The Daily Beast’s Daniel Klaidman reports that the Obama Administration is giving the military exclusive control of drone murders, instead of sharing with the CIA. Quoting one of several faceless and ballless sources, Dan comes up with the following: “Barack Obama has got to be concerned about his legacy,” says one former adviser. “He doesn’t…
Tag: Obama war crimes
Yes, Marc Ambinder is an idiot
The sad thing is Marc Ambinder is not an idiot, which is why his snappy little item, “5 truths about the drone war,” is so disappointing. First of all, and largely tangential to my major point, the “5 myths/5 truths” gambit is, 95 percent of the time, a lazy piece of punitory padding and jiggery-pokey,…
President Obama’s sweaty underwear, updated
Glenn Greenwald and Marcy Wheeler (aka “Emptywheel”) go into the legal weeds to refute, in fairly mind-numbing detail, the efforts of government lawyers/enablers David Barron and Marty Lederman to pretend that it’s OK to murder someone if they talk too much, as set forth by New York Times journalists/stenographers Mark Mazzetti, Charlie Savage, and Scott…
President Obama, sweating in his underwear
One hardly knows how to take the belated tick-tock, “How a U.S. Citizen Came to Be in America’s Cross Hairs,” turned in by Mark Mazzetti, Charlie Savage, and Scott Shane in Saturday’s New York Times. Did NYT Executive Editor Jill Abramson fill Scott’s bowl with Kibbles and Bits* and then say “Okay, you guys! Get…
When is a civilian not a civilian? When it would be inconvenient.
William Saletan has a column up at Slate, arguing that drone warfare is humane because it kills so few civilians, and, comparing the average drone hit to Hiroshima, he’s right. But in his brief éloge de drone, Bill sails over a few issues worthy of deeper consideration, to wit: 1) How can we identify civilians,…
Dianne Feinstein, Pretty but Dumb, or Pretty Dumb?
Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, led off her committee’s hearing on John Brennan’s nomination to be head of the CIA by proudly announcing that the CIA’s “Death from the Skies” drone program, which is pretty much John’s baby, had been able to keep civilian casualties “in the single digits” for each year…
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Imminent is maybe sometime
Americans are shocked, shocked to learn that their President is a murderer. Well, it’s nice that they can be shocked. President Obama’s “Terror Tuesdays,” his rules that if you’re dead you’re a “militant” and that if you ask questions you’re a traitor have been SOP, and have been known as such, for several years, but…
Obama, Murderer Of Children, Now Seeks To Be Their Savior
I don’t particularly fault President Obama’s response to the terrible murders at Newtown. I’m sure he felt that the country demanded that he “do something,” and certainly his party did. And I guess I don’t find it too unforgivable that he had children present at the press conference introducing his package of reforms, none of…
Death and Sex
Back in the day, when porno was illegal, clever liberals used to wonder why it was OK to make films of people being tortured and murdered, but not to make films of people making love. Well, when it comes to being the director of the CIA, we’re still back in the Fifties: torture and murder…
Torture didn’t help us slay Bin Laden. But wouldn’t it be cool if it had?
That seems to be the premise of Zero Dark Thirty, the new movie that lies about how neat torture is, at least when the U.S. does it. Glenn Greenwald (of course) is all over the multiple hypocrisies involved, and their name is Legion, for they are many.