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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnlPgo9TaGo[/youtube] Coming so quickly on the heels of Lt. Col. Daniel Davis documenting the depraved level of lying that characterizes the primary mode of action for many at the top levels in our military, it’s galling that Admiral William McRaven would take to the front page of today’s New York Times to advance his efforts–hilariously […]
As you’ve probably heard, the 4th Circuit rejected Jose Padilla’s suit against Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday. Both Lyle Denniston and Steve Vladeck have good summaries of the decision, which basically says the courts can’t grant damages for constitutional abuses not otherwise covered by law until such time as Congress sees fit to cover them in […]
On Friday, I noted that the New York Times had dutifully repeated information from military sources who had provided them with a “classified” report (pdf) on how cultural differences between NATO troops and Afghan troops are resulting in increasingly frequent killings of coalition troops by coalition-trained Afghan troops. On Friday morning, the Times put up a […]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX0MPcN08Zc[/youtube] As Marcy pointed out yesterday, Rolling Stone has published an excerpt from Michael Hastings’ new book The Operators. As she predicted, I am unable to refrain from commenting on it. The polarizing figure of Stanley McChrystal has always intrigued me. The way that McChrystal’s “Pope” persona was embraced by a large portion of the press […]
Remember that letter a bunch of former Directors of Central Intelligence wrote begging Obama to kill an investigation into George W Bush-approved CIA torture? Poppy, the father of the President who authorized that torture, had the good grace not to sign onto the letter. These things tend to look like stunts when someone with that […]
Back in February, Obama’s DOJ stopped defending Donald Rumsfeld and others in Jose Padilla’s Bivens suit against them (though we’re still footing the bill for their pricey lawyers). At the time, it seemed DOJ might have concerns about the claims Rummy’s crew wanted to make about the torture Padilla was suing for. But DOJ just […]
The AP has confirmed that intelligence leading to the courier that in turn led to Osama bin Laden came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and–as I surmised earlier–Abu Faraj al-Libi while in CIA custody. But partly because of the language AP uses to describe this–and partly because the wingnuts love torture–many are drawing the wrong conclusion […]
Even before Tom Ricks handed his blog over to Bob Woodward to rip Donald Rumsfeld a new asshole, Ricks shared this quote from H.R. Haldeman about Rummy as a way to introduce Rummy’s dismissal of Ricks’ Fiasco and Woodward’s books. So in my research on the Vietnam War I was paging through H.R. Haldeman’s diaries […]
Let me just say, without qualification, that of the high profile journalists whose techniques were discussed or entered as evidence in the Scooter Libby trial, Bob Woodward had the best note taking. Judy Miller, Matt Cooper, Bob Novak, Andrea Mitchell (and, I’m sure, Marcy Wheeler)? They all were put to shame by Bob Woodward’s exactitude […]
Josh Gerstein reports that the government has withdrawn from defending Donald Rumsfeld and others in the Jose Padilla suit Judge Richard Mark Gergel dismissed the other day. (h/t MD) The Justice Department under President Barack Obama has quietly dropped its legal representation of more than a dozen Bush-era Pentagon and administration officials – including former […]