Rohrabacher Attempts to Justify His Meddling With Pakistan
Over the weekend, the Washington Post gave California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher space so that he could attempt to explain to us why he is disrupting diplomatic efforts to repair US-Pakistan relations by continuing his quest for…
Along with Vetos on US Interrogations, Afghanistan Gets a 10-Year Commitment
According to reports (VOA, AP, NYT) the US and Afghanistan have finalized their agreement on night raids. In addition to the night raid partnership detailed earlier in the week, the finalized agreement resolves the dispute over what happens…
Trading Renditions for Oil Contracts
In September, Libyan rebels found a collection of documents that seemed as if they had been specially packaged to cause the US and--especially--the Brits a great deal of embarrassment. They detailed the rendition to Libyan torture of one of…
Our Torturer, Omar Suleiman, Wants to Be President--Will We Help Him?
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After earlier stating he would not run in the upcoming Egyptian Presidential race, Omar Suleiman announced on Friday he would file to run for President (with the Army's help gathering the 30,000 signatures he…
SCOTUS and the Designated Strip Seach Observers
I spent most of yesterday digging through the PREAL document Jason Leopold and Jeff Kaye liberated the other day (more on that later). Like Harper's Scott Horton, reading it closely just after SCOTUS made it legal to strip search people arrested…
DOD Attributes a 3-Week Delay on Forensic Collection to Absent Villagers
The AP reports that over three weeks after the attack on two villages in Panjwai, DOD investigators have finally gotten around to collecting forensic material from the sites of the attack (h/t scribe)
Army criminal investigators visited the…
DOE Washing Terrorists in the Nevada Desert
I've long suggested that our attempts to suggest Mossad was running the MEK (and Jundallah) led covert operations in Iran were attempts to hide US cooperation with those groups against Iran.
Sy Hersh confirms precisely that speculation with…
Did DOJ Ratchet Up the Charges Against Kiriakou Because of Poland Investigation?
When John Kiriakou was first charged with espionage, he was charged with four counts:
Leaking Covert Officer A's identity under IIPA section B
Leaking Deuce Martinez' identity under defense information clause of Espionage Act
Leaking…
Did Covert Officer A--Whose Identity John Kiriakou Allegedly Leaked--Leave the CIA?
DOJ has apparently failed in its efforts to get John Kiriakou to agree to a plea deal; they've just indicted him.
Interestingly, the indictment describes Covert Officer A--whose identity Kiriakou allegedly leaked--differently than the complaint…
Whose Illicit Money Did Citi Help Launder?
Back when the story of how Wachovia helped drug cartels launder money was breaking in 2010, reports said that cartels had also used Citi to launder their money.
A Mexican judge on Jan. 22 accused the owners of six centros cambiarios, or money…
Turning Soft Power into a Casus Belli
I noted the other day that NYT Executive Editor Jill Abramson, in patting herself and her paper on the back for coverage that was better than the NYT coverage that got us into Iraq, totally misunderstood the frame of the debate.
To strike or…
Is Obama Threatening the "Special Relationship" to Hide Torture?
I noted, when David Cameron was in town, that his Justice Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, was pushing to expand "closed material proceedings" as a way to better protect secret information. The effort was a response, Clarke claimed, to courts forcing…
What if the FBI Infiltrated Anti-Choice Groups?
The suspect in the attack on the Grand Chute Planned Parenthood office, Francis Grady, explained to journalists at his court appearance today why he attacked the clinic.
A reporter asked why Grady attacked the clinic.
"Because they're killing…
Philip Zelikow Saves Condi Rice's Hiney (Again)
Back in April 2009, former State Department Counselor and all-around Condi Rice fixer Philip Zelikow revealed that "in 2005," he had written a dissent to Steven Bradbury's 2005 Memo finding the torture program complied with the Convention against…
The US and Afghan National Army Become Partners on Night Raids
Yesterday, the US and Afghanistan drew closer to an agreement on night raids. Not only would the deal give Afghan courts veto power over the raids (though, in some cases, the raids could be approved after the fact), but it makes Afghan military…
Nate's "Common Sense" on ObamaCare
Nate Silver has a post purporting to show that it is "common sense" that SCOTUS overturning ObamaCare (Nate calls it the "health care bill," which it is assuredly not) would not be good for Obama.
He argues his point by pointing to the very…
The National Security Committee Knew They Were Going to Get FALSE Confessions from Torture
Jason Leopold [update: and Jeff Kaye] have an important article on a key document used to develop the torture program, but I think its title should be stronger. As his article shows, Condi Rice and several high level Bush officials were briefed…
The National Security Council Was Briefed on Anna Chapman before Her Arrest
I frankly wasn't all that interested in the news that Russian spy Anna Chapman was setting a honey trap for an Obama cabinet official...
In a documentary broadcast last night, FBI counter-intelligence chief Frank Figliuzzi claimed the glamorous…
Who Brought Key Al Qaeda Forums Down?
A number of al Qaeda's online jihadist forums have gone down for extended periods.
Al-Qaeda’s main Internet forums have been offline for more than a week in what experts say is the longest sustained outage of the Web sites since they began…
The Brownish Pink Ghetto on Terrorism Protections
As DDay formulated it, when someone set off a bomb at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Grand Chute, WI yesterday, it turned the political war on women into an actual war on women.
Within short order after the attack, DOJ's Civil Rights Division…
