When I was researching my recent piece on Taliban extortion rackets in Afghanistan, it was easy to find examples of the Taliban extorting private contractors hired by western governments and companies engaged in humanitarian and reconstruction projects. What was...
Not much can top a federally-funded ACORN associate telling a (supposed) prostitute how she can launder her income -- on camera. Except for maybe this: or this: Those are guards from the federally-funded ArmorGroup, which has a $184 million contract to protect our...
Correct me if I am wrong, but this must spell an unprecedented level of domestic intelligence sharing. One wonders, is the sharing between the DoD and fusion centers -- which incorporate local, state and federal law enforcement and homeland security agencies -- both...
Published originally @TAC I am glad that Stars and Stripes has nailed the story about the Pentagon profiling journos headed overseas for embed duty, not only because it is only fair that we know how our taxpayer dollars are being spent in so-called military "strategic...
Billionaire gasbag "T Boone" Pickens has made a bold attempt over the last year to transform his image of oil-greased rightwing godfather to grandfatherly wind energy guru, endlessly blowing his hot air at bipartisan audiences in Washington (and reminding everyone...
Looking at Margaret and Jason's close monitoring of the continued bloodshed in Iraq-- something like 300 Iraqis dead in bombings since last Monday -- it's becoming clear that nothing short of a nuclear bomb dropped on the Green Zone will get administration...
Originally Posted @TAC I had always revered Rolling Thunder -- the romantic vision of a Band of Brothers, refugees from a South Asian hellhole whose common experience, really, was the only thing separating them from a certain reckless breed of motorcycle gang. Their...
From Jeremy Scahill at The Nation today, a synopsis of explosive testimony before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee regarding contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root (former Halliburton subsidiary and by far the largest beneficiary of federal wartime funding, ever)....
Does finding out that a top military intelligence official was sending Donald Rumsfeld briefings emblazoned with religious crusader talk about the invasion of Iraq, like "open the gates so that the righteous may enter" fit "the left’s narrative that the Iraq war...
Anointed Washington Surge scribe Thomas Ricks takes Antiwar.com to task for writing "about an area about which they know absolutely freaking nothing," referring to my current piece on Gian Gentile: Exposing Counterfeit COIN. To his mind and of the COIN clique he runs...
