Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “Central Intelligence Agency”
While publicly vaunting drone strike reforms allegedly aimed at minimizing civilian deaths, President Barack Obama secretly loosened the standards for covert attacks in Pakistan, likely paving the way for the killing and wounding of an unknown number of non-combatants, the Wall Street Journal revealed Sunday. The news follows last week’s revelation that CIA drone strikes in January killed one U.S. and one Italian hostage in …
On June 17, 1999 the state of Texas put to death by lethal injection John Stanley Faulder, a Canadian who had been convicted in 1977 of murdering Inez Phillips, an oil heiress. Faulder’s case received more press attention than most executions these days, mainly because the Canadian government tried to intervene on his behalf and urged Texas governor George W. …
Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of President Obama’s announcement Thursday that two hostages of Al Qaeda, an American and an Italian, were killed in a US drone missile strike in Pakistan is the lack of any significant reaction from official political circles or the media. There was a certain amount of tut-tutting in the press and expressions of sympathy for …
Yet another report has surfaced describing how tools created by the malware-industrial complex are being deployed by U.S. security services. While the coverage surrounding this story focuses primarily on federal agencies it’s important to step back for a moment and view the big picture. In particular, looking at who builds, operates, and profits from mass surveillance technology offers insight into …
Announcing her latest campaign for the presidency, Hillary Clinton declared she was entering the race to be the champion for “everyday Americans.” As a lawmaker and diplomat, however, Clinton has long championed military campaigns that have killed scores of “everyday” people abroad, from Iraq to Yemen. As commander-in-chief, there’s no reason to believe she’d be any less a hawk than she was …
Next week will mark the 20th anniversary of the terrorist bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people including 19 children. The mainstream media will undoubtedly focus its attention on Timothy McVeigh, who was put to death in June 2001 for his part in the crime. They might also mention Terry Nichols, who was convicted of …
There was a time in Washington when a letter from Ralph Nader to the president or a Cabinet official might evoke not only a response but a press conference, news reports and action. Nader, with his armies of lawyers and citizen action committees behind him, could mobilize formidable forces, inside and outside government, on behalf of citizens. But with the …
The Guardian reports statistics on opium agriculture in Afghanistan (“Former Blackwater gets rich as Afghan drug production hits record high”): “…the US counternarcotics mission in Afghanistan stands out: opiate production has climbed steadily over recent years to reach record-high levels last year.” “Far from eradicating the deep-rooted opiate trade, US counternarcotics efforts have proven useless, according to a series of …
The public debate over government surveillance that was, if not inaugurated, at least intensified by the publication of documents provided by Edward Snowden has been, in some respects, surreal and deluded. One side claims that the NSA’s mass surveillance is necessary to protect the public from terrorism, that in fact it has thwarted many “potential terrorist events.” The other side claims, with much …
The military forces of the Bashar al-Assad government have collapsed on two fronts. The capital of Idlib province in northwest Syria has been lost to Islamic State terrorists sanctioned by the United States, Israel and their Persian Gulf allies and mobilized by the CIA. Government forces in the south have also lost the border crossing at Nasib, the only functioning crossing with Jordan—the key …
