Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Shorter U.S.: Democracy and liberty for me (with some pesky exceptions) but not for thee.
A rare gem among the family jewels: a pair of detailed reports signed by James J. Angleton, the legendary chief of the C.I.A.’s counterintelligence staff from 1954 to 1974. They describe an aspect of a longstanding worldwide American program to create and exploit foreign police forces, internal security services, and counterterrorism squads overseas.

As they stand up, we will stand down. Oops, sorry, sometimes the rhetoric of today just slips out.

Say, who were we training back in the day?
The program, according to recently declassified American government documents, had trained hundreds of thousands of foreign military and police officers in 25 nations by the early 1960s. It helped create the secret police of Cambodia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Peru, the Philippines, South Korea, South Vietnam, and Thailand.

Thankfully, none of those secret police squads ever did anything bad. The end.

I said, THE END!

Monday, June 25, 2007

TPM:
"Side-by-side wing chairs"? I'm reminded of the embarrassing point in 2004 in which the President agreed to talk to the 9/11 Commission, but only if Cheney could sit with Bush, and help answer questions, during the discussion.

Old boy in the Beltway hood
Lives in a bunker and it is understood.
He’s there just to take good care of me,
And be the guy who really has the presidency.


TPM again:
The reality is more disconcerting -- Cheney has routinely been the "surrogate President," with Bush putting his signature on the VP's ideas (military commissions, domestic warrantless-searches) because the VP told him it was the right thing to do.

Cheney in Charge
Of our days and our nights
Cheney in Charge
There are no wrongs and no rights

And I sing, I want,
I want Cheney in Charge of me.




Defense Dept. photo by U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. James M. Bowman

(This post is a shameless, poorly-done rip-off of this blogger's shtick.)

The Washington Post series is here.