terrorism

...in Stasi-controlled East Germany. An anonymous internet service provider writes in the Washington Post about the 'national security letter' he or she received: Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that…
Hear the Mighty Roar of the Peter Pan Conservatives: those conservatives who think that policy failures are not due to strategic, tactical, or logistical flaws but solely due to to a lack of will. It appears that this way of thinking has completely permeated Little Lord Pontchartrain's brain. Neocon Irwin Stelzer had a luncheon meeting with the president. His description is chilling. Stelzer describes four 'lessons' that were discussed. Here's the second lesson: Second lesson: Will trumps wealth. The Romans, the tsars, and other rich world powers fell to poorer ones because they lacked…
...the man who helped bring you Iran-Contra, you know you've gone too far. Seymour Hersh has a new article in the New Yorker about the Bush Administration's Middle East 'strategy.' It's more ridiculous than Iran-Contra. Why do I say that? Because we're backing indirectly Sunni groups in Lebanon opposed to Hizbollah that are linked to Al-Queda. Let's replay that last sentence: Because we're backing indirectly Sunni groups in Lebanon opposed to Hizbollah that are linked to Al-Queda. [sound of jaw hitting floor] I swear to the Intelligent Designer, these guys are dumber than Conservapedia.…
As a frequent traveler I am all for measures to keep me safe. Someday maybe I'll see some at the airport. While I dutifully stand in line with the other sheep, taking off my shoes, emptying my pockets, taking my laptop out of my briefcase and putting it in a separate tray (why?), taking my jacket off, etc., etc., anybody with half a brain and the intention to do it can sneak on a plane. How do I know? Consider this career criminal who wanted to get from Washington state to Dallas, Texas. He stole a car and led police on a wild ride at speeds of over 90 miles an hour, finally blowing the…
Suppose you were a very large media corporation, and you found out that some of your radio subsidiaries were espousing specific acts of violence toward other people (last I checked, that's called terrorism). You would: 1) Fire the offending parties. 2) Offer some mealymouth bullshit explanation ("If anyone was offended..."). or... 3) File a lawsuit against the blogger who posted mp3s of the offensive clips. Well, the Disney corporation picked option number three. Disney-owned California radio station KFSO, in its effort to capitalize on right-wing hate radio, gives a microphone to some…
Because said officials are even more ignorant than the Pundits of the Potomac. A few months ago, Jeff Stein published an op-ed about the many officials who are charged with anti-terrorism and who also know nothing about the Middle East--to the point where they don't know if Hezbollah is Sunni or Shiite. Stein has followed up with an interview with incoming House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes. As far as I can tell, Reyes is marginally more informed than his Republican predecessors, which is damning with faint praise. Shakes and Ezra Klein both pile on Reyes, so I won't do that here…
Glenn Greenwald, in an excellent post about privacy in the computer database era, relates the following chillling story about the public release of his personal information (italics mine): I had an ultimately inconsequential but nonetheless quite illustrative personal experience with this several months ago. Back in July, when right-wing blogs were obsessed with investigating my personal life, including where I spend my time, this comment was left at Wizbang, in response to a July 21 post by Wizbang's Kevin Aylward: Kevin, Glenn Greenwald departed the United States on June 22, 2006 and hasn'…
There are now indications that more Russian exile critics of Putin who live in the UK might have been poisoned with polonium-210. Doesn't that mean that the West's ability to stop state-sponsored terrorism even with all of the 'necessary' encroachments on our civil liberties is utterly non-existent? Just asking.
Do remember when all those wackjob militia groups fantasized about UN Mongolian shock troops that would invade the U.S. and establish the One World Order under the control of the Trilateral Commission? (If you don't, you really missed the rightward anchor of the modern conservative movement). Well, the Missouri Baptist Convention has taken this sort of lunacy to a new level. The president of the Convention, Rev. David Clippard, had this to say about the Islamofacist hordes (by way of Glenn Greenwald): "Today, Islam has a strategic plan to defeat and occupy America," he told the 1,200-strong…
...and Donald Rumsfeld? From the AP: "He [Rumsfeld] leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Ordinarily, I would simply think that this is more Republican cynicism about religion, but I'm not so sure. Why? Because crazy-ass religiosity has been observed elsewhere: 1) At the Air Force Academy, cadets were subject to illegal prosleytizing by USAF chaplains (for more updates, check out the Military Religious Freedom Foundation blog). 2) The idiocy about atheism uttered by Pat Tillman's…
One of the things about growing up a few decades ago as a Jewish liberal Democrat in Virginia is that I was forced to meet people who were very different from me (this is a good thing). Thus, I always find it astonishing, simply because it is so foreign to my own experience, how some people can have so little actual contact with those who are different from them. Over at DailyKos, diarist Geiiga describes what happened while she was interviewing her fellow congregants at her Topeka, KS church--the subject was "what do you pray for?" (italics mine): Yesterday, in the late morning, I was out…
This transcends absurd: Republican Rep. John Boehner, the House Majority Leader, stated on national television that Al-Queda and Saddam Hussein were linked, even though President Bush himself has admitted no connection. Keep in mind, Boehner isn't some councilman in a podunk little town. He is one of the most influential members of Congress. And he is utterly delusional. On behalf of the Coalition of the Sane, I ask, can we please have our country back?
Sen. George "Macaca" Allen (R-VA) is quite possibly one sick puppy: Shelton said he also remembers a disturbing deer hunting trip with Allen on land that was owned by the family of Billy Lanahan, a wide receiver on the team. After they had killed a deer, Shelton said he remembers Allen asking Lanahan where the local black residents lived. Shelton said Allen then drove the three of them to that neighborhood with the severed head of the deer. "He proceeded to take the doe's head and stuff it into a mailbox," Shelton said. If this is substantiated further, it's clear the man is missing circuits…
Most microbiologists, you know, the experts , are not very thrilled with the emphasis being placed on bioterrorism. Inspired by Tara's post on the Bioshield initiative, I'm reposting this from the old site. This week, leading microbiologists are sending an open letter to NIH stating that the politically-based emphasis on bioterrorism is starving other areas of research. For some time now, I've thought that we've been too concerned with bioterrorism, particularly when good ol' influenza regularly kills 32,000 37,000 people per year (that's one World Trade Center per month for those of you…
No, this post isn't about William Shatner albums. Over at Orcinus, there's a great post about the rendition (rendering? My torture lexicon is rusty...) of terrorist suspects to other countries. Here's the description of the U.S. citizens who live near the airbases and facilities used to conduct these operations: But the two most interesting places were the rural town of Smithfield and Kinston down the road, where there's another airstrip that a company called Aero Contractors uses. Aero is the company that flies many of these missions for the CIA. We went there and talked to a pilot who…
Let me state something very clearly: I do not want a U.S. city (or any other city for that matter) wiped out by a nuclear bomb. Having said that, we the hawks among us have lost all sense of historical perspective when it comes to Iran. When you compare the Cold War to what ever it is that we have going on with Iran, it's obvious that the existential threat of Iran isn't even in the same league: 1) Had only a fraction of the nuclear arsenals on either side been unleashed, human civilization would probably come to a screeching halt (to think, no internets!). 2) Leaving aside the nutjobs on…
Granted, going after Little Lord Pontchartrain for being an idiot is like picking on the slow kid, but the 'leader' of the U.S. just burbled this (by way of The Liberal Avenger): George W. Bush, responding to Katie Couric's question on what the United States has learned from interrogating high-value terrorism suspects: "Well, for example -- there's a -- we -- we uncovered a -- a potential anthrax attack on the United States. Or the fact that -- Khalid Sheik Mohammed had got somebody to -- to line up people to fly airlines, to -- to crash airlines on, I think, the West Coast or somewhere in…
Or as Lovecraft would have put it: Aaaiii! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Iran R'lyeh wagn'nagl fhtagn! Aaaiii!!!! Fareed Zakaria sums up the silliness of comparing Iran to Nazi Germany: Can everyone please take a deep breath? To review a bit of history: in 1938, Adolf Hitler launched what became a world war not merely because he was evil but because he was in complete control of the strongest country on the planet. At the time, Germany had the world's second largest industrial base and its mightiest army. (The American economy was bigger, but in 1938 its army was smaller than that of Finland.) This is…
In a move to outsource and privatize everything in the federal government, ABC has formed a private-public partnership with the Bush Administration to spew Republican propaganda (it's bad enough when the Republicans do it on the taxpayer's dime). John Aravosis writes: Good God, and they're sending a copy of the film and a letter to 100,000 American high school teachers written by - who? - the REPUBLICAN chair of the 9/11 Commission. Not the Democrat and the Republican, just the Republican. And a Republican whose son is running for the US Senate seat in New Jersey - oh yeah, no conflict…
Here's what the mayor of Salt Lake City, UT said yesterday. You would think he's one of those Northeast liberal elitist, latte-drinkin' types... Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Jackson: A patriot is a person who loves his or her country. Who among you loves your country so much that you have come here today to raise your voice out of deep concern for our nation - and for our world? And who among you loves your country so much that you insist that our nation's leaders tell us the truth? Let's hear it: "Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us the truth!" Let no one deny we are patriots. We…