Inadequate Briefing on the Drone Program Shows Congress Hasn't Fixed the Gloves Come Off MON
I need to finish my series (post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4, post 5, post 6) on the Obama Administration's efforts to hide what I've dubbed the "Gloves Come Off" Memorandum of Notification. As I described, the MON purportedly gave CIA authority…
Fighting Middle Eastern Wars with Pegs and Drones
I'm reading Currency Wars right now, which may be one of the reasons I suspect that the decision to launch signature strikes in Yemen was not requested by CIA and JSOC but instead dictated by Saudi Arabia. But I've also recently read the WikiLeaks…
Pakistan's Supreme Court Finds Prime Minister Gilani Guilty of Contempt; Appeal Planned; Opposition Calls for Resignation
In a case that has been simmering for months, Pakistan's Supreme Court today found Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani guilty of contempt of court for failing to carry through with investigation of corruption charges against President Asif Ali…
Obama's Signature
Obama's signature national security policy may well be the embrace of signature strikes. First in Pakistan--until they killed 38 civilians in Shiga, Pakistan, and had to rethink the strategy--and now, according to the WSJ, in Yemen.
The Obama…
The 99% Demand that GE Pay Its Fair Share
I spent the morning in Detroit watching the Joe Louis fist--one of Detroit's iconic symbols--be swallowed up by a crowd of people demanding that GE--which was holding its shareholders meeting in the Renaissance Center nearby--pay its fair…
Rohrabacher's Team for Decentralizing Afghan Government: War Criminal, Thief and War Hawk
Yesterday, I pointed out that Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai denied entry to his country by Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) over the weekend. At the end of that post, I posed a question:
Rohrabacher’s freedom-fighting then…
Why Jose Rodriquez Should Be In Prison, Not On A Book Tour
As Marcy noted, Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo of the AP have gotten their hands on an early copy of Jose Rodriquez's new screed book, "Hard Measures". The one substantive point of interest in their report involves the destruction of the infamous…
Jose Rodriguez' Idea of "Ugly Visuals": Blank and Altered Tapes
Jose Rodriguez, not exactly a squeamish guy, is spreading a myth that the reason he destroyed the torture tapes was because the torture depicted on them was so bad that people would kill CIA officers in response to the violence
Especially after…
Defying the Rules of Gravity, Obama Directs Sanctions Solely against Israel's Enemies
In conjunction with his speech at the Holocaust Museum yesterday and announcement of the Atrocities Prevention Board, President Obama also rolled out sanctions against those who use IT to repress human rights. The Treasury Department named…
Is the Government Worried about Revealing Broader Targeted Killing Authority in the Drone FOIAs?
In addition to yesterday's letter's explanation that the government needed an extension in ACLU and NYT's Anwar al-Awlaki drone FOIA because Obama and/or his closest aides--the highest level of the Executive Branch--were getting involved, there…
Resistance Rabble-Rouser Rohrabacher Refused Entry to Afghanistan
Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) tried to pull a fast one over the weekend and sneak in as a "last minute replacement" on a Congressional delegation to Afghanistan. The problem was that, as BBC reported, the rest of the delegation…
Yet More White House Involvement in FOIA Responses
As I've been writing my series on the Administration's extensive efforts to hide all mention of what I have decided to call the Gloves Come Off Memorandum of Notification, this passage from Daniel Klaidman's article on the Administration's equivocations…
Why Is Tarek Mehanna Held to a Different Standard than the Hutaree Militia?
Over the last week, there were two must-read pieces arguing that the sentencing of Tarek Mehanna to 17.5 years in prison for conspiring to materially support terrorism threatens free speech.
David Cole--who argued the Humanitarian Law Project…
Links, 4/22/12
I was never able to keep up with my goal of doing daily link posts last year. That said, there's so much out today that I want to at least note that I can't keep up with my own posting unless I dump all these here.
Steven Aftergood notes…
Remember When Russia's Enemy Helped the Mujahadeen Neutralize Russia's Most Effective Weapon?
"Bluster"! "Exaggeration"!
Those are some of the words Joe Lieberman and some more credible people are using to dismiss Iran's claim that it has accessed the data from the Sentinel drone it brought down last year.
Aside from "independent…
US Achieves Sham Agreement Trifecta With Afghanistan
It is becoming a signature of the Obama administration that as self-imposed deadlines approach, the quality of agreements reached drops precipitously. Recall that Obama had worked furiously to be able to announce a mortgage fraud settlement…
Recruiting Informants: Framings, Expulsion, and Torture
Between this MoJo story from last week and this Telegraph story from today, it sure looks like the US and Brits have utterly dispensed with rule of law in hopes of recruiting informants.
Last week, Nick Baumann told the story of Yonas Fikre.…
"The Gloves Come Off" Memorandum of Notification
Operational flexibility: This is a highly classified area. All I want to say is that there was "before" 9/11 and "after" 9/11. After 9/11 the gloves come off.
-Cofer Black, 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, September 26, 2002
When Cofer Black,…
Judge Hellerstein: Yes, the Redacted Torture Authorization Pertains to the September 17, 2001 Torture Authorization
I'm still working my way through the ACLU FOIA docket in light of my ongoing series (post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4) on the Obama Administration's efforts to keep the authorization for the torture program--that is, probably the September 17,…
John Brennan Praises the Object of His Own Intimate Knowledge
John Brennan, the guy whose role in torture and illegal wiretapping the Obama Administration continues to protect by looking relentlessly forward, also once admitted to having intimate knowledge of the NYPD's spy program.
President Barack Obama’s…
