TWN has just secured a copy of a letter from Al-Jazeera Managing Director Wadah Khanfar to Prime Minister Tony Blair about the secret memo which allegedly outlines President Bush’s intent to bomb Al-Jazeera‘s headquarters and Blair’s efforts to dissuade him.
For those of you in Washington, feel free to stop by at 4 p.m. for a program on Sino-Japanese Relations at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, organized by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. Charles Kupchan will be moderating a session featuring University of Tokyo Professor Akio Takahara.
Former State Department Chief of Staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson continues to hammer the White House over torture and detainee abuse revelations — but is also suggesting that as he learns more from various sources, his original views that the White House was not involved in duplicity regarding Iraq WMD intelligence is evolving.
I can’t attend today, but Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Peter Pace are giving a media briefing at 1:15 p.m.
Today in a long interview session with a number of Associated Press correspondents, former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson offered important commentary on the White House’s role in establishing a permissive environment that led to detainee abuse and torture.
I thought that Frank Gaffney’s outrageous comments last week that, under certain circumstances, it would be laudable for U.S. forces to bomb Al-Jazeera’s Doha headquarters were the first time he had suggested destroying this important Arab media network.
The repugnant Duke Cunningham — who was involved as well in the old Tailhook scandal — has finally resigned his House seat after admitting that he took bribes. An Associated Press report just posted on the New York Times website: Rep. Randy ”Duke” Cunningham pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy and tax charges, admitting taking $2.
I think that they hate us for not making clear that “their” lives matter. Read this clip in the Sunday Telegraph that only compounds the damage done by prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. It looks like private defense contractors under contract with the United States government have serial killers out just randomly shooting people.
John Bolton is having a public feud with Great Britain over his effort to withhold the UN’s budget until various reforms are adopted. This was a classic Jesse Helms tactic of the past and shows that Bolton is tipping towards bludgeoning the United Nations rather than using diplomatic skill to achieve his objectives.