Dick Cheney's fantasy war New revelations about the Bush administration's secret post-9/11 anti-terror operations demand a full investigation Comments (50)     John McQuaid guardian.co.uk, Monday 13 July 2009 22.00 BST Article history
When the 2007 film The Bourne Ultimatum debuted, in the twilight of the Bush administration, critics viewed its plot as a metaphor for post-9/11 America's excesses. The movie features a CIA deputy director who oversees the agency's post-9/11 "black ops", casually ordering the killing of a reporter for the Guardian who published details of CIA activities, and lectures a subordinate on the agency's extraordinary new authority: Full envelope intrusion, rendition, experimental interrogation – it is all run out of this office. We are the sharp end of the stick now... No more red tape. No more getting the bad guys caught on our sights, then watching them escape while we wait for somebody in Washington to issue the order. It turns out the movie wasn't quite so purely metaphorical. Over the past week there's been a steady drip of disquieting revelations on America's post-9/11 intelligence programmes, and the reality is starting to look something like the Bourne Ultimatum's sharp end of the stick. The most surprising new information came on Sunday, when the Wall Street Journal reported: Amid the high alert following the September 11 terrorist attacks, a small CIA unit examined the potential for targeted assassinations of al-Qaida operatives, according to the three former officials. The Ford administration had banned assassinations in the response to investigations into intelligence abuses in the 1970s. Some officials who advocated the approach were seeking to build teams of CIA and military Special Forces commandos to emulate what the Israelis…

  The Alien in the White HouseThe distance between the president and the people is beginning to be revealed.Read Opinion    

 Sarah Palin and the mutual loathing society
Sarah Palin greets fans at Daytona International By George F. Will
Thursday, February 18, 2010The Republican presidential nominee, an Arizona senator, was a maverick, which was part of his charm. He spoke and acted impulsively, which was part of his problem. Voters thought his entertaining dimensions might be incompatible with presidential responsibilities. For example, he selected a running mate most Americans had never heard of and who had negligible experience pertinent to the presidency. This was 1964. Barry Goldwater, whose seat John McCain occupies, chose to run with Bill Miller, a congressman from Lockport, N.Y., near Buffalo. Miller, Goldwater cheerfully explained, annoyed Lyndon Johnson. After the Goldwater-Miller ticket lost 44 states, Miller retired to Lockport, where he practiced law and lived in dignified anonymity until his death in 1983. Although he had served as an assistant prosecutor of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg and spent seven terms in Congress, no one suggested he should be considered for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination. Yet Sarah Palin, who with 17 months remaining in her single term as Alaska's governor quit the only serious office she has ever held, is obsessively discussed as a possible candidate in 2012. Why? She is not going to be president and will not be the Republican nominee unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states. Conservatives, who rightly respect markets as generally reliable gauges of consumer preferences, should notice that the political market is speaking clearly: The more attention Palin receives, the fewer Americans consider her presidential timber. The latest Post-ABC News poll shows that 71 percent of Americans -- including 52 percent of Republicans -- think she is not qualified to be president. This is not her fault. She is what she is, and…

 Airline bomb plot: At war with the worldComments (54)  Editorial The Guardian, Monday 28 December 2009 Article historyEver since 9/11, the west has been haunted by the spectre of a repeat. On Christmas Day, the date surely not chosen at random, that second attack very nearly succeeded. Only the combination of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's fumbling and the bravery of the passengers and crew of Northwest 253 foiled the attempt to bring down the Airbus A330 and its 278 passengers on the descent into Detroit. If the bomber had succeeded, he would have achieved the sum of all post-9/11 fears. The consequences would have been prodigious. Those on board NW253 are not the only ones who have had a very narrow escape indeed.Nevertheless, the most striking difference between 9/11 and the Christmas plot is that the former was carried out inside US borders while the latter – like a succession of other operations since 9/11 – was not. The inference is that the terrorists, whether "al-Qaida" or not, are currently unable to mount operations within the US and are restricted to attacks on the US launched from abroad. The terrorists' chosen mode of operation thus diminishes their ability to portray themselves as purely anti-American. Increasingly they make clear that they are indiscriminately at war with the world.As it is, the world now faces the still immense question: how did Abdulmutallab get so close? The principal answer is that the physical security measures of the airline industry were not up to it. Abdulmutallab was able to carry sufficient quantities of PETN, a well-known military explosive, on to the plane without security checks revealing what he was up to. Airport security at Lagos and Amsterdam each failed. New…

  Dozens in Congress under ethics inquiry
AN ACCIDENTAL DISCLOSURE
Document was found on file-sharing networkBy Ellen Nakashima and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 30, 2009 House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July. The report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer. The ethics committee is one of the most secretive panels in Congress, and its members and staff members sign oaths not to disclose any activities related to its past or present investigations. Watchdog groups have accused the committee of not actively pursuing inquiries; the newly disclosed document indicates the panel is conducting far more investigations than it had revealed. Shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday, the committee chairman, Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), interrupted a series of House votes to alert lawmakers about the breach. She cautioned that some of the panel's activities are preliminary and not a conclusive sign of inappropriate behavior. "No inference should be made as to any member," she said. Rep. Jo Bonner (Ala.), the committee's ranking Republican, said the breach was an isolated incident. The 22-page "Committee on Standards Weekly Summary Report" gives brief summaries of ethics panel investigations of the conduct of 19 lawmakers and a few staff members. It also outlines the work of the new Office of Congressional Ethics, a quasi-independent body that initiates investigations and provides recommendations to the ethics committee. The document indicated that the office was…