The first thing I did after I heard about the highly classified NSA PRISM program two years ago was set up a proxy server in Peshawar to email me passages from Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.
posted by From Bklyn
on Jun 16, 2013 -
49 comments
Our American Pravda.
A provocative essay on the flaws of the American media by the editor and publisher of the American Conservative,
Ron Unz, containing:
allusions to conspiracy theories
condemnation of Soviet spies (and a kind word for Joe McCarthy),
criticism of the FBI,
approving quotations of Paul Krugman,
fresh questions about the moral character of John McCain and his fitness for office,
disapproving descriptions of the Obama administration as "Bush's thrid term,"
and a broadside against the selling of the Iraq war calling it the "greatest strategic disaster in United States history."
[more inside]
posted by Diablevert
on Jun 4, 2013 -
46 comments
Why did an American counterterrorism agency map the entire Muslim world as a terror zone? And why was their map 500 years out of date.(
via)
“
The United States is not at war with Islam,” President Obama said last week at the National Defense University, in a speech that declared an end to America’s “wartime footing” in the fight against terrorism.
Meanwhile two weeks ago "Asked at a Senate hearing how long the war on terrorism will last, Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, answered, 'At least 10 to 20 years.' . . . A spokeswoman, Army Col. Anne Edgecomb, clarified that Sheehan meant the conflict is likely to last 10 to 20 more years from today - atop the 12 years that the conflict has already lasted.
posted by adamvasco
on Jun 2, 2013 -
45 comments
The Guantánamo Memoirs of Mohamedou Ould Slahi For nearly 11 years, Mohamedou Ould Slahi has been a prisoner in Guantánamo. In 2005, he began to write his memoirs of his time in captivity. His handwritten 466-page manuscript is a harrowing account of his detention, interrogation, and abuse. Although his abuse has been corroborated by U.S. government officials, declassified documents, and independent investigators, Slahi tells his story with the detail and perspective that could only be known by himself and the people who have kept him captive. It is impossible for us to meet with him or independently verify his account. Until now, it has been impossible for him to tell his story. [ht
homunculus]
posted by jaduncan
on May 1, 2013 -
16 comments
NYT Op/Ed on 9/11:
'The Deafness Before the Storm' "goes into teeth-grinding detail about how the Bush administration had even more advance notice about Osama Bin Laden's attack than we previously realized."
Summary: significantly more negligence than has been disclosed.
posted by stbalbach
on Sep 11, 2012 -
113 comments
The CIA's Secret Sites in Somalia. Jeremy Scahill at
The Nation reports on a CIA facility at Mogadishu's international airport used for a "counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives," as well as a secret prison "buried in the basement of Somalia's National Security Agency" where "some of the prisoners have been snatched off the streets of Kenya and rendered by plane to Mogadishu."
[more inside]
posted by lullaby
on Jul 14, 2011 -
39 comments
It might be instructive to ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic (after proper burial rites, of course). Uncontroversially, he is not a “suspect” but the “decider” who gave the orders to invade Iraq -- that is, to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: in Iraq, the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country and the national heritage, and the murderous sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region. Equally uncontroversially, these crimes vastly exceed anything attributed to bin Laden.
There is Much More to Say by Noam Chomsky.
posted by klue
on May 24, 2011 -
463 comments
My Student, the 'Terrorist' If this were a movie, the story might end with a triumphal courtroom scene, or an intrepid Washington Post reporter breaking the story. It might have a sentimental ending, with a conservative Muslim family and community locking arms with Christians and Jews and atheists and turning the country back to its commitment to civil rights. The government, shamed, would reform its practices.
But this is not a movie, and inhumane treatment is well protected in post-9/11 America. [more inside]
posted by bardophile
on Apr 7, 2011 -
56 comments
A
description of the CIA's waterboarding techniques and the practical applications of other physical interrogation practices to enhance its effectiveness.
posted by artof.mulata
on Nov 9, 2010 -
30 comments
Top Secret America: The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.
[more inside]
posted by ryoshu
on Jul 19, 2010 -
113 comments
That afternoon, American signals operators picked up bin Laden speaking to his followers. Fury kept a careful log of these communications in his notebook, which he would type up at the end of every day and pass up his chain of command. “The time is now,” bin Laden said. “Arm your women and children against the infidel!” Following several hours of high-intensity bombing, the Al Qaeda leader spoke again. Fury paraphrases: “Our prayers have not been answered. Times are dire. We didn’t receive support from the apostate nations who call themselves our Muslim brothers.” Bin Laden apologized to his men for having involved them in the fight and gave them permission to surrender.
posted by jason's_planet
on Jan 29, 2010 -
26 comments
What is the logical consequence of noting the fact that the terrorist groups that make a difference on planet Earth—such as Hamas and Hezbollah, the PLO, Colombia's FARC—are extensions of, respectively, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and Venezuela? It is the negation of the U.S. government's favorite axiom. It means that when George W. Bush spoke, and when Barack Obama speaks, of America being "at war" against "extremism" or "extremists" they are either being stupid or acting stupid to avoid dealing with the nasty fact that many governments wage indirect warfare.
International relations professor Angelo M. Codevilla argues that
Osama bin Laden is not quite influential, not quite relevant, and probably dead.
(multipage version)
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane
on Mar 27, 2009 -
33 comments
With election season in the US, it's probably hard to get a less than Gung-ho picture of the war in Afghanistan, but this
Spiegel Online article paints a dark picture. "Pessimism about the situation has never been so high." High level NATO commanders are using phrases like "Doomed to Fail," "We are trapped," "repeating the same mistakes as the Soviets", military victory "neither feasible nor supportable," "downward spiral." For some it is so dark the only beacon of light would be peace talks with the Taliban.
[more inside]
posted by stbalbach
on Oct 21, 2008 -
35 comments
Afuganisu-tan is a simple and impossibly cute manga illustrating the background and development of conflict in Central Asia. In which we learn that "Afuganisu-tan gets picked on a lot and has bad luck." Also, "Meriken is a superhero fanatic and has a tendency to think her version of justice is right for everyone."
[more inside]
posted by hellopanda
on Jun 15, 2008 -
34 comments
The military judge presiding over child solider
Omar Khadr's case has been
replaced. Khadr's lawyer claims the judge, Colonel Peter Brownback, was fired because he “threatened to suspend proceedings in the case of Omar Khadr if prosecutors continued to withhold key evidence from Omar's lawyers.” Defence officials claim Brownback was planning to retire.
Although Khadr was only 15 when he was captured, and is the only Western citizen still being held at Guantanamo Bay, Canada's Conservative government has refused to seek extradition or repatriation for him.
posted by cdmckay
on May 29, 2008 -
72 comments
Discoveries made using satellite imagery,
particularly via Google Earth, have made
headlines in the
blue and
green before. Increasingly high-resolution photos, combined with obsessive
interest, have lead inevitably to the next step: interpretation
and analysis of spots on the Earth's surface for which information is
restricted, censored, or classified, such as the preparedness of military defenses in
North Korea and
Iran, or the viability of Saudi Arabia's
next big oil play. Of course, not all mapping is
benevolent.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul
on Mar 13, 2008 -
9 comments
TED presentation: "Filmmaker
Deborah Scranton talks about and shows clips from her documentary
The War Tapes, which put cameras in the hands of Charlie Company, a unit of the National Guard, for one year in Iraq. The soldiers' raw footage and diary excerpts tell a powerful, unsettling story of modern war.
posted by McLir
on Sep 20, 2007 -
6 comments
On Wednesday Sept. 5
th, German police stopped a
major
terrorist
attack.
The planned bomb consisted of 730 kilogramms of hydrogen peroxide to be mixed with other chemicals.
The explosive power would have been equivalent to 550 kilogramms of TNT.
The
IHT reports the possible targets were the Ramstein US Air Force Air Base and Frankfurt International Airport.
The suspects had been under observation for 10 months, the chemicals had been
clandestinely rendered harmless
by German authorities.
What caused the final arrest?
Two things: 1) they had just recieved a call from north Pakistan urgently ordering them to follow through within 14 days.
2) a local village policeman
blew the surveillance cover by literally telling them at a routine road stop that they were on a watch-list. German intelligence immediately knew the policeman had blown their cover. How? They had bugged the car
[
Spiegel,
rough translation].
[more inside]
posted by umop-apisdn
on Sep 8, 2007 -
45 comments
Newsfilter: U.S. Seeks Silence on CIA Prisons "The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the "alternative interrogation methods that their captors used to get them to talk...the government, in trying to block lawyers' access to the 14 detainees, effectively asserts that the detainees' experiences are a secret that should never be shared with the public."
Previously:
(1) (2)
posted by StopMakingSense
on Nov 4, 2006 -
53 comments
U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill.
posted by EarBucket
on Jul 29, 2006 -
72 comments
