A new plan proposed in Congress would establish that every American is a "citizen-lobbyist" and force executive branch officials to record and publish all contacts with them, virtually eliminating the free exchange of ideas needed for open representative government, say critics.
Ted Westhusing was a true believer. And that was his fatal flaw.
A colonel in the U.S. Army, Westhusing had a good job teaching English at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He was a devout Catholic who went to church nearly every Sunday. He had a wife and three young children.
He didn't have to go to Iraq. But Westhusing was such a believer that he volunteered for what he thought was a noble cause. At West Point, Westhusing sought out people who opposed the w... (more)
Radical Islamists are using the Internet to recruit homegrown terrorists in the U.S., Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a Senate panel yesterday.
"I don't think it's necessary to send radical recruiters into the United States, and I think there's a risk to doing that," Mr. Chertoff told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
"But I have no question about the fact that [Osama] bin Laden and [Ayman al-Zawahiri] and others like them quit... (more)
A few years before 9/11, the world's curiously selective conscience was shocked by images from the little West African country of Sierra Leone. There, an insurgent group fond of hacking off hands and feet with machetes funded its war by exploiting slave labor in diamond fields, smuggling gemstones via complicit dealers (Lebanese, naturally) to Liberia, then onto world markets. To horror stories ... (more)
The other day, back in the business pages of the New York Times, I read that a big name Democrat thinks the hedge funds are stiffing the K. Street lobbying industry and the D.C. culture of corruption
It seems there is some displeasure in the Beltway among seasoned corrupters over the fact that hedge funders have not been paying a fair share when it comes to supporting the corruption culture in the Congress. ... (more)
The man "principally responsible" for creating the explosive devices used in the failed "terrorist attacks" on London in the summer of 2005 defended his actions for the first time in public yesterday. Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, the alleged bomber of the number 26 bus, took to the witness box at Woolwich crown court to explain that he made the devices in such a way that they would not explode.
At the start of the defence case, Mr Ibrahim was asked by his counsel to explain in a "ver... (more)
In many states, you can possess it, but the law prohibits its sale. It is a violation of federal law to transport the substance across state lines with the intent to sell it. In many states, undercover investigators are at work trying to uncover the furtive networks that produce and distribute the stuff. Dealers have been pulled over and spectacular quantities of the contraband substance have been seized by triumphant investigators. Is this a tale from the War on Drugs?
Three trucks rigged with chlorine bombs exploded in the insurgent stronghold of Anbar province Friday, in the latest efforts by insurgents to use the toxic chemical to boost the lethal power of their attacks, U.S. military officials announced Saturday.
The U.S. officials said at least 350 people and seven U.S. soldiers were injured and two policemen were killed in the attacks. As many as 10 civilians may have been killed in two of the blasts near Fallujah, said Col. Sami Jabara, ... (more)
Woo-hoo! It's a happy St. Patrick's Day indeed for Helen Thomas, who was just officially re-awarded her front row seat in the White House Briefing Room after it had been rudely snatched away last month, owing to the combination of less seats in the newly-refurbished briefing room (7 seats in the front row instead of the previous 8) and the fact that both Fox... (more)
America 's methods of mind control or better put, manufacturing consent through efficient and careful use of media, must be the envy of every tyrannical dictator ruling the most oppressive regimes in the world.
Edward Bernays [1], regarded by many as "father of public relations" and as a member of the Committee on Public Information (CPI or Creel Committee) who helped U.S. President Woodrow Wilson organize ... (more)
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged "Al-Qaeda mastermind," has confessed to direct involvement in a myriad of terrorist attacks and assassination plots around the world, including 9/11 "from A to Z," but some are likely to be disappointed that after 5 years of torture he stopped short of accepting responsibility for killing Kennedy, creating AIDS and being the real Santa Claus.
Two young sons of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks, are being used by the CIA to force their father to talk.
Yousef al-Khalid, nine, and his brother, Abed al-Khalid, seven, were taken into custody in Pakistan last September when intelligence officers raided a flat in Karachi where their father had been hiding.
He fled just hours before the raid but his two young sons, along with another senior al-Qa'eda member, were found ... (more)
According to the headline article on BBC's front page, KSM is claimed to have admitted to the kangaroo court that tried him:
" I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z."
KSM's confession was announced to the world by the very people who routinely torture prisoners, hold secret military trials behind closed doors, and bar all lawyers and reporters from being anywhere near the courtroom.
But you do believe them, don't you?
WASHINGTON — The Homeland Security Department said Wednesday it has created a unit to combat the threat posed by "homegrown terrorists" — citizens or legal residents who plot attacks from inside the nation's borders.
"This phenomenon presents a real and serious challenge to our nation," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a Senate panel.
Chertoff emphasized that violent extremists "represent a small, fringe element within the American Musli... (more)
Many have already heard the buzz, if not already seen the movie itself, about the latest "graphic novel" (remember when they used to be called just comic books?) to become enshrined in celluloid, 300. I came in not expecting another V for Vendetta, but instead a Sin City. Cinematically "cool," the whole black/white noir thing with only select obj... (more)
When President George W. Bush presented his budget proposals recently for the fiscal year 2008, he emphasized that the nation’s security is his highest priority, and he backed up that declaration by proposing that the Pentagon’s outlays be increased by more than 6 percent beyond its estimated outlays for fiscal 2007, to a total of more than $583 billion. Although many Americans regard this enormous sum as excessive, hardly anyone appreciates that the total amount of all defense-relat... (more)
I for one am not going to fuss about Halliburton moving its corporate headquarters to Dubai on the sunny coast of the Persian Gulf.
It makes sense, and it makes things so much clearer, too.
Halliburton, recall, is the company that has made the most money of any private enterprise off of the Iraq War--$27 billion to date, most of it in the form of extraordinarily profitable no-bid contracts (the company earned ... (more)
On Thursday, NBC's Today Show explored whether the confessions of alleged 9/11 "mastermind" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed can be trusted, since he claimed to have been tortured after being detained.
"Let's talk about the issue of torture," NBC's Matt Lauer said. "He says in his statement that he didn't make this statement under duress or pressure, but he does also say that he was tortured by the CIA after his capture."
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad got a hearing Saturday, thanks to the U.S. military's liberal reading of the Geneva Conventions. The conventions establish a procedure called an "Article 5" hearing, conducted by a military tribunal, to review whether someone captured on the battlefield is in fact an enemy combatant.
Such hearings are mandatory under the Geneva Conventions only if the combatant's status is in doubt, as KSM's surely was not. But in the 2004 case of Hamdi v... (more)
