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I really feel like slamming some of the chickens**t American Jews who regularly comment - both on this blog and on Twitter and Facebook - that Jonathan Pollard should rot in jail because what he did was so terrible they're afraid of being accused of having 'dual loyalties' if they actually question Pollard's life sentence. Much of the infamous Cap Weinberger memo (that Pollard's lawyers were never allowed to see) has been declassified, and it shows that much of the US government argument for keeping Pollard imprisoned is based on lies and mischaracterizes what Weinberger (an anti-Semite in his...

American movie theaters reopening from a six-month coronavirus lockdown are debuting the new spy thriller "Tenet," giving them a boost from a possible hit and a chance to newly gauge their business model. Warner Bros. introduced the movie in Europe, Canada and Korea last weekend, and “Tenet” landed in U.S. theaters -- 75 percent of which are open -- along with cinemas in China on Friday. Some states, such as New York, have kept theaters closed, though more are coming online just in time for “Tenet.” New Jersey and some California cinemas reopened Friday. The strong international launch of “Tenet”...

A CIA official who had a top role during the run-up to the Iraqi war charges the White House with ignoring intelligence that said there were no weapons of mass destruction or an active nuclear program in Iraq. The former highest ranking CIA officer in Europe, Tyler Drumheller, also says that while the intelligence community did give the White House some bad intelligence, it also gave the White House good intelligence — which the administration chose to ignore

PREWAR INTELLIGENCE WASHINGTON, July 30 - A senior leader of Al Qaeda who was captured in Pakistan several months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was the main source for intelligence, since discredited, that Iraq had provided training in chemical and biological weapons to members of the organization, according to American intelligence officials. Intelligence officials say the detainee, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a member of Osama bin Laden's inner circle, recanted the claims sometime last year, but not before they had become the basis of statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others...

I served 6 Presidents, 3 Rs & 3Ds. I directly supported Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama. While I didn't agree with all their policy choices, I admired and respected all of them, as they put country above their personal interests. Not so with you, as your self adoration is disgraceful https://t.co/A1brb0HW3V— John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) April 5, 2018

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly looking at the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign, a source said Saturday. John O. Brennan, president and CEO of the Analysis Corp., advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said. Brennan briefed the media on behalf of the campaign this month. The executive is a former senior CIA official and former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center. He contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign in January.

Sorry to go so deep on a weekend, but seeing Brennan broadcast in a 22 minute interview is enough to blow the blood pressure cuff: I have never been more certain of something, yet simultaneously never able to prove it, as I am about two events. The first is that Jack Lew and the White House in 2010/2011 coordinated the DOJ attack, with Eric Holder, against political opposition using the IRS. The second event is that journalist Michael Hastings was killed by the dispatch of CIA Director John Brennan. Director John Brennan spent almost his entire formative career inside the CIA and...

A long-classified U.S. report released Friday found that some of the 9/11 hijackers were in contact with and received support from individuals likely connected to the Saudi government. Known as the "28 pages," the secret document was part of a 2002 congressional investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks and has been classified since the report's completion, despite repeated calls for its release. The document actually contains 29 pages of material plus a letter from then-CIA Director George Tenet. "While in the United States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals...

GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump blames Bush for failing to stop 9/11 attacks As Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump hammers away at former President George W. Bush for not stopping the September 11 attacks, another factor could be added to the debate: Mr. Bush inherited from Bill Clinton an intelligence community in terrible shape. This fact comes not from a Republican partisan but from George Tenet, President Clinton's CIA director, a post that at the time made him the country's top intelligence officer. Mr. Tenet wrote in his memoirs, "At the Center of the Storm," that Mr. Clinton left Mr....

Former CIA chief George Tenet has broken his eight-year post-Agency interview blackout in order to speak about events that took place under his watch. Tenet, who resigned 11 years ago for “personal reasons,” ran the spy outfit from 1996-2004. He recently spoke on the record for a Showtime documentary, The Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs, which premiered November 28. The documentary features an unprecedented lineup: all 12 living DCIA’s, from George H.W. Bush through current head John Brennan. All are intriguing in their own right; but the one who interests me most is Tenet. Much went wrong during his tenure....

Jeb Bush left the Florida governor’s office in January of 2007, after eight years of service. Three months later, he joined the board of a hospital company that had been pillaging government health programs and abusing patients, in Florida and around the country, for most of the years he sat in the governor’s office. Apart from a very generous compensation package, why did Bush sign on with such a tarnished company? And will whatever explanation he now offers hold up under the microscope of a presidential campaign? Tenet Healthcare Corp. is a national for-profit hospital company with a sordid history....

In his 1980 graduate thesis at the University of Texas at Austin, John Brennan denied the existence of “absolute human rights” and argued in favor of censorship on the part of the Egyptian dictatorship. “Since the press can play such an influential role in determining the perceptions of the masses, I am in favor of some degree of government censorship,” Brennan wrote. “Inflamatory [sic] articles can provoke mass opposition and possible violence, especially in developing political systems.” Brennan serves as President Barack Obama’s national security advisor. Obama has nominated him to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.

The Justice Department on Monday charged a former CIA officer with repeatedly leaking classified information, including the identities of agency operatives involved in the capture and interrogation of alleged terrorists. The case against John Kiriakou, who served as a senior Senate aide after ending his CIA career, extends the Obama administration’s unprecedented crackdown on disclosures of national security secrets to journalist. Kiriakou, who was among the first to go public with details about the CIA’s use of water-boarding and other harsh interrogation measures, was charged with disclosing classified information to reporters and lying to the agency about the origin of...

Three former CIA directors have privately told their successor he had his facts wrong when he revealed an illegal assassination program, reports Joseph Finder, and his spies will suffer for it. according to a half-dozen sources, including several very senior, recently retired CIA officials, clandestine-service officers, and Cabinet-level officials from the Bush administration, the real story is at once more innocent—Panetta was mistaken; no law was broken—and far more troubling: an inexperienced CIA director, unfamiliar with how his vast, complicated agency works, unable to trust senior officials within his own agency, and desperate to keep his hands clean, screwed up....

The Bush administration authorized secret surveillance activities that still have not been made public, according to a new government report that questions the legal basis for the unprecedented anti-terrorism program. It's unclear how much valuable intelligence was yielded by the surveillance program started after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, according to the unclassified summary of reports by five inspectors general. The reports mandated by Congress last year were delivered to lawmakers Friday. President George W. Bush authorized other secret intelligence activities — which have yet to become public — even as he was launching the massive warrentless wiretapping program,...

In his memoir, former CIA Director George J. Tenet described the agency's first course of action in a crisis. "Despite what Hollywood might have you believe," Tenet wrote, "you don't call in the tough guys; you call in the lawyers." For more than three decades, that almost always has meant making a call to John A. Rizzo. The acting general counsel at the CIA, Rizzo has guided generations of agency leaders on the legal contours of clandestine operations and the often-ensuing investigations. At CIA headquarters, he is known for his eye-watering wardrobe -- with ties, cuff links and suspenders colored...

Four former CIA directors opposed releasing classified Bush-era interrogation memos, officials say, describing objections that went all the way to the White House and slowed release of the records. Former CIA chiefs Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet and John Deutch all called the White House in March warning that release of the so-called "torture memos" would compromise intelligence operations, current and former officials say. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to detail internal government discussions. President Barack Obama ultimately overruled those concerns after internal discussions that intensified in the weeks after the former directors intervened. The...

The State Department investigation into how and why the passport files of three presidential candidates were breached is scrutinizing an employee at a Virginia-based company, which is headed by an adviser to Barack Obama’s campaign. The Washington Times, which broke the news Thursday that Obama’s files were improperly accessed, reported Saturday that the State Department inspector general’s internal probe will include polygraph tests of supervisors to determine whether there was a political motive behind the breaches. The article said a focal point of the probe will be an employee who works for The Analysis Corporation and is still with the...

IN A LITTLE-NOTICED DECISION in a New York courtroom on September 25, 2003, a man described as Osama bin Laden's "best friend" got some good news. U.S. District Court Judge Deborah Batts ruled that Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim could not be sentenced to life in prison. Salim--who was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989 and who was for years one of bin Laden's most trusted confidants--had been captured in Germany in 1998 and extradited to the United States for prosecution related to his role in the grand conspiracy that resulted in the 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in...

There is much confusion in the Western world over the basic tenants of Buddhism. Many Westerners believe that Buddhism is -- a) a religion circulating around the worship of a portly Asian sage (often gilded or bronzed and meditating near the door of your favorite Chinese restaurant holding the mints and toothpicks), b) involving a lot of sitting in uncomfortable positions, and c) coldly atheistic or fancifully pantheistic (depending on which section of Wikipedia you consult) Of course, when inspected closer, these stereotypes and inadequate attempts of pigeonholing a religion that has neither formal creed nor “divine” teachings is absolutely...