Harper’s has a good article about what happened to CIA field agents who wrote reports that clashed with the Bush Administration blind optimism: A number of current and former intelligence officials have told me that the administration’s war on internal dissent has crippled the CIA’s ability to provide realistic assessments from Iraq. “The system of reporting is shut down,” said … Read More
The More You Know…
Interesting. A study done last year shows that the people more opposed to immigration are people who are least exposed to immigrants. Conversely, people who live in areas with lots of immigrants are more positively disposed to them: The simplest interpretation of this result is that people who rarely see an immigrant can easily scapegoat them for everything wrong in … Read More
The Leak That Could Have Prevented 9/11
The Bush Administration likes to say that national security leaks to the press endanger American security. This pretty much kills that meme: Ex-New York Times Judith Miller (of Plamegate fame) reveals in an interview that, back in July 2001, an anonymous White House source leaked top-secret NSA intelligence to her that Al Qaida was planning a major attack on the … Read More
The Biggest “Big Brother” Award Goes To…
Mayor Chris Napoli of Dillingham, Alaska. The mayor received a $202,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security, and used the money to install 70 public security cameras in and around the town of Dillingham, Alaska — population 2,400. That comes out to one camera for every 34 people. Because al Qaeda has its eyes set on Dillingham, Alaska. Or … Read More
Can We Call It Vietnam Now?
Then: My Lai Now: Haditha Billmon writes: Ugly? That doesn’t even begin to cover it. Dick Cheney is ugly. The Pentagon is ugly. An Abrams tank is ugly. Executing helpless women and children while they’re huddled on the floor, praying to their God, is a war crime committed by terrorists. It’s Lidice and Rwanda and Srebrenica and, of course, My … Read More
Connecting The Dots
Earlier today, Bush responded to a question about whether Americans should feel that their privacy has been invaded by a government effort to collect data on tens of millions of phone calls. Bush responded: "We got accused of not connecting the dots prior to Sept. 11. "We’re (now) going to connect the dots." I hate to state the obvious, but … Read More
Chertoff On Putting National Guard on The Borders
DHS head Michael Chertoff said that putting the National Guard on the U.S.-Mexico border would be "horribly over-expensive and very difficult". That was six months ago, on O’Reilly’s show. I wonder if he would say the same thing today.
Bush’s Immigration Speech
I didn’t see it (the Bosox were playing on ESPN), but I read the transcript. As Kevin Drum notes the main elements of the plan are to deploy the military to the border without calling it "militarizing the border," to launch a guest worker program without calling it a "guest worker program," and to offer amnesty to illegal immigrants without … Read More
Timeline of A Lie
On May 27, 2003: The Washington Post reported last month that a U.S. fact-finding mission confidentially advised Washington on May 27, 2003, that two truck trailers found in Iraq were not mobile units for manufacturing bioweapons, as had been suspected. So on May 27, 2003, the U.S. team informed Bush & Co that the two truck trailers were NOT for … Read More
Suicidal Troops Sent Into Combat
Not theirs. Ours. Kudos to the Hartford Courant for uncovering this: The Army’s top mental health expert, Col. Elspeth Ritchie, acknowledged that some deployment practices, such as sending service members diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome back into combat, have been driven in part by a troop shortage. "The challenge for us …is that the Army has a mission to fight. … Read More
Oversight Circumvented
There’s a really good guy in the Bush Administration, who took his job seriously. His name is Stuart Bowen, and his title is Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. His job? He and his staff of 55 auditors make sure there’s no hanky-panky with the money being allocated to reconstruct Iraq. When Bowen was appointed by Bush in January 2004, … Read More
“Impeach Bush!”
In case you haven’t been paying attention, that’s been the rally cry from the rightwing side of the blogosphere. Why? Because the Bush Administration reportedly has been shadowing the Minutemen (the group of private citizens monitoring the U.S.-Mexican border for illegal immigrants), and reporting information about Minutemen groups (including their locations) to the Mexican government. Michelle Malkin started the fire … Read More
National Security
This doesn’t make me think that the Bush Administration is up to the job of ensuring national security: How much do you think Osama bin Laden would pay to know exactly when and where the President was traveling, and who was with him? Turns out, he wouldn’t have had to pay a dime. All he had to do was go … Read More
Worse Than ‘Nam
Percent of Americans in April 1968 who said that sending troops to Vietnam was a mistake: 48% Percent of Americans in latest poll who said that sending troops to Iraq was a mistake: 57% Source
“I Want To Talk About Medicare, But First….”
U.S. federal agencies received an email telling them to work in "progress in Iraq" talking points whenever and wherever they give a public statement, according to the Washington Post. So if the U.S. Department of Agriculture were to give a press briefing on the subject of, say, the avian flu, they have to somehow work "good news" from Iraq into … Read More