Shorter GOP Intelligence: "Oversight's Out for Summer!"
I'm just now getting around to the GOP rebuttal to the Senate Report. While it does raise a few decent points, it engages in a whole slew of the kind of word games the Bush Administration used to hide torture in the first place (I honestly…
Cuba Libre! A Momentous Shift in Relations
Without any question, the news of the day is the direct turnabout in relations between the United States and Cuba announced this morning. There is a rather long list of areas in which many people, including me, have profound disappointment with…
Israel's Newest Ballistic Missile Shield System Fails Test
Despite having raked in over a billion dollars on the failed Iron Dome system, US and Israeli defense contractors are eagerly promoting their latest addition to Israel's ballistic defense system, the Arrow 3. That system was tested yesterday,…
Pakistan's Taliban Attacks Peshawar School: More Than 130 Killed
It seems that various extremist groups are in a demented contest to see who can commit the biggest atrocity. Boko Haram shocked the world with their kidnapping of school girls and claims that they had married the girls. ISIS surged into the…
Jose Rodriguez & CIA Lawyer Removed Sentence about Torture Illegality from Pelosi, Goss Briefing Record
Over four years ago, I wrote a post noting how, in the two days after Jose Rodriguez and one of his Counterterrorism Lawyers briefed Nancy Pelosi and Porter Goss in September 2002 they might use torture prospectively, they 1) moved closer to…
The 2 Year Delay in Getting ASSET X to Bring Us to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
We've known for some time that CIA found Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with the help of a walk-in source. Terry McDermott and Josh Meyer describe the source as "Baluchi" in their book, The Hunt for KSM--someone, like KSM, from Baluchistan.
But the…
KSM Had the CIA Believing in Black Muslim Convert Jihadist Arsonists in Montana for 3 Months
Before I get into the weeds, let me be clear: there are almost no black Muslims in Montana. Just 0.6% of Montana's roughly 1 million people are African American, or about 6,100 total. Just 0.034 Montanans identify as Muslim (or around 345 people).…
Section 309: A Band-Aid for a Gaping Wound in Democracy
On Friday, officials from James Clapper's office confirmed in a number of different ways that the government obtains "vast troves" of Americans' communication overseas. And rather than enforce Dianne Feinstein and Mark Udall's suggestion…
Why Did Alfreda Bikowsky Invent a Story about al Qaeda Trash-Talking Us?
One curious revelation in the Torture Report is the specific stories invented by the torturers. One of those is the oft-repeated claim that Abu Zubaydah said detainees were only permitted to start talking after they had reached the limits of…
The Neoliberal Inhabitants of Mont Pelerin
In this post, I talked about the intersection of neoliberalism and neoclassical economics. There is a lot of talk on the left about neoliberalism, and a number of ideas about what it is. For me, neoliberalism refers to the…
Meet the Press: 12 Years of Unchallenged Cheney Claims about Iraq and Al Qaeda
Chuck Todd figured the best way to engage in journalism after the release of the Torture Report was not to invite one of the many interrogators who objected to torture or, having performed it, learned that it damaged them as much as the detainee (Kudos…
Week 15 NFL Trash Talk: The Coming of Johnny Football
Late start on Trash this week as I was otherwise occupied and, well, with little college football, there was little action on Saturday. Navy beat Army for the 13th time in a row and Oregon's Marcus Mariotta won the Heisman, as was expected.
But…
Sony, Hacked: It's Not One Massive Breach – It's More Than 50 Breaches in 15 Years
Ever try to follow an evolving story in which the cascade of trouble grew so big and moved so fast it was like trying to stay ahead of a pyroclastic flow?
That's what it's like keeping up with emerging reports about the massive cyber attack…
Vindictive John Brennan Should Be Fired Before He Strikes Again
Since the release of the summary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on torture, I don't think we've seen a return of the fawning press pieces over John Brennan where we see reverent mention of his moral rectitude. That's…
As Last Piece of Business, Carl Levin Reiterates that Dick Cheney Lied Us into War
As one of the last things Carl Levin did before retiring, he released a letter he received from John Brennan demonstrating what a liar Dick Cheney is.
For years, Levin has been trying to get the CIA to declassify a March 13, 2003 cable assessing…
Where Are They Now? Dozens of Prisoners Unaccounted For With Closure of US Bagram Prison
Both NBC and Reuters are reporting that the US has closed its prison at the Bagram air base that was used to house non-Afghan prisoners. After many fits and starts, the US had ceded control of (mostly?) all Afghan prisoners to Afghanistan last…
The Advance Declination Letter and the White House Meetings
John Sifton has a piece at JustSecurity on a key new detail in the torture report: a description of a letter the CIA lawyers were sending around discussing getting an advance declination (though unless I'm misreading the report, this email chain…
The Emergency EO 12333 Fix: Section 309
In a last minute amendment to the Intelligence Authorization, the House and Senate passed a new section basically imposing minimization procedures for EO 12333 or other intelligence collection not obtained by court order. (See Section 309)
(3)…
UN Official: Prosecute "Systematic Crimes and Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law"
Ben Emmerson is the UN's Special Rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights. His statement released yesterday in response to the SSCI torture report points out the clear responsibilities that the US has under the Convention Against Torture…
Barb Mikulski Still Thinks You're Stupid about "Target" and "Content"
In the CRomnibus legislation -- the appropriations bill that will pass Congress in the next few days -- the powers that be (largely Barb Mikulski and AlabamaKentucky's Harold Rogers) stripped out the Massie-Lofgren Amendment that would have…