Most of the terrorists and insurgents that the U.S. military and the CIA targets in the war against al-Qaida have nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. But the act of Congress, passed days after the attacks, authorizing that war tethers U.S. action to 9/11. You might argue it’s time for an upgrade. The Obama Pentagon doesn’t want one.
The language of the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force is “solid” and “sufficient to address the existing threats that I’ve seen,” Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon’s top lawyer, told the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday afternoon.
"Propaganda is most effective when it is least noticeable," writes public relations expert Nancy Snow. "In an open society, such as the United States, the hidden and integrated nature of the propaganda best convinces people they are not being manipulated."
With the return of the Senate Democrats this weekend, questions have arisen regarding Democrat members’ participation in Senate standing committee public hearings and executive sessions.
Retired US Army general and NATO’s former supreme allied commander in Europe, Wesley Clark, says Libya doesn’t provide the US with enough oil for the fate of the country to be regarded as a vital interest. Not only that, the US is busy helping democracy movements in Iraq and Afghanistan!
The focus of Amos' piece is on the current hostile reaction of authoritarian Middle Eastern regimes to the informative news that Al-Jazeera produces, but there is an odd and glaring lack of context to the report.
From Chris Floyd: "Arthur Silber rises from his sickbed to pen a powerful piece on the torture of Bradley Manning by the Nobel Peace Laureate in the White House -- torture which has only gotten worse since I wrote about it here yesterday.
The Army has filed 22 new counts against suspected WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning, among them a capital offense for which the government said it would not seek the death penalty.
On Monday, one of the world's most notorious alleged terrorists will go on trial in Texas. Not for anything related to 9/11 or Al Qaeda. But this man stands accused of masterminding terrorist actions that killed scores of innocent civilians. Yet this event is hardly generating a media blitz. Peter Kornbluh previews the trial in The Nation. Here are his opening paragraphs:
I posted this mostly to draw attention to a quote within the story which gives stark evidence to a problem with our media news coverage.
“There are like seven of us there,” remarked the correspondent, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to call into question his network’s commitment to the war.
