From today’s ‘Meet The Press’: DAVID GREGORY: Do you wish you had the interrogation methods that were available to you during the Bush Administration? To get intelligence from a figure like this? [Deputy Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar] GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS: I have always– been on the record, in fact, since 2003– with the [...]

Deep breath: The Sunni political party whose two most prominent leaders were disqualified from next month’s parliamentary elections in Iraq because of supposed ties to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party called Saturday for a boycott of the vote, raising fears of worsening sectarian tensions in an already volatile campaign. The provocation poised by the zombie-debaathification commission [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 130-10 February 20, 2010 DOD Identifies Marine Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Sgt. Jeremy R. McQueary, 27, of Columbus, Ind., died Feb. 18 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 129-10 February 19, 2010 DOD Identifies Marine Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Lance Cpl. Kielin T. Dunn, 19, of Chesapeake, Va., died Feb. 18 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 6th [...]

Deep thought: Between the OPR report of Yoo/Bybee/Bradbury and the Defense Department inspector general report on the Office of Special Plans, the best that can be said about crucial elements of the Bush agenda is that they weren’t technically illegal.

The ethics of John Yoo, revealed to a Justice Department interviewer. This is the OPR report at page 64 (70 in the PDF): Q. What about ordering a village of resistants to be massacred? …Is that a power the President could legally – A. Yeah. Although, let me say this. So, certainly that would fall [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 128-10 February 19, 2010 DOD Identifies Marine Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Lance Cpl. Larry M. Johnson, 19, of Scranton, Pa., died Feb. 18 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 2nd Combat Engineer [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 127-10 February 19, 2010 DOD Identifies Marine Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Pfc. Kyle J. Coutu, 20, of Providence, R.I., died Feb. 18 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine [...]

Believe it or not — and I suspect you will! — that’s John Yoo in 2002, talking about Abu Zubaydah, per the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

I got a t-shirt in Baghdad in 2007 that reads, on the front, OIF: SINCE 2003. OIF stands for Operation Iraqi Freedom, the evil and Orwellian term for the unjustified invasion and occupation of Iraq. In a particularly bad mood that day, I bought the shirt out of despair, since it truly seemed back then [...]