Despite Accuracy Improvement, Huge Increase in Afghan Night Raids Detains More Innocent Civilians
In Friday's post, I noted in passing the recent revelation that only about 50% of night raids had accurate targeting. A new report (pdf) released today by the Open Society Foundations and The Liaison Office informs us that targeting…
Cheney's War Plan for Afghanistan? Deny Safe Haven To--But Not Destroy--Al Qaeda
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According to Dick Cheney, our objective in Afghanistan was, from the very beginning, not about defeating al Qaeda, but rather, defeating the Taliban, while denying al Qaeda a safe haven in Afghanistan.
At…
Trash Talk: NCAA Shame, Ephs and Jeffs
Marcy is correct, the article this week in the Atlantic magazine by Taylor Branch is an absolute must read. Entitled The Shame of College Sports, the article opens with a 2001 investigatory hearing in front of the Knight commission, a NCAA oversight…
The CIA Hates Us for Our Freedom
As I've noted a couple of times, there's the suggestion that the CIA likes the NYPD's CIA-on-the-Hudson because the NYPD, unlike the CIA, is diverse enough to have people with the linguistic and cultural background to infiltrate Muslim communities.
So…
Dick Cheney Made No Mention of Millenium Plot in His Book
I'm still slogging through Dick Cheney's awful book--I will write some more comprehensive things when I finish.
But I found this passage particularly curious given recent claims by Ali Soufan and Richard Clarke that we might have been able…
State Department, DoD Argue Over "Rules" for Drone Targets Outside Pakistan
Ed: Now that he's on the mend from heart surgery, Jim is going to do some posting at EW. Welcome, Jim!
Charlie Savage notes in today's New York Times that the Departments of State and Defense are engaged in an argument over the choosing…
The Chief of Staff Who Might Have Been
There are a number of details from Ron Suskind's new book revealed by an AP and a NYT preview of it, the most alarming (but not surprising) that TurboTax Timmeh Geithner managed to save Citibank by basically ignoring Obama's order to break it…
Teaching Christian Moderation
A retired Navy guy decided to treat Spencer's reporting on the dangerously bad training the FBI is giving its agents by offering a justification for that training with his own theological argument for why Muslims are dangerous.
For my own part,…
John Brennan, the Intelligence Community's One Man Justice Department
Matt Apuzzo has a story describing three different responses to growing concerns about the CIA-on-the-Hudson.
There's Rush Holt, who unfortunately is no longer on the House Intelligence Committee and therefore has limited ability to look…
Maybe Iraq Should Just Replace Idaho as Our 50th State
Back when Tony Fratto was arguing that we should shut down post offices because he uses the InterToobz and therefore only ventures into an actual post office once a year, I noted that we would effectively be kicking huge portions of our rural…
Bill Daley Preparing to Ruin Another Democrat's Election Chances
The environmental community is beginning to worry that the Obama Administration is preparing to cave on greenhouse gas emissions, just like it did on ozone emissions.
Hard on the heels of the Obama administration's decision earlier this month…
FBI's Problem with Mohammed: Torture and Assassination
Spencer has a must read story on the FBI's recent training program for counter-terrorism agents on Islam.
I'm going to have a few points to make about it. But for the moment I wanted to (in addition to recommending you go read the whole thing)…
It's the Bush Record on Jobs (and His Role in the Deficit) Cheney Should Be Embarrassed About
Amanda Terkel has most of the story of Dick Cheney's flip flop on the deficit: speaking to Rush Limbaugh today, Cheney expressed "embarrassment" about the debt limit fight.
"Now, these last few months have been pretty messy," said Cheney. "I…
Ten Years after 9/11, Inherent Authority Dies a Small Legal Death
Al-Haramain has submitted its brief for the appellate review on a number of issues related to the government's illegal wiretapping of the charity. The questions at issue are:
1. Does FISA waive federal sovereign immunity?
2. Does FISA preempt…
Government Contracting: Lower Wages, But Higher Cost
POGO has a must-read report showing what actually happens when the Federal government outsources jobs: while the actual workers doing the jobs may make less than government (unionized) workers, the work costs more overall.
POGO’s study analyzed…
Another Secret Self-Investigation of Counter-Terrorism Abuses
At a hearing on the 9/11 anniversary yesterday, David Petraeus revealed that the CIA's Inspector General had launched an investigation into its role in the NYPD's spy program.
During his first Congressional testimony as the C.I.A. director,…
The Narratology of Leaks, Part Two: Schooling William Welch
Let me just say I do not relish seeing William Welch making precisely the point I have made in one of his filings. When you read this,
That Mr. Feldstein’s opinions are unreliable and based on no method at all is underscored by their internal…
We're Getting Poorer
The headline news from the Census bureau's poverty numbers today is that median income continues to fall, a pretty significant 2.3% last year.
Real median household income in the United States in 2010 was $49,445, a 2.3 percent decline from…
The World Should Have Revolted Over America's Illegal War on Iraq
You may have seen discussions about this project around the Toobz. In it, scholars use supercomputers to analyze the tone of news coverage. Their results from Egypt and Tunisia--showing low sentiment right before this year's revolutions--suggest…
Turki al-Faisal Picked the Wrong Day to Make Veto Threats
From everything I know, Saudi Prince and former Intelligence Chief Turki al-Faisal is incredibly shrewd. And I believe Saudi Arabia has already started to make the kind of strategic realignments he threatens in his op-ed threatening consequences…