The Real Threat Is Pakistan, cont...

Feb 28th, 2012

I have argued for some time that the already nuclear-armed nation of Pakistan is a far greater threat to our interests and international stability than Iran with a bomb could ever be. Here's more proof via RT:

"Senior officials in Pakistani military intelligence knew of Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts and arrangements for his safe house – that’s the implication of confidential Stratfor files disclosed by WikiLeaks. Pakistan has dismissed the allegations.

The leaked information from the rent-a-spy agency published on the WikiLeaks website on Monday shows that Osama bin Laden was in routine contact with several senior figures from Pakistan's military intelligence agency."

Unfortunately, the GOP seems to have little interest in this "ally." Discussions of foreign policy in that party's presidential "debates" devolved into little more than the candidates, with the exception of Ron Paul, promising to drag us to war in Iran. The few mentions of U.S.-Pakistan relations there have been were ill-informed at best.

Quote Of The Day - Here and Now Edition

April 14th, 2011

SFWeekly blogger Matt Smith opens his piece on this past weekend's intense debate between the NY Times' Bill Keller and Wikileaks' Julian Assange at U.C. Berkeley by humorously summing up each man's basic assessment of the other.

"​Julian Assange is a paranoid, misguided, smelly bag lady -- not an open government hero. And New York Times executive editor Bill Keller? Well, he is a cynical dissembler interested more in covering his own ass than telling the truth."

Smith's coverage is very entertaining indeed and definitely recommended.

More Serious Ugliness From The USAF

Feb 7th, 2011

The U.S. Air Force has been reacting with far greater reckless alarm to the fact of Wikileaks existence than other branches of the service. It just got worse. From FAS:

"Many government agencies have instructed their employees not to download classified materials from the WikiLeaks web site onto unclassified computer systems.  The government’s position is that although the material is in the public domain, its classification status is unaffected.  Therefore, to preserve the integrity of unclassified systems, the leaked classified information should not be accessed on such systems.  If it is accessed, it should be deleted.

But on February 3, Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base issued startling new guidance stating that the leaked documents are protected by the Espionage Act and that accessing them under any circumstances is against the law, not simply a violation of government computer security policy.

“According to AFMC’s legal office, Air Force members — military or civilian — may not legally access WikiLeaks at home on their personal, non-governmental computers, either. To do so would not only violate the SECAF [Secretary of the Air Force] guidance on this issue,… it would also subject the violator to prosecution for violation of espionage under the Espionage Act,” the AFMC legal office said."

The So-Called Liberal Media

Dec 29th, 2010

Here is a tale of two videos. Well, one video really. It is shown in two different ways and to very, very different ends. It is but a single example of our major news organization's complicity in keeping the public uniformed. It is also typical. The first media embed is from CBS News coverage of a few seconds from the helicopter gunship recording that put Wikileaks on the map. Watch please...



Did you see the obvious war crime caught on tape? Neither did most people who watched good old "liberal" CBS for information on the release of the video.

Now, please watch the second video...



The CBS coverage is questionable in the extreme. The highly respected Namir Noor Eldeen is not mentioned by name. There is no mention that the American soldiers mis-identified a 10" camera lens as an RPG-7, an item roughly 3 feet longer when unloaded. There is no mention that the soldiers involved lied and stipulated that it was a "battle" with insurgents. There is no mention that there were children on the scene when the helicopter gunships engaged a second time in an attempt to kill the wounded (a war crime under Common Article 3 of The Geneva Conventions) and those who attempted to provide them assistance (a war crime under Common Articles 9, 12 and 15 of The Geneva Conventions).

The money quote from the network's 90 second story:
"Now it appears from the tape that at least some of those hit on the ground were unarmed, but a journalist who was in the general area that same days says it is important for all of us to remember it was a hectic, violent and uneasy day."

Excuse me? The second wave of unprovoked fire wounded rescuers and two children almost killing them. It is as clear a record of a war crime that we have seen here at home from our Iraq misadventure. Yet, CBS chose to carry the water for our military in it's attempts to cover up the incident and diminish public anger.

The network should be ashamed. To be fair, guys like Murrow and Cronkite wouldn't be caught dead working for them now. And that's the way it is.

The Totalitarian Impulse Toward Wikileaks

Dec 23rd, 2010

Over at Rolling Stone, Tim Dickinson makes the case that Bill Keller, executive editor of the NY Times, would have done exactly as Julian Assange did at Wikileaks had it been the Times which had received the massive number of leaked cables from our government. 

He then asks us to try and picture our political class calling for the same level of malevolent legal action or even violence against Keller:

"The behavior is outrageous on its face and totalitarian in its impulse. Indeed, we should all be alarmed at the Orwellian coloring of the Obama administration’s official response to the publishing of the cables:

“President Obama supports responsible, accountable, and open government at home and around the world, but this reckless and dangerous action runs counter to that goal.”

Secrecy is openness. What the fuck?!"