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POPSDoes Bush understand who we're fighting? Comments on the State of the Union address, in which Bush lumped together all sorts of groups and events that have no connection to one another as "the enemy." Reflects this administration's dangerously superficial understanding of what's going on in the world and an overriding reluctance to think critically about what causes violence.
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POPSTop ten civil-rights abuses of 2006! [P] Ten most egregious Bush administration violations of the American spirit of freedom and openness during 2006. It's a sorry-looking list. Original source: http://www.slate.com/id/2156397/ I'm adopting Godfrey's notation here -- this is a poppable version of a long clip.
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POPS"President" = "Commander-in-Chief"? The militarization of US political culture Historian Garry Wills on the use of the phrase "commander-in-chief" to refer to the US President. He reminds us that the Constitution designates the POTUS as "commander in chief of the U.S. Army and Navy" -- not of civilians -- and suggests that the prevalent use of military language to refer to civilian political institutions is indicative of a wider and more problematic trend.
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POPSRepublicans in Congress: don't mention the surge An internal strategy memo from Congressional Republicans lays it out with startling clarity: "Democrats want to force us to focus on defending the surge, making the case that it will work... If we let the Democrats force us into a debate on the surge, or the current situation in Iraq, we lose." As always, they advise, just keep repeating "9-11, 9-11, 9-11" until people agree with you.
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POPSThe roots of suicide terrorism This is a paper for the Cato Institute, by Robert Pape, Director of the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism. This project studied the 315 suicide attacks from 1980-2003. The results are interesting. It is a 20-page pdf.
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POPSGAO: Faulty defense accounting, 3rd year in a row Little accountability, transparency; cites large contractor billings in "miscellaneous" category; we really don't know how our money is being spent, or if contractors are taking us to the cleaners in the GWOT (global war on terror)
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POPSBenjamin and Aslan on American Islam Exchange between Daniel Benjamin (author of The Next Attack) and Reza Aslan (author of No God but God) on the situation of American Muslims in the context of the GWOT. Focuses on the new book by Paul Barrett, American Islam. This is the fourth piece out of four; all are worth a read.
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POPSPakistan cuts deal with Taliban Presumably Pakistan has a pretty good sense of which way the wind is blowing. Also interesting bit on the growing distance between Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
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POPSMaher Arar: "We knew he was going to be tortured" A partial transcript of Sen. Patrick Leahy's questioning of AG Gonzales regarding the DOJ's handling of the Maher Arar case. For those of you who don't know, Arar was a Canadian citizen with no ties to terrorism who was seized while changing planes in New York City, shipped (via "extraordinary rendition") to Syria, tortured for almost a year, and then returned to Canada without explanation. He has never been accused of any wrongdoing. Remarkably enough, this story has received (as far as I can tell) pretty much zero coverage in the mainstream US press, though it has been covered quite widely in Canada. I couldn't find a single story in the US media on this particular Senate hearing.
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POPSRemember Jose Padilla? Um ... we screwed that one up After pulling accused -- err, make that formerly -accused -- dirty-bomber (and U.S. citizen) Jose Padilla out of the military justice system, putting him in federal prison, and quietly dropping the sensational dirty-bomb allegation, they find that he is probably too mentally damaged from his two years of brutal interrogations to stand trial. The government's response? You can't trust what he says about what we did to him, because he's too crazy from all the things we did to him. Keep in mind -- no one even alleges any more that Padilla ever was a terrorist .
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POPSWhere's the new NIE on Iraq? Congressional request to John Negroponte to order the completion of an updated National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. This has been in the works for some time, and D.C. rumors abound that its disclosure is being stalled for political reasons.
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POPSCBS Obtains "No-Fly" List Once again our government's incompetence will be held up for the delectation of the entire world. Robert Johnson?! I'm almost afraid to ask...
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POPSGuantanamo jailers getting desperate; conditions worsening [P] As it begins to look more likely that Guantanamo will be shut down at some point, beatings and abuse by interrogators have risen sharply, says one lawyer. Note that only ten people have been charged with crimes thus far -- no convictions -- and over the last six months many have been released due to a lack of evidence against them.
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POPSReaction to State of the Union address in Arab world While Bush tries to fan the flames in the Middle East by equating Shi'ite militias with al-Qaeda, we're seeing a significant (and, as far as I know, unprecedented) rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, both of whom are interested in keeping Iraq's violence from spilling over the borders.
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