands of soldiers there for years, and lastly that he is handing off responsibility for his war of choice to his successor, absolving his legacy of taint.  Read more...

Government / News / Philadelphia / Politicking / Terror / War — No Comments
23
Aug 07

Attn. Comcast Subscribers (and employees) and Philly Armchair Quarterbacks…

This should elate approximately 30% of you and disgust the balance.

A newly formed Pro-War astroturf – think false, ideological grassroots organization – group, Freedom Watch (YouTube) has some local connections, as described at Fables of the Reconstruction.  Most prominently, sports fans, is CEO of Comcast-Spectacor Ed Snider (wiki) Comcast-Spectacorp is a partnership with the Comcast Corporation, which manages the sports arenas, the ComcastSportsnet, the 76ers, the Philadelphia Flyers, and some other related ventures.

Via Politico:

A new group, Freedom’s Watch, is launching Wednesday with a $15 million, five-week campaign of TV, radio and Web ads featuring military veterans that is aimed at retaining support in Congress for President Bush’s “surge” policy on Iraq. 

The Orwellian-named Freedom Watch, helmed by Plamegate-accomplice Ari Fleischer has an interesting cast of characters.

Again, from FotR: 

The board consists of Blakeman; [Ari] Fleischer; Mel Sembler, a Florida Republican who was Bush’s ambassador to Italy; William P. Weidner, president and chief operating officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corp.; and Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

The donors include Sembler; Anthony Gioia, a Buffalo businessman who was Bush’s ambassador to Malta; Kevin Moley, who was Bush’s ambassador to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva; Howard Leach, a former Republican National Committee finance chairman who was Bush’s ambassador to France; Dr. John Templeton of Pennsylvania, chairman and president of the John Templeton Foundation; Ed Snider, chairman of Comcast Spectacor, the huge Philadelphia sports and entertainment firm; Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. and ranked by Forbes magazine as the third-wealthiest American; and Richard Fox, who is chairman of the Jewish Policy Center and was Pennsylvania State Chairman of the Reagan/Bush campaign in 1980.

 [...]

Richard Fox is local. Comcast, as the article says, is right here in Center City Philly. So Philly is subsidizing pro-war propaganda. Wonderful. The Templeton Foundation is located in a Philadelphia suburb, and has a right-wing track record.

The TV-buys are interesting in that they attack both Democrats and any moderate Republicans who have been less than 100% loyal to the President, and seem to imply that the participation in our Democracy is tantamount to treason and "stabbing the troops in the back". 

YouTube Preview Image 

The ads are an attempt to grab the security-moms and armchair generals by having Laura and Vicky relate the sacrifices of their sons, Travis and Jesse, as well as linking retreat from Iraq with retreat from Vietnam, and further attempting to confuse Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda with the insurgents in Iraq.  As September draws nearer, expect more political attacks designed to attack any criticism of the effectiveness of "the surge".

Daily Links — No Comments
2
Aug 07

Daily Links

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