the al Qaeda agenda and Dick Cheney

* josh:

"It's hard to imagine that there's anyone in this country not under active federal surveillance who has done more to advance the al Qaeda agenda than Dick Cheney."

* rudepundit interview. 30mins.

* cannon notes that Carol Lam has gone to work at Qualcomm, with Brent Scowcroft.

* cheney:

"And the point I made and I'll make it again is that al Qaeda functions on the basis that they think they can break our will. That's their fundamental underlying strategy, that if they can kill enough Americans or cause enough havoc, create enough chaos in Iraq, then we'll quit and go home. And my statement was that if we adopt the Pelosi policy, that then we will validate the strategy of al Qaeda. I said it and I meant it."

delusional. he left out the bit where alqaeda is concentrating all its forces in iraq, so that they can kick out the US, so that they can first 'regroup', second, create a 'safehaven', third, set up terroristtrainingcamps, so that they can attack the US 'homeland.'

* our friend josh is back (via froomkin):

""'I still believe, at the end of the day, that he will bomb the Iranian (nuclear) facilities,' said Joshua Muravchik, a neoconservative scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank with close ties to the Bush administration. Muravchik, who favors military action, sees Bush's current focus on diplomacy as a prelude to attack. . . .'

* jeff @ largely:

"By now, nearly everyone knows how Dick Cheney has funneled untold billions of war profits to his pals at Halliburton and its subsidiary, KBR. Not so well known is KBR's history for securing naval support contracts. If America starts a mother loving naval war with Iran, hey boy--who is going to profit from that?

Dick Cheney isn't just one of the worst things that ever happened to America. He's one of the worst things that happened to humanity. This man, one of history's greatest warmongers and war profiteers, is the same guy who had ten years worth of "other priorities" when it was time to fight the war of his generation. And to think: many veterans who fought in the Vietnam War that Cheney opted out of still support Cheney's militaristic worldview. "

* nyt ed (thnx kax):

"A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration's behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law.

The provision, signed into law in October, weakens two obscure but important bulwarks of liberty. One is the doctrine that bars military forces, including a federalized National Guard, from engaging in law enforcement. Called posse comitatus, it was enshrined in law after the Civil War to preserve the line between civil government and the military. The other is the Insurrection Act of 1807, which provides the major exemptions to posse comitatus. It essentially limits a president's use of the military in law enforcement to putting down lawlessness, insurrection and rebellion, where a state is violating federal law or depriving people of constitutional rights.
[]
Changes of this magnitude should be made only after a thorough public airing. But these new presidential powers were slipped into the law without hearings or public debate. The president made no mention of the changes when he signed the measure, and neither the White House nor Congress consulted in advance with the nation's governors."