Born at the Crest of the Empire

Picture of the Day - Signing a baby?

2009-07-14T08:23:00.002-05:00

(Governor Sarah Palin last week at a signing event, for legislation and other items, in the village of McGrath, Alaska. (Jim Wilson/New York Times))

So, how would China respond...?

2009-07-14T06:57:00.002-05:00

I think this is just one of the many idle threats by an Al Qaeda affiliate, but it does raise some interesting questions.

Al-Qaida's north African wing has threatened to target Chinese workers and projects in the region in retaliation for Muslim deaths in Urumqi last week.

It is the first time Osama bin Laden's terrorist network has directly targeted Chinese interests, according to experts at a London-based risk analysis firm.....

But the assessment does not suggest there is any direct link between Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province and al-Qaida. It also suggests it is unlikely that al-Qaida's central leadership has decided to stage attacks within China.

Just as a thought project, what happens if China gets involved?

Certainly, heavy domestic crackdowns on Muslim populations, but what do their foreign ops look like? How would they cooperate with the US? How different from the US would their contacts be with the Somalis, Saudis, Pakistanis, etc? What level of military response?

Hmmm.... Something's fishy

2009-07-13T22:10:00.011-05:00

Why would assassination teams targeting Al Qaeda, as everyone's now reporting, need to be hidden from Congress? Why would CIA chief Leon Panetta cancel such a program almost instantly upon being made aware of it?

As described thus far, why was this deemed so damn secret? What's the element that's so shocking? Nukes? Were the targets more than just Al Qaeda folks? Were they prepping to work inside the US?

From the WaPo piece,

Senior White House officials said President Obama was briefed on Panetta's decision after returning to Washington early Sunday from an overseas trip. The officials said the White House was not consulted before Panetta canceled the program. They declined to elaborate.

Whatever it was, it was bad enough that Panetta canceled it immediately and on his own.

Later: Add this little bit from the CNN version.

Efforts to contact Cheney for reaction were unsuccessful.

After jumping on TV to defend anything regarding Bush policies, Cheney took himself out of pocket on this one? You'd think he'd jump to associate himself with a program that, as described, sounds popular, and yet he doesn't.....

Later Still: From the LATimes version, a description that might suggest a fear over diplomatic fallout,

But officials said that as recently as a year ago CIA executives discussed plans to deploy teams to test basic capabilities, including whether they could enter hostile territory and maneuver undetected, as well as gather intelligence and track high-value targets.

But that wouldn't seem to explain the seemingly toxic reactions of those who really knew the program.

Plus, if it was just this simple "strike team" description, I'm not sure that Dem Congress members would be putting themselves out on a limb hollering like this.

It just doesn't add up. It seems like there's gotta be some big, atrocious element we're not getting.

Picture of the Day

2009-07-13T14:53:00.003-05:00

(Senator Al Franken looks on during the committee's confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor.(AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais))

So, what was today for exactly?

2009-07-13T14:48:00.002-05:00

With all the Senators just making their opening statements today, Sonia Sotomayor didn't really need to attend the first day of her confirmation hearing.

Observation

2009-07-13T11:42:00.003-05:00

I find it funny that a group of all white, all male privileged Republican Senators, most of which come from states with nationally known racial incidents in their past are worried that Sotomayor might have some kind of influence.

(The seven Republicans come from Alabama, South Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona, plus the lily whites Utah and Iowa.)

Yeah. America's problems with racism definitely rest with Sonia Sotomayor.

Don't let the wiretapping shockers be a Friday dump.....

2009-07-13T07:45:00.005-05:00

I just want to relink this post with all the scandalous details from the IG's report on the various surveillance programs. The report was dumped on Friday before a Supreme Court nomination hearing, so the details are quickly off the news pages, but I don't think they should be.

There's some pretty revelatory stuff there. Data collection was far bigger than we yet know. The wiretapping programs were virtually useless in gathering data for terrorism investigations. And, the Bush administration hid the programs (possibly illegally) from from the DOJ and Congress.

If you didn't read any of the details over the weekend, take a quick peruse of some of the excerpts. This shouldn't just disappear.

Palin per the NYTimes

2009-07-12T22:54:00.003-05:00

The NYTimes tries to write a definitive piece on why Sarah Palin resigned as governor. Bottom line: She was just overwhelmed by the pressure, the critics, and the tasks of office.

I came away thinking, "if you can't stand the heat in Alaska...."

Kim Jong Il is gonna die

2009-07-12T11:10:00.001-05:00

According to a news report out of South Korea, Kim Jong Il has pancreatic cancer.

No word on how much time (or provocation) he has left.

Picture of the Day

2009-07-12T09:46:00.000-05:00

Every modern President who has traveled to Africa has taken a tour of a slave export facility, but this visit is definitely different.

(President Barack Obama stand with his daughter Sasha, first lady Michelle Obama and daughgter Malia as they stand at the "Door of No Return" at the Cape Coast Castle, a former slave holding facility, in the town of Cape Coast, Ghana, July 11, 2009. (REUTERS/Jason Reed))

It's all in the game

2009-07-12T07:01:00.001-05:00

Thinking about the two "leaked" stories in last night's post, I gotta wonder if the Obama folks are "leaking" Cheney's culpability in hiding CIA programs from Congress to limit him politically as they introduce the idea of a special prosecutor for torture.

I mean, as Cheney has been the loudest (and most effective?) voice defending the torture programs, doesn't leaking the "Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project" make any appearance by Cheney on talk shows much more difficult? If he tries to go out in the media to defend torture/secret prisons, his answers regarding possibly illegal concealment from Congress are likely to steal the headlines from his well known and oft repeated lines on torture.

So, he won't be able to do the high profile interview, and will have to try and make his point through a speech somewhere which is much harder to push into top media attention.

The Obama folks are trying to kneecap him, limiting his ability to respond. Interesting.

(And, I would guess that means Holder's pretty serious about a torture/secret prisons/detainnee prosecutor.)

OK, I think we're done here.....

2009-07-12T06:54:00.002-05:00

I'm sure the Iraqi commanders are under political pressure to make this happen, but I'm still pleasantly surprised.

Iraqi forces have not called for U.S. help in urban combat since June 30, when U.S. combat troops withdrew from city and town centers under a bilateral security agreement.

Pushing out stories on the Bush scandals.

2009-07-11T22:15:00.008-05:00

First, Both the AP and the NYTimes have the same story on the same night saying it was Cheney who told the CIA to withhold from Congress. So, somebody' out there shopping the anti-Cheney story.

Second, Both the AP and WaPo have virtually identical stories saying that AG Holder is looking likely to name a special prosecutor to look at torture.

Once again, the sourcing reads like officials around Holder are calling around trying to get this story planted.

(Later: Don't leave out Newsweek who got no fewer than "four knowledgeable sources" regarding Holder's mindset.)

Surveillance scandals

2009-07-11T06:30:00.005-05:00

The IG report on the surveillance programs is spawning several shocking story lines.

(AP) "Not enough relevant officials were aware of the size and depth of an unprecedented surveillance program started under President George W. Bush, let alone signed off on it, a team of federal inspectors general found."

(AP) "The Bush White House pulled in a great quantity of information far beyond the warrantless wiretapping previously acknowledged..."

(AP) "Information gathered by the secret program played a limited role in the FBI's overall counterterrorism efforts, according to the report. Very few CIA analysts even knew about the program and therefore were unable to fully exploit it in their counterterrorism work, the report said."

(NYTimes) "The report also hinted at political pressure in preparing the so-called threat assessments that helped form the legal basis for continuing the classified program.... The initial authorization of the wiretapping program came after a senior C.I.A. official took a threat evaluation, prepared by analysts who knew nothing of the program, and inserted a paragraph provided by a senior White House official that spoke of the prospect of future attacks against the United States."

(NYTimes) "The report states that at the same time Mr. Bush authorized the warrantless wiretapping operation, he also signed off on other surveillance programs that the government has never publicly acknowledged. While the report does not identify them, current and former officials say that those programs included data mining of e-mail messages of Americans."

(NYTimes) "The report said that Mr. Yoo, of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, gave the White House his first legal opinion endorsing the wiretapping in November 2001, weeks after it had begun, and that his boss, Jay Bybee, was not even aware of the program’s existence."

(CNN) "The report said that Mr. Yoo, of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, gave the White House his first legal opinion endorsing the wiretapping in November 2001, weeks after it had begun, and that his boss, Jay Bybee, was not even aware of the program’s existence."

(Ambinder) "In a White House meeting after deputy A.G. James Comey had voiced concerns about the legality of some aspects of the PSP, Vice President Cheney suggested that the President reauthorize the program without the consent of the Department of Justice. This outraged FBI director Robert Mueller, who told Cheney that he couldn't agree to that. (pp. 22-23). The report details how President Bush re certified the program anyway, leading to resignation threats from senior Justice Department officials."

And, (TPM, Wash Independent) We also learned that George Bush himself was the one who ordered Gonzales to John Ashcroft's post surgery bedside looking for a signature of approval after Comey refused. Bush called Ashcroft's room. (Ashcroft's wife refused to let Bush speak with him, and said they should go through the properly empowered Comey. Bush then sent Gonzals to the hospital to try and pry a signature out of the drugged and struggling Ashcroft.)

David Brooks' creepy night

2009-07-11T06:25:00.000-05:00

David Brooks on MSNBC yesterday,

I sat next to a Republican senator once at dinner and he had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time. I was like, ehh, get me out of here.

He would not reveal the Republican Senator.

Drugged kids

2009-07-11T06:24:00.002-05:00

In a NYTimes piece on those little 2.5 oz. caffeine laced "power drinks,"

Mr. Sporre and several others students said the shots worked well in combination with Adderall, a prescription drug for attention deficit disorder that is popular on college campuses. The Adderall helps them focus, they said, and the shot keeps them awake.

The "President's Surveillance Program"

2009-07-10T16:24:00.002-05:00

When it hits the AP....

The Bush administration authorized secret surveillance activities that still have not been made public, according to a new government report that questions the legal basis for the unprecedented anti-terrorism program....

President George W. Bush authorized other secret intelligence activities — which have yet to become public — even as he was launching the massive warrentless wiretapping program, the summary said. It describes the entire program as the "President's Surveillance Program."

The report describes the program as unprecedented and raises questions about the legal grounding used for its creation.

Palin was McCain's canary in a coal mine.

2009-07-10T12:36:00.002-05:00

Come to find out, "palling around with terrorists" was a line fed to Palin by the top of the McCain campaign. They wanted her to use it, and they had a campaign ad waiting to follow about a week behind her introducing that hard Ayers attack.

It appears that upon seeing the reaction, the McCain folks decided to pull back, leaving Palin twisting on the "terrorist" limb.

Of course, that's just one version of the story told by one side. (But it does explain the raging animosity the Palin folks have for Nicole Wallace.)

Ensign

2009-07-10T12:27:00.002-05:00

The John Ensign affair story just keeps getting weirder.

First we learn that he, too, like Sanford, was a member/resident of that weird secretive Christian group which it's members (and Congressional residents call C Street or The Family.

We also learn that members of The Family sat next to Ensign to be sure he wrote his breakup letter to his mistress. Then, unsure of whether he would actually mail the thing, they drove him to FedEx just to be sure.

They were right. Ensign then called the mistress to tell her to ignore the package/letter.

These are freaking Senators!

McNamara

2009-07-10T07:34:00.001-05:00

McClatchy's respected Joe Galloway doesn't forget, or forgive.

Beginning in 1965 and for nearly three years McNamara each year drafted into the military 100,000 young boys whose scores in the mental qualification and aptitude tests were in the lowest quarter — so-called Category IV's. Men with IQ's of 65 or even lower....

The young men of Project 100,000 couldn't read, so training manual comic books were created for them. They had to be taught to tie their boots. They often failed in boot camp, and were recycled over and over until they finally reached some low standard and were declared trained and ready.

They could not be taught any more demanding job than trigger-pulling and, so, all of them were shipped to Vietnam and most went straight into combat where the learning curve is steep and deadly. The cold, hard statistics say that these almost helpless young men died in action in the jungles at a rate three times higher than the average draftee.

McNamara's military even assigned the Project 100,000 men special serial numbers so that anyone could identify them and deal with them accordingly....

Thought for the Day

2009-07-10T07:08:00.006-05:00

Countries which start wars generally don't have public healthcare.

Or, countries which have public healthcare don't generally start wars.

Second: It is often repeated (a little inaccurately) that in modern times, no two democracies have ever gone to war.

Have two public healthcare nations ever gone to war?

You don't hear Bill Kristol citing that....

You're missing the point.

2009-07-10T06:42:00.000-05:00

I don't care about Pelosi and all the political point scoring about her briefings, I want to know what's the other "on agan off again" "collection" program that the CIA thought they had to intentionally hide from Congress for 8 years.

Picture of the Day

2009-07-10T05:41:00.001-05:00

(President Barack Obama stands with Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi before a dinner at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, July 9, 2009. (REUTERS/Alessandro Bianch))

The Kurds in Iraq (rumble...)

2009-07-09T22:35:00.002-05:00

I guess the Kurds are "creating a reality on the ground" before negotiations really get going.

With little notice and almost no public debate, Iraq’s Kurdish leaders are pushing ahead with a new constitution for their semiautonomous region....

The proposed constitution enshrines Kurdish claims to territories and the oil and gas beneath them. But these claims are disputed by both the federal government in Baghdad and ethnic groups on the ground, and were supposed to be resolved in talks begun quietly last month between the Iraqi and Kurdish governments...

This is the long awaited fracture point. This might just be a pressure tactic, to put a backside deadline on the negotiations, but it could also get really messy.

Picture of the Day - Bastardo

2009-07-09T17:07:00.002-05:00

After crushing the US Soccer team in a huge comeback a week ago, the Brazilian President gives President Obama a jersey signed by the Brazilian team?

I know we're just a fly to them, but still....