The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
The Battle for Tora Bora
How Osama bin Laden slipped from our grasp: The definitive account.
PeterBergen
I am convinced that Tora Bora constitutes one of the greatest military blunders in recent U.S. history. It is worth revisiting now not just in the interest of historical accuracy, but also because the story contains valuable lessons as we renew our push against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Continue reading “Journal: Tora Bora Revisited by Peter Bergen”
In a Dec. 21 interview with Lauren Lyster of Russia Today, Tarpley explores the case of David Coleman Headley, born Daood Gilani, a convicted heroin smuggler of Pakistani background working undercover for the DEA who is now accused by the Indian Home Ministry of functioning as a double agent for the CIA. Headley is now in jail in Chicago on charges of planning terrorism in Denmark, but India wants him extradited and wants to hear the tapes of FBI taps on his phone. There is every indication that, far from being a rogue, Headley masterminded the Mumbai false flag terror attacks of November 2008 precisely because the CIA wanted them to happen – to solidify Indian political support for the widely opposed US-India nuclear deal, to play India against Pakistan, and to brand Pakistan as a strategic enemy of the US — the policy reflected in Obama's Dec. 1 declaration of war against Pakistan. The outcry and scandal in the Indian media about the CIA's protection of Headley now give that nation a chance to pull back from the role of expendable pawn of the US and UK against Pakistan and China.
Terrorist or CIA agent? May be both? Russia Today – December 21, 2009
Continue reading “Journal: Webster Tarpley on CIA and Mumbai Bombings”
FEATURE
Automated to Death
As software pilots more of our vehicles, humans can pay the ultimate price. Robert N. Charette investigates the causes and consequences of the automation paradox
EXTRACT:
The Flight 124 crew had fallen prey to what psychologist Lisanne Bainbridge in the early 1980s identified as the ironies and paradoxes of automation. The irony, she said, is that the more advanced the automated system, the more crucial the contribution of the human operator becomes to the successful operation of the system. Bainbridge also discusses the paradoxes of automation, the main one being that the more reliable the automation, the less the human operator may be able to contribute to that success. Consequently, operators are increasingly left out of the loop, at least until something unexpected happens. Then the operators need to get involved quickly and flawlessly, says Raja Parasuraman, professor of psychology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., who has been studying the issue of increasingly reliable automation and how that affects human performance, and therefore overall system performance.
Continue reading “Journal: Automated to Death–An American Obsession”
Dean says kill the Senate health bill: report
Dean tells Good Morning America that he thinks health bill should be scrapped: Video at bottom
WASHINGTON — Following the jettisoning of both the public option and the Medicare buy-in provision, one of the nation's leading progressive voices on health care reportedly said Tuesday that the Senate bill is no longer worth supporting.
Phi Beta Iota: Buried within the comments “Howard Dean with Cynthia mckinney, Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader would be a good group to get a real third party going. ” We add as a non-partisan observation that the principal figures representing the 70% of America that did not vote for the current Administration have failed to come together. Between Howard Dean and Joe Lieberman the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party may be finding that Sarah Palin and Ron Paul are looking a lot more reasonable. Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, and Jackie Salit have the power–not yet exercised–to bring America together on the ONE THING we can all agree on: the Electoral Reform Act of 2010.
UPDATED:
15 Dec 09
By Dave Lindorff
The Public Record
Dec 15th, 2009
In what passes for corporate journalism in America, this concept has taken the form of, “If we don’t report on it, it didn’t happen.”
That certainly was the case for the emergency protest organized by a coalition of anti-war organizations under the banner EndUSWars.org, which saw over 1000 people gather on short notice in the bitter cold on Lafayette Park opposite the White House to protest President Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan on Saturday, Dec. 12.
Not a word about this impromptu protest, which included many people who had supported the election of President Obama only a year ago, appeared in the New York Times. Nor did the Washington Post bother to mention the protest in its own back yard, not even in its Metro section pages. The other national newspaper, USA Today, likewise blacked out news of the protest.
A new anti-war coalition based at EndUSwars.org held its first rally on Saturday, Dec. 12 2009 outside the U.S. White House.
by John Kusumi (centrist liberal) Monday, December 14, 2009
Continue reading “Journal: CNN & Fox Ignore Peace Rally, Others Notice”
Theresa Amato, who served as campaign manager for Ralph Nader’s 2000 Green and 2004 independent runs for president, has an opinion piece in the Harvard Law Record entitled “The Two Party Ballot Suppresses Third Party Change”. She notes that although Nader wrote a piece on discriminatory ballot access laws for the same publication in 1958, the situation has not improved in the 51 years since then. Amato is the author of the recent book Grand Illusion: the Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny. See also Review: Running on Empty–How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It (Paperback)
Other References:
Special Report:
YEARS OF DECEIT: US OPENLY ACCEPTS BIN LADEN LONG DEAD
BIN LADEN NEVER MENTIONED IN McCHRYSTAL REPORT OR OBAMA SPEECH
“HUNT FOR BIN LADEN” A NATIONAL SHAME
By Gordon Duff/STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
Conservative commentator, former Marine Colonel Bob Pappas has been saying for years that bin Laden died at Tora Bora and that Senator Kerry's claim that bin Laden escaped with Bush help was a lie. Now we know that Pappas was correct. The embarassment of having Secretary of State Clinton talk about bin Laden in Pakistan was horrific. He has been dead since December 13, 2001 and now, finally, everyone, Obama, McChrystal, Cheney, everyone who isn't nuts is finally saying what they have known for years.
See also:
Review: Osama Bin Laden–Dead or Alive?
Continue reading “Journal: Weak Signals–Death of Osama Bin Laden & 9/11”
