Peter Baker | Moscow | July 3

NYT - The Russian government has agreed to let American troops and weapons bound for Afghanistan fly over Russian territory, officials on both sides said Friday. The arrangement will provide an important new corridor for the United States military as it escalates efforts to win the eight-year war.

BBC - A senior Obama administration official has told the BBC that Russia has agreed to let US troops bound for the war in Afghanistan fly through its airspace. The deal, which opens up an important new corridor for the US military, is to be officially announced when President Barack Obama visits Moscow next week. Speaking separately, a Kremlin official confirmed a deal was on the table but suggested it referred to weapons only. The reported agreement marks a major development in US-Russian relations.

Bill Sizemore | Alexandria, VA | July 2

The Virginia-Pilot - A just-amended lawsuit alleges six additional instances of unprovoked attacks on Iraqi civilians by Blackwater contractors.

Three people, including a 9-year-old boy, are said to have died.

Also added to the suit is a racketeering count accusing Blackwater founder Erik Prince of running an ongoing criminal enterprise involved in, among other things, kidnapping and child prostitution.

t r u t h o u t - Jason Leopold on Yoo, Walker, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, officials from the Defense Intelligence Agency, representatives of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and judge advocate generals (JAGs) from all four branches of the military and the process of justifying degrading interrogation tactics in clear violation of the Geneva Convention.

The new approach to fighting the Taliban calls for building up local Afghan forces – militias and tribal levies. While this is a welcome departure from the neglect and reliance on massive firepower of past years, the approach will face many obstacles.

Local forces, from the Soviet occupation to the present, have not worked well with the Afghan national army. Preferring to remain in their districts, many Afghans choose service in local militaries, presenting personnel problems for the army. Militias are resented for draining military resources better allocated, in the army’s view, to them. Attempts over the years to amalgamate militias and army have met with failure.

Sherwood Ross | Baghdad | June 28

Global Research - The Central Intelligence Agency crucified a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to a report published in The New Yorker magazine.

“A forensic examiner found that he (the prisoner) had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs,” the magazine’s Jane Mayer writes in the magazine’s June 22nd issue. “Military pathologists classified the case a homicide.” The date of the murder was not given.

Phil Stewart and Daniel Flynn | TRIESTE, Italy | June 27

Reuters - U.S. reverses Afghan drug policy

Sat Jun 27, 2009 10:44am EDT

By Phil Stewart and Daniel Flynn

TRIESTE, Italy (Reuters) - Washington is to dramatically overhaul its Afghan anti-drug strategy, phasing out opium poppy eradication, the U.S. envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan told allies on Saturday.

Richard Holbrooke, attending a G8 conference on stabilizing Afghanistan, also discussed efforts to support its August 20 election. Washington has nearly doubled its troops to combat a growing Taliban insurgency and provide security for the vote.

"Look What You Made Me Do"

Caesar, Hitler, Nixon - War, Racism, Hatred - Alcohol, Mysogyny, Conformity

Seamless trinities...
One needn't ever drink a drop of alcohol to serve in it's churches...
Just as one needn't ever hit women to perpetuate ever worse to them...
Or as one needn't necessarily exit conventional reality to reject the convention.

Seamless subjects. Addiction: money, ego, power, sex, drugs, food, adrenalin, violence, drugs, fear, hatred, guns, vanity, games, the very creative imperative itself -addiction alone makes an endless daisy chain of seamlessly related subjects. They continue on through Blame and Guilt, and Control. Subjects of enthrallment, helpless captivity. It's a necessary convenience to limit the moment's topic. In such isolation, the seamlessness of the chain is not a foregone understanding though, not at all, quite the opposite. It is not a given understanding that to talk of one is to talk of 'them' all... As it should be; that isn't necessarily true, or false.

William Maclean | London | June 19

Reuters - Under pressure in his Pakistan enclaves, Osama bin Laden is facing a familiar quandary: Where to go next? The answer is unlikely to be Yemen or Somalia, despite their new prominence as regional al Qaeda sanctuaries.

U.S. drone attacks and a looming Pakistan army offensive against one of al Qaeda's main allies in a northwestern tribal area have stirred speculation that bin Laden's men are seeking a less risky refuge for their anti-Western campaign.

But simply leaving Pakistan's remote Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) could expose the world's most wanted man and his entourage of planners and bodyguards to satellite detection and the curious gaze of a local population of uncertain loyalty.

Related thread: Yemen could be "another Afghanistan" -EU official

James Risen & Eric Lichtblau | Washington, DC | June 16

NYT - The National Security Agency is facing renewed scrutiny over the extent of its domestic surveillance program, with critics in Congress saying its recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged, current and former officials said.

The agency’s monitoring of domestic e-mail messages, in particular, has posed longstanding legal and logistical difficulties, the officials said.

Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Alan Elsner | Washington | June 14

Reuters - CIA director Leon Panetta says it's almost as if former vice president Dick Cheney would like to see another attack on the United States to prove he is right in criticizing President Barack Obama for abandoning the "harsh interrogation" of terrorism suspects.

"I think he smells some blood in the water on the national security issue," Panetta said in an interview published in The New Yorker magazine's June 22 issue.

"It's almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point."

Global military spending rose 45% between 1999 and 2008, fuelled by the US-led "war on terror" and by increased wealth in China, Russia and the Middle East.

In Western and Central Europe, military spending increased at a much slower rate than in any other part of the world, while the US accounted for 58% of the global increase during the decade.

Who benefits?

John Schwartz | San Francisco | June 13

NYT - The decision issued late Friday by a judge in San Francisco allowing a civil lawsuit to go forward against a former Bush administration official, John C. Yoo, might seem like little more than the removal of a procedural roadblock.

But lawyers for the man suing Mr. Yoo, Jose Padilla, say it provides substantive interpretation of constitutional issues for all detainees and could have a broad impact.

Spencer S. Hsu | Washington, DC | June 14

WaPo - Yielding to a rebellion by states that refused to pay for it, the Obama administration is moving to scale back a federal law passed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that was designed to tighten security requirements for driver's licenses, Homeland Security Department and congressional officials said.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants to repeal and replace the controversial, $4 billion domestic security initiative known as Real ID, which calls for placing more secure licenses in the hands of 245 million Americans by 2017. The new proposal, called Pass ID, would be cheaper, less rigorous and partly funded by federal grants, according to draft legislation that Napolitano's Senate allies plan to introduce as early as tomorrow.

CNAS' third annual conference, "Striking a Balance: A New American Security," will be streamed live starting at 8:30 AM EST.

8:30-8:45 AM - INTRODUCTION AND OPENING REMARKS

The Honorable Dr. Richard Danzig
Chairman of the Board, Center for a New American Security

Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns
Professor, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Board of Directors, CNAS

8:45-9:45 AM - KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Dr. John A. Nagl (INTRODUCTION)
President, Center for a New American Security

General David H. Petraeus, USA
Commander, U.S. Central Command

Benjamin Weiser | New York | June 9

NYT - The Guantánamo detainee who was ordered by President Obama to face trial in civilian court appeared for the first time in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday, where he pleaded not guilty to federal conspiracy charges.

The former detainee, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, was arraigned on charges that he participated in a terrorist conspiracy that included the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, attacks organized by Al Qaeda that killed 224 people and wounded thousands.

Carol Rosenberg | Washington, DC | June 5

Miami Herald - Attorneys for 17 Muslims from China locked up inside a prison camp at Guantánamo asked the U.S. Supreme Court Friday to take on the case of the men whom a judge ordered set free eight months ago.

''The historic role of the Judicial Branch is to demand the release of prisoners precisely when the political branches find release inconvenient,'' the 16-page appeal said.

Paul Kane & Joby Warrick | Washington, DC | June 3

WaPo - Former vice president Richard B. Cheney personally oversaw at least four briefings with senior members of Congress about the controversial interrogation program, part of a secretive and forceful defense he mounted throughout 2005 in an effort to maintain support for the harsh techniques used on detainees.

The Cheney-led briefings came at some of the most critical moments for the program, as congressional oversight committees were threatening to investigate or even terminate the techniques, according to lawmakers, congressional officials, and current and former intelligence officials.

- The Washington Post, New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox lead with President Obama's speech at the National Archives yesterday where he defended his antiterrorism policies. The setting was particularly symbolic. By giving his address where the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are kept, Obama meant to underscore the idea that Americans don't have to compromise their values in order to protect the nation's security. As soon as he was done speaking, former Vice President Dick Cheney gave his own speech at a conservative think tank, where he defended the previous administration's policies toward terrorism and harshly criticized Obama. The "contentious tit for tat," as the WSJ puts it, that captivated Washington yesterday was made up of "an extraordinary set of speeches" that "gave the country the national security debate it never had during last year's campaign," notes the Post. The NYT says the competing views amounted to "the debate Americans might have witnessed had Mr. Cheney run for president."

R. Jeffrey Smith | Washington, DC | May 10

WaPo - Investigators Examining Interrogations, Legal Advice

When the Justice Department said seven years ago that CIA interrogators at a secret prison in Thailand could make a suspected al-Qaeda leader fear he was drowning, it prescribed precise limits: Water could be poured from a cup or small watering can onto a saturated cloth covering his mouth and nose, inhibiting breathing for up to 40 seconds. It could be repeated, after allowing three or four full breaths, for up to 20 minutes.

But when the technique was employed on Abu Zubaida and later on 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and al-Qaeda planner Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the interrogators in several cases applied what the CIA's Office of Inspector General described in a secret 2004 report as "large volumes of water" to the cloths, explaining that their aim was to be more "poignant and convincing," according to a recently declassified Justice Department account.

The Big "Con"

Taliban About to Defeat Pakistan,

Take Control of Nukes, and It's Another 9/11

Michael Collins

A strange feeling of déjà vu arises while listening to the administration sell further U.S. military intervention in Pakistan (our Predator drones are already there).

Marisa Taylor | Washington | May 3

McClatchy Newspapers - Forced to flee his homeland because he supported America's ideals, Tsegu Bahta thought he'd be embraced by the country he emulated and respected. Instead, the U.S. has branded him a terrorist. Bahta is among at least 6,000 immigrants who've tried to find refuge in the U.S. only to be told that they don't qualify because the Patriot Act and other post-9/11 laws label members of armed groups terrorists, even if they supported pro-democracy efforts and opposed despots and dictators.

Washington | May 3

AFP - US President Barack Obama meets Wednesday with the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan, hoping to shore up the fight against Islamic extremism as concerns about the region mount. The summit visibly showcases the new strategy of Obama, who says the United States must consider the neighboring countries together -- rather than focus just on fighting Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in Afghanistan.

The meeting comes as challenges deepen for both Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, whose popularity and authority have been crumbling, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is up against a growing Taliban-led insurgency.

BRIAN ROSS, MATTHEW COLE, and JOSEPH RHEE | April 30

ABC News - The New Focus on Two Retired Military Psychologists Called the 'Architects' of the CIA's Techniques

As the secrets about the CIA's interrogation techniques continue to come out, there's new information about the frequency and severity of their use, contradicting an 2007 ABC News report, and a new focus on two private contractors who were apparently directing the brutal sessions that President Obama calls torture.

According to current and former government officials, the CIA's secret waterboarding program was designed and assured to be safe by two well-paid psychologists now working out of an unmarked office building in Spokane, Washington.

Janine di Giovanni | April 24

NYT - David Kilcullen is a former officer in the Australian Army, a strategist and a scholar. He is also an expert on counterinsurgency, or how to combat a rebellion, and one of the few brave souls who had the ear of people in the Bush White House and advised against the invasion of Iraq.

“It’s going to take a lot more than you seem to be willing to commit,” he told the Americans. No one listened. After the invasion, Kilcullen watched the growing mayhem with outrage and dismay. This time people listened.

The French writer on military affairs David Galula, who was known for his theories on counterinsurgency, particularly during France’s Algerian war, must have influenced Kilcullen while he was doing his Ph.D. in political anthropology. Galula’s thesis is that one aim of war is to support the local population rather than control the territory. Part of Kilcullen’s academic research involved living and working alongside villagers in West Java, trying to absorb the culture of Dar’ul Islam, a guerrilla movement hatched in the late 1940s (and later identified by some as an Indonesian clone and ally of Al Qaeda).

What Kilcullen wanted to do was to observe the movement the way the locals did — not from the “official version I could find in books.” So he lived in vil­lages and conversed with his curious neighbors about blue jeans and the Internet, until they trusted him enough to share ­information.

^{If life is like a candle bright/Then death must be the wind
You know you can close your window tight/And it still comes blowing in}

^{So I will climb the highest hill/And I'll watch the rising sun
And I pray that I won't feel the chill/Till I'm too old to die young ~Kieran Kane}

I had a rough night last night. What started out innocently enough as a few shots of raki with The Afghan turned into an absolute fucking nightmare.

I don't understand why this man doesn't want to kill me. I really don't. If his country had flown jets at 15,000 feet in a hunt for some damned Texas Secessionists (yes, they do exist) and bombed my family's farm instead, killing my father, mother, eight year old sister and 15 year old brother and youngest son I'd be out for blood every time I met an Afghan, or at the very least I'd never speak to one, under any circumstances.

It's a testament to his humanity that Mahmoud sees me as a friend. He calls me 'brother Sean' now.

How do I begin? First, full disclosure, I have absolutely no way of verifying any of this. Take it all with a grain of salt and in the context (lots of Raki) in which the night evolved. What follows is a highly abbreviated version of last night.

I came home about 830pm after stopping at the corner store for my usual dinner, a touch of sausage, fresh tomatoes, lemons, green and black olives, fresh farm cheese and a loaf of sesame bread. I dropped my bags in my room and wandered into the kitchen to prepare my meal.

More after the jump.