Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 162

The Bush nostalgia of Rahm and the Beltway

When President Obama's approval ratings were still very high, we were regularly bombarded with sycophantic profiles of Rahm Emanuel that touted his vast power in the West Wing ("arguably the second most powerful man in the country," the New York Times declared last January; "perhaps the most influential White House chief of staff in a generation" with "prominence in almost everything important going on in Washington," gushed the same paper last August).  But now that Obama faces serious...

Terrorism: the most meaningless and manipulated word

(updated below)

Yesterday, Joseph Stack deliberately flew an airplane into a building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas, in order to advance the political grievances he outlined in a perfectly cogent suicide-manifesto.  Stack's worldview contained elements of the tea party's anti-government anger along with substantial populist complaints generally associated with "the Left" (rage over bailouts, the suffering of America's poor, and the pilfering of the middle class by a corrupt e...

The NYT's mystery Op-Ed writer

The New York Times today published a monstrous Op-Ed complaining that the U.S. is being too careful to avoid civilian deaths in Afghanistan (which would probably come as a surprise to these people and these people if they hadn't been Liberated by the U.S. . . . from life).  The Op-Ed is by someone identified as "Lara M. Dadkhah," and it's so ugly that it merits little refutation, as it really negates itself:

So in a modern refashioning of the obvious -- that war is harmful to civilian...

What motivates Iran "hawk" Ackerman?

(updated below)

In 2008, the 13-term, AIPAC-supporting, Democratic Rep. Gary Ackerman co-sponsored a resolution along with GOP Rep. Mike Pence declaring Iran to be a threat to "the vital national security interests of the United States" and "demanding" that the President impose a full-scale naval, air and land blockade on Iran, i.e., start a war against that country (see the last WHEREAS clause, paragraph (3)).  Ackerman -- who also voted to authorize the war in Iraq -- continues...

Iran "hawk" Rep. Gary Ackerman

In 2008, the 13-term, AIPAC-supporting, Democratic Rep. Gary Ackerman co-sponsored a resolution along with GOP Rep. Mike Pence declaring Iran to be a threat to "the vital national security interests of the United States" and "demanding" that the President impose a full-scale naval, air and land blockade on Iran, i.e., start a war against that country (see the last WHEREAS clause, paragraph (3)).  Ackerman -- who also voted to authorize the war in Iraq -- continues to this day to be one of...

Hillary Clinton gets tough with "military dictatorships"

I have this nagging, intuitive sense that there are some inconsistencies embedded in these statements -- which some people in the target audience might perceive -- and I was wondering if anyone could help locate them:

Reuters, February 15, 2010:  "The United States believes Iran's Revolutionary Guards are driving the country toward military dictatorship and should be targeted in any new U.N. sanctions, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday. . . . 'We see that the government...

Discussing Citizens United with Larry Lessig

Just in case readers here forgot how angry they were with me for my partial defense of the Citizens United decision, permit me to risk once again provoking the hornets' nest by recommending this 20-minute discussion I had on Monday night with Harvard Law Professor Larry Lessig on The Young Turks.  At The Huffington Post, Lessig wrote this response to the arguments I made about the case, and we had what I thought was a very constructive and enlightening discussion of the relevant issues:

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Dick Cheney's taunting

Dick Cheney went on ABC News this weekend and boasted of the role he played in ordering the waterboarding of detainees.  Andrew Sullivan has written several posts accurately describing this statement as a "confession of committing a war crime on national television."  Harper's Scott Horton identifies the specific criminal statute Cheney confessed he violated, makes clear that -- as the Attorney General himself previously said -- there is no reasonable debate possible regarding the...

The joys of pragmatism

(updated below)

The New Yorker, February 23, 2009:

"It's possible but hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detention law," [White House counsel Greg:] Craig said. "Our presumption is that there is no need to create a whole new system."

The New York Times, May 21, 2009:

[In his speech at the National Archives, in front of the U.S. Constitution, President Obama:] proposed "prolonged detention" for terrorism...

A profile in cowardice

From The Associated Press, today:  "Spain said Monday it was willing to take in five inmates from the American prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, three more than it had announced last month."  Previously:  similar agreements to accept our Guantanamo prisoners were entered into by the EU, Italy, Australia, France, Britain, Latvia, Portugal, Hungary, Switzerland, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Slovakia, Jordan, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Albania, Bermuda, and Palau.

By cowardly contrast, from CBS News...