The headlines today are full of stories about how Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has now confessed to masterminding 9/11 as well as, well, everything (including the Lindburgh baby kidnapping*). My first and only reaction? Is this news? Didn’t we already know this? And the answer to both questions, respectively, is: No, it’s not news, — and yes, we already knew this. … Read More
Let Me See If I Get This Straight
Let’s get a timeline: In 1995, Clinton cuts off all trade and investment with Iran. U.S. companies were no longer able to do business with Iran. After that announcement, Halliburton decided that business with Iran, then conducted through at least five companies, would all be done through a subsidiary incorporated in the Cayman Islands. This way, Halliburton could skirt around … Read More
Walter Reed Scandal Grows
The Walter Reed scandal sheds a spotlight on the basic difference between conservatives and progressives. The conservative’s mantra is that government is necessarily bad, and it can’t do anything right. The progressive’s mantra is that government can do good things, if we just permit it to. Of course, when conservatives control the agencies of government, their mantra becomes a self-fulfilling … Read More
Fourteen Years Ago Today….
I was helping sooty shaken people out of the World Trade Center, after it was bombed. My story here.
Terrorist Supports GOP
Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari pled not guilty in a Manhattan federal court last Friday, denying charges that he’s a terrorist financier. But that’s a matter in some dispute, and not just by the prosecutors. According to The Blotter at ABC News.com, the indictment charges that he arranged for $152,000 worth of bank transfers to fund a terror training camp. … Read More
The Show “24” Endangers Our Troops
If anyone has ventured into the conservative blogosphere, they’ll soon discover one thing: conservatives love the show "24". To them, it’s not just a TV show — it reflects the gung-ho way that America should be fighting the war on terrorism. In September, Laura Ingraham justified torture techniques by pointing to the show. Around the same time, Glenn Beck did … Read More
Feel Safe?
Who is running this show? The FBI lost 160 laptop computers in less than four years, including at least 10 that contained highly sensitive classified information and one that held "personal identifying information on FBI personnel," according to a new report released today. The bureau, which has struggled for years to get a handle on sloppy inventory procedures, also reported … Read More
Was 9/11 Really That Bad?
About time someone said it. Without diminishing what happened that day, historian David Bell takes a look at 9/11, and makes a convincing argument that — as tragic as 9/11 was — it has resulted in a massive overreaction. Key sentences (emphasis mine): The people who attacked us in 2001 are indeed hate-filled fanatics who would like nothing better than … Read More
American Airlines/9-11 Urban Myth
Some of you may have heard that the American Airlines ticket agent who checked in Mohammed Atta on 9/11 later committed suicide. Just so you know: t’aint true.
We’re Better Than This
A nation of laws? The Pentagon set rules Thursday for detainee trials that could allow terror suspects to be convicted and perhaps executed using hearsay testimony and coerced statements, setting up a new clash between President Bush and Congress. The rules are fair, said the Pentagon, which released them in a manual for the expected trials. The rules are not … Read More
Greenwald on FISA Oversight Of Wiretaps
(1) I’ll just let Greenwald speak for himself on the subject of GOP disillusionment with the sudden Bush reversal on FISA oversight: If you were a Bush follower, and you were told (and, of course, by definition, believed) that the President’s violations of FISA were not just legal but critical to our Survival and Ability to Defeat The Terrorists, and … Read More
A Remarkably Stupid (Or Dishonest) Attorney
UPDATE AND BIG BREAKING NEWS: Fortunately, breaking news suggests that the days of Bush’s secret and illegal surveillance may now be over. Bush now intends his surveillance program to be monitored and overseen by the "secret" FISA court, as the lawmakers who passed FISA originally intended. In other words, Bush caves. Victory for freedom and privacy lovers, but more importantly, … Read More
Terrorist Appeasers On The Right
At long last, I can say this: The far right conservatives in America actually hate this country and are terrorist appeasers. I know, I know. That’s the sort of hyperbolic criticism that usually gets said about those on the left. But the exact opposite is true, and I can say it is true. I can say it is true, because … Read More
Attention al Qaeda!
Hey, I’m no military expert, but it seems to me that Pentagon shouldn’t be releasing — on the Internet no less — it’s new 282 page Counterinsurgency Manual (available here in PDF format). I mean, if I can get it, can’t our enemies?
How’s That “Hearts And Minds” Thing Going?
One of the reasons, we were told, for invading Iraq was because we wanted to win over the Middle East, and bring them to our way of thinking about freedom and democracy, so that they wouldn’t get all extremist on us and fly planes into our buildings. Bush said it himself: The experience of September the 11th made it clear … Read More