I see that Pakistan has reneged on a public promise made only yesterday to send the head of its ISI intelligence agency to India.

With Pakistan offering to help identify and apprehend those responsible, Gilani's office said the head of the Inter Services Intelligence agency would go to India at the request of India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh.

However, Pakistani officials said on Saturday that the decision had been changed and that a lower-ranking intelligence official would travel instead.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari blamed the about-face on a "miscommunication" with India. He said Singh had asked only that a "director" of the agency — not the chief — go to India to share intelligence.

However, the revision followed sharp criticism from some Pakistani opposition politicians and a cool response from the army, which controls the agency.

This is the third promise involving civilian control of the ISI which has been turned back by the military in recent months. Indeed, the only promise we don't know for a fact to have been unfulfilled is one made just before the Mumbai attacks that the ISI's political department, the one analysts feel was most heavily involved in using terror groups as proxies, was being disbanded. It would be naive to think the military and the agency intend to keep that one either. In fact, it would be ravingly naive to think that support for using terror groups as proxies was confined to "rogue elements" within the ISI and military. That's the story American officials seem to want to stick to but I continue to believe that the Pakistani military are really in charge in that nation and using the civilian democratic government as a convenient front to deflect the West, which wouldn't have accepted another military dictator easily.

However, there are still good reasons to question the other story that they want to stick to as well, the one involving India's finger-pointing at Pakistan as the prime mover behind the Mumbai attacks.

Crossposted from Newshoggers.

C-Span coverage of the attacks - and Deepak Chopra points out that the War on Terror turns moderates into extremists.

With more than 100 dead and reports of up to 900 injured, the horrific events in Mumbai have now moved into a second day. Attacks by well-armed and organised Moslem terrorists, who targeted UK, US and Israeli nationals in particular and took hostages at top hotels in India's financial capital, have catapulted India's boiling sectarian feuds and regional tensions into the news this Thanksgiving. Some of the most up-to-date reporting can be found at India's NDTV.com.

Continue reading »

Ari observes that Sarah Palin refused to acknowledge the existence of right-wing domestic terrorists in her NBC interview that aired last night:

Brian Williams: Back to the notion of terrorists and terrorism, this word has come up in relation to Mr. Ayers -- hanging out with terrorist – domestic terrorists. It is said that it gives it a vaguely post uh 9-11 hint, using that word, that we don’t normally associate with domestic crimes. Are we changing the definition? Are the people who set fire to American cities during the ‘60’s terrorists, under this definition? Is an abortion clinic bomber a terrorist under the definition?

Sarah Palin: There is no question that Bill Ayers via his own admittance was um one who sought to destroy our US Capitol and our Pentagon -- that is a domestic terrorist. There’s no question there. Now others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or um facilities, that uh, it would be unacceptable -- I don’t know if you could use the word terrorist, but its unacceptable and it would not be condoned of course on our watch. I don’t know if what you are asking is if I regret referring to Bill Ayers as an unrepentant domestic terrorist. I don’t regret characterizing him as that.

Williams: I’m just asking what other categories you would put in there. Abortion clinic bombers? Protesters in cities where fires were started, Molotov cocktails, were thrown? People died.

Palin: I would put in that category of Bill Ayers anyone else who would seek to destroy our United States Capitol and our Pentagon and would seek to destroy innocent Americans.

Well, just in case Mrs. Palin forgot, there was a running spate of domestic terrorism in the United States in the 1990s created by the far-right "Patriot" movement, much of it revolving around abortion and hatred of the federal government.

The signature event, of course, was the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. But that was hardly the end of it. Indeed, by the end of 1999, we were able to document over 40 such cases -- many of which were nipped in the bud before they reached fruition. Some were not.

It seems Palin needs a refresher course. The Jed Report video above mentions two abortion-clinic shooters, Paul Hill and Michael Griffin, who were among the murderous terrorists who inspired the federal law that protects abortion providers -- a law John McCain twice voted against.

But that was hardly all. Below, a rundown of other significant domestic terrorists:

Continue reading »

Will Bunch:

There's been a huge debate within the newspaper world -- and beyond -- about a fiery DVD targeting Islamic extremism called "Obsession" that over the last couple of weeks has been packaged in newspaper ads and distributed to hundreds of thousands of readers, especially in swing states. (The Philadelphia Inquirer was one of those papers.) Proponents say it's an honest portrayal of anti-American jihadism, while critics said the video would stir up hatred toward decent God-fearing Muslims, not just those involved in or supporting terrorism. Some wonder if it's all just a big ploy to help John McCain and the GOP, who want to focus the campaign on the threat of Islamic extremists. [..]

There's no more key battleground state in America than Ohio -- and sure enough thousands were delivered there on Monday in a number of newspapers, including the Dayton Daily News, which is in a hotly contested corner of the Buckeye State.

 Four days later, this happened as Muslims in Dayton attempted to worship:

DAYTON - Baboucarr Njie was preparing for his prayer session Friday night, Sept. 26, when he heard children in the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton coughing. Soon, Njie himself was overcome with fits of coughing and, like the rest of those in the building, headed for the doors.

"I would stay outside for a minute, then go back in, there were a lot of kids," Njie said. "My throat is still itchy, I need to get some milk."

Njie was one of several affected when a suspected chemical irritant was sprayed into the mosque at 26 Josie St., bringing Dayton police, fire and hazardous material personnel to the building at 9:48 p.m.

Someone "sprayed an irritant into the mosque," Dayton fire District Chief Vince Wiley said, noting that fire investigators believe it was a hand-held spray can.

Many in Dayton are wondering if the mass distribution of "Obsession" has anything to do with this. It's unclear whether or not this was in the works before or after the attack on the mosque, but religious leaders were meeting in Dayton yesterday to talk about the DVD:

 The Rev. Gary Percesepe, executive director of Greater Dayton Christian Connections, characterized the DVD as "fanning the flames of fear and prejudice against Muslims, with the potential to inspire hate crimes."

I've said that I have some practicing Muslims in my family (as well as Jews, Catholics, evangelical Christians and atheists, we're one big mixed-faith family).  This kind of dehumanizing of people sickens me.  And you see the result: blind acts of violence on innocent victims.  And yet I'm sure that person feels superior to the "terrorists" he hates, rather than recognizing he has become one of them.

Jon Perr has more examples of the GOP getting their hate on.

I fear he is correct. But as I've previously argued, it's the second part of Obama's Pakistan policy that really needs implemented - not the first.

This is awful...Since we invaded Iraq, these attacks will only continue...

Tristero:

Speaking of Iraq, in Baghdad, ten also died. And that's not all. Read and weep about the "success" of the "surge."  

Download | play    Download | play   (h/t Heather)

There's nothing like some exploitive and fact free propaganda to bring Republicans together in mindless cheering against a phantom and revisionist enemy.  On Thursday's final night of the Republican National Convention, the RNC broadcast what was billed as a tribute to 9/11 victims, but by tying in the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis and the Iraq invasion and occupation, resembled more a propaganda news reel that exploited horribly the memories of the victims and heroes of 9/11.  Jeffrey Feldman: 

No doubt, showing a 9/11 video at a political convention was emotional exploitation. But it was also something much worse: it was blatant historical revisionism. It was a cynical attempt to claim attacks on Americans--1979 and 2001--were carried out by the same 'enemy.'

What Olbermann should have apologized for was MSNBC accidental transformation of their network into a mechanism of the most cynical kind of Orwellian propaganda.

John McCain did not make the link between 9/11 and Iran in his RNC speech, but we can be certain that the video 'tribute' is a sign of what is to come on the campaign trail between now and November.

The media's responsibility from this point forward is clear: either they can sit back and let McCain's historical revisionism stand or they can move quickly to debunk it.

Either way, it seems apparent that major broadcast outlets need to take a more proactive role in pre-screening for blatant historical inaccuracies any video a political party plans to show during a national broadcast--or at least preparing to immediately debunk politically motivated inaccuracies.

So Media--you lazy ass, dismissive-of-blogs-who-do-your-job-better-than-you, monolith of bias?  The onus is on you to set the record straight. 

As for Olbermann, he promises a Special Comment next week on this subject. 

[McCain speaking in front of the NRA in May, 2008]

John McCain's campaign won't say whether he's for or against allowing suspected terrorists to buy guns, as he tries to pander to his lobbyist pals and the Republican pro-gun base but wanders into the "War On Some Terror" minefield by mistake.

Sen. John McCain portrays himself as a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights. But does that extend to gun rights for suspected terrorists? His campaign won't say where he stands on a bill to eliminate a gun-control loophole that even the Bush administration wants closed: a gap in federal law that inhibits the government from stopping people on terrorist watch lists from buying guns. The bill was inspired by an official audit covering a five-month period in 2004 which found that, because of the loophole, the Feds had to greenlight 35 out of 44 cases where a gun buyer was on a terrorist watch list. One group opposed to closing the loophole is the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun manufacturers' trade association. Until this spring, one of its congressional lobbyists was Randy Scheunemann, now a top McCain campaign adviser on foreign policy.

... Registration documents filed by Scheunemann's company, Orion Strategies, list the terror-gap bill as one of its specific lobbying objectives, and the registrations listed Scheunemann as a lobbyist until he took a leave. McCain's campaign refused to answer questions about whether the senator supports or opposes the White House plan to close the loophole, and it also declined to say if Scheunemann had ever lobbied McCain on gun-control bills. "Randy Scheunemann is a foreign-policy adviser to Senator McCain, and he is on leave from Orion Strategies. We have no further comment," says Jill Hazelbaker, a campaign spokeswoman.

Yes, we know neocon Randy got McCain in over the old guy's head on Georgia. But does McCain really want to keep dancing around issues for the paid man who seems to do all his thinking for him?

The NSSF rightly says that the current bill removes "due process" from gun owners because "anyone can be put on the list". But what about due process for all those non-flyers first? (Or maybe for those held at Gitmo after being handed in for a bounty and tortured to ellicit confessions? What about their due process?) What was that? Randy doesn't get paid to whisper in John's ear about them? Oh, that makes everything clearer.

P.S. And just to add icing on the cake, Scheunemann was himself arrested by Capitol Hill police for a gun violation back in 1997 - possession of an unregistered gun and ammunition - when he was Trent Lott's top advisor. Talk about a conflict of interests.

Barack Obama sat down with CBS' Lara Logan Sunday morning for a long interview about his meeting with President Karzai and his vision for American foreign policy. Calling the security situation in Afghanistan "precarious and urgent," the presumptive Democratic nominee stressed that that country is the real "central front in the war on terror," and it's about time we started treating it as such.

Download | play   Download | play  

"The Afghan government needs to do more. But we have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan. And I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front, on our battle against terrorism."

Full transcript below the fold:

Continue reading »

During a speech Tuesday in Washington, D.C., Barack Obama laid out his vision for America's role in the world, focusing specifically on Iraq and Afghanistan.

"George Bush and John McCain don’t have a strategy for success in Iraq – they have a strategy for staying in Iraq. They said we couldn’t leave when violence was up, and they now say we can’t leave when violence is down.  They refuse to press the Iraqis to make tough choices, and they label any timetable to redeploy our troops 'surrender,' even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government – not to a terrorist enemy."

You can read the entire transcript here. You can also read Senator Obama's New York Times op-ed here.

Download | play   Download | play   (h/t Heather)

The hits keep on coming in the never ending list of scandals for the Bush Administration.  In today's line up, we have the news that the UN mandate for the US presence in Iraq is expiring at the end of this year.  To no one's surprise, the White House wants to continue an indefinite country-to-country commitment with Iraq.  However, Prime Minister Maliki has other plans. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday he is negotiating a deal with Washington that will for the first time set a timetable for a withdrawal of foreign forces as part of a framework for a US troop presence into next year.[..]

Iraqi politicians have not only bristled at the duration of any continuing defence pact with the United States, they have also expressed reservations about how many bases Washington should retain, what powers the US military should continue to hold to detain Iraqi civilians, and what immunity US troops should have from US law.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has said that Washington has agreed to one key demand from Baghdad, the scrapping of immunity from prosecution in Iraq of the tens of thousands of foreign security contractors operating in the country.

Timetables for withdrawal?  What, does Maliki and the Iraqi government want the terrorists to win?  Next up is the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility, which according to a recent investigation by the LA Times has refused to release any information on professional misconduct.  However, with all we've learned about the leaking of Valerie Plame's name, the US Attorneys purge, Monica Goodling's hiring practices, not to mention the counsel sought by Mukasey and Gonzales on warrantless wiretapping, torture and terror detainees, does anyone have any doubt that the OPR is up to their gills in complaints?

And finally, there is the ultimate Slow Learner in Chief, who was told by Pres. Clinton and Richard Clarke in no uncertain terms that his biggest concern entering the Oval Office would be al Qaeda.  Now it's Bush's turn to get his successor up-to-date on the biggest threats.  Guess what his report says?

Now Mr. Bush has weighed in on his successor's big problem: Not Iraq, but Pakistan. Pakistan, home of al Qaeda. Al Qaeda now back to its pre- 9/11 strength, plotting its next attacks, in a Pakistani safe haven that was created in a stunning act of appeasement, approved and defended by President Bush.

Heckuva job, Bushie.

The Bush/McCain debacle in Iraq devoured so many lives and resources that the U.S. was forced to take their eye off the Taliban and the real al Qaeda threat in Afghanistan. As a result of this gross negligence and lack of foresight and planning, both groups have reconstituted and become stronger and deadlier than ever. June saw the highest U.S. body count in Afghanistan since that conflict began in 2002. More than six years in, things are now worse than ever there for our troops.

Download | play Download | play (h/t SilentPatriot)

During a press conference Wednesday, when asked about deteriorating conditions and the growing number of troops deaths in Afghanistan, President Bush falls back on the same predictable propaganda of patriotism, and distraction from reality. What does our president propose to fix the situation? Throw more money and bodies at it -- get ready for The Surge 2.0.

We're constantly reviewing troop needs, troop levels. We're halfway through 2008; as I said, we're going to increase troops by 2009. One thing, however, that you got to understand is that we have doubled Afghan troops -- coalition troops have doubled from two years ago. So there is an active presence and there are more troops there than there were. But we're constantly reassessing and seeing whether or not we can change tactics in order to achieve our objective.

Update: Video at The Huffington Post shows the top U.S. military officer saying yesterday that he doesn't have enough troops to send to Afghanistan because they are bogged down in Iraq. 

Full transcript below the fold:

Continue reading »

Mike mentioned this in his Round Up, but it definitely merits its own post. Denver Post:

Hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and even utility workers have been trained and recently dispatched as "Terrorism Liaison Officers" in Colorado and a handful of other states to hunt for "suspicious activity" - and are reporting their findings into secret government databases.

It's a tactic intended to feed better data into terrorism early-warning systems and uncover intelligence that could help fight anti-U.S. forces. But the vague nature of the TLOs' mission, and their focus on reporting both legal and illegal activity, has generated objections from privacy advocates and civil libertarians.

"Suspicious activity" is broadly defined in TLO training as behavior that could lead to terrorism: taking photos of no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements or notes, espousing extremist beliefs or conversing in code, according to a draft Department of Justice/Major Cities Chiefs Association document.

All this is anathema to opponents of domestic surveillance.

Yet U.S. intelligence and homeland security officials say they support the widening use of TLOs - state-run under federal agreements - as part of a necessary integrated network for preventing attacks.

"We're simply providing information on crime-related issues or suspicious circumstances," said Denver police Lt. Tony Lopez, commander of Denver's intelligence unit and one of 181 individual TLOs deployed across Colorado.

"We don't snoop into private citizens' lives. We aren't living in a communist state."

No, just sliding more and more inexorably into a fascist state.

Well, since this guy's job is to get John McCain elected at all costs, is it a stretch to wonder whether he's actually hoping for one? It wouldn't be the first time someone mused about that being a good idea.

Fortune:

On national security McCain wins. We saw how that might play out early in the campaign, when one good scare, one timely reminder of the chaos lurking in the world, probably saved McCain in New Hampshire, a state he had to win to save his candidacy - this according to McCain's chief strategist, Charlie Black. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an "unfortunate event," says Black. "But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who's ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us." As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. "Certainly it would be a big advantage to him," says Black.

When it came out that Black lobbied for some of the worlds worst dictators, MoveOn put out this ad urging McCain to fire Black. I wonder if this is a fireable offense. I'm guessing not.

What's even worse, just like Black exploits the tragic death of Benazir Bhutto for political gain, CNN's Dana Bash is on the record saying that McCain echoed the same sentiment right after her death. Watch it here.

John Amato: Is Black hoping for an attack on US soil? He should be fired for saying this. Months ago he brought up the Bhutto assassination as an "unfortunate event." Gee, what an awful way to phrase that tragedy. How about it was a horrific blow to Bhutto, her family and the country of Pakistan at a critical time in their history. Instead---it's just an event, but a " positive event" for McCain's bid at the presidency. Let's take a look at Black's client list for a minute.

Charlie Black, McCain’s senior counsel and spokesman, began his lobbying career by representing numerous dictators and repressive regimes.

Black’s firm represented the governor of Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos. According to a 1985 report, the firm Black, Manafort & Stone earned $950,000 plus expenses for its work to provide “advice and assistance on matters relating to the media, public relations and public affairs interests.”1

Black’s firm lobbied on behalf of Mobuto Sese Seko of Zaire, earning $1 million a year for his efforts.2

Black’s firm lobbied on behalf of Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.3

Black’s firm represented Nigerian dictator Ibrahim Babangida, earning at least $1 million for his efforts.4

Black’s firm has represented Equatorial Guinea, an oil-rich state “best known for the outlandish brutality of its rulers.”5

Black represented Angolan rebel and “classical terrorist” Jonas Savimbi, a job that earned him $600,000.6 “We have to call him Africa’s classical terrorist,” Makau Mutua, a professor of law and Africa specialist told the New York Times. “In the history of the continent, I think he’s unique because of the degree of suffering he caused without showing any remorse.”7

In recent years his client list has also included the Iraqi National Congress8, Friends of Blackwater9, and the China National Off-Shore Oil Corp.10

Since 2005, BKSH has received more than $700,000 in fees from foreign entities.11

I think lobbying for brutal dictators and regimes has rubbed off on Charlie Black a little too much.

Stephen thinks the great thing about the war on terror is that if we fight it right, it can go on forever.

Download | play Download | play

"al Qaeda is losing? They're our key ally in never having to explain what our government is doing."