This is the 49th anniversary of Congress’s passage of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, by which the Lyndon Johnson administration lied the nation into the Vietnam War. The resolution was spurred by false assertions of multiple North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. ships. At a National Security Council meeting on the evening that the first report came […]
Tag Archives | Terrorism
Me? Nihilist? Another NSA Slander
Former National Security Agency boss Michael Hayden denounced defenders of Edward Snowden as “nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, twentysomethings who haven’t talked to the opposite sex in five or six years.” Hey, I’m no nihilist! And, though I am still a shy country boy, it’s been a long time since I was accused of being […]
Great Colbert Riff on Bradley Manning Verdict
Stephen Colbert deserves an Emmy Award for this 4 minute segment on the Bradley Manning case and trial verdict. And he beautifully ties in the NSA at the end of the riff. http://youtu.be/_TJDZax426I?t=18s
New Terrorist Suspect Definition: “Someone searching the web for suspicious stuff”
The Guardian’s scoop today on the National Security Agency’s XKeyscore included documents that showed the “standards” that NSA employees can use to target Americans and others to vacuum up their email and all their Internet-related information. Page 14 of the documents reveals one of the new definitions of terrorist suspect: “someone searching the web for […]
Bradley Manning Verdict & WikiLeaks Movie
Bradley Manning got nailed today by a military judge for exposing the truth. The folks who committed war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq have almost all walked scot-free. The folks who made the policies that led to the abuses have never faced federal charges. Dreamworks has a movie on Wikileaks that will be coming out […]
N.Y. Times Snares Secret FISA Court Decrees – Fresh Hell for NSA and Obama
The New York Times published a long article today on secret rulings by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The article describes the FISA court as “almost a parallel Supreme Court” which has cast aside traditional understandings of privacy and the Fourth Amendment. Reading between the lines, it is clear that NYT has the actual decisions…. […]
25 Years Ago: U.S. Shot Down Iranian Civilian Jetliner
Today is the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Navy shooting down an Iranian passenger jet. Following is the writeup on the shootdown from my 2003 book, Terrorism & Tyranny: In the wake of the Iranian arms debacle, the Reagan administration sent the U.S. Navy to patrol the Persian Gulf—in part to reassure Arab nations that the U.S. […]
Jim
Currin, thanks for your kind words & your reco
Currin Snipes
I just discovered your moving tribute to Doug toda
Prof Watson
Walden is just the musing of a single man and shou