Blogger Marcy Wheeler discusses the NY Times puff piece article on President Obama’s secret kill list; the government’s fuzzy math in calculating civilian casualties from drone strikes; assassinating the bakers who may or may not sell bread to the Taliban; journalists (a.k.a. “terrorist sympathizers”) who dare gather information on drone strike casualties; more evidence that counterterrorism advisor John Brennan is a liar; how the US helped create the AQAP threat in Yemen; why the Abdulmutallab “Underwear Bomber” story still doesn’t make sense; the US’s bad intelligence and untrustworthy partners in the Middle East; and how secretive drone strikes and Special Forces raids allow the president to wage war on the sly.
MP3 here. (23:00)
Blogger Marcy Wheeler, a.k.a. emptywheel, grew up bi-coastally, starting with every town in New York with an IBM. Then she moved to Poway, California, home of several participants in the Duke Cunningham scandal. Since then, she has lived in Western Massachusetts, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Ann Arbor, and — just recently — Western Michigan.
She got a BA from Amherst College, where she spent much of her time on the rugby pitch. A PhD program in Comparative Literature brought her to Michigan; she got the PhD but decided academics was not her thing. Her research, though, was on a cool journalistic form called the “feuilleton” — a kind of conversational essay that was important to the expansion of modern newspapers in much of the rest of the world. It was pretty good preparation to become a blogger, if a PhD can ever be considered training for blogging.
After leaving academics, Marcy consulted for the auto industry, much of it in Asia. But her contract moved to Asia, along with most of Michigan’s jobs, so she did what anyone else would do. Write a book, and keep blogging. (Oh, and I hear Amazon still has the book for sale.)
Marcy has been blogging full time since 2007. She’s known for her live-blogging of the Scooter Libby trial, her discovery of the number of times Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded, and generally for her weedy analysis of document dumps.
Marcy met her husband Mr. emptywheel playing Ultimate Frisbee, though she retired from the sport several years ago. Marcy, Mr. EW and their dog — McCaffrey the MilleniaLab — live in a loft in a lovely urban hellhole.
Al-Qaeda is at it again! Those cave duelers are tearing our country to peaces – Osama bin Laden continues his horrific war on the peace loving US right from his grave. What a guy! How did he figure this all out? What a strategic planner! How many think tanks could he have? Not many, because there have never been more than 200 member, who, like zombies, return from the dead in order to keep up their fight against the mega-power and any of its allies stupid enough to support this insanity.
A good insurgency requires an overreaction from the enemy (government), and without the overreaction there is no insurgency. Wow, just look at how the US complies with that requisite! Our paranoid leaders see enemies absolutely everywhere, and since they are basically such cowards, they act just like cowards by becoming international bullies.
The truly amazing thing is how al Qaeda got our leaders to react to the point that they took and continue taking rights and freedoms away from their own people. Can we credit al Qaeda for these changes as well? Of course we can, those changes came about in order to fight the war on terror and the war on terror, according to our leaders, is al Qaeda.
Government by terrorism — The cutting edge of a high-tech democracy
Our 51% most wealthy voted into office a president they felt best qualified to protect over a forth of all the wealth on earth, what they have plundered since Truman nuked Japan.
So, if Obama is to remain god most high over such a vast Empire, as plundering wealth makes stability impossible, Obama with his joystick killing machines must fool the public into thinking that we can plunder the world forever — as we will always have the ability to out-terrorize the terrorists
We r all 'AlQaeda Alislamia' and me & Jesus PBUTH r on the kill MO$Xsad List for liberating YOU from World Fraud Traddincczzzzzz
that made more sense than usual!
How does U.S. solve failed states? They could start by not creating more. Every one of the 56 U.S. international interventions since WWII created another failed state. (Some of them more than once.)
I've talked to several of my friends who are Obama supporters and they don't even seem to be aware of this story. This story is hiding in plain sight. I think they've come to the conclusion that 'we're going to leave it all up to the experts to protect us' and not even think about it. If they kill a few kids well that's too bad, war is rough etc. During the Vietnam war the American people were driven to have a conscience about what our military was doing but it seems that the present generation is living in a guilt-free cocoon.
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