Few share our privilege, power and freedom – hence responsibility
“This time, the Times has to show the readers everything. You guys not only aren’t allowed to screw it up, again, you also aren’t allowed to complain that the coverage criticism isn’t fair. You people blew through all our good will, and until you get up off your knees and stop taking dictation from the PR wonks and special interest groups, you don’t get a free ride.”
-A commenter lays it out on the NYT’s warmongering reports
“That’s not how the Constitution works, buddy.”
-Jonathan Turley explains the woefully inept reasoning behind Obama’s assassination program
Iran’s middle classes are already being deeply hurt by sanctions. The idea that they will mobilize to pressure the government to give up nuclear enrichment as a result is a non-starter.
-Juan Cole on how sanctions work. They inflict pain on the population for the perceived sins of its government.
“It is interesting to see the sources on whom NBC News executives rely to develop their understanding of the world, and it’s even more interesting to learn what they’re being told about that.”
-Greenwald on the recent hawkish report that Gen Barry McCaffrey gave to NBC officials, intended to influence their war peddling by hyping the “threat” of Iran.
“There’s a certain impatience — I mean, there are people who don’t see how we succeed under the current conditions, and their case is getting stronger,”
–Another one of those anonymous American officials, explaining the obvious about Afghanistan
“In any case, the situation demonstrates a growing and expanding willingness on the part of our country’s senior military leaders to use “Information Operations” even on domestic audiences to manipulate the system in order to get what they want.”
–From Lt. Col. Davis’s damning report on our failures in Afghanistan
The neoconservative senator from Connecticut has introduced a “Sense of the Senate” resolution that would put the body on record as rejecting a situation that arguably already exists, in which Iran has the know-how to build a bomb even if it has no intention to do so.
–Sen. Lieberman is not satisfied with bombing Iran if they build a nuke. He wants us to bomb them just for knowing how it’s done.
“Senior ranking US military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the US Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable.”
–Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, U.S. Army, in a bombshell report subtitled “Senior Military Leaders’ Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort”.
“We needed a court order to eavesdrop on him, but we didn’t need a court order to kill him. Isn’t that something?”
–Michael Hayden, former Air Force general and CIA Director under Bush, on the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki. Hayden added that “there isn’t a government on the planet that agrees with our legal rationale for [drone bombings], except for Afghanistan and maybe Israel.”
“One must wonder why an effort that has so carefully gone after terrorists who plot to kill civilians has been subjected to so much misinformation. Let’s be under no illusions — there are a number of elements who would like nothing more than to malign these efforts and help Al Qaeda succeed.”
–A “senior American counterterrorism official”, cowardly hiding behind anonymity granted by the New York Times to attack the fine work of researchers to expose the terrorist practices of the US covert drone program (namely, secondary attacks which kill emergency first responders and funeral attendees.)