Who's running the TSA? No one, thanks to Sen. Jim DeMint | McClatchy

Who's running the TSA? No one, thanks to Sen. Jim DeMint | McClatchy

By Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — An attempt to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day would be all-consuming for the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration — if there were one.

The post remains vacant because Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has held up President Barack Obama's nominee in opposition to the prospect of TSA workers joining a labor union.

As al Qaida claimed responsibility Monday for the thwarted attack and President Barack Obama made a public statement about it, Democrats urged DeMint to drop his objection and allow quick confirmation of nominee Erroll Southers, a counterterrorism expert, when the Senate reconvenes in three weeks. ...

Official: U.S. intelligence found Iran nuke document was forged | Raw Story

Official: U.S. intelligence found Iran nuke document was forged | Raw Story

WASHINGTON, Dec 28 (IPS) - U.S. intelligence has concluded that the document published recently by the Times of London, which purportedly describes an Iranian plan to do experiments on what the newspaper described as a "neutron initiator" for an atomic weapon, is a fabrication, according to a former Central Intelligence Agency official.

Philip Giraldi, who was a CIA counterterrorism official from 1976 to 1992, told IPS that intelligence sources say that the United States had nothing to do with forging the document, and that Israel is the primary suspect. The sources do not rule out a British role in the fabrication, however.

The Times of London story published Dec. 14 did not identify the source of the document. But it quoted "an Asian intelligence source" - a term some news media have used for Israeli intelligence officials - as confirming that his government believes Iran was working on a neutron initiator as recently as 2007.

The story of the purported Iranian document prompted a new round of expressions of U.S. and European support for tougher sanctions against Iran and reminders of Israel's threats to attack Iranian nuclear programme targets if diplomacy fails.

U.S. news media reporting has left the impression that U.S. intelligence analysts have not made up their mind about the document's authenticity, although it has been widely reported that they have now had a full year to assess the issue. ...

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The document itself also had a number of red flags suggesting possible or likely fraud. ...

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This is not the first time that Giraldi has been tipped off by his intelligence sources on forged documents. Giraldi identified the individual or office responsible for creating the two most notorious forged documents in recent U.S. intelligence history.

In 2005, Giraldi identified Michael Ledeen, the extreme right-wing former consultant to the National Security Council and the Pentagon, as an author of the fabricated letter purporting to show Iraqi interest in purchasing uranium from Niger. That letter was used by the George W. Bush administration to bolster its false case that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear weapons programme.

Giraldi also identified officials in the "Office of Special Plans" who worked under Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith as having forged a letter purportedly written by Hussein's intelligence director, Tahir Jalail Habbush al-Tikriti, to Hussein himself referring to an Iraqi intelligence operation to arrange for an unidentified shipment from Niger.

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.

OpEdNews - Article: America's Disconnect with the World

OpEdNews - Article: America's Disconnect with the World

In an article on the French site dedefensa entitled, "The Exhaustion of Despair" (L'épuisement du désespoir), they show a recent Pew Research Center poll suggesting that Americans are becoming more and more uncomfortable with their hegemonic foreign policy role in the world. It also points to a growing gap between the elite in American policy making and the public with regard to current events in the world and America's role in them. The poll, which covered international topics among two groups, the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) and Americans in general, was released by the PewResearchCenter on December 3, 2009, and shows a marked shift in American sentiment towards a return to a more isolated world position.

Dedefensa points to two statements in particular that bring this to the fore. In the poll, two isolationist statements were presented to the general public, "The US should go its own way and not worry about what other countries say," and "The US should mind its own business and let others get along on their own." The results, 44% agreeing with the first statement and 49% with the second, are both huge increases over the results from 2002, where only 25% agreed with the first and 30% agreed with the second, and demonstrate an even greater isolationist trend when compared with the very first poll results of these questions in 1964 when only 19% of Americans agreed with the first statement and 18% with the second.
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Citing the same study, Voltairenet.org,, another French media site, contrasts the great disparity between the CFR's view on American foreign relations and the American public's view. In What the U.S. Elite Really Thinks About Israel, by Jeffrey Blankfort, he states, "The CFR members do not perceive Israel as an ally nor they consider Iran as an enemy, whereas the public essentially adheres to the neo-conservatist and AIPAC mindset."

The article goes on to point out that over two-thirds of the CFR members believe that the US policy on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict over the years has been too much in favor of Israel while less than a third of the general public believes so. Blankfort cites the great media imbalance in the US for such a disparity. He correctly notes that CFR members have greater access to and understanding of the situation in the Middle East and are less influenced by media jingoisms and propaganda.

He goes on to show how only one in four members of the CFR side with Israel while over half of the US public is pro-Israeli. Further, more than 4 out of 10 CFR members view both sides equally, but only one in 25 Americans agree with that. With such disparities between the vaunted institution of the CFR and the public it is plain to see that AIPAC and other major pro-Israeli lobbyists are exerting a tremendous influence on the US government to back Israel in spite of the caution and disagreement among its elite policy making groups.

In addition to the public's desire for a more isolationist position on the world stage and the complete disconnect over Israeli-Palestinian issues, there were many other divisions between the elite foreign policy minds and the general public. For example, nearly half of the CFR members polled put Afghanistan and Pakistan as the two most important issues facing the country today while only one in ten Americans thought so.

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But on the topic of defense and the use of US military, the disconnect passes from being an annoyance of misinformation brought on by concerted media and congressional lobbyist efforts to sway public opinion government action and enters the realm of real imperialism and hegemonic warfare. The disparity between the Council and the American public couldn't be wider. Nearly 3 out of 4 Americans want to keep or increase our defense spending while 4 out of 10 CFR members want to reduce it. Over 60% of the American public would also favor a war with Iran if they learned that Iran had a nuclear bomb while only 33% of the CFR agrees.

Even though the US economy is already buckling under the strain of funding two illegal wars already in progress, America's appetite for more war and more military spending has not yet been sated. It appears that the gladiator mentality in the US has yet to reach its zenith and 6 out of 10 would still favor a war over the simple fact of one more nation possessing a nuclear bomb, regardless of what that nation's intentions were for the bomb. It has been over two centuries since Iran started a war with anyone, yet the mere fact of their attainment of a nuclear device would be sufficient for most Americans to actively seek a third military engagement and further bloodshed on foreign soil.

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Now Americans appear to be to the right of even that arch-conservative president. Americans are advocating more war, more torture and more isolationism and much of this policy direction is due specifically to the media propaganda that has been feeding their international affairs diet for decades. With the continued steady feed of misinformation from the MSM one can only fear the extent to which American ignorance of their own global policy and true world events will grow into even more absurd foreign policy and further calamities. ...