The Power of Nightmares, subtitled The Rise of the Politics of Fear, is a BBC documentary film series, written and produced by Adam Curtis. Its three one-hour parts consist mostly of a montage of archive footage with Curtis’s narration. The series was first broadcast in the United Kingdom in late 2004 and has subsequently been broadcast [...]
Filed in Film, Notable
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Also tagged Adam Curtis, Afghanistan War, Al Qaeda, Anwar Al Sadat, Ayman al-Zawahiri, BBC, Bill Clinton, CIA, Dick Cheney, Documentary, Donald Rumsfeld, Egypt, Extremists, Fear, Gamal Abdel Nasser, George HW Bush, George W Bush, Guantanamo, Iraq War, Irving Kristol, Islam, Leo Strauss, Muslim Brotherhood, Muslims, Neo-Conservatives, Osama bin Laden, Paul Wolfowitz, Power of Nightmares, Rendition, Ronald Reagan, Saudi Arabia, Sayyid Qutb, Terrorism, Tony Blair, Torture
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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. [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged Afghanistan War, Al Qaeda, Budget, CIA, DOD, Economics, Foreign Policy, Iran, Iraq War, Israel, Pakistan, Palestian Authority, Pentagon, War, Yemen
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Saturday, January 2, 2010
The suicide bomber who killed at least six Central Intelligence Agency officers in a base along the Afghan-Pakistan border on Wednesday was a regular CIA informant who had visited the same base multiple times in the past, according to someone close to the base’s security director.
[...]
The story seems to corroborate a claim by the Taliban [...]
Monday, December 14, 2009
At a joint press conference Tuesday at the presidential palace in Kabul, Hamid Karzai surprised the usually unflappable Gates when he knocked down President Obama’s attempt to get out of Dodge.
Needling his American sugar daddy, the Afghan peacock observed: “For another 15 to 20 years, Afghanistan will not be able to sustain a force of [...]
Saturday, December 5, 2009
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. [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Development, Diplomacy, Economic Deprivation, Economy, Foreign Policy, Hunger, Military, Pakistan, Poverty, Sustainability, Unemployment
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Wednesday, December 2, 2009
In any event, the ICC’s very existence is already changing the way Western nations fights wars. Mr. Ocampo recounted how a legal adviser to NATO told him that troops these days are trained to realize that, in case of transgressions, they could be arrested and brought to the ICC on war crimes charges with the help of evidence [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Al Qaeda, Courts, ICC, International Criminal Court, Law, Luis Moreno Ocampo, NATO, Rome Statute, War Crimes
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Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Rachel Maddow’s comment on whether Obama is keeping the Bush Doctrine alive in Afghanistan [02 Dec 2009].
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
For eight years, Republican and Democratic administrations have said the Taliban controls narcotic trafficking in Afghanistan. In fact, according to both the CIA and the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, the insurgents control about 2-3 percent of the total.
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The Taliban do tax poppy farmers and extort protection money from smugglers passing through their territory. [...]
Friday, November 27, 2009
At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, “snatch and grabs” of high-value [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged Al Qaeda, Assassinations, Blackwater, CIA, Covert Ops, Drones, Frontier Corp, Jeremy Scahill, JSOC, Military, Pakistan, Roger Noriega, USAID, Xe Services
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Thursday, November 12, 2009
Welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan. It is a virtual carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA officials and ex-military officers joining hands with former Taliban and mujahedeen to collect US government funds in the name of the war effort.
In this grotesque carnival, the US military’s contractors are forced to [...]
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has repeatedly noted that the entire Taliban is not an extension of al Qaeda—an assertion that has tremendous strategic ramifications. If there is a difference between the two, then perhaps the United States and NATO can cut deals with some Taliban elements and isolate those Taliban slices that are in [...]
Nearly all of the insurgents battling US and NATO troops in Afghanistan are not religiously motivated Taliban and Al Qaeda warriors, but a new generation of tribal fighters vying for control of territory, mineral wealth, and smuggling routes, according to summaries of new US intelligence reports.
Some of the major insurgent groups, including one responsible for [...]
…the president’s national security adviser, former Marine Gen. James Jones, concerning the size of the terrorist threat from Afghanistan:
“The Al Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies.”
Less than 100! And he is basing [...]
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