War

Open letter from a soldier to those who criticize the troops has a surprise at the end. This is excellent.

Iraq suffers deadliest year since 2008.

Sometimes government reports tell the truth.

"The torture program had already been critiqued by no less than the CIA’s own Office of the Inspector General, which finally made public a heavily redacted report in 2009 stating that post 9/11 torture "and abusive tactics" had produced no significant intelligence that preempted any terrorist attacks against American targets. The report, based on a study carried out in 2004 that was subsequently the subject of a flurry of memos between CIA and the Justice Department, was challenged by some Agency officers who had been involved in the program and the report itself provided some wiggle room in stating that "It is difficult to quantify with confidence and precision the effectiveness of the program." "

That's different than what I've been told.

"The dissenting view of advocates for "enhanced interrogation" has been disseminated widely by FOX News and the Wall Street Journal among other media outlets."

That's probably why, but this is the first I've heard of that report, and I read plenty alternative sites.

"The one year old completely classified Senate study, which examined every single interrogation carried out by CIA, concluded, as did the Agency IG report, that the torture regime had produced no appreciable results but its value relative to debunking the CIA effort is its comprehensiveness. There is no denying its conclusions as every one of six million documents relating to the rendition and interrogation programs was carefully examined. The report itself, 6,300 pages long with no less than 50 pages of bullet points, took three years to research. Some of its conclusions have reportedly been rebutted by a CIA team, which prepared a 122 page response in June that was presented to the committee. It has been alleged that the Agency discovered "significant errors" in the investigation and analysis, but those flaws, if they truly exist, have never been made public."

I've never heard of that report either, but it's new.

"The Saudi section of the 9/11 report is another example of making up the rules as one goes along which has characterized the "unitary executive" American presidency over the past twelve years. The details of Saudi involvement, which reportedly include Royal Family funding of some of the men who carried out 9/11, is still secret more than twelve years after the airline hijackings. Fifteen of the nineteen alleged hijackers were Saudis. "

I just recently heard about this.

"A true accounting of what took place is long overdue and, one might add, it should not stop with the Saudis. Some of the hijackers spent considerable time in Pakistan prior to 9/11 and it is unlikely that the Pakistani Intelligence Service (ISI) would have missed their presence or the opportunity to recruit them as sources. Also the Israelis, who were running a massive intelligence operation inside the United States, appear to have had at least some prior knowledge of what was going to occur. The account of the "Five Dancing Shlomos" celebrating in Liberty Park as the twin towers burned suggests at a minimum prior knowledge and possibly even more than that as Israel had a strong motive to encourage a major terrorist attack in the US which would tie Washington to Tel Aviv in a tight anti-Muslim terrorism embrace. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu subsequently described the 9/11 attack as good news."

And don't forget that George Bush promised to release the evidence proving Osama bin Laden was behind the attack, but never did.