Well, there's that arrogant, xenophobic, and divisive phrase again - "American Exceptionalism."

President Obama is being roundly criticized by many conservatives for refusing to go around the world promoting the conservative vision of American superiority. Their shortsighted idea of effective American diplomacy is for the President of the United States to trot around the globe telling the people of the world that we're better than they are.

Michael Scheuer Calls For Osama to Attack: Glenn Beck and Fox News Air It

Three days before the Fourth of July -- a holiday celebrating our nation's Independence Day -- and the reich-wing has stepped up the drumbeat toward insurrection, treason and sedition. Hat-tip to MinistryOfTruth of DailyKos

Every Republican member of Congress should be immediately called upon to voice their opinion on this outrage, on the record and in public.

Every right-wing pundit and "strategist" -- particularly those like Karl Rove, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh -- should have to weigh in, publicly and on the record.

This is the ultimate incitement of domestic and foreign actions by active enemies during a time of war: it is treasonous, it is seditious, it is wrong on so many levels.  In light of all the troops who have fought in our name and to protect our nation "over there" so that we could never again be attacked over here, this unrejected statement made by Schaeur on Fox News is the ultimate slap in their faces.

It is the ultimate in dishonor.

It is the ultimate un-American sentiment.

It is beyond fathomable.

Check out the diary by Ministry of Truth for action items, and get involved now -- before another Timothy McVeigh, James W. Von Brunn, Eric Robert Rudolph, Dan White, James Earl Ray, Lee Harvey Oswald or Scott Roeder.

Let's put the words of Mike Malloy to the test: do Republicans really want our nation to fail? Do Republicans really want us to bear the brunt of another 9-11 or Oklahoma City bombing?

They're worse than useless. These are terrorists. These are domestic terrorists. They want the country to fail, for God’s sake. They want exactly what anyone who attacked this country on September 11, 2001 wanted. The real internal terrorists are the Republicans, I mean, isn't that clear?

Those are the words attributed to Mr. Malloy; they ring too true, now. Let's put the Republicans in Congress to the real test, and see if they live up to their hype, or to their actions.  And in the meantime, let's ask the FCC and Secret Service to pay Fox and friends a little visit.

Seymour Hersh has issued a strong statement denying that he ever made the statement attributed to him below: I did not say Cheney killed Benazir: Hersh

Raw Story has published a correction of a story that they ran, also with the misquote now denied by Hersh. The explain how the story originated on the Pakistani site from which I picked it up, 'US special squad killed Benazir', and was ithen picked up by the Wall Street Journal and Raw Story as well as her by me. I am appending the correction that appears on Raw Story in full in a comment below, because it contains an interview with Hersh in which he definitively rejects the views attributed to him.. Carol White.

The appointment of General Stanley McChrystal as commander of US forces in Afghanistan underscores the danger of President Obama's stated desire to move on from the crimes of the Bush Administration. Not only is Dick Cheney publicly advocating for the continued use of torture but it appears that General McChrystal's headed Cheney assassination team. Without exposing the crimes of Bush, Cheney et al, we are in grave danger of seeing them repeated, whatever the President's intentions.

Originally posted 2009-03-28 06:35:20 -0500. Bumped by carol.

Last night the News Hour carried a report and the discussion with Petraeus and Holbrooke.

This is the site page link where you'll find the transcript as well as the links for audio and video.

This link will give you their Video Player to watch from here.

There is No win in this now debacle. One thing about warfare these last couple of decades, outside of the bloviated power hawks talking tough to each other as others are sent to do the actual fighting, is every invasion turns to Guerilla Insurgency. It's lost as soon as the Bombs start dropping, the Missiles Destroy, the Military Invades, 'Hearts and Minds' turn to Hate as their countries are destroyed but more important as their Loved Ones and Friends and Fellow Citizens are Blown To Bits or Cut Down by the Bullets Sprayed, than add in the arrests of Innocents, the Blackhole Worldwide Prisons and most of all Torture, Innocents become Enemies Real Fast, Real Fast! They either fight back or support those who do! It becomes an extreme uphill battle to win back a majority of those 'Hearts and Minds'!!

Promoted. -- GH

"The only good union is a dead union!" Osama bin Laden stated in prepared remarks today.

DATELINE MUSCAT, OMAN: Another shocking revelation of anti-Union plotting and scheming today, but this time it was not CEO's of TARP Bailout recipient banks. 
The attendees?  Senior Al Qaeda management, including Osama bin Laden,
Ayman al-Zawahiri and over two dozen more senior managers.  It marked a
historic first time for so many senior managers from Al Qaeda to be in
one place at the same time. Under normal circumstances and for security
reasons, Al Qaeda leaders are not allowed within 50 miles of each other
but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Set in the sleepy seaside town of Old Muscat, a city that has seen
better days.  Over the centuries, Muscat has served as a seat of
government and a door way to trade between Asia, Africa and Eastern
Europe.  The walls of the old city look out over the bay like bleached
bones, preserved in the salt and dry air.  The people that remain here,
do so stubbornly, like the wild trees and bushes that eke out their
existence along the rocky shoreline, sandwiched between ocean and
desert, buffeted by wind and heat.  The old market is still here, but
only locals trade there.  Dubai, with its glimmering towers and huge,
modern port facilities has rendered Muscat into merely a side trip for
the curious.  The Al Qaeda leadership meeting here, would very much
like to avoid becoming another Muscat.

Michael Scheuer has an interesting series of articles at the Asian Times from the The Jamestown Foundation. A window in the coming Blowback, that has already reared it's ugly head in many places and is stoked by throwing intense flames onto the already started fire?

The latest report is called MUJAHIDEEN BLEED-THROUGH, Part 4 with a subtitle "Palestine and Israel: The ring of terror tightens"

On Monday, 21 October 2008, headlines like this began popping up after a decoded and translated Al Qaeda website yielded the following message:

"Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election," said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the "failing march of his predecessor," President Bush.

Remember that tape from a few years back -- right around another election cycle, I believe -- where bin Laden announced his intention to bankrupt the US?

His followers sure seem to:

The Web commentary was one of several posted by Taliban or al-Qaeda-allied groups in recent days that trumpeted the global financial crisis and predicted further decline for the United States and other Western powers. In language that was by turns mocking and ominous, the newest posting credited al-Qaeda with having lured Washington into a trap that had "exhausted its resources and bankrupted its economy." It further suggested that a terrorist strike might swing the election to McCain and guarantee an expansion of U.S. military commitments in the Islamic world.

"It will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda," said the posting, attributed to Muhammad Haafid, a longtime contributor to the password-protected site. "Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America."

Apparently the McCain Campaign wasn't thrilled to get the endorsement.

This is an Open Thread.

The National Security Archive has just released a Load of Files Electronic Briefing Book No. 253 Posted - August 20, 2008 under the title: 1998 Missile Strikes on Bin Laden May Have Backfired with a subtitle: Extensive 1999 Report on Al-Qaeda Threat Released by U.S. Dept of Energy, Taliban Told U.S. They Wanted to Bomb Washington

With backlinks to the PDF's and more links in the sidebar on the left.

Every week I read out of the way, oddly related stories that remind me what an abject barbecue republic America has become under young Mr. Bush's stewardship. Here are a few of the latest ones.

First up is an item that apparently only James Gordon Meek of the New York Daily News and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann cared enough about to report. On August 2 Meek wrote "In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda, but investigators ruled that out."

After New York Sun photo editor Robert Stevens died from anthrax exposure in October 2001, Mueller was "beaten up" during Bush's morning intelligence briefs for not manufacturing proof that bin Laden was behind the attack of the killer spores. Meek's source, a retired senior FBI official, said, "They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East."

By the time Bush was bullying Mueller to cook the evidence on the Anthrax scare, according to the ex-FBI man, the Bureau already knew that the anthrax concealed in mail to media figures and a U.S. Senator was a military strain of the bio-weapon. The ex-official said, "They couldn't go from box cutters one week to weapons-grade anthrax the next."

No, and they couldn't go from box cutters to city buster nuclear weapons very quickly either, but that didn't stop the administration from planting visions of mushroom clouds in our heads to justify their Iraq invasion.

You probably already knew this, but sometimes it's nice to get affirmation that yeah, you were right. A recently released study by the non-partisan Rand Corporation titled How Terrorist Groups End shows that young Mr. Bush's anti-terror strategy hasn't significantly undermined al Qaeda's capabilities.

As news goes, that's hardly shock or awe, is it?

On the 29th of July an extremely important think tank report, paid for by the government, came forth from the Rand Corporation, a favorite of the Pentagon on National Security matters.

I heard the report early that morning on a news blip on NPR and went over to the Rand Site and found the report. I then posted about it on a number of sites as well as sent it out, all with back links.

The title above comes from a new Rand Corporation Report

promoted -- cho

Following what has been going on in Iraq and trying to follow Afghanistan, with the little, until recently, we get about that theater, I've had a growing uneasy feeling.

I was going to post a followup to a recent post I had done referancing some disturbing news, but suspected, out of Afganistan. That post, a few days ago, followed the extremely sad news about the loss of the nine soldiers, fifteen injured, in a battle at a small fire base they held by Afgan insugents. This U.S. Abandons Site of Afghan Attack is a recent report on that and as the title says the American forces abandoned the base.

By now most every knows of the sad news, for the U.S. Military, of the 9 Americans Killed in the Afghan Attack, with 15 wounded as well as others at the firebase.