After the CIA's miserable failure to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union, then-Senator Pat Moynihan proposed eliminating the CIA and putting the State Department back in charge of collecting intelligence, as it was before World War II.

Now, after the intelligence community's catastrophic failure on Iraq, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is proposing an idea that's nearly as radical: intelligence analysts should talk to bloggers like Juan Cole:

A War On Terrorism or a War Of Terrorism?

Reports as usual vary wildly and small wonder that some news sources are trying to pin this on yet another subsidiary of "Al Qaeda". But this wasn't a suicide attack.

The terrorists drove a car, packed with explosives, up to a bus carrying soldiers of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Some reports say that they forced the bus to stop by firing on it with automatic weapons, others that they blocked the road with the car while pretending to have broken down. Either way, they quickly escaped on motorbikes before detonating the car bomb by remote control.

First I invite you to watch this excellent 10 minute speech by George Galloway to the British Parliament on January 27, 2007 in which he delivers a stark warning that Britain is sleepwalking into a catastrophic war with Iran along with the US and Israel. George Galloway was the man who you may remember lambasting the US Senate over false accusations of oil bribes with Saddam.

George Galloway's speech to the British Parliament, January 2007

China’s unannounced test of an anti-satellite ballistic missile on the 11 January 2007 has evidently caused significant concern in the West and in particular the US. Not only does it put existing military and civilian satellite networks at risk, the act was clearly intended as a warning in the true cold war sense.

As I write this report, the story has finally hit the mainstream media but in most cases only a fairly sanitized version of the events is being made public. This very newsworthy event was not made public for 6 days after the launch, but despite the delay in publication, some interesting details are emerging that indicate increasing tensions between China and the US.

New evidence revealed in a BBC report puts three known anti-Castro CIA operatives at the scene of the assasination...

Update 12-04-06: YouTube has yanked the video, Google Video substituted...

Google video

Hersh: CIA Analysis Finds Iran Not Developing Nuclear Weapons
A classified draft CIA assessment has found no firm evidence of a secret drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, as alleged by the WH, a top US investigative reporter has said. Seymour Hersh, writing in an article for the November 27 issue of The New Yorker released in advance, reported on whether the administration of George W. Bush was more, or less, inclined to attack Iran after Democrats won control of Congress last week. A month before the November 7 legislative elections, Hersh wrote, VP Dick Cheney attended a national-security discussion that touched on the impact of Democratic victory in both chambers on Iran policy. "If the Democrats won on November 7th, the vice president said, that victory would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option with Iran,..."

Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) is in very hot water because of his remarks on Wednesday about torture:

"Now I've seen what happened in Abu Ghraib, and Abu Ghraib was not torture. It was outrageous, outrageous involvement of National Guard troops from (Maryland) who were involved in a sex ring and they took pictures of soldiers who were naked. And they did other things that were just outrageous. But it wasn't torture."

There is a very simple reason why Shays would say this: because the photos Americans see on TV do not show the worst violence.

By David Swanson

Remember the great harm done to the moral core of our nation when, according to the excited news reports following Kenneth Starr's great work in life, children were asking their parents what oral sex was? Neither do I. But children can now ask their parents what torture is, how waterboarding works, and when exactly torture is a good thing. "Mommy, we're going to play enemy combatant. Can I have some pliers to pull out Geoffrey's fingernails?"

Can I just say, to the Representatives and Senators who just voted to overturn (or allow George Bush to "interpret") the Geneva Conventions and half the Bill of Rights – and I say this as mildly as I know how – WAKE THE HELL UPYOU COMPLICIT FASCIST MORONS; BUSH HAS CAMPS PLANNED FOR SOME OF YOU, AND DANTE HAS A CIRCLE RESERVED FOR THE REST. Oh, and one more thing: oral sex feels GOOD. Torture HURTS LIKE HELL. Got it? The world needs more sex, less sadism. What exactly are you unclear on?

theBlueHighwayman says:

Slime Ball Novak

I looked forward to being back from vacation and watching the Sunday morning talk shows only to be confronted by Novak’s ugliness filling the screen. This idiot never gives up! He’s still pedaling the same old lies for his chum Karl Rove and sliming Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. I went back and read the report from the Senate Intelligence Committee looking for the document saying V. Plame sent her husband to Niger. No surprise to find Novak totally distorted everything.

From the Report:

George Bush wants to put Gen. Michael Hayden in charge of the CIA. Hayden previously ran the powerful National Security Agency and created the secret program of warrantless wiretapping of law-abiding American citizens. Hayden lied to Congress about the program in 2002. He refuses to describe the program to Congress (or the media) but insists it is legal, even though every legal scholar outside the Bush administration says the opposite. Tell Congress to STOP the nomination of Michael Hayden and to END illegal warantless wiretapping of law-abiding Americans:
http://democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/81