"Did Anyone Know a Fruit Vendor in Tunisia Was Going to Light Himself on Fire?"
That's the question NSC spokesperson Tommy Vietor used yesterday to deflect Senate Intelligence Committee concerns that the Administration was taken by surprise by the events in Egypt.
Did anyone in the world know in advance that a fruit vendor…
What Goes into Watchlisting?
A bunch of national security journalists are tracking down the three Qataris -- described as a potential fifth 9/11 cell -- described in this WikiLeaks cable and first reported by the Telegraph. I wanted to do the reverse of what they're doing…
Abbe Lowell's Leak as Governance Theory
Josh Gerstein links to this fascinating filing from Abbe Lowell, the lawyer who successfully got leak charges against AIPAC employees dismissed, and now representing a former State Department contractor, Stephen Kim, alleged to have leaked Top…
Clinton's Blowjob: 5 Times More Important than the Wall Street Crash
Honest, I'm posting this video not for obvious affinities I have for Dylan Ratigan's argument. But mostly because of the obvious suggestion, based on the resources we dedicate to investigating them, that Clinton's blowjob was five times…
WH Press Corps Demands Photo Ops of Them Asking about Egypt
I don't see much purpose behind the letter the White House press corps just sent outgoing Robert Gibbs:
We recognize that the crisis in Egypt is a quickly evolving story and you are working to get us the information we need in a timely manner,…
"No One Could Have Predicted the Housing Bubble Middle East Status Quo Would Crash"
The WSJ has a fascinating narrative of how both the US and Mubarak's government were utterly unprepared for a democratic revolution in Egypt. From a meeting two months ago at which Egypt again refused democratic reforms, after which Hillary…
Bennie Thompson to Peter King: What about the White Supremacists?
Ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, Bennie Thompson, just wrote a letter to Peter King asking him to include other terrorists, in addition to Islamic extremists, in his fear-mongering hearing this month.
I write to request…
Former CIA CounterTerrorism Head: "The US has simply become irrelevant in the Middle East"
This column by Robert Grenier is stunning not because of its content--I agree with just about all of it--but because of who Grenier is. As the CIA's Iraq Mission Manager in 2002-2004 and then head of CIA's CounterTerrorism Center in 2004-2006,…
Unlike the Guardian, the NYT Told State Precisely What WikiLeaks Cables It Would Publish
The Guardian has now posted its version of the US government's efforts last November to learn what cables WikiLeaks would publish, so I'd like compare the three versions to show what we know.
As I noted before, these negotiations started…
In Egypt a Dictator Censors Politics; In the US a Corporation Censors ... Football
To be fair, it was not a highly lucrative football game CBS censored. Rather, it was an ad put out by the players' union opposing the lockout the owners are threatening. I guess anything from a labor union -- even a labor union representing…
Stuxnet: A Way to Nuke Iran without Using a Bomb?
Last week, Russian Ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, told the organization that the computer worm Israel and the US devised to ruin Iran's nuclear program could have led to a catastrophe with the Bushehr nuclear plant like Chernobyl.
Russia…
The $900 Million Headline Versus Our Afghan Policy Backing a Vertically Integrated Criminal Enterprise
The NYT has one of the most stunning headlines of the day.
Losses at Afghan Bank Could Be $900 Million
The story tells a story of Afghanistan's own "Too Big to Fail" problem that offers opaque descriptions of precisely what caused the problem,…
Our Industrial Policy Needs to Do More than Arm Dictators
Spencer has a useful catalog of all the war toys Egypt buys with our military aid.
Whatever Egypt’s military does next, chances are they’ll do it with American weapons.Al-Jazeera showed M1A1 Abrams tanks carrying Egyptian soldiers …
Has the Obama Administration Backed Off Its Plan to Reconsider Aid to Egypt?
In a press briefing on Friday, Robert Gibbs said several times the Administration would be reviewing its aid to Egypt in the upcoming days.
Q You say these legitimate grievances have to be addressed. I’m wondering: Or what? …
Arizona's New White Panther Party: Money & (Anchor) Baby Hate
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bmazThree weeks ago I woke up and started organizing my thoughts to write this post. I had no more than written the title when news started coming in hot, first on Twitter and then local news channels, that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords had been…
Fran Fragos Townsend Admits We Render to Torture in Egypt
Well, perhaps not quite. When Mona Eltahawy explicitly described what many of us learned from Jane Mayer--Hosni Mubarak's appointed Vice President, Omar Suleiman, has a long history of cooperating with us in accepting and torturing people…
What State Wanted Withheld from WikiLeaks Publication
There are now four versions of the cooperation between WikiLeaks and its journalistic "partners:" Vanity Fair, NYT, Guardian, and Spiegel. A comparison of them is more instructive than reading any in isolation.
For example, compare how the…
Robert Gibbs: Basket of Individual Freedoms Includes Freedom to Access the Internet
In a press briefing on the situation in Egypt (and probably his last briefing ever), Robert Gibbs made a stunning, but important statement.
We believe in the basket of individual freedoms includes the freedom to access the Internet and…
The NeoCons' Long Animosity towards Mohamed el Baradei
As Siun noted yesterday, Mohamed el Baradei issued a statement critical of US support for Hosni Mubarak in advance of returning to Egypt (and, as of now, being put under house arrest).
Of course, you in the West have been sold the idea that…
Obama Gives Manufacturing a Promotion
Since Ron Bloom--IMO, the most effective member of the Auto bailout team--got named the special advisor for manufacturing in September 2009, those of us insisting the country has to reinvest in manufacturing have argued Bloom should get more…
