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Is Qwest – a corporate hero by defying the NSA?

May 11, 2006 No Comments

The Internet is abuzz with the NSA story and the role of Qwest in particular – who, by backing away from the NSA and being the one major telecommunications company that declined to participate in the program – they may have played their cards well – despite being threaten to be thrown out of the government contract loop. There are already 20,000 posts on technorati that contain Qwest and the story has barely broke. The story on Qwest’s reluctance was made public in the USA Today as they single-handedly revived the NSA scandal with a scoop on data harvesting –

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Shotgun Wedding: Bush Elites and Iraqi Extremists Join in Unholy Union

May 11, 2006 No Comments

They say that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, but these days, fearmongering invocations of "Islamofascism" performs the same rump-covering function just as well.

Defenders of George W. Bush’s war crime in Iraq – particularly those super-tough "liberal hawks" who have cast their lot with the crony conquistadors – trot out the term at every opportunity. What else can they do? All the other excuses for their pet war have been exploded as bare-faced, deliberately concocted lies. So they’ve been reduced to the ludicrous claim that Bush’s murderous

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NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls

May 11, 2006 No Comments

USA Today single-handedly revived the NSA scandal with a scoop on data harvesting – unleashing a political bombshell for the Bush administratrion by revealing that the The National Security Agency has been tapping in and gathering the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. …"It’s the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA’s activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency’s goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation’s borders, this person added. …The usefulness

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A Straw in the Winds of War

May 6, 2006 No Comments

This week, Tony Blair reshuffled his Cabinet after the Labour Party took yet another hammering in local elections. This may seem like uninteresting political arcana to everyone outside the UK (and to most people inside it as well), but there was one move in the reshuffle that could have enormous ramifications for the rest of the world. For among the many sackings and switchings, Blair removed the most powerful Cabinet voice against joining the US in military action against Iran: Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

Straw has been making a nuisance

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Blood Pact: American Hegemony and the True Bush “Base”

May 5, 2006 No Comments

The American conquest of Iraq is an emotional matter. Passions flare at white heat on both sides of the issue. This is understandable. It is indeed very difficult to remain dispassionate while watching a mass murder take place. Opponents of the conquest are naturally driven into chaotic furies of outrage and despair, while supporters are necessarily pushed to rhetorical and political extremes in their frantic attempts to countenance such an appalling crime. It is not a situation conducive to rational analysis.

Nevertheless, it is instructive to step back from the

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The History of an Illusion

May 3, 2006 No Comments

Wise man Chalmers Johnson is back on the case at TomDispatch.com with "Peddling Democracy," a devastating summary of the secret history of America‘s century of disastrous attempts to impose pliable client regimes all over the world in the name of a sham "democracy." Johnson, a former true believer in American "exceptionalism" and the never-acknowledged imperial dominance this doctrine entails, writes with the searing clarity of an apostate, employing his insider knowledge to devastating effect. He shows how the hidden history of America‘s relentless arrogance has led us directly into the

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Hitchens the Hacker; And, Hitchens the Orientalist And, “We don’t Want Your Stinking War!

May 3, 2006 No Comments

Hitchens the Hacker; And, Hitchens the Orientalist
And, "We don’t Want Your Stinking War!

Guest Post by Juan Cole of Informed Comment.

Christopher Hitchens owes me a big apology.

I belong to a private email discussion group called Gulf2000. It has academics, journalists and policy makers on it. It has a strict rule that messages appearing there will not be forwarded off the list. It is run, edited and moderated by former National Security Council staffer

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