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Brian: Stephen Coughlin is a former army intel officer and author of the book called “Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad”. Brian: So Stephen did you feel that nailed who our enemy was and gradually were told to pull back? Stephen: Yes that’s exactly what happened. I was brought into the Pentagon as an intelligence officer. The goal of intelligence is to define the enemy as he defines himself. It’s not my fault he defines himself as jihadi to oppose Islamic Law. They asked me to purge that from my research and I refused so they purged...

Barack Obama To Bob Woodward This Past July: "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger." From Woodward's new book, quoted in the Washington Post.

WASHINGTON – A newly unclassified Department of Homeland Security report warns against the possibility of violence by unnamed "right-wing extremists" concerned about illegal immigration, increasing federal power, restrictions on firearms, abortion and the loss of U.S. sovereignty and singles out returning war veterans as particular threats. The report, titled "Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," dated April 7, states that "threats from white supremacist and violent anti-government groups during 2009 have been largely rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry out violent acts." However, the report goes on to suggest worsening economic...

So many of the administration's present problems derive from squeamishness about ideological confrontation that any effective Long Telegram would have to address. When President Bush declared a "war on terror," cynics understood that he had no particular interest in the IRA or the Tamil Tigers, but that he was constrained from identifying the real enemy in any meaningful sense: In the fall of 2001, a war on Islamic this or Islamic that would have caused too many problems with Gen. Musharraf and the House of Saud and other chaps he wanted to keep on side. But it's one reason, for...

This week, Democrats broke out the cots and the S'mores, and held a big ol' Senate sleepover for surrender. By pushing an all-night Senate session purportedly designed to debate the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, Democrats hoped to show their sincerity and moral indignation. "How many sleepless nights have our soldiers and their families had?" asked oily Senator Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, who only two years ago compared U.S. soldiers at Guantanamo Bay to "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings." If politics is the...

NATO Accuses Taliban of Using Children in Suicide Missions · Troops say bomb defused on six-year-old boy · Claim follows 13 civilian deaths in air strike Chiade O'Shea Islamabad Saturday June 23, 2007 The Guardian Children as young as six are being used by the Taliban in increasingly desperate suicide missions, coalition forces in Afghanistan claimed yesterday. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), to which Britain contributes 5,000 troops in southern Afghanistan, revealed that soldiers defused an explosive vest which had been placed on a six-year-old who had been told to attack Afghan army forces in the east of the...

Security Stepped Up After Terrorist Threat Excerpt In Moscow, which was last hit by terrorist attacks in 2004, officials took the unusual step of ordering cell phone service shut off in the subway system. The measure appeared to be an effort to avert the possibility of explosives being detonated by the phones. Full article: http://www.times.spb.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=20075

AMERICA has responded to spiralling violence in Iraq by preparing an exit strategy that will allow coalition troops to withdraw by forcing the government in Baghdad to take responsibility for security. The Pentagon is drawing up plans for a “forcing mechanism” that would set target dates for handing control to the Iraqis. American troops would pull back to their bases, leaving military advisers “embedded” with the Iraqi security forces. Sources suggest troops will be concentrated in the most violent areas of Iraq, such as Baghdad and parts of Anbar province west of the capital. They could be reinforced with soldiers...

Bush aides back Iraq report move Bush defends the war The Bush administration has defended its partial release of a report linking the Iraq conflict to global terrorism against calls for the full report.A White House aide said the terror report could not be released in full because of national security issues. Opposition Democrats argue that the parts of the intelligence report declassified on Tuesday do not give Americans enough information. There are also rumours of a damning second report being held back. Jane Harman, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, suggested this alleged second report, focusing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqGjz7iJTns

Fifth round of Polish troops ends mission in Iraq 03.02.2006 The fifth round of the Polish military contingent in Iraq is ending its mission. As of Saturday, soldiers of the sixth shift are officially assuming duty in the south-central stabilization zone. During the past six months their predecessors carried out over 230 civilian aid projects worth 15 million dollars, being part of the Polish CIMIC group. The troops were busy building roads, bringing water to towns and villages and setting up electric power lines. Another field of the Poles’ activity has been the reconstruction of Iraqi schools and orphanages, also...

Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday issued a vigorous defense of the administration's treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay naval base, brushing aside calls to close the facility. "Those who are most urgently advocating that we shut down Guantanamo probably don't agree with our policies anyway," Mr. Cheney told reporters at the National Press Club. "These people have been treated far better than they could be expected to have been treated by virtually any other government on the face of the Earth," he added. Mr. Cheney's remarks were part of a coordinated counteroffensive by Republicans in the White House and...

So Newsweek prints an uncorroborated allegation about American interrogators flushing Qurans down the toilet in order to get fanatical Muslim prisoners to talk, and there’s rioting and death all over the Muslim world. There are several lessons to be learned from this incident, some trivial, some quite important.  1. The courts have given the news media carte blanche, in the name of the First Amendment – but the media are no better than government at exercising unchecked power. When it’s known that no one can punish you, a certain kind of person stops caring whether he hurts anybody. And such...

(NOTE: SALIM MUWAKKIL is a senior editor at In These Times, a contributing columnist to the Chicago Tribune and a Crime and Communities Media Fellow of the Open Society Institute. This article is due to be published on 3/15). WHEN THE DEADLY TOXIN RICIN WAS FOUND February 3 in the mailroom of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), there was no change in Homeland Security colors. Although biological attacks on the apparatus of government are a veritable shortcut to domestic insecurity, they don't register on the chromatic terrorism scale. Americans have been trained to disassociate such attacks from the war...

A leading Israeli rabbi has proposed hanging bags of pig fat in buses to deter Muslim suicide bombers who may want to avoid contact with an "unclean" animal. The idea was suggested to police by Rabbi Eliezer Fisher. The newspaper Maariv said rabbinical authorities had sanctioned the plan to use the product - considered impure by Jews and Muslims - if it might save lives. Police had no immediate comment on the proposal, according to Reuters news agency. Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Yaacov Edri said he supported the proposal. "If bags of pig lard will prevent zealous Muslim terrorists from...