I live in DC and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Senor actually crawled out from the bleak irony hole a few weeks back doing the speech circuit. It's not clear why Mr Senor is doing speeches. It's not like he has to worry about lawsuits being filed in Spain against former Bush officials -- our new administration has shielded the neocons from accountability.
Too many are perched at the State Department, evident with the sorry conducting of the Ukraine crisis. Mrs Clinton failed to reform State, instead opting to collect awards around the world promoting free speech, while signing approval at State for the NSA to spy on our EU allies and allowing neo-cons to root out whistleblowers at State. Due process? What could that be?
A few weeks back, Mrs Clinton clammed up during a speech she gave at George Washington University -- on freedom of speech of all things -- looking on as an anti-Iraq war protester (a senior citizen and veteran) was tackled by two (yeah it took two) security guards. All this guy did was stand during her 'talk' and be silent. For that he was injured. Apparently free speech doesnt apply at home, where it's gotten hard to distinguish from neo-cons and sell outs in the other party.
Unfortunately, the states in our deep south are known for corrupt practices and providing poor services to citizens, while exacting high taxes. Things will worsen following the crisis in Ukraine and fracking will also be ramped up. We should be worried that the NSA and other organizations of that nature may be used to spy on environmental and community activists. In Pennsylvania, the local media refuse to report on environmental pollution caused by industries such as fracking as these media are being pressured by local and corporate interests. Your government *not* at work for you
Dear Mr Parry - Thank for this excellent analysis and assessment. The Neo Cons, aka chicken hawks, are at it again. Ms Nuland should never have been promoted to top representative to the EU and someone needs to seriously clean out and reform 'A' Bureau at State, since Mrs Clinton steered clear of that mess in order to preserve her campaign prospects. Ms Nuland was PAO at the US embassy in Kazkahstan and would have had excellent contacts with US gas and oil companies.
Yet the other day, several American businesses with investments in Russia expressed concern per the Washington Post our politicians got too far ahead of themselves in this conflict and these businesses worried their investments could b jeopardized.
What's not clear is -- were the neo cons in belief that they could secure Ukraine's gas sector for their business associates or did they consider the possibility Crimea might break away and that Russia could shut the taps to western Ukraine? Or were they wanting to supply Europe with gas from elsewhere in the world, such as the US with the fracking taking place and don't really care if the Crimea splits off since that would play into their schemes?
The Republicans know alot more about Benghazi and it's why they harp on it, using smoke and mirrors ploy. Mrs Clinton's big mistake was to not reform State and leave alot of neo con appointees in place. Victoria Nuland, our top diplomat to the EU caught on the phone cursing the EU, is a Cheney protege and was involved in trying to intimidate whistleblowers during the Benghazi affair
The neo cons are way worse but the Clinton team, if there is going to be a campaign, better clean up their act or they will be out early in primary season. Speeches alone don't suffice anymore nor do smoke and mirrors
Thank you, George. Hit that nail on the head. Also, Mrs Clinton not only stood by and allowed neo cons in the State Department to weed out whistleblowers, she personally signed off on permission for the NSA to spy on the EU. Recently, a vet who is also a senior citizen stood up at a speech she gave at GW university, silently but wearing an anti-Iraq war shirt -- she said nothing as two young security guys tackled him and injured him -- while she gave a speech on the need for freedom of speech of all things
To sum up, we here in the US are losing our homes in the mortgage crisis, jobs, unemployment benefits -- but workers for the NSA and agencies that cant be named get paid, with cushy benefits, to watch porn on the job.
Meanwhile, the Boston bombing occurs under the aegis of the same programs enabling porn-watching at work, though these are really (or ostensibly) supposed to monitor for terrorism being planned/staged.
And then our President covers for former NSA Chief Hayden, who gets caught on Amtrak giving an "anonymous" and "off the record" interview to a journalist, bashing our very President who is covering NSA senior officials' butts.
Congratulations to the guy who made this case. He should make a tee for all the whistleblowers who lost their jobs in the government because Judge Scalia interpreted the First Amendment does not apply to government employees acting in the course of their work
What is also frightening about the so-called 'Christian' zionists -- they believe it is necessary to spark armageddon that will kill people in order to bring about Judgement day. That's delusional and just another form of terrorism. It is also a rebuke to real Christianity. The so-called 'Christian' zionists don't care if Israel is blown up, it's just a vehicle for carrying out their agendas
The War in Afghanistan proved a beneficial cash cow to alot of our contracting companies, some of whom offshored themselves to other countries to shirk paying taxes to the very government that bestowed them such profitable contracts. In addition to a dreadful human cost, including what happened to Afghanis, this war and the Iraq war bankrupted our economy. Too many people in the system kept quiet for fear of their jobs. Anyone who excercised speaking out, was retaliated against. How many times we were told we 'went in' to defend 'freedoms' for Afghanis and Iraqis, meanwhile many of us could not excercise our own Constitutional rights. What a tragic irony
Oh? What purpose does banning fuel and energy (isnt it winter now??) and construction materials for Gazans?? How will that promote peace? Please, graduate to the 21st century. It's time for solutions
My last sentence above cites "both" reporters. It's pretty much an acknowledged fact about Ms Harris repeatedly trumping herself and there's not much more can add to that.
After writing my initial comment, I came across the original article on the controversy, where a Slate writer, Aisha Harris, recommended Santa be represented as African American.
First of all, why are grown ups arguing over a fictional character?
But on another level, what is wrong with having role models who are from diverse backgrounds and cultures? Do all our role models have to look just like we do? To subscribe only to role models who represent one's own ethnic or racial groups, is pretty narrow-minded. Both reporters are being silly and retreating to a mental enclave devoid from intricate and inter-linked realities.
The idea of what constitutes 'white' should be reformed. Within each racial group, there is great diversity. The problem is as Americans we want to know is it a or b, and whatever it is can only be selected from those two things. But life isnt simple. Among white racial groups there are blonds, redheads, brunettes and many shades of skin colouring.
That being said, it is Fox news where its reporters are (mostly) blond whites with a couple of blacks, and not much in between. The reporters often hail from regions of the US that are either geographically insular or socially hierarchically and rigidly structured. They also miss the spirit of what Christmas is all about -- brotherly love and sharing what you have with those who are without
The problem is - where does it stop? The sordid story keeps widening and widening. Worse, people who take an oath to uphold the Constitution sometimes express the laws of our country are too weak or bind their hands. Then they disregard these laws but they secured the job. Franklin or Jefferson said it - those who trade freedom for security deserve neither
You may have seen this already but if not, there are links below to an American musician featured on the show "Arabs Got Talent" singing Um Kulthum. She doesnt know Arabic yet, but is a student of music and had studied with Simon Shaheen. She plays the oud too.
You may have seen this already but if not, there are links below to an American musician featured on the show "Arabs Got Talent" singing Um Kulthum. She doesnt know Arabic yet, but is a student of music and had studied with Simon Shaheen. She plays the oud too.
"The decade-long Neoconservative plot to take the United States to war against Iran appears to have been foiled. "
Having worked for a Neo-Con and his minions, why do these words worry me? These guys have no appropriate morals or ethics and do whatever it takes to enrich their legacies. Somehow, they find ways to reassert themselves. Okay, never mind if their objective blows up or goes down in an amazing blaze of confusion and idiocy, but they still persevere and act like nothing went wrong
Pfft...I expect NOTHING from the Tea Party. They support American businesses owners giving up their US citizenship so they can dodge paying taxes while collecting lucrative defense contracts for derelict programs in Afghanistan and Iraq, or to be able to dodge taxes while filing for Chinese permanent residency status to exploit cheap labour. You know sometimes workers are not even paid in Chinese factories, right?
Why would the Tea Party curb defense expenditures? Why are people who hate our government tripping over each other, killing people's careers, to run for the very offices they tell us again and again they loathe? Even Al Qaeda failed to shutdown our government operations. The Tea Party succeeded where Bin Ladin could not
If per capita incomes have fallen behind, its the failed policies of today's conservatives who care only about THEIR bank accounts. People who fall unemployed in this country are ridiculed by Tea Party sympathisers who claim to be Christian yet havent' an ounce of compassion or consideration for other human souls.
If your party has to write off millions of unemployed people as 'hopeless' or ignore their plight as the unemployed swell in our country, they need to disband. No one is going to vote for a political party that seeks their impoverishment, while they represent stats that SUCK a huge amount of aid from our federal government. Is it any irony many of the Tea Party representatives represent states that rank LAST in critical sectors of our nation?
When our president says there are 'internal' mechanisms for addressing serious issues, unfortunately these 'internal' mechanisms are broken. See something, say something, lose your job is the real reality.
The EEO and civil complaint process for civil service is utterly broken. Alot of attention has been paid to military and defense contractors, who do face an even worse battle, but do not think civil service is really any better off. It's not. These problems are the reason why people who raise allegations of sexual harrassment in the military have been drummed out of their jobs after going to HR offices. If the "internal" mechanisms cant manage the serious matters, how the heck are they doing with daily governance issues??
State's OIG released back in February or March, a report on Diplomatic Security in the spring that mentions, in the middle of the report, 'potential' for abuse because of the use of DS to settle what are HR issues at State.
It has happened (the OIG know it) where State employees suddenly had clearances pulled, without any notice, just because of a HR issue -- usually where the employee him or herself had filed a complaint involving local supervisors.
This in effect abrogates State employees' right to due process. No clearance, no job and no hearing that the employee had requested. This means no problem ever occurred except of course, the employee is declared deficient in their work per the official story
No surveillance agency should be used to settle government HR matters. Period
"One has to wonder what actually motivates a creature like Bashar Assad and the creatures he surrounds himself with or inherited…"
When it comes to political elites and those who wish to be in the ascendancy -- whether you are talking about Syria or Washington, DC -- it's about access to and control of resources, including financial, and the ability to exert authority and shape people's views
I think it speaks volumes the Obamacare site has been swamped. That, in an ordinarily boring democratic world would take the starch from the Republicans' argument, but the new guys who are in that party dont seem to respect rule of law at home and certainly not abroad.
That being said, I do wish the healthcare choices were more affordable. I might luck out, being a full time student but what about our countrymen and women for whom this would be a hardship? Our leaders can do a better job bringing those costs down. I wish we could emulate the Canadians or how the Scandinavians seem to do it. People say their taxes are higher but they are similar to ours - and there is more to show for it where even college is provided. If my taxes were kept the same level and there was better management of allocation of monies instead of going to some bureacrat's pocket, I'm all for that
Please spare me malarkey that is socialism. I lived in a socialist country before -- where people werent paid salaries though they worked, they had no recourse in the courts, they could be spied on by the police, and their politicians were corrupt. I would have to ask any neocon who tries the socialism argument --isnt that what your party has actually brought about?? How are you different? Where is the 'government is for the people, by the people'? We dont need a Dickensonian society
If it were any other administration than Mr Netanyahu, the arrival of aid into Gaza could be interpreted as a hopeful sign. Unfortunately, there is a cynical view that Hamas serves a useful purpose to Netanyahu's objectives in a most dysfunctional way
Hamas has suffered from similar problems affecting other 'islamist' administrations - squandering opportunities to better impact citizens' lives and failing to differentiate its governing style and ethos from those of administrations it's been critical of
" In the aftermath, the Israelis and the Bush administration decided it had been an error to let Hamas run (Bush hadn’t expected them to win)"
After the elections in which Hamas won, the Post or the Times quoted an advisor to Dr Rice expressing surprise over Hamas's election victory, claiming the Israelis hadnt advised them this could happen. It was definitely a face-palming moment. If the advisor to Dr Rice had only read the papers just to keep up to date on the region in his portfolio, there had been various polls leading up to the election claiming Mr Abbas's popularity was in single digit standing. But elections were in vogue then
Our superiors in the government are very keen to safeguard their legacies. Our President said there are alternate means to challenge issues, well, those 'alternate means' are broken. Our higher level officials have created a system where it is very difficult to foster reforms from within the system. Government employees are forced to choose -- your career or doing the right thing. Why?
In hindsight, a whistleblower is going to face the prospects you will be blacklisted in your field, have your career ruined, be portrayed as someone you wouldnt even recognize if you passed on the street. The most important thing is at the end of the day, it's just you and your conscience. If no one got hurt or killed on your watch or other serious consequences occurred, you have to remember that. People give their lives for our country, you gave your career and will be able to piece your world back together
If our officials cant reform the process for addressing serious matters, then go public. If they put their legacies ahead of our country, that's their conscience and time to inject accountability and hope this will fix the mechanisms inside the government for the better
With all due respect, Manning and Snowden were not "the first harbingers of whistleblowing." Their work is based on years of prior whistleblowers' work. Part of the problem is NGOs only pay attention to whistleblowing matters, and the most sensational ones, by people in defense and security or anyone associated with the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These are vital mattters. Absolutely, But -- unfortunately, there are whistleblowers in other sectors of the government, Their efforts may not seem 'sexy' enough to support but they have vital ramifications too. Being civil service in most cases, it doesnt fall onto the radar of NGOs who have limited funds. And our government officials thank you very much for missing important stories like this.
I myself engaged in a matter at State - even writing a detailed memo, going on record and sending it, and then alerted another office about a plan by my local superiors to cut the visas of Gazan Fulbrighters in the US on Fulbright educational grants and send them and their minor age kids to a third country where they could have languished indefinitely.
It also would have had blowback on the US Consulate who was working with Israel on trying to get special permission for these guys to cross the West Bank, not to mention my local officials didnt care about Israeli policy.
I had been told "no one cares" about what would happen to the Fulbrighters
Apparently that included my local superiors' superiors. When Secretary Condileeza Rice was contacted, she was definitely surprised by it all and my agency received stringent criticism worldwide in every major news source. If people only knew, it all could have been avoided. The story that made it to the media had alot of parts omitted. And that was the SECOND time the problem occurred.
There's no dissent channel at State for civil service employees. Heck, raise a matter of concern and watch your brilliant work history go up in smoke, awards be darned. I watched as my performance evaluations were abused, some I didnt receive, in the rush to show I was now a bad civil service staff. Unfortunately, drying up my portfolio meant my local superiors had to put effort into making up claims, some of which were ludicrous. A year of retaliation occurred between the first effort to cancel the Fulbright Gaza program and the second. I'm the person who alerted the officer in the Consulate about the exploitation of my work evaluations, shortly to the second program being canceled.
No government employee, in any sector of the government, should be retaliated against for doing their job. Often, it comes back to humiliate our big bosses the actions of local supervisors whose loyalty is to a paycheck and their own slimy legacy
The chicken hawks will scavenge for a way. They would like the Qatar-Saudi Arabia-Jordan-Israel-Lebanon-Syria gas pipeline to get a green light. The irony is such a pipeline could contribute to security in the region, but as always, its the crazy way the Chicken hawks go about things. Their poorly made plans often negatively impact their own objectives. No, the public hasnt forgotten Yellow Cake or the Iraq "study" group malarkey. The chicken hawks are going to have to put effort into this one
"If the leaked translation of Atta’s invocation is correct, and the document is genuine, then the release of the missing page might help accentuate the sharp theological divide between puritanical Wahhabis and al-Qa’ida militants."
Unfortunately, that might mean less aid for the military-industrial complex George Washington tried to warn of. If the actual threat is less than the 'presented' threat, then less money is required for high-paying wages, lucrative lobby contracts, sale of equipment and weaponry to overseas countries, and the need for a surveillance state staffed with minders who cant speak Arabic or think the Constitution a quaint document that unfortunately gets in the way of administering the law. Its the new old 'welfare' state with the priorities for spending shifted to different sectors
Johns Hopkins and GW are well connected to the neo cons. Especially during the Bush-Cheney admin, there seemed preferential hiring of students from these universities' programs, including over at State
This is resembling more and more like American Idol-Syria Bombing Campaign edition. If a 'surgical' strike does occur, and as of today Congress is acting like it will support such a campaign, what will be the outcome? How can it be ASSURED innocent lives wont be lost? The point of the bombing is to protest the loss of innocent life but now you risk killing more innocent people to avenge the killing of the other innocent people??
Please, someone wear the grownup pants in our government offices.
Two of the many negative results (and I emphasize 'many') are the fact both the United Nations and the State Department have been turned into salaried paper-pushers. Why not let them do their job -- finally?? Don't underestimate the importance they could play. A bombing campaign is an old, tired Clinton and Bush tactic. You bomb, then what? You bomb again. Then what? And looking at Iraq and Afghanistan, we know how well THAT went.
Where are the results?? Diplomacy needs to be dusted off the shelf. There needs to be committed effort to end this problem in Syria
The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same. I remember a neo con-oriented Wall Street 'journalist' speaking at the 2002 Middle East Institute calling for bombing Syria
It would be nice if the State Department staff could be able to do their job - ie statecraft, rather than be reduced/restricted to public affairs work.
It's past time for that change and too irrestible to deviate from old formulas
The UK Guardian is reporting the Independent has released possibly classified information, citing it came to them courtesy Snowden. However, just today, Snowden stated he was not the source and that the UK government is the source of 'information':
The Guardian is supposedly teaming up too with the NY Times on coverage of the Snowden affair. That will be interesting, since the Times itself censors news topics especially on matters of whistleblowrs and national security
"And: Perhaps, the ‘handful of times’ the NSA has engaged in insider trading and affected stock movements
And: Perhaps, the handful of times the NSA has blackened the reputations of politicians it didn’t like"
Is there additional information about these kind of instances? We see our politicians engaging in these kind of actions all the time. Our courts dont help, in fact the justices obstruct, making reform a challenge. Thanks
It's more impressive that the New York Times had solid sources. Frankly, that's a tactic, whipping up demonstrators, that has been used for eons in demonstrations in the Mid East. It's not anything new. If the NY Times tried to make it seem a scoop, that would be disengenous but not surprising
For some reason, every Palestinian-Israeli negotiation (attempt) follows the same formula: free prisoners and authorize more settlements. Why do "peace" talks have to begin this way??
An 'understanding' is a good way to put it. Papers like the Washington Post and NY Times have excellent 'understandings' with some of our officials in government, including refusing to publish information about whistleblowers.
The Lady case also highlights another problem in our system -- if you are like, your illegalities will be overlooked and escape punishment, and if you embarass any powerful person then you will be punished to the fullest extent of the law
That Michelle Bachman is on the House Intelligence Committee is a sign of how deep the rot is in our system. The idea of Secret Courts in our system is a disgrace. If Bachman and company think secret courts shall operate indefinitely, they are in for a great surprise. It's a matter of time
I think the coup was not quite the surprise to our elected officials. If I remember right, neither was the 1956 coup. Its history redux in some ways. Or, the more things change the more they stay the same lol. It is probably better intel than the silliness with the Bolivian president's flight
"Private Sector'contractors are used because its believed they cant be held accountable to local or our laws. This is partly why Rumsfeld expanded enormously the use of private contractors in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Also, too there was alot of lobbying because hey its a verra profitable business and during the Bush administration, a law was passed that said contractors not based in the US could receive USG money and a number offshored themselves to avoid paying US taxes.
Dr Peter Ludlow, who is a professor at Northwestern and making a documentary on hacking, had a guest blog at the NY Times recently. He cites the problem of private sector intel companies and mentions how for years not only have they spied on US citizens, they have been involved in deliberately fabricating information on social activist groups to discredit them. The link to the piece he wrote is below.
Unfortunately, alot of our newspapers are are just arms of the official public affairs machinery. The NY TImes and Washington Post not only deliberately NOT publish information on other whistleblower cases to not offend whatever administration is in power, they coordinate the editorials and articles with the white house public affairs office. Notice all the similar commentaries and articles in regard to the Snowden affair??
It's good to pay attention too to events in the UK - some people might be familiar with the case of Milly Dowler, the murder victim in the UK whose phone was hacked by a Rupert Murdoch-owened paper, News of the World, and her voice mail messages erased. If i remember right - please someone correct me if this is not so - i think some law enforcement were involved either in this case or other cases, taking bribe money relating to feature stories the 'journalists' of the News of the world were investigating. That is just one case that made it in the media and a number of british celebrities like Hugh Grant have sued believing they were the victims of unauthorized eavesdropping by this paper
Thank you for the link to the street celebrations.
Rich, If you havent already heard Abdel Halim Hafez's song, qiraat al finjan, there are a number of videos of him singing it on Youtube. It is one of the top and most famous songs in all Middle Eastern music.
The link below is to a short version, lol 15 minutes, but with english subtitles. Alot of the video clips are about an hour.
some of the searches spell it qiriat al finjan or fingan. hope you enjoy
It is vital employees of government agencies and contractors in the intel field are given whistleblower protections too. Dont get me wrong, the whistleblower process is fraught with too many problems and politics and is very weak, as is the system supposedly in place to protect employees from retaliation. Let's be honest. It is broken. Yet, as problematic as it is, whistleblower protections should encompass this critical area of the government workforce has vastly expanded since 9/11
If whistleblowers are harshly dealt with, initially people cower, afraid. The people who retaliate feel they are protected (mis)using the system. That's the mentality behind this unfortunately.
But with this continuation and widening of the net, cannot go on endlessly. It results in people feeling they can speak freely, they've past that red line, survived the loss and learned the sun will still rise. Mahmood Darwish said hope is an incurable malady. It's all you need. Then you will know justice, along with fixing the record, is important. People give their lives for our Constitutional rights, why not give our jobs? When you've lost so much, speaking out is all that is left. Even David persevered against Goliath
Is it known what was in the Ottoman records that miraculously survived? Will there be efforts to either put records online or copy them in some way, providing copies to any universities?
i could be wrong but every post is supposed to have evacuation plans or something along those lines. One would think that a search and rescue team had already done the practicing for the 'what if' scenario as well. It's not like there wasnt unrest in Libya before this and things happened out of the blue.
There are regional jurisdictions and in addition there are bureaucratic jurisdictions, and it sounds like bureacracy was the problem in securing interagency help, not material things or planning. There are thousands of planning committes in the government, who came through?? Maybe diplomats and US personnel should be informed ahead of time if anything goes wrong, sorry you are on your own. That would be harsh. I dont understand why ex Secretary Gates says knowledge of the environment is required. What has everyone been doing the past several years in the Middle East?? There are many jobs for mapping and geospatial portfolios, among other kinds.
There are efforts now to claim supplies for fueling or whatever were not at hand for a rescue plane to fly from italy. Well, our country is not an island. The US bureaucrats should pick up a phone and started working it, including asking the Italians for material cooperation (ie we will compensate you later for the fuel) even if behind the scenes, given this crisis involved Libya and the Italians and Libyans have a different relationship than we do.
I'm sorry for the diplomat who called for a rescue plane and was declined. There was a report that two planes eventually were sent, because the first one didnt have the capacity to pick up everyone. That diplomat is off the hook, he did follow procedure it sounds like. He was retaliated against ironically by higher ups in State who've been there too long and are used to using dirty tactics.
I dont agree with blaming Clinton, the problem predates her tenure. As Secretary though, there is culpability for not reforming the process but then who knows, too often the higher ups in the bureaucracies report only butterflies and daisies to their big bosses so how could Clinton have an accurate view of things? In addition, there is a tendency for some of the higher ups to stifle the other ranks so serious matters are not brought to the Secretary's attention. The problem lies deeper in the ranks but thanks to the smoke and mirrors campaign, things will be allowed to fester at State and the wrong heads will roll
Supposedly the post was to have been an unobtrusive one but there may be some contracting politics involved here too - would be interesting to see the correspendance - did the contractor they were using claim at any time they had things under control, if so could be a case of greed as well because the contractors make soo much money off this whole thing. The idea of contracting out the government to save money should be on the hot seat cause it's a huge wasteful ripoff of the american taxpayer.
It was claimed it was supposed to have been a secret post there but it sounds like it was a big open secret and the post was under surveillence. I am not sure who would claim that post could be a secret operation - hey it is libya lol. There is a history of government intelligence networks in country.
There have been a couple of articles in the Post over some months, about the militarization of the CIA. It is bound to happen because the hiring processes emphasize jobs for recent veterans and thus there is a cultural aspect and Petreaus led it for a few years
Republican 'skazkii' would be a good title too. Should also include the moment in the early debriefings had to be halted because one of the Republican senators inadvertently divulged CIA involvement and Victoria Nuland got antsy, not wanting to be led down a garden path.
The other aspect too, some of the people involved in the incident and making bad decisions were likely republican as well, so cant pin all the tail on the democrats. There are alot of former Bush-Cheney people in the hierarchy at State. These incidents where information has to be changed and covered up brings out their special 'skills'.
What's sad is that the real problems will be buried in this smoke and mirrors campaign covering for one or more party's presidential ambitions.
It's disgraceful the level of in-bureaucracy retaliation that occurred, including how Stevens was treated. During the brief 'matyr' phase of Steven's death, he was presented by State officials as a golden boy sent to Libya. Then as the situation took a dark turn, attempts were made to pin the tail on him since he couldnt defend himself being dead. That had to stop when his diary was found in the rubble and he had written even his own request for more security had been denied. An agency should not do that to their own.
Then there was wrangling over stupid 'talking points' to include or exclude so the bureaucracy looked good, as if no one had died. On the plus side, the talking points made an impact lol and everyone is trying to talk about them.
The CIA behaved shamefully too, throwing State under the bus, and I still do not understand who in the Defense department refused to send a rescue plane in. Why refuse your own countrymen??? How officials rise to the top in bureaucracies, and the promotion and firing processes should be reformed. These institutions are firing people for doing their jobs and promoting the most obsequious and overly ambitious who care only to protect their jobs and not about their country.
We used to have far more expert professionals in government affairs and there used to be stronger collaboration across party lines. My uncle was a former head of the MFO agency, a democrat, hired by Bush senior's representatives, and political affiliation was not an issue. You did your job. But the system has been too manipulated by current political interests and needs reform-- badly. Of course, that is not so sexy a notion for the current hearing
Love that when information is classified 'retroactively.' That is an immediate sign a fishing expedition is about to commence, albeit a very long and bureaucratic and unsavory one.
The internal mechanisms for seeking redress are a fail and unfortunately would be whistleblowers have to rely on the court system. If they happen to live in a state where there is a congressional office that is proactive and responsive to their constituents, that is a key resource for a fed employee in a tough situation.
The current system protects the higher up. People ask why sexual harassment is such a problem in the military - in the government system the mechanisms for dealing with lower level issues are broken, so how can it be expected the system will be responsive to extremely serious matters? Too often, the employee who raises a concern -- gets blamed for committing the very thing they raised. Who wants to experience that???
Would be interesting to know which region of the US ranks highest with infant mortality. I can probably guess, at the risk of being called a northeast elitist.
Ok, heck, is it Texas and Florida where there is more anti-government sentiment and healthcare fraud by institutions with continual cutting of support for the large amount of poor in these states?
There's also the issue of how many so-called journalists are really 'bought' men and women, mouthpieces of a particular ideology who fail to provide objective, factual and truthful information. Somehow, public affairs has replaced real journalism. Not to the discourse of most important topics in this country are too often 'dumbed-down.' Sometimes the liberals in 'journalism' are guilty of the same or worse, opting to be quiet on matters key to this country precisely when we need them to lift their voices
We'll know if influential gay Republicans acted behind the scenes if Ferguson begins toting the graces of gay economists, albeit conservative ones. That frankly would not cheer me more because it would still be a disservice to addressing our country's most pressing issues
It was very interesting how quick the Post and Daily News were putting forth photos of what were presented as likely suspects. Do these papers have their own face-imaging technology in-house?
With all due respect, many of the Arab nationalists were Christian. They promoted a secular kind of Arab nationalism. Please visit the real history of the Middle East
Religious fanaticism, catch the wave. (Same old) Choice of a new generation?
Sadly, our country has also been at risk. Not long ago, I was in Leavenworth, KS (on the outside lol) and saw an ad that took my breath away - it was for Christians for guns. Posted on the window of a trendy-looking cafe near the center of town.
Two years ago, the Washington Post published a couple of articles on the Bagram-Kandahar highway problem concerning our convoys paying bribes to the Taliban to be able to pass through, bringing supplies into Afghanistan. Then the series died. This past spring, the Washington Post published an article about a USAID contractor accused of taking USAID money meant for projects in Afghanistan. How long was that article in the Post? One evening. It went in then was suddenly pulled from the Post and no additional articles appeared. Why was that? The Post never published an apology for this. When it matters most, the State Department gets a light hand from the media and as a result, the serious problems do not get resolved. *If* matters come to a head, count on either a "lower-level functionaire" to be scapegoated while the responsible parties get a promotion, or in the case of Benghazi, count on the responsible parties to keep their jobs at State. For instance, the head of Diplomatic Security was supposed to have resigned. He hasnt. He signed off on a recent OIG report that investigated what needed to be improved in DS following the Benghazi 'incident'. Isnt that a conflict of interest? There are too many conflicts of interest in the government agencies directly involved in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Banking Scandal should have raised flags from the get-go. It was a project that should have been managed much differently and clearly there was no supervision considering the duration and how much money was lost. Ask any peace corps volunteer who had worked anywhere in Central Asia, and the scandal that occured at the Bank follows familiar patterns and the issue of syphoning off salaries for state employees is a familiar story. Unfortunately at State during the Bush-Cheney era, very few people with Centrali Asia experience were placed in Afghanistan jobs. In certain cases, people were passed by if they had area-knowledge because Neocons embedded at State did not want such people on the ground. Projects had to be approved, no matter what, and discretion and feasibility tests were sacrificed as well. Scandals take time to cultivate, they don't happen overnight and this was some years in the making, but due to the glasnost in President Obama's second term, only some of the problems are being aired, slowly.
Under Pope Benedict, the American Catholic Church (if i can generalize) drifted further from Rome. I remember Pope John Paul II issuing guidance that American Catholics were NOT supposed to vote for any so-called Christian fundamentalists or right like Ralph Reed and the Christian Coalition. During Pope Benedict's time, it seems no guidance stemming any rightwood drift was addressed as Pope John Paul II had tried.
In two weeks' time, Pope Francis has moved to address a lot of issues, alot of heady issues that fell off the radar obscured by the last eleven years of military-security and terrorism issues. Meanwhile, the bottom part of our societies sinks lower and lower. The video embedded here the other day on the sinking of the middle and lower classes in this society alone is a scary reality, albeit obscured one too. What will be interesting is to see what key issues will emerge front and center on the Vatican's agenda. It's only been two weeks' time but it's been a refreshing two weeks' time as far as what has happened so far
And how is Gaza supposed to take over Israel?? I'd like to hear this. With what, please elaborate. How many times has Gaza taken over Israel and how many times has Israel/the IDF overrun Gaza?
Turkey's Hurriyet Newspaper is today citing an Agence France-Presse article that PM Erdogan has announced he plans to visit Gaza and the West Bank and work on lifting the embargo of Gaza:
Another reason, we need a voice of logic in the upper echelons. Having Hagel AND Kerry at the helms is very hopeful. I hope Secretary Kerry can reform the management system at State and protect whistleblowers. History has proved Hagel correct but there are so many overly-ambitious sorts and people who have no integrity who rose up in positions that had no business being there. Those people have come to make the bad decisions and that's another reason why reform is needed in both bureacracies
For those of us who still remember the craziness and poor leadership of the minions brought in by the Bush-Cheney admin, these baby steps are needed but much more has to be done. The Obama Admin needs to stop letting the chicken hawks call the shots on security issues and needs to be far more supportive of government whistleblowers - both civil service and those who are contracting or working as civil on the Military and Intel side. We need better government accountability - not protection for those abusers from the Bush-Cheney era still holding onto their government jobs. There were good people brought in, but alot also who didnt deserve it either. Government hiring needs to be made truly competitive and fix USA Jobs and the corrupt practice of "posting" a government vacancy then hiring a republican or someone already known while making the process "Look" competitive. State Department is one of the biggies at this.
The General owes much to the neocons for his position. Unfortunately, the Obama Presidency kept alot of these guys around - then wonders why it gets stymied on key issues. Is it really that Petreaus 'gave away' Afghanistan to NeoCons? What about Iraq which also predated Petreaus? The Heritage Foundation was one source for vetting young neocons for powerful roles in the provisional government there and Heritage is a known chicken-hawk hideout, I mean bastion. Did the chicken hawks ever really have an Afghanistan to give away? Perhaps kabulstan but not sure about Afghanistan.
The role of the so-called think tanks in these two wars is actually very interesting and not sure there has been a truly academic review of the impact of these other sometimes uncredited Beltway bandits. State has a revolving door of them - it's hard for some to make an impact because the next egos that come along undo any efforts to make a good reform. Probably the only sign a reform should have come about - when your successor gets jealous and helps shelve it
The Republicans have not got much else to sink their teeth into, and beating dead horses seems to be one of their favoured tactics. Meanwhile, the real problems surrounding the Benghazi attack are getting buried again. If there is to be a real concern about Susan Rice it is that she is more a mouthpiece and not an active supporter of human rights. Once, she said she regretted failing to take an aggressive role protecting human rights during the Hutu-Tutsi ethnic cleansing and would not repeat that. What role has Ms. Rice played protecting human rights vis a vis Gazan civilians or Syria? It's a repeat of what sardonic foreign policy critics (remember those guys, lol??) termed the "duck policy" employed by the Clinton administration regarding ethnic cleansing of Bosnians. Anytime something important comes up, officials duck that moment
There's water and electricity running that frequently in Gaza that any cut off would have impact??? The Right once again outdoes itself in silly comments; funny how eerily similar it sounds to the malarkey our neocons blubber
It's probably more common than people realize for security agencies to get involved in these melodramas, especially office ones and for lower ranking people, not the 1% such as the circles these people now in the spotlight are, well -- good luck to you to clear your name. It doesnt take much for a spiteful supervisor or a jealous colleague to make false claims that can jeopardize a clearance. Woe to the lower ranking professional because it is not easy to clear one's record
Oh? Remember Benghazi? What about the higher up who denied funding for security for the post? If you see someone get cited, chances are you see a tip of the iceberg and a twisted story only for public consumption. No one higher than GS 13 ever gets held accountable, especially political appointees from the neo cons still in government and who are very interested in protecting their legacy, not their country, and still don't want dirt to be aired
It seems only part of the doctrine was somewhat achieved: take and clear (sort of). Hold and Build never got off the ground. The Build phase was so disastrous, it's a serious reason for our debt crisis - for several years, programs and government agency budgets were mined as part of the Afghanistan and Iraq "tax" as it was euphemistically called so that contractors would get that money and supposedly develop Iraq and Afghanistan, except that failed to happen. So all those funds taken over the course of several years could have built up much of the regions, not just two countries. Just down a black pit
It's a great shame that, once again, no foresight whatsoever is given to the welfare of people who try to work with our government officials in countries overseas. It underscores a question just how important is security if you can throw on the swords those that risk their lives to help.
The 'fortress mentality', 'us against them' is locked into the mindset of a number of people working in the bureacracy. This has been an issue for a long while now. Some foreign service complain about not getting outside the wire, but they dont complain too loudly for various reasons, including security and job-protection
I was one of two staff at State instrumental in re-openning the Fulbright scholars program in the West Bank for American professors and researchers. We went through big hoops to re-open the program after its being closed for years. There were some in the Fulbright/ECA bureaucracy who, ironically from our viewpoint, opposed its reopenning even though the Consulate had held meetings and *wanted* it re-openned. The 'us against them' mentality was a factor and challenge.
Payback was karma later when the two of us who advocated this and a Gaza-related program be kept open were thrown under the bus by the same folks who opposed bolstering programs in the West Bank and Gaza. I remember my colleagues words on the importance of 'competing for hearts and minds,' reiterating that great oft-quoted phrase we had heard our higher level officials bandy about, hoping that would appeal to a few minions of a political appointee, connected to those same higher level officials, yet who opposed bolstering these programs. We learned the hard way that Hamas was not the only danger.
If a bureaucracy can't deal with the everyday events that arise, how will it cope when more serious events erupt?
Government workers also cant advocate doing their job or they get an overly-broad interpretation reminder of the FLRA rule that a supervisor has a right to assign -- or withhold -- work from staff. At State, that means a person can become overnight a persona non grata, a hall-walker.
This has been a long-standing issue that predates this administration. But an issue of concern is that there are current officials who sweat profusely under the collar, if something arises that might become twistable-fodder for the neo-cons. Then the current officials not-so-admirably wear their fear on their sleeves and forget to do the right thing. Woe to lower-level professional staff, and i do emphasize the professionals here, because higher ups are never held accountable. One State employee had to request whistleblower protection when called to testify on his asking for more security during the Benghazi hearings. Isnt it a shame that an employee who did the right thing has to ask for such protections?
The 'intel services' of the 'other' groups would likely have been aware if just a couple of Americans with northern-virginia-style haircuts were posted where they themselves were operating and would shadow them, especially given the history of Libya's intelligence and how that worked. It's not clear how it could not be known something was going on at that post. On another blogsite, someone had posted chats of one of the men killed from his World of Warcraft account that someone shared with the US media, stating the Benghazi post was being watched, and Americans working there had seen people take photographs of the post. If that's true, it's disengenous for an official to claim a low-key presence was sought if it was known that wasnt going to happen. There are alot of issues predating this administration that were never appropriately addressed and problems have a tendency to manifest sooner or later
The problem when politicians wade into these sensitive matters that deserve more than 5 minutes of attention, is that compassion is utterly lacking. Since September 11th as the power struggles have grown, but the level of compassion has plummetted.
What gets lost in this debate is that quality of life *IS* a key part of being "pro-life" and the death penalty is anti-life. I am a traditional Catholic and have encountered cases of rape and attempted abduction in my family, so these issues have been contemplated. If one is going to play the Christian card, life doesnt end if one is fortunate to make it outside the womb. Such work isn't even 1/8 done.
We have too many children living in poverty in our country and that is wrong. Yet we see programs for education, food distribution, housing slashed. How can this be?? At one point, a stupid row recently ensued in Texas over Planned Parenthood's alleged role in health programs in that state, resulting in health programs being temporarily cut. Who suffered? Low income women and children. I may not agree with all of Planned Parenthood's programs but they do offer alot of services and the conduct of that campaign was just sheer vindictiveness.
The focus has been utterly lost on raising quality of life standards for all kids in our country and THAT needs to be put back on the table to be addressed because THAT is pro-life. It's also hypocritical to call for death penalty or punishment without a trial, or drone assassinations, and claim to be pro-life.
I scratch my head as to why this candidate from Indiana was sourcing the Sharia. On one hand, I am glad he was researching the Sharia. I hope he keeps researching and comes across the passage "لاَ إِكْرَاهَ فِي الدِّينِ" and, with extra effort, looks into sources written by American Muslim scholars on how this idea might have influenced Thomas Jefferson when he wrote our Constitution
The Canadian was ordered from the car, following his laughing at the agent's question regarding store destination. It's sad that one of the guards advised not to ask questions and says alot about our own civic education.
Once I was with a group of friends in Amman, Jordan, a mix of Americans, Brits, and Germans, and we were stopped by a plain-clothed Jordanian policeman who stated he was a policeman. One of my friends requested to see his id, and another friend nervously countered we shouldn't question the police. Interestingly, the policeman smiled wryly and said, no, one should always ask for id if stopped by police -- it was a right and don't take anything for granted.
The attitudes are stark and ironic, because you would think an officer trained in the US, not a kingdom, would hold such views, and it was a civic lesson
Joe, with all due respect most civilians killed by Al Qaeda have not been white and American but indigenous people. If you add the Taliban and other militant groups, the number increases further. If the New York Times or WaPo feel like reporting on a bombing in Iraq, it's always a nameless group of bystanders - majority of the time indigenous Iraqis. But often, the papers dont report these attacks, you'd have to read local media. And the Americans in Iraq are not there in civilian capacity are they? In citing the "humanitarian perspective" you are only including us, you forget the vast majority of affected folks -- those from the country. Why is that? Arent they people too? Is there no consideration the human toll on people who just happened by coincidence to be in the vicinity where the bomb or shooting takes place? You know, you can google "Iraqi" or "Afghan" newspapers come up with a list and read these - google also offers translation for newspapers in local languages. It's flawed but you can find insightful information
Medea Benjamin is arguing a different point than what you wrote, coming at it from the view "on the ground," from the perspective of the communities *receiving* the impact of drone technology. If you are saying "Blowback" is only relevant in the case of NOT taking action on supporters of "oppressive, undemocratic governments," well 'blowback' really has wider implications than being allowed for in the comment above, which is kinda selective in its application of what blowback is.
Is there no cause and reaction in the case of military or drone campaigns? Are people on the ground being supportive of receiving drone attacks? It might seem that way to us, tucked in the West ensconced in our easy chairs unawares because our media is too afraid to visit these communities, so news is cut off. But things fester, sometimes take time to boil over, and hopefully you dont have to run a war in a neighboring country needing the support of the other country where you are conducting strikes. In case you havent noticed, things suck relationship-wise at the state-to-state level between the Pakistanis and us. In addition, there is now an Al-qaeda in Iraq -- there wasn't before we invaded, Iran is enjoying an enhanced strategic position, and Afghanistan is a security black hole. Things are not going swimmingly well
What's also sad - at least the officer at State can request Whistleblower protection. If any agencies-that-can't-be-named were involved here, what happens to any of their people who may have done the right thing and also asked for more security? Whistleblower protections are really thin for employees in the intel agencies, because that was the deliberate idea. Please dont try the excuse no one has a crystal ball and could have foreseen the events -- known facts include the country had just experienced a revolutionary phase and approximately 200 serious security incidents occurred in June/July. I'd like to think buried in the other bureaucracy, if this is the case, there was another staff who felt security for the post was being risked
A little spiked kool aide might not be a bad idea, for recovery's sake. No, I am not laughing at the notion of "little blog site" or "elitist progressive liberals", not at all. Really. A State employee asked for more security. Apparently Ambassador Stevens or his staff did too. These requests were denied. Who denied them? Why? Who passed the misinformation up to the White House? If you think the President has his fingers in every single dark office in our far flung agencies, guess again. Even President Bush and Secretary Rice didnt know everything going on - including with the people they installed in federal service. I worked at State in an area headed up by neocons -- these guys had NO compunction serving up misinformation to their own bosses and lying when malarkey hit the fan, which it did owing to the lack of integrity and solid judgement often exercised. That's a dangerous mentality. If you cant serve your country without deceitful behavior, it's time to look for another job. That's NOT a protected category in government
There are quite a few problems with all this and sadly the real issue is not likely to be reformed.
1) The attack in Benghazi has been politicized and the claims coming from the right are pretty ironic given all the crying over security's importance. Massive amounts of money have been lost in the black holes known as Iraq and Afghanistan, with little where-with-all by the Tea Baggers to recoup that money and those two countries are not exactly the epitomies of security. The tolerance for the loss of all this massive amount of money during the last administration - notably to contracting companies including those off-shored - has fostered our own economic crisis and worsened political, military and economic security for us, for Iraq and Afghanistan. So of course it makes sense to cut security funding for our missions in post revolutionary Libya, especially when over 200 attack attempts were logged in June/July, yes?? Take that State with love from your fellow Tea Baggers
2) Dig into State's bureacracy - it's time. Our leadership was given misinformation and the way the system works - leadership thinks they are getting accurate information from supervisors and people moved into positions of responsibility. Clearly, that didnt happen here. People died - that shouldnt be lost here. One of the Department employees here asked for whistleblower status after being called to the hearings. Whistleblower status? The guy knows his job can be ruined even though he did the right thing and asked for more security. It's a shame he did not push the envelope and say "Something is seriously at risk, boss..." Unfortunately at State, too often employees are compelled to choose - do the right thing or save your job because the system there fails to protect the average employee. There is something very wrong if employees can't raise up issues of concern with their superiors for fear of retaliation, which is supposed to be illegal -- but is not. If he was foreign service, he could have used the dissent channel - but a) this is likely weak too and b) it does not apply to civil service. I am one of two employees at State who raised red flags of concern when during the Rice admin, my former office Fulbright wanted to cancel programs for Palestinian Gazans who were in the US that time on their grants. It would have meant stranding them indefinitely in a third country along with their minor age kids because they didnt have Israeli permission to cross the WB-Israel-Gaza corridor at a time when Pas Jerusalem was trying to get crossing permission during the early Gaza border crisis. I was accused of 'disloyalty' for notifying PAS and got the door. My local supervisor even had said i would not be able to work in my field. It hasnt been a picnic since then, but it was the right thing to do. This makes employees fear doing their jobs but at the end of the day, it's just you and your conscience. This guy shouldnt have to ask for whistleblower status - that's wrong. He shouldnt have to fear for his career when the fault lies with another who clearly hasnt got the integrity to do the right thing here. The system at State needs to be fixed
Um..is anyone under the illusion our folks in Islamabad would dare venture from behind plexiglass to assist Amcits in need, should anything occur??? Independent groups like Code Pink just don't get that level of support from us. It's kinda ironic referring to Code Pink as "this type" and infer they are without a clue - there are plenty of people associated in official capacities who somehow managed to secure a US government job yet havent got but the foggiest understanding about that region of the world. For example, some quarters of our government offices refer to Afghanistan as the Middle East. It isn't. Never was. Not likely to be except possibly via plate tectonics some day
Could it be a generational failing? The values and integrity are pretty lacking in successive degrees among the post war generations. There is also definitely a failing in the promotion systems in both the government and the military. All too often, articulation and so-called communicative skills are valued more than experience and real knowledge or grounding in a subject matter. Leadership is awarded on the basis of loyalty and saying what would please the boss. Plus contacts make a difference all too often, sad to say
Words and political pressure are not enough, yet that is all that seems to be offered by politicians in many countries.
Meanwhile, ignored socio-economic conditions excacerbate the classic tensions between the 'haves' and the ‘have-nots’ in the lower realm of societies. Who is scaling the walls of the diplomatic posts and actually carrying out attacks?? It's not the ever-lucky elites chosen for Fulbright programs or who get to attend Yale. In the US, the 'have nots' are a growing segment of US society; in the Middle East, they pretty much ARE society.
This is not 1979 and may not reach that level, depending on the country and the long-term horizon. Most of the places where the rioting has occurred as the articles of last couple of days point out have new governments at the helm, having inherited some deep "baggage" - something with which our own administration can empathize. And regardless of what side of the political street politicians stroll/court, they want to be supported by as much of the street to be able to keep power.
They have a couple of choices then: keep ignoring things and hope yet another conflagration goes away, or address socio-economic problems employing either the Shah of Iran too-little-too-late method or a more substantive, functional approach:
“…the task is, not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees.” Erwin Schrodinger
Our counterparts in the Middle East must do a better job addressing poverty and raising up the standard of well-being and education for those in the lower realm of society. Where available, social programs are often in the jurisdiction of religious institutions not the state per se -- an idea being promoted here in the US during the campaign season. Is it really a good idea to have a government disconnected from its society or vice versa?? Security measures, alone, are not sufficient to enable the new governments (including new governments with old faces) or ours to compete for ‘hearts and minds.’ Remember when that was a goal, since fallen victim to greed or politics, though not sure if it was ever really implemented. And here we are
I live in DC and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Senor actually crawled out from the bleak irony hole a few weeks back doing the speech circuit. It's not clear why Mr Senor is doing speeches. It's not like he has to worry about lawsuits being filed in Spain against former Bush officials -- our new administration has shielded the neocons from accountability.
Too many are perched at the State Department, evident with the sorry conducting of the Ukraine crisis. Mrs Clinton failed to reform State, instead opting to collect awards around the world promoting free speech, while signing approval at State for the NSA to spy on our EU allies and allowing neo-cons to root out whistleblowers at State. Due process? What could that be?
A few weeks back, Mrs Clinton clammed up during a speech she gave at George Washington University -- on freedom of speech of all things -- looking on as an anti-Iraq war protester (a senior citizen and veteran) was tackled by two (yeah it took two) security guards. All this guy did was stand during her 'talk' and be silent. For that he was injured. Apparently free speech doesnt apply at home, where it's gotten hard to distinguish from neo-cons and sell outs in the other party.
Unfortunately, the states in our deep south are known for corrupt practices and providing poor services to citizens, while exacting high taxes. Things will worsen following the crisis in Ukraine and fracking will also be ramped up. We should be worried that the NSA and other organizations of that nature may be used to spy on environmental and community activists. In Pennsylvania, the local media refuse to report on environmental pollution caused by industries such as fracking as these media are being pressured by local and corporate interests. Your government *not* at work for you
Dear Mr Parry - Thank for this excellent analysis and assessment. The Neo Cons, aka chicken hawks, are at it again. Ms Nuland should never have been promoted to top representative to the EU and someone needs to seriously clean out and reform 'A' Bureau at State, since Mrs Clinton steered clear of that mess in order to preserve her campaign prospects. Ms Nuland was PAO at the US embassy in Kazkahstan and would have had excellent contacts with US gas and oil companies.
Yet the other day, several American businesses with investments in Russia expressed concern per the Washington Post our politicians got too far ahead of themselves in this conflict and these businesses worried their investments could b jeopardized.
What's not clear is -- were the neo cons in belief that they could secure Ukraine's gas sector for their business associates or did they consider the possibility Crimea might break away and that Russia could shut the taps to western Ukraine? Or were they wanting to supply Europe with gas from elsewhere in the world, such as the US with the fracking taking place and don't really care if the Crimea splits off since that would play into their schemes?
There was a female VP in Iran - Massoumeh Ebteker
The Republicans know alot more about Benghazi and it's why they harp on it, using smoke and mirrors ploy. Mrs Clinton's big mistake was to not reform State and leave alot of neo con appointees in place. Victoria Nuland, our top diplomat to the EU caught on the phone cursing the EU, is a Cheney protege and was involved in trying to intimidate whistleblowers during the Benghazi affair
The neo cons are way worse but the Clinton team, if there is going to be a campaign, better clean up their act or they will be out early in primary season. Speeches alone don't suffice anymore nor do smoke and mirrors
Thank you, George. Hit that nail on the head. Also, Mrs Clinton not only stood by and allowed neo cons in the State Department to weed out whistleblowers, she personally signed off on permission for the NSA to spy on the EU. Recently, a vet who is also a senior citizen stood up at a speech she gave at GW university, silently but wearing an anti-Iraq war shirt -- she said nothing as two young security guys tackled him and injured him -- while she gave a speech on the need for freedom of speech of all things
And no sanctions over the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem or Gaza on the table either
To sum up, we here in the US are losing our homes in the mortgage crisis, jobs, unemployment benefits -- but workers for the NSA and agencies that cant be named get paid, with cushy benefits, to watch porn on the job.
Meanwhile, the Boston bombing occurs under the aegis of the same programs enabling porn-watching at work, though these are really (or ostensibly) supposed to monitor for terrorism being planned/staged.
And then our President covers for former NSA Chief Hayden, who gets caught on Amtrak giving an "anonymous" and "off the record" interview to a journalist, bashing our very President who is covering NSA senior officials' butts.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/24/former-nsa-chief-overhead-on-amtrak/3183045/
'Weird' is very diplomatic. How about 'terribly hypocritical?'
Congratulations to the guy who made this case. He should make a tee for all the whistleblowers who lost their jobs in the government because Judge Scalia interpreted the First Amendment does not apply to government employees acting in the course of their work
What is also frightening about the so-called 'Christian' zionists -- they believe it is necessary to spark armageddon that will kill people in order to bring about Judgement day. That's delusional and just another form of terrorism. It is also a rebuke to real Christianity. The so-called 'Christian' zionists don't care if Israel is blown up, it's just a vehicle for carrying out their agendas
The War in Afghanistan proved a beneficial cash cow to alot of our contracting companies, some of whom offshored themselves to other countries to shirk paying taxes to the very government that bestowed them such profitable contracts. In addition to a dreadful human cost, including what happened to Afghanis, this war and the Iraq war bankrupted our economy. Too many people in the system kept quiet for fear of their jobs. Anyone who excercised speaking out, was retaliated against. How many times we were told we 'went in' to defend 'freedoms' for Afghanis and Iraqis, meanwhile many of us could not excercise our own Constitutional rights. What a tragic irony
Oh? What purpose does banning fuel and energy (isnt it winter now??) and construction materials for Gazans?? How will that promote peace? Please, graduate to the 21st century. It's time for solutions
My last sentence above cites "both" reporters. It's pretty much an acknowledged fact about Ms Harris repeatedly trumping herself and there's not much more can add to that.
After writing my initial comment, I came across the original article on the controversy, where a Slate writer, Aisha Harris, recommended Santa be represented as African American.
First of all, why are grown ups arguing over a fictional character?
But on another level, what is wrong with having role models who are from diverse backgrounds and cultures? Do all our role models have to look just like we do? To subscribe only to role models who represent one's own ethnic or racial groups, is pretty narrow-minded. Both reporters are being silly and retreating to a mental enclave devoid from intricate and inter-linked realities.
The idea of what constitutes 'white' should be reformed. Within each racial group, there is great diversity. The problem is as Americans we want to know is it a or b, and whatever it is can only be selected from those two things. But life isnt simple. Among white racial groups there are blonds, redheads, brunettes and many shades of skin colouring.
That being said, it is Fox news where its reporters are (mostly) blond whites with a couple of blacks, and not much in between. The reporters often hail from regions of the US that are either geographically insular or socially hierarchically and rigidly structured. They also miss the spirit of what Christmas is all about -- brotherly love and sharing what you have with those who are without
The problem is - where does it stop? The sordid story keeps widening and widening. Worse, people who take an oath to uphold the Constitution sometimes express the laws of our country are too weak or bind their hands. Then they disregard these laws but they secured the job. Franklin or Jefferson said it - those who trade freedom for security deserve neither
Dear Professor Cole,
You may have seen this already but if not, there are links below to an American musician featured on the show "Arabs Got Talent" singing Um Kulthum. She doesnt know Arabic yet, but is a student of music and had studied with Simon Shaheen. She plays the oud too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82uGXgPFjvM
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/arts/music/jennifer-grout-sings-umm-kulthum-hits-on-arabs-got-talent.html?_r=0
Dear Professor Cole,
You may have seen this already but if not, there are links below to an American musician featured on the show "Arabs Got Talent" singing Um Kulthum. She doesnt know Arabic yet, but is a student of music and had studied with Simon Shaheen. She plays the oud too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82uGXgPFjvM
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/arts/music/jennifer-grout-sings-umm-kulthum-hits-on-arabs-got-talent.html?_r=0
"The decade-long Neoconservative plot to take the United States to war against Iran appears to have been foiled. "
Having worked for a Neo-Con and his minions, why do these words worry me? These guys have no appropriate morals or ethics and do whatever it takes to enrich their legacies. Somehow, they find ways to reassert themselves. Okay, never mind if their objective blows up or goes down in an amazing blaze of confusion and idiocy, but they still persevere and act like nothing went wrong
Is there a source for the comment that the CIA launches drones to purposefully kill first responders? That's a powerful claim.
Thanks
Hisham Fageeh's site is over 4 million views now; yesterday was about a million views
At least we have Netanyahu. Oh wait, so does Russia
*represent states that ....
Pfft...I expect NOTHING from the Tea Party. They support American businesses owners giving up their US citizenship so they can dodge paying taxes while collecting lucrative defense contracts for derelict programs in Afghanistan and Iraq, or to be able to dodge taxes while filing for Chinese permanent residency status to exploit cheap labour. You know sometimes workers are not even paid in Chinese factories, right?
Why would the Tea Party curb defense expenditures? Why are people who hate our government tripping over each other, killing people's careers, to run for the very offices they tell us again and again they loathe? Even Al Qaeda failed to shutdown our government operations. The Tea Party succeeded where Bin Ladin could not
If per capita incomes have fallen behind, its the failed policies of today's conservatives who care only about THEIR bank accounts. People who fall unemployed in this country are ridiculed by Tea Party sympathisers who claim to be Christian yet havent' an ounce of compassion or consideration for other human souls.
If your party has to write off millions of unemployed people as 'hopeless' or ignore their plight as the unemployed swell in our country, they need to disband. No one is going to vote for a political party that seeks their impoverishment, while they represent stats that SUCK a huge amount of aid from our federal government. Is it any irony many of the Tea Party representatives represent states that rank LAST in critical sectors of our nation?
When our president says there are 'internal' mechanisms for addressing serious issues, unfortunately these 'internal' mechanisms are broken. See something, say something, lose your job is the real reality.
The EEO and civil complaint process for civil service is utterly broken. Alot of attention has been paid to military and defense contractors, who do face an even worse battle, but do not think civil service is really any better off. It's not. These problems are the reason why people who raise allegations of sexual harrassment in the military have been drummed out of their jobs after going to HR offices. If the "internal" mechanisms cant manage the serious matters, how the heck are they doing with daily governance issues??
State's OIG released back in February or March, a report on Diplomatic Security in the spring that mentions, in the middle of the report, 'potential' for abuse because of the use of DS to settle what are HR issues at State.
It has happened (the OIG know it) where State employees suddenly had clearances pulled, without any notice, just because of a HR issue -- usually where the employee him or herself had filed a complaint involving local supervisors.
This in effect abrogates State employees' right to due process. No clearance, no job and no hearing that the employee had requested. This means no problem ever occurred except of course, the employee is declared deficient in their work per the official story
No surveillance agency should be used to settle government HR matters. Period
"One has to wonder what actually motivates a creature like Bashar Assad and the creatures he surrounds himself with or inherited…"
When it comes to political elites and those who wish to be in the ascendancy -- whether you are talking about Syria or Washington, DC -- it's about access to and control of resources, including financial, and the ability to exert authority and shape people's views
I think it speaks volumes the Obamacare site has been swamped. That, in an ordinarily boring democratic world would take the starch from the Republicans' argument, but the new guys who are in that party dont seem to respect rule of law at home and certainly not abroad.
That being said, I do wish the healthcare choices were more affordable. I might luck out, being a full time student but what about our countrymen and women for whom this would be a hardship? Our leaders can do a better job bringing those costs down. I wish we could emulate the Canadians or how the Scandinavians seem to do it. People say their taxes are higher but they are similar to ours - and there is more to show for it where even college is provided. If my taxes were kept the same level and there was better management of allocation of monies instead of going to some bureacrat's pocket, I'm all for that
Please spare me malarkey that is socialism. I lived in a socialist country before -- where people werent paid salaries though they worked, they had no recourse in the courts, they could be spied on by the police, and their politicians were corrupt. I would have to ask any neocon who tries the socialism argument --isnt that what your party has actually brought about?? How are you different? Where is the 'government is for the people, by the people'? We dont need a Dickensonian society
If it were any other administration than Mr Netanyahu, the arrival of aid into Gaza could be interpreted as a hopeful sign. Unfortunately, there is a cynical view that Hamas serves a useful purpose to Netanyahu's objectives in a most dysfunctional way
Hamas has suffered from similar problems affecting other 'islamist' administrations - squandering opportunities to better impact citizens' lives and failing to differentiate its governing style and ethos from those of administrations it's been critical of
" In the aftermath, the Israelis and the Bush administration decided it had been an error to let Hamas run (Bush hadn’t expected them to win)"
After the elections in which Hamas won, the Post or the Times quoted an advisor to Dr Rice expressing surprise over Hamas's election victory, claiming the Israelis hadnt advised them this could happen. It was definitely a face-palming moment. If the advisor to Dr Rice had only read the papers just to keep up to date on the region in his portfolio, there had been various polls leading up to the election claiming Mr Abbas's popularity was in single digit standing. But elections were in vogue then
Our superiors in the government are very keen to safeguard their legacies. Our President said there are alternate means to challenge issues, well, those 'alternate means' are broken. Our higher level officials have created a system where it is very difficult to foster reforms from within the system. Government employees are forced to choose -- your career or doing the right thing. Why?
In hindsight, a whistleblower is going to face the prospects you will be blacklisted in your field, have your career ruined, be portrayed as someone you wouldnt even recognize if you passed on the street. The most important thing is at the end of the day, it's just you and your conscience. If no one got hurt or killed on your watch or other serious consequences occurred, you have to remember that. People give their lives for our country, you gave your career and will be able to piece your world back together
If our officials cant reform the process for addressing serious matters, then go public. If they put their legacies ahead of our country, that's their conscience and time to inject accountability and hope this will fix the mechanisms inside the government for the better
With all due respect, Manning and Snowden were not "the first harbingers of whistleblowing." Their work is based on years of prior whistleblowers' work. Part of the problem is NGOs only pay attention to whistleblowing matters, and the most sensational ones, by people in defense and security or anyone associated with the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These are vital mattters. Absolutely, But -- unfortunately, there are whistleblowers in other sectors of the government, Their efforts may not seem 'sexy' enough to support but they have vital ramifications too. Being civil service in most cases, it doesnt fall onto the radar of NGOs who have limited funds. And our government officials thank you very much for missing important stories like this.
I myself engaged in a matter at State - even writing a detailed memo, going on record and sending it, and then alerted another office about a plan by my local superiors to cut the visas of Gazan Fulbrighters in the US on Fulbright educational grants and send them and their minor age kids to a third country where they could have languished indefinitely.
It also would have had blowback on the US Consulate who was working with Israel on trying to get special permission for these guys to cross the West Bank, not to mention my local officials didnt care about Israeli policy.
I had been told "no one cares" about what would happen to the Fulbrighters
Apparently that included my local superiors' superiors. When Secretary Condileeza Rice was contacted, she was definitely surprised by it all and my agency received stringent criticism worldwide in every major news source. If people only knew, it all could have been avoided. The story that made it to the media had alot of parts omitted. And that was the SECOND time the problem occurred.
There's no dissent channel at State for civil service employees. Heck, raise a matter of concern and watch your brilliant work history go up in smoke, awards be darned. I watched as my performance evaluations were abused, some I didnt receive, in the rush to show I was now a bad civil service staff. Unfortunately, drying up my portfolio meant my local superiors had to put effort into making up claims, some of which were ludicrous. A year of retaliation occurred between the first effort to cancel the Fulbright Gaza program and the second. I'm the person who alerted the officer in the Consulate about the exploitation of my work evaluations, shortly to the second program being canceled.
No government employee, in any sector of the government, should be retaliated against for doing their job. Often, it comes back to humiliate our big bosses the actions of local supervisors whose loyalty is to a paycheck and their own slimy legacy
Some interesting articles about pipe dreams in the region:
"The Geopolitics of Gas and the Syrian Crisis: Syrian Opposition "armed" to thwart Construction of Iran-Iraq-Syria Gas Pipeline" from:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-geopolitics-of-gas-and-the-syrian-crisis-syrian-opposition-armed-to-thwart-construction-of-iran-iraq-syria-gas-pipeline/5337452
"Israel License to Cheney-Linked Energy Firm in Occupied Golan Heights" from:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-war-on-syria-israeli-licence-to-cheney-linked-energy-firm-in-occupied-golan-heights/5324214
The chicken hawks will scavenge for a way. They would like the Qatar-Saudi Arabia-Jordan-Israel-Lebanon-Syria gas pipeline to get a green light. The irony is such a pipeline could contribute to security in the region, but as always, its the crazy way the Chicken hawks go about things. Their poorly made plans often negatively impact their own objectives. No, the public hasnt forgotten Yellow Cake or the Iraq "study" group malarkey. The chicken hawks are going to have to put effort into this one
Thank you, RBTL. An enlightened and important point. Back to school for me:)
"If the leaked translation of Atta’s invocation is correct, and the document is genuine, then the release of the missing page might help accentuate the sharp theological divide between puritanical Wahhabis and al-Qa’ida militants."
Unfortunately, that might mean less aid for the military-industrial complex George Washington tried to warn of. If the actual threat is less than the 'presented' threat, then less money is required for high-paying wages, lucrative lobby contracts, sale of equipment and weaponry to overseas countries, and the need for a surveillance state staffed with minders who cant speak Arabic or think the Constitution a quaint document that unfortunately gets in the way of administering the law. Its the new old 'welfare' state with the priorities for spending shifted to different sectors
Johns Hopkins and GW are well connected to the neo cons. Especially during the Bush-Cheney admin, there seemed preferential hiring of students from these universities' programs, including over at State
What are the advantages having a physically splintered Syria?
Soooo bombing, hitting and killing innocent people to retaliate for killing innocent people is gonna fix everything??
Let's be honest, 'smart' bombs arent and no one can control where these bombs will fall
*Two of the many negative results of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars ...
This is resembling more and more like American Idol-Syria Bombing Campaign edition. If a 'surgical' strike does occur, and as of today Congress is acting like it will support such a campaign, what will be the outcome? How can it be ASSURED innocent lives wont be lost? The point of the bombing is to protest the loss of innocent life but now you risk killing more innocent people to avenge the killing of the other innocent people??
Please, someone wear the grownup pants in our government offices.
Two of the many negative results (and I emphasize 'many') are the fact both the United Nations and the State Department have been turned into salaried paper-pushers. Why not let them do their job -- finally?? Don't underestimate the importance they could play. A bombing campaign is an old, tired Clinton and Bush tactic. You bomb, then what? You bomb again. Then what? And looking at Iraq and Afghanistan, we know how well THAT went.
Where are the results?? Diplomacy needs to be dusted off the shelf. There needs to be committed effort to end this problem in Syria
The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same. I remember a neo con-oriented Wall Street 'journalist' speaking at the 2002 Middle East Institute calling for bombing Syria
It would be nice if the State Department staff could be able to do their job - ie statecraft, rather than be reduced/restricted to public affairs work.
It's past time for that change and too irrestible to deviate from old formulas
The UK Guardian is reporting the Independent has released possibly classified information, citing it came to them courtesy Snowden. However, just today, Snowden stated he was not the source and that the UK government is the source of 'information':
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/uk-government-independent-military-base
The Guardian is supposedly teaming up too with the NY Times on coverage of the Snowden affair. That will be interesting, since the Times itself censors news topics especially on matters of whistleblowrs and national security
"And: Perhaps, the ‘handful of times’ the NSA has engaged in insider trading and affected stock movements
And: Perhaps, the handful of times the NSA has blackened the reputations of politicians it didn’t like"
Is there additional information about these kind of instances? We see our politicians engaging in these kind of actions all the time. Our courts dont help, in fact the justices obstruct, making reform a challenge. Thanks
@ Barry -
It's more impressive that the New York Times had solid sources. Frankly, that's a tactic, whipping up demonstrators, that has been used for eons in demonstrations in the Mid East. It's not anything new. If the NY Times tried to make it seem a scoop, that would be disengenous but not surprising
For some reason, every Palestinian-Israeli negotiation (attempt) follows the same formula: free prisoners and authorize more settlements. Why do "peace" talks have to begin this way??
*liked
An 'understanding' is a good way to put it. Papers like the Washington Post and NY Times have excellent 'understandings' with some of our officials in government, including refusing to publish information about whistleblowers.
The Lady case also highlights another problem in our system -- if you are like, your illegalities will be overlooked and escape punishment, and if you embarass any powerful person then you will be punished to the fullest extent of the law
That Michelle Bachman is on the House Intelligence Committee is a sign of how deep the rot is in our system. The idea of Secret Courts in our system is a disgrace. If Bachman and company think secret courts shall operate indefinitely, they are in for a great surprise. It's a matter of time
It felt like Kim Kardashian articles were ramped up during the Snowden incident
I think the coup was not quite the surprise to our elected officials. If I remember right, neither was the 1956 coup. Its history redux in some ways. Or, the more things change the more they stay the same lol. It is probably better intel than the silliness with the Bolivian president's flight
"Private Sector'contractors are used because its believed they cant be held accountable to local or our laws. This is partly why Rumsfeld expanded enormously the use of private contractors in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Also, too there was alot of lobbying because hey its a verra profitable business and during the Bush administration, a law was passed that said contractors not based in the US could receive USG money and a number offshored themselves to avoid paying US taxes.
Dr Peter Ludlow, who is a professor at Northwestern and making a documentary on hacking, had a guest blog at the NY Times recently. He cites the problem of private sector intel companies and mentions how for years not only have they spied on US citizens, they have been involved in deliberately fabricating information on social activist groups to discredit them. The link to the piece he wrote is below.
Unfortunately, alot of our newspapers are are just arms of the official public affairs machinery. The NY TImes and Washington Post not only deliberately NOT publish information on other whistleblower cases to not offend whatever administration is in power, they coordinate the editorials and articles with the white house public affairs office. Notice all the similar commentaries and articles in regard to the Snowden affair??
It's good to pay attention too to events in the UK - some people might be familiar with the case of Milly Dowler, the murder victim in the UK whose phone was hacked by a Rupert Murdoch-owened paper, News of the World, and her voice mail messages erased. If i remember right - please someone correct me if this is not so - i think some law enforcement were involved either in this case or other cases, taking bribe money relating to feature stories the 'journalists' of the News of the world were investigating. That is just one case that made it in the media and a number of british celebrities like Hugh Grant have sued believing they were the victims of unauthorized eavesdropping by this paper
1.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/the-real-war-on-reality/
2.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2064516/Milly-Dowlers-mother-reveals-phone-hacking-gave-false-hope-Leveson-Inquiry.html
Dear JGala and Rich,
Thank you for the link to the street celebrations.
Rich, If you havent already heard Abdel Halim Hafez's song, qiraat al finjan, there are a number of videos of him singing it on Youtube. It is one of the top and most famous songs in all Middle Eastern music.
The link below is to a short version, lol 15 minutes, but with english subtitles. Alot of the video clips are about an hour.
some of the searches spell it qiriat al finjan or fingan. hope you enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrfXWo6ML8E
It is vital employees of government agencies and contractors in the intel field are given whistleblower protections too. Dont get me wrong, the whistleblower process is fraught with too many problems and politics and is very weak, as is the system supposedly in place to protect employees from retaliation. Let's be honest. It is broken. Yet, as problematic as it is, whistleblower protections should encompass this critical area of the government workforce has vastly expanded since 9/11
Wasnt Hammurabi's Code kept here at one time?
If whistleblowers are harshly dealt with, initially people cower, afraid. The people who retaliate feel they are protected (mis)using the system. That's the mentality behind this unfortunately.
But with this continuation and widening of the net, cannot go on endlessly. It results in people feeling they can speak freely, they've past that red line, survived the loss and learned the sun will still rise. Mahmood Darwish said hope is an incurable malady. It's all you need. Then you will know justice, along with fixing the record, is important. People give their lives for our Constitutional rights, why not give our jobs? When you've lost so much, speaking out is all that is left. Even David persevered against Goliath
Is it known what was in the Ottoman records that miraculously survived? Will there be efforts to either put records online or copy them in some way, providing copies to any universities?
Thank you for the photos
i could be wrong but every post is supposed to have evacuation plans or something along those lines. One would think that a search and rescue team had already done the practicing for the 'what if' scenario as well. It's not like there wasnt unrest in Libya before this and things happened out of the blue.
There are regional jurisdictions and in addition there are bureaucratic jurisdictions, and it sounds like bureacracy was the problem in securing interagency help, not material things or planning. There are thousands of planning committes in the government, who came through?? Maybe diplomats and US personnel should be informed ahead of time if anything goes wrong, sorry you are on your own. That would be harsh. I dont understand why ex Secretary Gates says knowledge of the environment is required. What has everyone been doing the past several years in the Middle East?? There are many jobs for mapping and geospatial portfolios, among other kinds.
There are efforts now to claim supplies for fueling or whatever were not at hand for a rescue plane to fly from italy. Well, our country is not an island. The US bureaucrats should pick up a phone and started working it, including asking the Italians for material cooperation (ie we will compensate you later for the fuel) even if behind the scenes, given this crisis involved Libya and the Italians and Libyans have a different relationship than we do.
I'm sorry for the diplomat who called for a rescue plane and was declined. There was a report that two planes eventually were sent, because the first one didnt have the capacity to pick up everyone. That diplomat is off the hook, he did follow procedure it sounds like. He was retaliated against ironically by higher ups in State who've been there too long and are used to using dirty tactics.
I dont agree with blaming Clinton, the problem predates her tenure. As Secretary though, there is culpability for not reforming the process but then who knows, too often the higher ups in the bureaucracies report only butterflies and daisies to their big bosses so how could Clinton have an accurate view of things? In addition, there is a tendency for some of the higher ups to stifle the other ranks so serious matters are not brought to the Secretary's attention. The problem lies deeper in the ranks but thanks to the smoke and mirrors campaign, things will be allowed to fester at State and the wrong heads will roll
Supposedly the post was to have been an unobtrusive one but there may be some contracting politics involved here too - would be interesting to see the correspendance - did the contractor they were using claim at any time they had things under control, if so could be a case of greed as well because the contractors make soo much money off this whole thing. The idea of contracting out the government to save money should be on the hot seat cause it's a huge wasteful ripoff of the american taxpayer.
It was claimed it was supposed to have been a secret post there but it sounds like it was a big open secret and the post was under surveillence. I am not sure who would claim that post could be a secret operation - hey it is libya lol. There is a history of government intelligence networks in country.
There have been a couple of articles in the Post over some months, about the militarization of the CIA. It is bound to happen because the hiring processes emphasize jobs for recent veterans and thus there is a cultural aspect and Petreaus led it for a few years
Republican 'skazkii' would be a good title too. Should also include the moment in the early debriefings had to be halted because one of the Republican senators inadvertently divulged CIA involvement and Victoria Nuland got antsy, not wanting to be led down a garden path.
The other aspect too, some of the people involved in the incident and making bad decisions were likely republican as well, so cant pin all the tail on the democrats. There are alot of former Bush-Cheney people in the hierarchy at State. These incidents where information has to be changed and covered up brings out their special 'skills'.
What's sad is that the real problems will be buried in this smoke and mirrors campaign covering for one or more party's presidential ambitions.
It's disgraceful the level of in-bureaucracy retaliation that occurred, including how Stevens was treated. During the brief 'matyr' phase of Steven's death, he was presented by State officials as a golden boy sent to Libya. Then as the situation took a dark turn, attempts were made to pin the tail on him since he couldnt defend himself being dead. That had to stop when his diary was found in the rubble and he had written even his own request for more security had been denied. An agency should not do that to their own.
Then there was wrangling over stupid 'talking points' to include or exclude so the bureaucracy looked good, as if no one had died. On the plus side, the talking points made an impact lol and everyone is trying to talk about them.
The CIA behaved shamefully too, throwing State under the bus, and I still do not understand who in the Defense department refused to send a rescue plane in. Why refuse your own countrymen??? How officials rise to the top in bureaucracies, and the promotion and firing processes should be reformed. These institutions are firing people for doing their jobs and promoting the most obsequious and overly ambitious who care only to protect their jobs and not about their country.
We used to have far more expert professionals in government affairs and there used to be stronger collaboration across party lines. My uncle was a former head of the MFO agency, a democrat, hired by Bush senior's representatives, and political affiliation was not an issue. You did your job. But the system has been too manipulated by current political interests and needs reform-- badly. Of course, that is not so sexy a notion for the current hearing
Love that when information is classified 'retroactively.' That is an immediate sign a fishing expedition is about to commence, albeit a very long and bureaucratic and unsavory one.
The internal mechanisms for seeking redress are a fail and unfortunately would be whistleblowers have to rely on the court system. If they happen to live in a state where there is a congressional office that is proactive and responsive to their constituents, that is a key resource for a fed employee in a tough situation.
The current system protects the higher up. People ask why sexual harassment is such a problem in the military - in the government system the mechanisms for dealing with lower level issues are broken, so how can it be expected the system will be responsive to extremely serious matters? Too often, the employee who raises a concern -- gets blamed for committing the very thing they raised. Who wants to experience that???
God bless Robert Fisk. What a great person
Would be interesting to know which region of the US ranks highest with infant mortality. I can probably guess, at the risk of being called a northeast elitist.
Ok, heck, is it Texas and Florida where there is more anti-government sentiment and healthcare fraud by institutions with continual cutting of support for the large amount of poor in these states?
* correction -" *T*he discourse of most important topics...", sans 'Not to'
There's also the issue of how many so-called journalists are really 'bought' men and women, mouthpieces of a particular ideology who fail to provide objective, factual and truthful information. Somehow, public affairs has replaced real journalism. Not to the discourse of most important topics in this country are too often 'dumbed-down.' Sometimes the liberals in 'journalism' are guilty of the same or worse, opting to be quiet on matters key to this country precisely when we need them to lift their voices
We'll know if influential gay Republicans acted behind the scenes if Ferguson begins toting the graces of gay economists, albeit conservative ones. That frankly would not cheer me more because it would still be a disservice to addressing our country's most pressing issues
It was very interesting how quick the Post and Daily News were putting forth photos of what were presented as likely suspects. Do these papers have their own face-imaging technology in-house?
With all due respect, many of the Arab nationalists were Christian. They promoted a secular kind of Arab nationalism. Please visit the real history of the Middle East
Religious fanaticism, catch the wave. (Same old) Choice of a new generation?
Sadly, our country has also been at risk. Not long ago, I was in Leavenworth, KS (on the outside lol) and saw an ad that took my breath away - it was for Christians for guns. Posted on the window of a trendy-looking cafe near the center of town.
How much does a so-called condolence payment amount to that's being dispensed in pakistan, yemen and other countries?
Two years ago, the Washington Post published a couple of articles on the Bagram-Kandahar highway problem concerning our convoys paying bribes to the Taliban to be able to pass through, bringing supplies into Afghanistan. Then the series died. This past spring, the Washington Post published an article about a USAID contractor accused of taking USAID money meant for projects in Afghanistan. How long was that article in the Post? One evening. It went in then was suddenly pulled from the Post and no additional articles appeared. Why was that? The Post never published an apology for this. When it matters most, the State Department gets a light hand from the media and as a result, the serious problems do not get resolved. *If* matters come to a head, count on either a "lower-level functionaire" to be scapegoated while the responsible parties get a promotion, or in the case of Benghazi, count on the responsible parties to keep their jobs at State. For instance, the head of Diplomatic Security was supposed to have resigned. He hasnt. He signed off on a recent OIG report that investigated what needed to be improved in DS following the Benghazi 'incident'. Isnt that a conflict of interest? There are too many conflicts of interest in the government agencies directly involved in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Banking Scandal should have raised flags from the get-go. It was a project that should have been managed much differently and clearly there was no supervision considering the duration and how much money was lost. Ask any peace corps volunteer who had worked anywhere in Central Asia, and the scandal that occured at the Bank follows familiar patterns and the issue of syphoning off salaries for state employees is a familiar story. Unfortunately at State during the Bush-Cheney era, very few people with Centrali Asia experience were placed in Afghanistan jobs. In certain cases, people were passed by if they had area-knowledge because Neocons embedded at State did not want such people on the ground. Projects had to be approved, no matter what, and discretion and feasibility tests were sacrificed as well. Scandals take time to cultivate, they don't happen overnight and this was some years in the making, but due to the glasnost in President Obama's second term, only some of the problems are being aired, slowly.
Under Pope Benedict, the American Catholic Church (if i can generalize) drifted further from Rome. I remember Pope John Paul II issuing guidance that American Catholics were NOT supposed to vote for any so-called Christian fundamentalists or right like Ralph Reed and the Christian Coalition. During Pope Benedict's time, it seems no guidance stemming any rightwood drift was addressed as Pope John Paul II had tried.
In two weeks' time, Pope Francis has moved to address a lot of issues, alot of heady issues that fell off the radar obscured by the last eleven years of military-security and terrorism issues. Meanwhile, the bottom part of our societies sinks lower and lower. The video embedded here the other day on the sinking of the middle and lower classes in this society alone is a scary reality, albeit obscured one too. What will be interesting is to see what key issues will emerge front and center on the Vatican's agenda. It's only been two weeks' time but it's been a refreshing two weeks' time as far as what has happened so far
And how is Gaza supposed to take over Israel?? I'd like to hear this. With what, please elaborate. How many times has Gaza taken over Israel and how many times has Israel/the IDF overrun Gaza?
Turkey's Hurriyet Newspaper is today citing an Agence France-Presse article that PM Erdogan has announced he plans to visit Gaza and the West Bank and work on lifting the embargo of Gaza:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/israel-turkey-detente-vital-for-mideast-peace-kerry.aspx?pageID=238&nID=43515&NewsCatID=359
Another reason, we need a voice of logic in the upper echelons. Having Hagel AND Kerry at the helms is very hopeful. I hope Secretary Kerry can reform the management system at State and protect whistleblowers. History has proved Hagel correct but there are so many overly-ambitious sorts and people who have no integrity who rose up in positions that had no business being there. Those people have come to make the bad decisions and that's another reason why reform is needed in both bureacracies
For those of us who still remember the craziness and poor leadership of the minions brought in by the Bush-Cheney admin, these baby steps are needed but much more has to be done. The Obama Admin needs to stop letting the chicken hawks call the shots on security issues and needs to be far more supportive of government whistleblowers - both civil service and those who are contracting or working as civil on the Military and Intel side. We need better government accountability - not protection for those abusers from the Bush-Cheney era still holding onto their government jobs. There were good people brought in, but alot also who didnt deserve it either. Government hiring needs to be made truly competitive and fix USA Jobs and the corrupt practice of "posting" a government vacancy then hiring a republican or someone already known while making the process "Look" competitive. State Department is one of the biggies at this.
The General owes much to the neocons for his position. Unfortunately, the Obama Presidency kept alot of these guys around - then wonders why it gets stymied on key issues. Is it really that Petreaus 'gave away' Afghanistan to NeoCons? What about Iraq which also predated Petreaus? The Heritage Foundation was one source for vetting young neocons for powerful roles in the provisional government there and Heritage is a known chicken-hawk hideout, I mean bastion. Did the chicken hawks ever really have an Afghanistan to give away? Perhaps kabulstan but not sure about Afghanistan.
The role of the so-called think tanks in these two wars is actually very interesting and not sure there has been a truly academic review of the impact of these other sometimes uncredited Beltway bandits. State has a revolving door of them - it's hard for some to make an impact because the next egos that come along undo any efforts to make a good reform. Probably the only sign a reform should have come about - when your successor gets jealous and helps shelve it
The Republicans have not got much else to sink their teeth into, and beating dead horses seems to be one of their favoured tactics. Meanwhile, the real problems surrounding the Benghazi attack are getting buried again. If there is to be a real concern about Susan Rice it is that she is more a mouthpiece and not an active supporter of human rights. Once, she said she regretted failing to take an aggressive role protecting human rights during the Hutu-Tutsi ethnic cleansing and would not repeat that. What role has Ms. Rice played protecting human rights vis a vis Gazan civilians or Syria? It's a repeat of what sardonic foreign policy critics (remember those guys, lol??) termed the "duck policy" employed by the Clinton administration regarding ethnic cleansing of Bosnians. Anytime something important comes up, officials duck that moment
There's water and electricity running that frequently in Gaza that any cut off would have impact??? The Right once again outdoes itself in silly comments; funny how eerily similar it sounds to the malarkey our neocons blubber
It's probably more common than people realize for security agencies to get involved in these melodramas, especially office ones and for lower ranking people, not the 1% such as the circles these people now in the spotlight are, well -- good luck to you to clear your name. It doesnt take much for a spiteful supervisor or a jealous colleague to make false claims that can jeopardize a clearance. Woe to the lower ranking professional because it is not easy to clear one's record
Oh? Remember Benghazi? What about the higher up who denied funding for security for the post? If you see someone get cited, chances are you see a tip of the iceberg and a twisted story only for public consumption. No one higher than GS 13 ever gets held accountable, especially political appointees from the neo cons still in government and who are very interested in protecting their legacy, not their country, and still don't want dirt to be aired
It seems only part of the doctrine was somewhat achieved: take and clear (sort of). Hold and Build never got off the ground. The Build phase was so disastrous, it's a serious reason for our debt crisis - for several years, programs and government agency budgets were mined as part of the Afghanistan and Iraq "tax" as it was euphemistically called so that contractors would get that money and supposedly develop Iraq and Afghanistan, except that failed to happen. So all those funds taken over the course of several years could have built up much of the regions, not just two countries. Just down a black pit
Definitely, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is likely to heat up
Correction: Chats from Eveonline, not WoW, were shared with the media
It's a great shame that, once again, no foresight whatsoever is given to the welfare of people who try to work with our government officials in countries overseas. It underscores a question just how important is security if you can throw on the swords those that risk their lives to help.
The 'fortress mentality', 'us against them' is locked into the mindset of a number of people working in the bureacracy. This has been an issue for a long while now. Some foreign service complain about not getting outside the wire, but they dont complain too loudly for various reasons, including security and job-protection
I was one of two staff at State instrumental in re-openning the Fulbright scholars program in the West Bank for American professors and researchers. We went through big hoops to re-open the program after its being closed for years. There were some in the Fulbright/ECA bureaucracy who, ironically from our viewpoint, opposed its reopenning even though the Consulate had held meetings and *wanted* it re-openned. The 'us against them' mentality was a factor and challenge.
Payback was karma later when the two of us who advocated this and a Gaza-related program be kept open were thrown under the bus by the same folks who opposed bolstering programs in the West Bank and Gaza. I remember my colleagues words on the importance of 'competing for hearts and minds,' reiterating that great oft-quoted phrase we had heard our higher level officials bandy about, hoping that would appeal to a few minions of a political appointee, connected to those same higher level officials, yet who opposed bolstering these programs. We learned the hard way that Hamas was not the only danger.
If a bureaucracy can't deal with the everyday events that arise, how will it cope when more serious events erupt?
Government workers also cant advocate doing their job or they get an overly-broad interpretation reminder of the FLRA rule that a supervisor has a right to assign -- or withhold -- work from staff. At State, that means a person can become overnight a persona non grata, a hall-walker.
This has been a long-standing issue that predates this administration. But an issue of concern is that there are current officials who sweat profusely under the collar, if something arises that might become twistable-fodder for the neo-cons. Then the current officials not-so-admirably wear their fear on their sleeves and forget to do the right thing. Woe to lower-level professional staff, and i do emphasize the professionals here, because higher ups are never held accountable. One State employee had to request whistleblower protection when called to testify on his asking for more security during the Benghazi hearings. Isnt it a shame that an employee who did the right thing has to ask for such protections?
The 'intel services' of the 'other' groups would likely have been aware if just a couple of Americans with northern-virginia-style haircuts were posted where they themselves were operating and would shadow them, especially given the history of Libya's intelligence and how that worked. It's not clear how it could not be known something was going on at that post. On another blogsite, someone had posted chats of one of the men killed from his World of Warcraft account that someone shared with the US media, stating the Benghazi post was being watched, and Americans working there had seen people take photographs of the post. If that's true, it's disengenous for an official to claim a low-key presence was sought if it was known that wasnt going to happen. There are alot of issues predating this administration that were never appropriately addressed and problems have a tendency to manifest sooner or later
The problem when politicians wade into these sensitive matters that deserve more than 5 minutes of attention, is that compassion is utterly lacking. Since September 11th as the power struggles have grown, but the level of compassion has plummetted.
What gets lost in this debate is that quality of life *IS* a key part of being "pro-life" and the death penalty is anti-life. I am a traditional Catholic and have encountered cases of rape and attempted abduction in my family, so these issues have been contemplated. If one is going to play the Christian card, life doesnt end if one is fortunate to make it outside the womb. Such work isn't even 1/8 done.
We have too many children living in poverty in our country and that is wrong. Yet we see programs for education, food distribution, housing slashed. How can this be?? At one point, a stupid row recently ensued in Texas over Planned Parenthood's alleged role in health programs in that state, resulting in health programs being temporarily cut. Who suffered? Low income women and children. I may not agree with all of Planned Parenthood's programs but they do offer alot of services and the conduct of that campaign was just sheer vindictiveness.
The focus has been utterly lost on raising quality of life standards for all kids in our country and THAT needs to be put back on the table to be addressed because THAT is pro-life. It's also hypocritical to call for death penalty or punishment without a trial, or drone assassinations, and claim to be pro-life.
I scratch my head as to why this candidate from Indiana was sourcing the Sharia. On one hand, I am glad he was researching the Sharia. I hope he keeps researching and comes across the passage "لاَ إِكْرَاهَ فِي الدِّينِ" and, with extra effort, looks into sources written by American Muslim scholars on how this idea might have influenced Thomas Jefferson when he wrote our Constitution
*oops - enjoyed the caricatures of New Yorkers...
As a native New Yorker, I thoroughly enjoyed the characters of New Yorkers asking questions. I almost didn't recognize Tom Hanks
Dr Cole - would it be possible to know what is the date on that cable? Thanks
The Canadian was ordered from the car, following his laughing at the agent's question regarding store destination. It's sad that one of the guards advised not to ask questions and says alot about our own civic education.
Once I was with a group of friends in Amman, Jordan, a mix of Americans, Brits, and Germans, and we were stopped by a plain-clothed Jordanian policeman who stated he was a policeman. One of my friends requested to see his id, and another friend nervously countered we shouldn't question the police. Interestingly, the policeman smiled wryly and said, no, one should always ask for id if stopped by police -- it was a right and don't take anything for granted.
The attitudes are stark and ironic, because you would think an officer trained in the US, not a kingdom, would hold such views, and it was a civic lesson
Joe, with all due respect most civilians killed by Al Qaeda have not been white and American but indigenous people. If you add the Taliban and other militant groups, the number increases further. If the New York Times or WaPo feel like reporting on a bombing in Iraq, it's always a nameless group of bystanders - majority of the time indigenous Iraqis. But often, the papers dont report these attacks, you'd have to read local media. And the Americans in Iraq are not there in civilian capacity are they? In citing the "humanitarian perspective" you are only including us, you forget the vast majority of affected folks -- those from the country. Why is that? Arent they people too? Is there no consideration the human toll on people who just happened by coincidence to be in the vicinity where the bomb or shooting takes place? You know, you can google "Iraqi" or "Afghan" newspapers come up with a list and read these - google also offers translation for newspapers in local languages. It's flawed but you can find insightful information
*our economic crisis worsens further
There is another scenario -- our treasury is further drained, our economic crisis and we wind up in recession for decades like the British after WWI
Medea Benjamin is arguing a different point than what you wrote, coming at it from the view "on the ground," from the perspective of the communities *receiving* the impact of drone technology. If you are saying "Blowback" is only relevant in the case of NOT taking action on supporters of "oppressive, undemocratic governments," well 'blowback' really has wider implications than being allowed for in the comment above, which is kinda selective in its application of what blowback is.
Is there no cause and reaction in the case of military or drone campaigns? Are people on the ground being supportive of receiving drone attacks? It might seem that way to us, tucked in the West ensconced in our easy chairs unawares because our media is too afraid to visit these communities, so news is cut off. But things fester, sometimes take time to boil over, and hopefully you dont have to run a war in a neighboring country needing the support of the other country where you are conducting strikes. In case you havent noticed, things suck relationship-wise at the state-to-state level between the Pakistanis and us. In addition, there is now an Al-qaeda in Iraq -- there wasn't before we invaded, Iran is enjoying an enhanced strategic position, and Afghanistan is a security black hole. Things are not going swimmingly well
What's also sad - at least the officer at State can request Whistleblower protection. If any agencies-that-can't-be-named were involved here, what happens to any of their people who may have done the right thing and also asked for more security? Whistleblower protections are really thin for employees in the intel agencies, because that was the deliberate idea. Please dont try the excuse no one has a crystal ball and could have foreseen the events -- known facts include the country had just experienced a revolutionary phase and approximately 200 serious security incidents occurred in June/July. I'd like to think buried in the other bureaucracy, if this is the case, there was another staff who felt security for the post was being risked
A little spiked kool aide might not be a bad idea, for recovery's sake. No, I am not laughing at the notion of "little blog site" or "elitist progressive liberals", not at all. Really. A State employee asked for more security. Apparently Ambassador Stevens or his staff did too. These requests were denied. Who denied them? Why? Who passed the misinformation up to the White House? If you think the President has his fingers in every single dark office in our far flung agencies, guess again. Even President Bush and Secretary Rice didnt know everything going on - including with the people they installed in federal service. I worked at State in an area headed up by neocons -- these guys had NO compunction serving up misinformation to their own bosses and lying when malarkey hit the fan, which it did owing to the lack of integrity and solid judgement often exercised. That's a dangerous mentality. If you cant serve your country without deceitful behavior, it's time to look for another job. That's NOT a protected category in government
There are quite a few problems with all this and sadly the real issue is not likely to be reformed.
1) The attack in Benghazi has been politicized and the claims coming from the right are pretty ironic given all the crying over security's importance. Massive amounts of money have been lost in the black holes known as Iraq and Afghanistan, with little where-with-all by the Tea Baggers to recoup that money and those two countries are not exactly the epitomies of security. The tolerance for the loss of all this massive amount of money during the last administration - notably to contracting companies including those off-shored - has fostered our own economic crisis and worsened political, military and economic security for us, for Iraq and Afghanistan. So of course it makes sense to cut security funding for our missions in post revolutionary Libya, especially when over 200 attack attempts were logged in June/July, yes?? Take that State with love from your fellow Tea Baggers
2) Dig into State's bureacracy - it's time. Our leadership was given misinformation and the way the system works - leadership thinks they are getting accurate information from supervisors and people moved into positions of responsibility. Clearly, that didnt happen here. People died - that shouldnt be lost here. One of the Department employees here asked for whistleblower status after being called to the hearings. Whistleblower status? The guy knows his job can be ruined even though he did the right thing and asked for more security. It's a shame he did not push the envelope and say "Something is seriously at risk, boss..." Unfortunately at State, too often employees are compelled to choose - do the right thing or save your job because the system there fails to protect the average employee. There is something very wrong if employees can't raise up issues of concern with their superiors for fear of retaliation, which is supposed to be illegal -- but is not. If he was foreign service, he could have used the dissent channel - but a) this is likely weak too and b) it does not apply to civil service. I am one of two employees at State who raised red flags of concern when during the Rice admin, my former office Fulbright wanted to cancel programs for Palestinian Gazans who were in the US that time on their grants. It would have meant stranding them indefinitely in a third country along with their minor age kids because they didnt have Israeli permission to cross the WB-Israel-Gaza corridor at a time when Pas Jerusalem was trying to get crossing permission during the early Gaza border crisis. I was accused of 'disloyalty' for notifying PAS and got the door. My local supervisor even had said i would not be able to work in my field. It hasnt been a picnic since then, but it was the right thing to do. This makes employees fear doing their jobs but at the end of the day, it's just you and your conscience. This guy shouldnt have to ask for whistleblower status - that's wrong. He shouldnt have to fear for his career when the fault lies with another who clearly hasnt got the integrity to do the right thing here. The system at State needs to be fixed
Um..is anyone under the illusion our folks in Islamabad would dare venture from behind plexiglass to assist Amcits in need, should anything occur??? Independent groups like Code Pink just don't get that level of support from us. It's kinda ironic referring to Code Pink as "this type" and infer they are without a clue - there are plenty of people associated in official capacities who somehow managed to secure a US government job yet havent got but the foggiest understanding about that region of the world. For example, some quarters of our government offices refer to Afghanistan as the Middle East. It isn't. Never was. Not likely to be except possibly via plate tectonics some day
Could it be a generational failing? The values and integrity are pretty lacking in successive degrees among the post war generations. There is also definitely a failing in the promotion systems in both the government and the military. All too often, articulation and so-called communicative skills are valued more than experience and real knowledge or grounding in a subject matter. Leadership is awarded on the basis of loyalty and saying what would please the boss. Plus contacts make a difference all too often, sad to say
Words and political pressure are not enough, yet that is all that seems to be offered by politicians in many countries.
Meanwhile, ignored socio-economic conditions excacerbate the classic tensions between the 'haves' and the ‘have-nots’ in the lower realm of societies. Who is scaling the walls of the diplomatic posts and actually carrying out attacks?? It's not the ever-lucky elites chosen for Fulbright programs or who get to attend Yale. In the US, the 'have nots' are a growing segment of US society; in the Middle East, they pretty much ARE society.
This is not 1979 and may not reach that level, depending on the country and the long-term horizon. Most of the places where the rioting has occurred as the articles of last couple of days point out have new governments at the helm, having inherited some deep "baggage" - something with which our own administration can empathize. And regardless of what side of the political street politicians stroll/court, they want to be supported by as much of the street to be able to keep power.
They have a couple of choices then: keep ignoring things and hope yet another conflagration goes away, or address socio-economic problems employing either the Shah of Iran too-little-too-late method or a more substantive, functional approach:
“…the task is, not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees.” Erwin Schrodinger
Our counterparts in the Middle East must do a better job addressing poverty and raising up the standard of well-being and education for those in the lower realm of society. Where available, social programs are often in the jurisdiction of religious institutions not the state per se -- an idea being promoted here in the US during the campaign season. Is it really a good idea to have a government disconnected from its society or vice versa?? Security measures, alone, are not sufficient to enable the new governments (including new governments with old faces) or ours to compete for ‘hearts and minds.’ Remember when that was a goal, since fallen victim to greed or politics, though not sure if it was ever really implemented. And here we are