Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 158

Those authoritarian, torture-loving French

French documentarians conducted an experiment where they created a faux game show -- with all the typical studio trappings -- and then instructed participants (who believed it was a real TV program) to administer electric shock to unseen contestants each time they answered questions incorrectly, with increasing potency for each wrong answer.  Even as the unseen contestants (who were actors) screamed in agony and pleaded for mercy -- and even once they went silent and were presumably dead -- ...

Obama threatens to veto greater intelligence oversight

The White House fights to retain one of the key weapons of Bush/Cheney lawbreaking

Obama threatens to veto greater intelligence oversight

One of the principal weapons used by the Bush administration to engage in illegal surveillance activities -- from torture to warrantless eavesdropping -- was its refusal to brief the full Congressional Intelligence Committees about its activities.  Instead, at best, it would confine its briefings to the so-called "Gang of Eight" -- comprised of 8 top-ranking members of the House and Senate -- who were impeded by law and other constraints from taking any action even if they learned of...

U.S.-Israel rift undermining some long-standing taboos

The remarkable tensions of the last week make it increasingly difficult to deny key facts

U.S.-Israel rift undermining some long-standing taboos

(updated below)

The rather extraordinary dust-up between the U.S. and Israel has, among other benefits, shined a light on two of the most taboo yet self-evidently true propositions:   (1) our joined-at-the-hip relationship with Israel is a significant cause of anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world, fuels attacks on Americans, and entails a very high price for the U.S. on multiple levels; and (2) many American neoconservatives have their political beliefs shaped by allegiance t...

Salon Radio: Manipulative use of the term "Terrorism"

There's a great paradox in the American political landscape:  the word that is used most frequently to justify everything from invasions and bombings to torture, indefinite detention, and the sprawling Surveillance State -- Terrorism -- is also the most ill-defined and manipulated word.  It has no fixed meaning, and thus applies to virtually anything the user wishes to demonize, while excluding the user's own behavior and other acts one seeks to justify.  All of this would be an interesting ...

Salon Radio: Remi Brulin Transcript

To read about and listen to this podcast discussion, go here.

Glenn Greenwald: My guest today on Salon Radio is Rémi Brulin, who teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at NYU, and is currently working on and close to finishing his Ph.D. dissertation, entitled The US Discourse on Terrorism Since 1945, and how The New York Times has Covered the Issue of Terrorism, and he is to receive his Ph.D. at the Sorbonne in Paris.  This topic is very close to a lot of our most prominent political...

The warped platitude of DC "centrism"

(updated below)

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank dresses up in idiotic costumes, and the overriding attribute of his commentary is adolescent, above-it-all snideness, and he's thus deemed a wild, unpredictable, creative "contrarian" in Beltway media circles.  In reality, he's one of the most cliché-ridden purveyors of conventional Washington widsom one can find, as he demonstrates yet again in his column today, where he venerates Lindsey Graham and his quest to statutorily...

The Democrats' scam becomes more transparent

(updated below)

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about what seemed to be a glaring (and quite typical) scam perpetrated by Congressional Democrats:  all year long, they insisted that the White House and a majority of Democratic Senators vigorously supported a public option, but the only thing oh-so-unfortunately preventing its enactment was the filibuster:  sadly, we have 50 but not 60 votes for it, they insisted.  Democratic pundits used that claim to push for "filibuster reform,...

Carville/Greenberg strategists and national security

Earlier this week, a new poll and accompanying "strategic analysis" was released by Democracy Corps (the Democratic firm founded by James Carville, Stan Greenberg and Bob Shrum), along with Greenberg Quinlan Rosner ("GQR") and the "centrist" Third Way.  It spat out decades-old, warmed-over, fear-driven conventional wisdom:  Democrats were in danger of being seen as Weak on National Security and Terrorism, etc. etc., and specifically warned of the dangers from abandoning Bush/Cheney...