Six Years Later, US Still Trying to Find a Way to Keep Corrupt Contractor in Afghanistan
The most depressing part of this McClatchy article on the corrupt USAID contracting in Afghanistan by the construction company, Louis Berger, are six-year old quotes calling for an alternative to Berger.
Behind the scenes, U.S. officials…
The Real Terrorists
I've started reading through J. Edgar Hoover's files the reports a contractor developed for PA's Department of Homeland Security that describe political activism as a terrorist threat; Governor Rendell has made them publicly available here.…
Trash Talk: It Comes Out Of The Swamp Cool and Slow....
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bmazComes out of the Virginia swamps
Cool and slow with plenty of precision
With a back beat narrow and hard to master
Some call it heavenly in it's brilliance
Others, mean and ruthful of the Western dream....
I love the friends I have…
Elizabeth Warren's Soapbox
Two weeks ago, I suggested Obama would do well to hire the woman who wrote the book on the struggles of the middle class.
Today, he did that.
This afternoon, I suggested that the White House needed to get their newest employee out…
Government Continues Its Fight for Indefinite Detention
The government appealed its loss in the habeas petition of Mohamedou Ould Salahi Friday.
It's worth reviewing what this appeal is about. At the District level, Judge James Robertson ruled that while Salahi had clearly been an al Qaeda sympathizer…
Congratulations and Good Luck to Elizabeth Warren
I'm cautiously optimistic with the dual appointment of Elizabeth Warren to be Assistant to the President to work at Treasury to set up the Consumer Financial Protection Board.
Frankly, no one knows what this appointment will mean in practice…
But Who Has JSOC's Back?
Michael Hayden has another tired whine at CNN about Obama's treatment of the torture program. The entire logic of the piece is predictably silly. It goes something like this:
ACLU and CCR are suing the government for targeting American citizen…
Obama Administration Deliberates Whether to Tack to the Right of David Rivkin
Go read this entire Charlie Savage article describing the deliberations within the Administration on how to respond to ACLU/CCR's lawsuit challenging the government's ability to target American citizens for assassination with no due process.…
The NeoCons Make Unapologetic Call for McCarthyism against Muslims
One of the successors to the NeoCon organization PNAC, the Center for Security Policy, released a report the other day that makes an unapologetic call for trumped up McCarthyism targeted at Muslims.
The study rather humorously models itself…
If Blackwater Couldn't Keep Benazir Bhutto Safe, Why Is State Still Contracting with Them?
When Erik Prince testified before the Oversight Committee on October 2, 2007, he boasted that no one under Blackwater's protection had ever been seriously hurt or killed.
No individual protected by Blackwater has ever been killed or seriously…
First They Came for Women Enjoying Sex, Then They Came for Men Jacking Off
I know Democrats are thrilled that Chris Coons, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Delaware, will be running against the kook Christine O'Donnell.
But I'm a little troubled by the treatment of O'Donnell's anti-masturbation stance…
Blackwater Served as Monsanto's Intelligence Arm
Jeremy Scahill has a new piece on Blackwater that is fairly incendiary.
Among other things (I'll have more to say later), he reveals that Blackwater provided Monsanto with security services in 2008-2009.
According to internal Total Intelligence…
Is the Obama DOJ Still Coddling Colombian Terrorists?
ProPublica had an important story a few days ago reporting that the cases of a number of Colombian paramilitaries extradited to the US on drug--not terrorism--charges have been sealed and largely disappeared.
Since 2006, more than a dozen of…
When Political Activism Gets Treated as Potential Terrorism
PA's Department of Homeland Security has employed an entity called the Institute for Terrorism Research and Response to monitor the web traffic of anti-drilling activists in that state. The effort was purportedly started to fulfill national…
As the White House Dithers on Warren, 525,000 Homes Have Been Foreclosed On
TPM captures the current state of play of the rumors that the White House will appoint Elizabeth Warren as interim head of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau:
Reports coming in that President Obama will name Elizabeth Warren as…
Eight Months after Putting Anwar al-Awlaki on Kill List, DOJ Considers Charges
Back in January, Dana Priest first revealed that Anwar al-Awlaki was on a JSOC kill list and was being considered for a CIA kill list. Now, eight months later, DOJ is considering charging him.
The Obama administration is considering filing…
Speaking of that Beacon of Hope in Iraq
Mark Hosenball first reported this back in July, then linked back to that report last week. But given yesterday's post on our what we've accomplished in Iraq, I thought it worth noting that the most inflammatory material in the next big Wikileaks…
What Bush and Ashcroft Meant By "If al-Qaida Is Calling"
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bmazTurns out “If al-qaida is calling” really meant a tragic game show of “Dialing for Detainees” and taking crank calls from batty old landladies. Based on this atrocious “evidence” human beings were detained without due process, beaten and abused. Right here in the “Homeland”. The new definition of “security”.
That Beacon of Hope We've Created in Iraq
As we discuss whether to abandon rule of law in Afghanistan under General Petraeus, we'd do well to consider how the war Petraeus "won" in Iraq turned out:
On a dull December day in 2009, Rabiha al Qassab, a 63-year-old Iraqi refugee living…
"The law enforcement approach ... mucks up our strategic interests."
I've been tracking the debate within the Administration over whether we should tolerate corruption in Afghanistan in the name of sustaining a war against someone--anyone--in Afghanistan or not for some weeks. Underlying the entire debate is…