The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former C.I.A. and Special Forces operatives. The contractors, in turn, gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, and the information was then sent to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action in Afghanistan [...]

Just think about this for a minute. Barack Obama, like George Bush before him, has claimed the authority to order American citizens murdered based solely on the unverified, uncharged, unchecked claim that they are associated with Terrorism and pose “a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests.” They’re entitled to no charges, no trial, no [...]

Helen Thomas shows — yet again — that she’s one of the very few White House reporters willing to deviate from approved orthodoxy scripts. She asks the prohibited question about the motives of Terrorists, and keeps asking as she receives complete non-responses, until they all just decide to ignore her:
Brennan’s answer — they do [...]

As 2010 begins in turmoil, 10 questions to ask about U.S. military presence in distant lands.
Let’s peer into the future, and consider just what the American way of war might have in store for us in 2010. Here are 10 questions, the answers to which might offer reasonable hints as to just how much U.S. [...]

In the midst of two unfinished major wars, the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against Al Qaeda in Yemen.
A year ago, the Central Intelligence Agency sent several of its top field operatives with counterterrorism experience to the country, according a former top agency official. At the same time, some of [...]

As Sachs wrote last May in The Guardian newspaper of London, U.S. foreign policy “has failed in recent years mainly because the U.S. has relied on military force to address problems that demand development assistance and diplomacy. Young men become fighters in places such as Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan because they lack gainful employment. [...]

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Rachel Maddow’s comment on whether Obama is keeping the Bush Doctrine alive in Afghanistan [02 Dec 2009].

In its firestorm of coverage, the mainstream media has overlooked a potential link between the two biggest domestic terrorism stories of the day: the shootings at Ford Hood and the decision by the Justice Dept. to try accused 9/11 “mastermind” Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in New York City.
Five time Emmy-winning former ABC News correspondent and HarperCollins [...]