Let me state this loud and clear, Barack Hussein Obama is not American enough to be President. He has shallow roots in this country. He was given a pass by the American people because he is black. He had no qualifications in leadership. He is not fit to serve as Commander in Chief. The first affirmative action president has the gall to attack real Americans that rose to the occasion to do what had to be done to protect our country. His actions and hints of prosecution against his betters deserve rebuke, contempt and will tear this country apart.
Time to put the Administration (Bushes) people on the FBI Most Wanted List.
ReplyDeleteEverything is upside down.
Wasn't a terror attacked stopped in Los Angeles due to waterboarding?
Planned Attack
Waterboarding And LA Terror Attack
ReplyDeleteTold you fellas this was comin' down the track, months ago.
ReplyDeleteMs trish believed Obama when he played nice, now, who you gonna call?
John McCain?
One term.
ReplyDeleteIt was there, I wouldn't kid you.
ReplyDeleteGuess 'someone' didn't like that snippet.
Only if Spector is reelected, and the Florida Senate seat does not switch.
ReplyDeleteThe 2010 race will foretell the results of 2012. Same societal trends will be in play, the Republicans don't have a really viable candidate, in the front ranks or on the horizon.
The cavalry is not coming.
The Rino hating Republicans will get PA— Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak (PA-07) elected as the next Democratic senator. Toomey is a joke.
ReplyDeleteThere is not a single worker at the North America's largest employeer that really care about the lawyers of the Bush Adminstration, except to quote Shakespeare
ReplyDelete“the first thing we do, is kill all the lawyers,”
Anything can happen these days. Obama may be a hated man or a loved saint in four years.
ReplyDeleteRepublicans have been losing in the suburbs but it could be turned around with a big event.
Maybe McCain will lose in the Republican primary to that Minuteman fellow.
As PA goes, so goes the Nation.
ReplyDeleteOr VA, OH, IN, NM, CO.
All flipped and went Obama.
If the Republicans lose 2 Senate seats, net, it's all over but the cryin'.
If bob really cared, he'd be movin' to Ohio and getting involved in politics, there. Where it could maje a difference.
So few are willing to pledge their fortunes, let alone life or honor.
My bet, today, is that Obama goes the full 8 years. Ushering in a new generation of politicos.
If the boisterous belivers that the elections make a difference were real patriots they'd ride to the sound of the guns, relocate, register and vote.
Trends take awhile to develop, bob. They can be tracked.
ReplyDeleteKinda like a hurricane, takes a while to gain momentum.
A;most any "Event" would have a rally round the flag effect.
Obama is holding the flag.
It the GOP does not stage a comeback in the Congress, in 2010, they stand no chance at the White House, in 2012.
Today, it seems like the Democratic wave has yet to crest.
Oh dear God.
ReplyDeleteYou people are easy to screw in.
You think it is no big deal?
ReplyDeleteYes. I think it is no big deal.
ReplyDeleteMs trish did not think that the Iraqi that were fighting US in Iraq were insurgents, either.
ReplyDeleteHer parroting of the Company line is one of the benefits of her posting here, We get to know what the "Professionals and Experts" are saying, in their echo chamber.
the first thing we do, is kill all the lawyersEven better is woe unto you lawyers by Jesus.
ReplyDeleteThe other being somewhat taken out of context.
-----
It'd be a big deal if you were being prosecuted.
What bodes ill about it is the willingness to tear the country into factions, even more so than now.
Though they may just let a political circus run awhile, then drop it.
-----
Diane Feinstein seems to have gotten herself entwined in some big 25M contract going to her husband.
No big deal?
ReplyDeleteI totally disagree. Obama is charged with incredible responsibility. There may come a time where he has to make decisions without cue cards or teleprompters. There will be ambiguities and he will be operating under the microscope. He is setting up a precedent that can hobble his options. It is a foolish and rookie move.
Though they may just let a political circus run awhile, then drop it.That is most probably what will happen. As far as prosecutions go, there's no there, there.
ReplyDeleteThe danger is that the rabids will demand show trials, which if nothing else will be very costly for those dragged under the kleig lights.
That, my Lord, is, exactly, why the founders insisted that the American President be "Natural-born."
ReplyDeleteNo, he is NOT American enough.
But, he IS the Prez. God help us (I say "us," because, even though WE might all have mental breakdowns, and heart attacks, the Country will make it four years.)
I don't think this lightweight has a chance to make it 8.
There aren't going to be any prosecutions of Bush administration officials.
ReplyDeleteThere aren't going to be any prosecutions, period.
As to the Israeli and Charlie Chi-com being allied, against US, the case id not difficult to make.
ReplyDeleteWe all agree that the Chinese are emploiting spies, financiers and corporate connections to aquire US technologies.
Correct?
The Israeli have employeed spies in the US, Pollard being the most publicly known, but not the only, traitor.
The Israeli also used their corporate ties with the US to aqure technologies which they later sold to the Chinese.
Neither are a Johnnie come lately to this dance. The following data set being written in 1996 about years worth of Chi-com/Israeli cooperation.
The comments by the two Republican congressmen follow years of almost completely unheeded allegations by government officials, defense industry executives and private-sector analysts that Israel has retransferred U.S. technology to China. The technology allegedly retransferred includes:
• Cruise missile technology. Israel allegedly has helped China with several cruise missile systems, including its YJ-12A medium-range anti-ship cruise missile, its YJ-91 air-launched anti-radiation cruise missile, and the YJ-62 long-range anti-ship cruise missile. These missile systems are based primarily on Israel’s STAR-1 cruise missile which, according to American University professor and technology transfer specialist Duncan Clarke, “incorporates sensitive U.S. technology.” Israel also has marketed its Delilah cruise missile/unmanned aerial vehicle to China. The Delilah is believed to be a re-engineered version of an American system sold to Israel in the 1970s by Northrop, a U.S. defense firm.
• Air-to-air missile technology. Israel has sold China its Python-3 short-range air-to-air missile which China has renamed the PL-8. According to Clarke, the Python-3 is a re-engineered version of the U.S.-made AIM-9L “Sidewinder” and also incorporates a significant amount of U.S. technology.
• ATBM technology. Following the Gulf war and the stationing of U.S. Patriot missile batteries in Israel, allegations were made that Israel had retransferred Patriot missile technology to China. A subsequent U.S. State Department investigation concluded that although the claim could not be refuted, there was no physical evidence to substantiate it. The Israelis used this narrow finding as a public relations tool to discount allegations of technology retransfer in general. It is now widely believed that Israel sold technical data about the Patriot system to China, but not physical components of the system.
• The Lavi fighter. China unveiled earlier this year its developmental F-10 fighter, which U.S. intelligence reports have suggested is modeled after Israel’s discontinued Lavi aircraft. The physical characteristics of the F-10, which looks strikingly like the Lavi, have substantiated those reports. The Lavi was the first large-scale attempt at U.S.-Israeli “strategic cooperation,” and it was supposed to provide Israel with an indigenously produced advanced fighter designed to meet Israel’s operational needs. The Lavi was funded almost exclusively by the United States, which provided $1.5 billion before the program was abandoned by Israel, under intense U.S. pressure, in 1986. It incorporates U.S. technology from some 730 U.S. defense firms and has given China a dramatic leap forward for its indigenous military aircraft development program. Israel denies that any U.S. technology was retransferred to China via the Lavi fighter, a statement that most U.S. analysts find hard to believe, given the enormous amount of U.S. technology present in the Lavi.
Aside from Israel’s clandestine military relationship with China, Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) currently is marketing its Phalcon airborne early warning (AEW) system to China in competition with the British defense firm GEC-Marconi. China’s acquisition of an AEW system would provide a dramatic advance in China’s operational abilities and would, according to Richard Fisher, “significantly erode the military technical edge held by the U.S. and Taiwan that is necessary for deterring China.”
mat was wrong about a lot of things, but not, I think, about Israel and Israelis. They are both things he knew and understood, from first hand experience.
He said tha the Chinese were Israelis true friend, not the US, who'd let them down, in a pinch.
Which is true, we will, all they had to do was ask the Shah or President Diem.
As Martha Stewart would say: That's a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI think that is true, there will not be prosecutions, but there will be Commission Hearings.
ReplyDeleteThey will open the Program up, from top to bottom, in Public Hearings.
No hiding behind the Fifth Amendment, the threat of prosecution having been lifted.
But Ollie North was never tried, either. His career at the public trough ended.
How many guys will Murdock and Forbes have to hire after the Commission Hearings?
Cap the Knife went to Forbes, who paid for the legal costs of his eventual exoneration.
Ollie went to Murdock, where he tells "War Stories".
Where is this generation of GOP fall guys going to land?
Others pushing for more investigation included Philip D. Zelikow, the former State Department counselor in the Bush administration. On his blog for Foreign Policy magazine and in an interview, Mr. Zelikow said it was not up to a president to rule out an inquiry into possible criminal activity.
ReplyDelete“If a Republican president tried to do this, people would be apoplectic,” he said.
Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., who was chief counsel to the Church Committee, the Senate panel that investigated C.I.A. abuses in the 1970s, said Mr. Obama was “courageous” to rule out prosecutions for those who followed legal advice. But he said “it’s absolutely necessary” to investigate further, “not for the purpose of setting blame but to understand how it happened.”Interrogation Abuses
The Israeli/Chinese connection bitin' one of them in the ass.
ReplyDelete* U.S. hits six Iranian companies hit with sanctions
* Chinese executive and his company indicted in New York
* Money channeled through U.S., European banks (Combines stories about indictment and sanctions)
By David Lawder and Edith Honan
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, April 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Tuesday slapped sanctions on a Chinese metals company and six Iranian companies suspected of collaborating on a scheme to transfer missile and nuclear technology from China to Iran.
A New York grand jury also indicted the Chinese metals company, LIMMT Economic and Trade Co Ltd, and its manager, Lee Fangwei, on 118 counts including suspicion of shipping 33,000 pounds (15,000 kg) of specialized aluminum alloy used for long-range missile production from China to Iran.
Lee was charged with the suspected misuse of Manhattan banks employed to transfer money between China and Iran by way of Europe and the United States.
The actions by the U.S. Treasury Department and a grand jury convened by the New York state prosecutor in Manhattan come as the United States has sought tougher U.N. sanctions against Iran to halt its nuclear program, which Western nations believe is designed for making weapons.Charlie Chi-com will resell technologies to almost anyone, too.
I started the search for the source, the Reuters piece here, at this site. They have a great photo of an Iranian missile launch. Ig anyone is seriously worried with the threat from this cluster fuck operation, they do not really have many reasons for concern.
ReplyDeleteThey will open the Program up, from top to bottom, in Public Hearings.
ReplyDelete- Rat
They can't.
As part of a regional tour, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, Yang Jiechi, will pay an official visit to Israel on 22-24 April 2009. This is the first visit of a Chinese foreign minister in four years.
ReplyDelete...
Israel and China established diplomatic relations in 1992. Today, annual trade stands at $7 billion, cultural exchanges have met with great success, many senior Chinese officials have visited Israel and the number of Chinese tourists visiting Israel is growing.
Yang Jiechi's visit further strengthens Israel-China relations.Visits Israel
They're going to give it a go, them prosecute those that do not "open up".
ReplyDeleteNot for the torture techniques, but the silence.
Scenes that we've all seen before.
That famous admonition of all political hit jobs.
It's not about the ________,
but the "Cover Up".
It is one of the character traits of all Democratic Administration, to persecute the GOPers that just left.
ReplyDeleteNixon and Watergate
Iran/Contra, after Reagan.
Iran-Contra affair - Wikipedia
In the end, fourteen administration officials were charged with crimes, and eleven convicted, including then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_affair.
So it won't be "like that"
But it's going to be messy.
"I started the search for the source, the Reuters piece here, at this site. They have a great photo of an Iranian missile launch. Ig anyone is seriously worried with the threat from this cluster fuck operation, they do not really have many reasons for concern."That's a photoshopped picture.
ReplyDeleteAbsent some major event that shakes up the higher Democratic Party leadership, they aren't going to do it. The "right" people are now in charge, and don't want to get caught up in the consequences of that which they shameless demagogued for eight years. Down the memory hole, along with fear of deficits, Constitutional limitations, the end of the Iraq War, tax cuts, and every other lie they told. Aided by fellow travelers in the popular press.
Besides, they'd have to prosecute their own, including many of the people who'd supposedly be running the showtrial.
Hey, maybe I could used to this idea...
Which isn't to say that, as they are doing in Iraq, they can't fuck things up anyway, through even their modest attempts at pretending to institute systematic "change".
ReplyDeleteOh, sinless, you take all the fun out it.
ReplyDeleteThey're not that inept?
Damn.
I wonder, which white guy on Team Obama is going to call Juan Williams a racist?
ReplyDeleteThe reckless dismantling of the D.C. voucher program does not speak well of the promise by Obama to be the “Education President.”
Juan works that middle ground, being on both NPR and Fox News.
Seems like a smart fellow.
A Backdoor Nationalization
ReplyDeleteThe latest Treasury brainstorm will retard a banking recovery.
Just when you think the political class may have learned something in months of trying to fix the banking system, the ghost of Hank Paulson returns to haunt the Treasury. The latest Beltway blunder -- and it would be a big one -- is the Obama Administration's weekend news leak that it may insist on converting its preferred shares in some of the nation's largest banks into common equity.
Hate to say I told you so, but ...
There you go.
bob mentioned this the other day and Politico has this tidbit:
ReplyDeleteChris Simcox, the founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and a prominent figure in the movement to clamp down on illegal immigration, will be announcing tomorrow at an event on the Mexican border that he's resigned from the group to run in the 2010 Senate primary.
From a forthcoming release:
"John McCain has failed miserably in his duty to secure this nation's borders and protect the people of Arizona from the escalating violence and lawlessness," Simcox said. "He has fought real efforts over the years at every turn, opting to hold our nation's border security hostage to his amnesty schemes. Coupled with his votes for reckless bailout spending and big government solutions to our nation's problems, John McCain is out of touch with everyday Arizonans. Enough is enough."
McCain was forced to abandon his own immigration reform legislation during last year's Republican Primary, a move that may have cost him substantial Hispanic support to which his record could have given him access.
So he's basically getting it from both sides on this one.
Simcox, with a national base and a high profile on the right, is well positioned to give McCain a serious local headache. He'll find some allies among the conservatives who recently took over the Arizona Republican Party from McCain's allies, and he has a national fundraising base.... Simcox for Senate ...
His office is right down the street.
The last time I saw that missile photo there were three or four missiles, now there must be thirty or more. Much Iranian progress....
ReplyDeleteApril 21 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan opposition leader and Maracaibo Mayor Manuel Rosales, who was scheduled to appear in court yesterday on corruption charges, has left the country and is seeking political asylum in Peru.
ReplyDeleteThe mayor is being “politically persecuted,” said his wife, Eveling Rosales, in comments broadcast by CNN’s Spanish- language channel. Manuel Rosales, 56, lost the 2006 presidential election to President Hugo Chavez.
“The fundamental problem is that there’s no credibility in the judicial system, which is a system that’s been completely politicized,” Leopoldo Lopez, a member of Rosales’s Un Nuevo Tiempo party and former mayor of the Caracas borough of Chacao, said in a telephone interview. “This is retaliation and selective repression.”
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) - Two FBI workers are accused of using surveillance equipment to spy on teenage girls as they undressed and tried on prom gowns at a charity event at a West Virginia mall.
ReplyDeleteThe FBI employees have been charged with conspiracy and committing criminal invasion of privacy. They were working in an FBI satellite control room at the mall when they positioned a camera on temporary changing rooms and zoomed in for at least 90 minutes on girls dressing for the Cinderella Project fashion show, Marion County Prosecutor Pat Wilson said Monday.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century.
ReplyDeleteThere are no sunspots, very few solar flares - and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time.
The observations are baffling astronomers, who are due to study new pictures of the Sun, taken from space, at the UK National Astronomy Meeting.
The Sun normally undergoes an 11-year cycle of activity. At its peak, it has a tumultuous boiling atmosphere that spits out flares and planet-sized chunks of super-hot gas. This is followed by a calmer period.
Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a 50-year year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity.
According to Prof Louise Hara of University College London, it is unclear why this is happening or when the Sun is likely to become more active again.
"There's no sign of us coming out of it yet," she told BBC News.
"At the moment, there are scientific papers coming out suggesting that we'll be going into a normal period of activity soon.
"Others are suggesting we'll be going into another minimum period - this is a big scientific debate at the moment."
Maybe those Maya astronomers knew more than the Spanairds that burnt their books. Winter Solstice 2012 is fast approaching.
One of those things that slipped down the memory hole, 35 years ago, was the fear that many in the Democratic Congress had of the idea that Nixon might actually demand to be tried under the public glare of their Star Chamber.
ReplyDeleteOh, the dark secrets and hypocrisies that could have been unturned from the Johnson, Kennedy, and other past Administrations, had Nixon attempted to mount a defense and decided to take them all down with him.
On that note, go with God Tricky Dick (Part II).
re: prosecutions:
ReplyDeleteI hate to get all technical on y'all but aren't the Spanish already prosecuting?
In the US, it's not the President who decides these things anyway, is it? If the law were broken, and the perps readily identifiable, aren't there all sorts of means of starting the prosecutin'?
Yes and no, ash.
ReplyDeleteAs the Chief of the Justice Department he can order that there be no Federal prosections, as is often done at a Prosecutor level in Plea Deals. The Federals can decline to prosecute for any variety of reasons.
He could also pre-emptively pardon the suspects. That would cover State prosecutions, too.
He could not stop Civil Actions, though.
The Spanairds are still investigating whether their citizens were treated in violation of the Geneva Accords and other bi-lateral Treaty obligations.
ReplyDeleteNo Decisons, yet.
The surprisingly naive Megan McCardle tries to pass off as expected the fact that Treasury isn't going to let the banks pay back TARP money unless it damn well feels like it.Hrmm. Bringing/forcing private companies in the government as "partners," then using a combination of bribes and coercion to entice them to work according to the leadership's definition of the "national interest." I wonder where we've seen an economic system like this before. Too impolitic and immoderate for the wilting willows, to recognize it, I hear.
ReplyDeleteJust as President Buchannon pardoned the people of Utah for Treason and Insurrection, without ever trying them for it.
ReplyDeleteA pe-emptive pardon, as it were.
As Gerald Ford did with Richard Nixon.
ReplyDeleteBe careful, sinless, comparing Federal Socialists to National Socialists,
ReplyDeleteThe Bush/Hitler storyline is now to be adapted to fit Obama/Hitler?
Was mat correct, is the US Government a fascist conspiracy, in your view?
As the coercion started on the Bush/Hitler watch, continued under Obama/Hitler.
Our State Socialism is bi-partisan
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI must say, sinless, that I never expected the banks to be allowed to refund the money.
ReplyDeleteIt was not a "Loan" but a purchase of equity. Big difference.
Once you're in, you're in.
There is no turning back the clock, not with the Federals on their quest for the power and the glory of secular humanism.
The fascists opposed both international socialism and liberal capitalism, arguing that their views represented a third way. They claimed to provide a realistic economic alternative that was neither laissez-faire capitalism nor communism. They favoured corporatism and class collaboration, believing that the existence of inequality and separate social classes was beneficial (contrary to the views of socialists). Fascists argued that the state had a role in mediating relations between these classes (contrary to the views of liberal capitalists).
ReplyDeleteAn inherent aspect of fascist economies was economic dirigisme, meaning an economy where the government exerts strong directive influence, and effectively controls production and allocation of resources. In general, apart from the nationalizations of some industries, fascist economies were based on private property and private initiative, but these were contingent upon service to the state.
Fascism operated from a Social Darwinist view of human relations. Their aim was to promote allegedly superior individuals and weed out the weak. In terms of economic practice, this meant promoting the interests of successful businessmen while destroying trade unions and other organizations of the working class. Historian Gaetano Salvemini argued in 1936 that fascism makes taxpayers responsible to private enterprise, because "the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise... Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social."
Fascist governments encouraged the pursuit of private profit and offered many benefits to large businesses, but they demanded in return that all economic activity should serve the national interest
In most cases, fascists discouraged or banned foreign trade; fascists believed that too much international trade would make the national economy dependent on international capital, and therefore vulnerable to international economic sanctions. Economic self-sufficiency, known as autarky, was a major goal of most fascist governments.
Fascism was highly militaristic, and as such, fascists often significantly increased military spending.
Nor are the squawking heads the only conservatives trafficking in the preposterous. Newt Gingrich recently asserted that Democrats are trying to move the country "towards a political dictatorship."
ReplyDeleteTexas Governor Rick Perry last week suggested that his state might someday secede from the union.
No, this lunacy doesn't represent the totality of the right or even of its commentators. Yet it's prominent enough that starboard-side writer David Horowitz has expressed concern over the movement's "over-the-top hysteria" about Obama.Cries of Fascism
Leader of Venezuelan Opposition Flees to PeruPat Robertson may have been right. Hugo the Thugo should have been, I think he used the term, "taken out."
ReplyDeleteChina Denies HackingThat settles it then, China didn't do it.
ReplyDelete“This is retaliation and selective repression”...
ReplyDeleteSoon to be playing in a neighborhood near you.
During a speech in Texas earlier this month, Joel Brenner, head of the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, said that officials have seen counterfeit computer chips "make their way into U.S. military fighter aircraft."
ReplyDeleteBrenner added: "You don't sneak counterfeit chips into another nation's aircraft to steal data. When it's done intentionally, it's done to degrade systems, or to have the ability to do so at a time of one's choosing."
His comments were not related to the F-35, according to administration officials. But Brenner has also warned that careless, laid-off or disaffected employees can often be the root of corporate cyber leaks.Fighter Program
Soon to be playing in a neighborhood near you.Exactly my thought too.
ReplyDeleteSun Taking A VacationHeh, just when the warmers need some show old sol says the heck with it.
ReplyDeleteThe article says the earth is continuing to warm even though the sun is going quiet.
ReplyDeleteLocated at Cox's Manheim DRIVE facility in Stockbridge, Ga., the 100-kilowatt rooftop system converts the sun's radiation to electricity and generates approximately 150-megawatt hours annually. The renewable energy is fed back into the utility grid system and reduces the amount of energy generated by Georgia Power.
ReplyDelete...
The Manheim DRIVE Center is the first-of-its-kind innovation center in the vehicle remarketing industry. Bringing together automotive leaders to solve industry challenges, the Center hosts conferences, symposiums, roundtables and management retreats, as well as live auctions that are held in the 180-seat bidding theatre.
Since its opening in 2004, more than 20,000 guests from around the world have visited DRIVE.Green Energy for Georgia
Yes, it does, I should read the articles I post all the way through.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid we made some device at school to look at the sun spots.
You were right, Linear, looks like they are going after the Reloaders
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFlipping throught the last three threads, I see that whit has erred in describing the "Long War" as an international conflict.
ReplyDeleteSorry, amigo, it has been decided, otherwise. By the Supremes, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
The "Long War" is a series of localized conflicts that are not inter-related, by that Ruling, which stands, today, as the latest Law on the subject.
The US is bound by the Convention, whether the enemy is, or not.
It is not a bi-lateral Treaty, in that instance, but a unilateral one. As the US signed on to, and then ratified.
The same as applies to the Israelis.
ReplyDeleteIt, the Conventions, are a unilateral agreement that each signatory has agreed to uphold.
Those Conventions are not bi-lateral and are not optional, for the signatories.
They either meet the Geneva Standard, or they do not. What the enemy does, has no bearing on that legality.
The US being a Nation of Laws, rather than men.
Men act out of fear, the Law is fearless.
Put yourself in the shoes of the people who were asked to interrogate al- Qaeda prisoners back in 2002. One former officer told me he declined the job, not because he thought the program was wrong, but because he knew it would blow up. "We all knew the political wind would change eventually," he recalled. Other officers who didn't make that cynical but correct calculation are now "broken and bewildered," says the former operative.
ReplyDeleteFor a taste of what's ahead, recall the chilling effects of past CIA scandals. Back in 1995, then-Director John Deutch ordered a "scrub" of the agency's assets after revelations of past links to Guatemalan death squads. Officers were told they shouldn't jettison sources who had provided truly valuable intelligence. But the practical message, recalls one former division chief, was: "Don't deal with assets who could pose political risks."
One veteran counterterrorism operative says that agents in the field are already getting more careful about using the legal findings that authorize covert action. An example is the so-called "risk of capture" interview that takes place in the first hour after a terrorism suspect is grabbed. This used to be the key window of opportunity, in which the subject was questioned aggressively and his cell phone contacts and "pocket litter" were exploited quickly.
Now, field officers are more careful. They want guidance from headquarters. They need legal advice. I'm told that in the case of an al-Qaeda suspect seized in Iraq several weeks ago, the CIA didn't even try to interrogate him. They handed him over to the U.S. military.
"Broken and bewildered"
I'd have thought those boys were made of sterner stuff. Oh well ...
by David Ignatius, Washington Post
In time of victory, why is the left so angry?
ReplyDeleteBy: Byron York
...as she spoke about the alleged anger on the right, Garofalo herself seemed visibly angry. Why were she, and Olbermann, and many others on the left, so apparently troubled by a virtually powerless opposition?
I asked William Anderson, a friend who is a political conservative, a medical doctor, and a lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard. "They are angry, but I think they are also scared, and I think it's because they have a sense that their triumph is a precarious one," Anderson told me. Democrats won in 2008 in some part because of the cycles of American politics; Republicans were exhausted and it was the other party's turn. Now, having won, they are unsure of how long victory will last.
"They see that they have a very small window of opportunity to do all the things they want," Anderson continued. "They see the window of opportunity as small because they know in their deepest hearts that the vast majority of the American people wouldn't go for all of the things they want to do." So they are frantic to do as much as possible before the opposition coalesces. And the tea parties might be the beginning of that coalescence.
Then there is the question of self-image. Watching Garofalo and Olbermann discuss the tea parties, it was impossible to avoid the sense that they saw themselves as two good people talking about many bad people. "One of the things about narcissism is that it looks like people who are just proud of themselves and smug, but in fact narcissism is a very brittle and unstable state," Anderson told me. "People who are deeply invested in narcissism spend an awful lot of energy trying to maintain the illusion they have of themselves as being powerful and good, and they are exquisitely sensitive to anything that might prick that balloon."
Again, the tea parties could represent a threat. What if the protesters weren't racists, weren't violent, weren't mentally defective? What if their point was legitimate, or even partly legitimate? Those are questions better batted down than answered.