Salon

I saw a narrow and deeply flawed policy favored by some executive appointees in the Pentagon used to manipulate and pressurize the traditional relationship between policymakers in the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies. I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the Executive Office of the President. [more]

"A leading maker of computer election equipment defends itself in court against charges that it overreached itself in trying to stifle critics." [more]

"If there's an upset in a close presidential race, will we be able to trust it? Ironically, the paperless systems were supposed to restore trust in a democracy that saw the presidency hang by a few thousand chads in Florida three years ago. In Georgia, and increasingly across the nation, they're in danger of doing quite the opposite." [more]

"Saddam's capture is a 'model opportunity' for international justice, says the head of Amnesty International USA, but it doesn't justify Bush's civil liberties crackdown." [more]

"Consider that the total enlistment goal for active Army and Army reserves in the fiscal year ended Oct. 1 was 100,000. If half of the 140,000 troops currently in Iraq were to go home and stay, two-thirds of this year's recruits would be needed to replace them." [more]

"All you do is double-click the icon. You go backwards through the Internet to that county computer, and if you have Microsoft Access on your machine you can walk right into that election database while it's open. It's configured for multiple access at the same time. You can be in there changing things and you can change anything you want." [more]

" 'When I examined the task organization, my estimate was totally contrary to this asshole Rumsfeld, who went in light and on the cheap, all based upon this rosy scenario. I never thought this would be a fight without resistance. And there was another guy who thought the same way I did; his name is Saddam Hussein.' " [more]

"Everybody on the left should go listen to Republicans and try to figure out what makes them tick. I would tell people, 'Good God, most people are not like you!' I'm reminded of people in 1972 in Manhattan who said, 'Jesus, but I didn't know anyone who voted for Nixon.' Wake up! Parochialism is never a platform for understanding, and this is another kind of parochialism." [more]

"The U.S. occupation of Iraq has turned into a daily debacle, say experts, because the Washington ideologues who planned the war were living in a fantasy." [more]

"A CIA veteran says a growing faction of the U.S. intelligence community is furious over the way the administration corrupted the system — and that the nation's security is at grave risk." [more]

"His job is to keep a hawk eye on dovish Colin Powell. And he's helped turn Bush foreign policy into an ideological hammer." [more]

"The defense secretary couldn't count on the CIA or the State Department to provide a pretext for war in Iraq. So he created a new agency that would tell him what he wanted to hear." [more]

"While Americans watch Baghdad burn from a distance, most of the Arab channels have corespondents inside the city, and they emphasize reporting of civilian casualties. There's also lots of news about worldwide protests." [more]

"A day after antiwar 'anarchy' shut down city streets, San Francisco cops keep a tight rein on smaller but still angry crowds." [more]

"Demonstrators are planning to shut down San Francisco's Financial District, to gather by the thousands in New York's Times Square, to stage sit-ins in Washington, D.C. [and] to try to breach security at Vandenberg Air Force Base ... They're going not just to protest, but to interfere." [more]

"Alleged U.S. spying at the U.N. — huge news in the rest of the world, ignored here — provides fodder to festering anti-Americanism." [more]

"For Iraqi exiles, the televised destruction of Baghdad elicits grief and anger, not shock and awe." [more]

"This is a the charge sheet and lexicon of the 'antiwar' movement. Whatever possible benefits might flow from military action are, it seems, rejected and disparaged, either on grounds of the means (the cure is worse than the cold), or on grounds of America and Britain's corrupt and hypocritical motives." [more]

"Yet even as demonstrators declared that they were standing with the world — and especially with Germany and France, whose opposition to war with Iraq in the U.N. was commended on sign after sign — the event was filled with the burnished spirit of New York. Although there were marchers from across the country, locals predominated, many angrily rejecting the way they say the administration has hijacked their city's grief." [more]

"During a week of war fever, the news media gave rein to hysteria — and, critics say, let color-coded terror alerts serve the White House agenda." [more]

"On the streets of Baghdad, Iraqis fear that neither Osama bin Laden nor the pope will be able to help them now." [more]

"A federal agency confirms that it maintains an air-travel blacklist of 1,000 people. Peace activists and civil libertarians fear they're on it." [more]

"Volunteers for Operation TIPS, John Ashcroft's citizen spy army, are being steered to the Fox crime show 'America's Most Wanted.' Is the merger of tabloid TV with the federal snooping operation funny or scary or both?" [more]

"Economic chaos — and a looming humanitarian crisis — undermine both the Palestinian Authority and the intifada." [more]

"While some have claimed that anti-Americanism stems primarily from misinformation from local media and distorted Hollywood images of American values, the core problem results from specific U.S. foreign policies. Arabs and Muslims are profoundly angered by three policies in particular: a bias toward Israel in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; the U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq, which harms innocent Iraqi civilians but does nothing to topple Saddam Hussein's brutal dictatorship; and Washington's consistent support for authoritarian regimes friendly to U.S. interests. While public diplomacy can be effective, no amount of marketing, slick packaging or explaining our message loudly can solve this problem." [more]

"The Bush administration rivals the Nixon White House when it comes to secrecy and unchecked power, with John Ashcroft as our modern-day John Mitchell." [more]

"A memo by military chief Mohammed Atef raises new questions about whether failed U.S. efforts to reform Afghanistan's radical regime — and build the pipeline — set the stage for Sept. 11." [more]

"I used to ask myself what I could have done to save Eddie. Now I realize: I was asking the wrong person." [more]

"Robert Young Pelton, author of The World's Most Dangerous Places, says the U.S. military has killed 'thousands and thousands' of people in Afghanistan, al-Qaida is a myth and the WTC was brought down by a 'Mickey Mouse' outfit." [more]

A "former head of the UN's humanitarian program in Iraq says an American invasion would be an international crime ó and would make the U.S. even less safe." [more]

New government-sponsored ads "promote the twisted reasoning that, since drug profits have found their way into the pockets of terrorists, any young Americans who use drugs are therefore guilty of aiding and abetting the enemy." [more]