Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 93
March 6, 2012
Attorney General Holder defends execution without charges
In a speech at Northwestern University yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder provided the most detailed explanation yet for why the Obama administration believes it has the authority to secretly target U.S. citizens for execution by the CIA without even charging them with a crime, notifying them of the accusations, or affording them an opportunity to respond, instead condemning them to death without a shred of transparency or judicial oversight. The administration continues to conceal the
March 5, 2012
Obama, Iran and preventive war
(updated below – Update II)
President Obama yesterday joined virtually every U.S. political leader in both parties in making the obligatory, annual pilgrimage and oath-taking to AIPAC: a bizarre ritual if you think about it. During his speech, he repeatedly emphasized that he "has Israel's back," rightfully noting that his actions in office prove this ("At every crucial juncture – at every fork in the road – we have been there for Israel. Every single time"). One of his goals was commendable —...
March 3, 2012
Iran, threats and the UN Charter
(updated below)
The Washington Post's David Ignatius today persuasively argues that President Obama, in his interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, issued his most absolute and inflexible threat yet to attack Iran — not if Iran attacks or is about to attack another country, but merely if it appears to be developing a nuclear weapon:
The other point that struck me was Obama's clarity about establishing a "red line" between an Iranian civilian nuclear program (acceptable) and a weapons...
March 2, 2012
The incomplete media debate on Iran
(updated below)
On January 25, the New York Times Sunday Magazine published a lengthy article by Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman that conveyed the views of multiple Israeli officials about Iran in order to conclude that an Israeli attack is likely. That the entire article was filled with quotes from Israelis meant the piece served as a justification for such an attack while masquerading as a news story about whether the attack would happen. Indeed, the very first paragraph contained this bit ...
March 1, 2012
War on Terror logic and the Saudis
(updated below )
I'm unable to write much today, but I did want briefly to note one of the towering, central contradictions in War on Terror logic: namely, that the only foreign government which likely had any connection to 9/11 is the one which is the least likely to be attacked by the U.S. From The New York Times today:
For more than a decade, questions have lingered about the possible role of the Saudi government in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, even as the royal kingdom has made itself a...
February 28, 2012
The NYPD spying controversy: a microcosm for the 9/11 era
(updated below)
The NYPD spying program exposed by Associated Press may be the most flagrant instance in the War on Terror where "being Muslim" is overtly equated by a government agency to being a Terror threat. It is beyond question that huge numbers of completely innocent, law-abiding people — and the institutions to which they belong and even the businesses they patronize — were extensively surveilled and infiltrated for no reason whatsoever other than their religious and/or ethnic...
February 26, 2012
The causes of the protests in Afghanistan
(updated below)
Most American media accounts and commentary about the ongoing violent anti-American protests in Afghanistan depict their principal cause as anger over the burning of Korans (it's just a book: why would people get violent over it?) — except that Afghans themselves keep saying things like this:
Protesters in Kabul interviewed on the road and in front of Parliament said that this was not the first time that Americans had violated Afghan cultural and religious traditions and that...
February 25, 2012
Abject bigotry at the New York Post
As I wrote about on Wednesday, Associated Press over the last year has been publishing an investigative series detailing how the NYPD, often in conjunction with the CIA, has been systematically spying on entire Muslim communities both in New York City and in surrounding areas. Virtually none of those spied upon are suspected of any wrongdoing; they are just innocent people who are targeted for surveillance solely because they are Muslim. That's why the program is so controversial. This is...
Interview with Sen. Russ Feingold
During his 18 years in the U.S. Senate, Russ Feingold was easily one of the most interesting, intelligent, and independent elected officials. He frequently deviated from and vocally criticized his Party's orthodoxy, and was by far the most stalwart voice among Senate Democrats in combatting the influence of corporate money in politics and defending civil liberties, especially in the post-9/11 era. His courageous sole vote against the Patriot Act in the weeks after 9/11 — underlined by a...
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