From the New York Times The United States military expressed anger and dismay today over the unauthorized release of photographs of a jailed Saddam Hussein in his underwear and performing menial activity. … “These photos were taken in clear violation of Department of Defense directives and possibly Geneva Convention guidelines for the humane treatment of detained individuals,” the military statement, … Read More
Somebody Fire The Editor Of The New York Times!
…for printing facts that reflect badly on America: Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him. The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on … Read More
1,346
Amanda Marcotte notes something: The number above is the number of days between the bombing of Pearl Harbor and V-J Day. Since it’s not unheard for the warbloggers to compare the War on Terra favorably to WWII, this number has some significance today, the 1,346th day after September 11th, according to Shakespeare’s Sister and Angry Bear. Contrary to the heavy-handed … Read More
Tolerance For Terrorism?
A guy plants a bomb on a plane, and it blows up, killing all the men, women and children civilians on board. That’s a terrorist act, right? And if were up to Bush—the architect of the “war on terrorism”—that guy would be captured, killed, prosecuted, tortured, etc., right? Right? Well, Daddy Bush picked up the bat on this issue once, … Read More
Pentagon Kettle Meets Newsweek Pot
Pentagon spokesman Larry Dirita today announces some uncorroborated and unverified “facts” to the world: We’ve found nothing that would substantiate anything that you just said about the treatment of a Koran. We have, other than what we’ve seen – that it’s possible detainees themselves have done with pages of the Koran. And I don’t want to overstate that, either, because … Read More
Is Real ID A Good I.D.-a?
Congress is attempting to pass the Real ID Act (text of the bill and the Congressional Research Services analysis of the bill), which would establish uniform standards for state driver’s licenses, effectively creating a national ID card. A number of criticisms of the idea have made their way around the blogosphere. For example, the Real ID Act requires driver’s licenses … Read More
Terror Alert Was Raised On “Flimsy Evidence”
USA Today reports what many of us already suspected: WASHINGTON — The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says. Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials … Read More
Terrorism Alerts
By the way, notice how we kept having "terror alerts" right up to the election, and then, you know, nothing. Don’t tell me they color-code system wasn’t politically-motivated to manipulate the public. Fear sells.
Report Card On Bush’s Global War On Terrorism
A failing grade: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. count of major world terrorist attacks more than tripled in 2004, a rise that may revive debate on whether the Bush administration is winning the war on terrorism, congressional aides said on Tuesday. The number of "significant" international terrorist attacks rose to about 650 last year from about 175 in 2003, according … Read More
If Bin Laden Strikes America Again, Blame Women
Some advocacy pieces are so off-the-chart bizarre that they defy parody or counter-comment. This article qualifies. The thrust? The failure of the Bush Administration to capture bin Laden in Tora Bora when we had the chance had nothing to do with the fact that he diverted troops from Afghanistan so that we could invade Iraq to find non-existent WMDs. Nope, … Read More
Bush Is Failing, But You’re Not Supposed To Know
From Knight-Ridder: The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government’s top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered. Some current and former officials charged the report was stopped because it "raised disturbing questions about the Bush’s … Read More
Oh, that FBI!
It doesn’t inspire much confidence when the FBI’s "Most Wanted" website page for bin Laden fails to mention . . . well, you figure it out. Apparently, they haven’t updated their website in quite a while.
I Have One Question:
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not list right-wing domestic terrorists and terrorist groups on a document that appears to be an internal list of threats to the nation’s security . . . [The document] lists left-wing domestic groups, such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), as terrorist threats, but it does not … Read More
Hypocrisy of the Right – Part I
If the Clinton Adminstration had done something like this . . . U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers are conducting secret talks with Iraq’s Sunni insurgents on ways to end fighting there, Time magazine reported yesterday, citing Pentagon and other sources. … the right wingers would run the word "appeaser" into the ground. But it is Bush, so they don’t. Hypocrisy … Read More
Who Told The Truth: Clarke or Condi?
"The unraveling of Richard Clarke is proceeding nicely," boasted a winger blogger with whom I sometimes lock horns on group blog known as Freespeech.com. That was in March 2004. At that time, the right-wing blogosphere journalistic community was seeking to destroy the credibility give a fair and objective assessment of Richard Clarke, who was appearing before the committee looking into … Read More