The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged yemen

Americans Assassinating Americans

By | 02.04.10 | 9:44 am

Wow.

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair acknowledged Wednesday that government agencies may kill U.S. citizens abroad who are involved in terrorist activities if they are “taking action that threatens Americans.”

Blair told members of the House intelligence committee that he was speaking publicly about the issue to reassure

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Why Not Just Keep GTMO Open?

By | 01.22.10 | 8:49 am

The Obama administration’s Guantanamo task force has concluded that there are approximately 50 detainees held at the facility in Cuba that the government should continue to detain, indefinitely, without trial. Either the task force reached that decision in Month 11 out of its 12-month operation or More…

Yemen: Drawing U.S. Radicals, Too?

By | 01.20.10 | 9:16 am

From the Washington Post:

An investigative report scheduled for release Wednesday by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee cites U.S. concern over as many as three dozen American citizens who converted to Islam in prison and moved to Yemen after their release in the past year. Some of them have

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State Department Targets al-Qaeda’s Yemen Affiliate

By | 01.19.10 | 3:47 pm

Just out from State Department press chief P.J. Crowley:

The Secretary of State has designated al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended (INA). The Secretary also designated AQAP and its two top leaders Nasir

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What Would the Obama of the Nobel Speech Say of the Obama of the New Flight Profiling?

By | 01.06.10 | 9:31 am

I owe it to a press release for the Center for Constitutional Rights for pointing this out to me, but think back to the halcyon days of early December 2009, when President Obama accepted his Nobel Peace Prize with the following admonition:

We lose ourselves when we compromise

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Just Watch the Right Distort Obama’s Guantanamo/al-Qaeda Remarks

By | 01.05.10 | 5:26 pm

President Obama, just now:

We will close Guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and has become a tremendous recruiting tool for al-Qaeda. In fact, that was an explicit rationale for the formation of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

My Twitterborne friends Eli Lake of The Washington More…

Pete Hoekstra Approves of Obama’s Yemen Decision

By | 01.05.10 | 5:06 pm

The GOP congressman and candidate for governor of Michigan is quick with his (faint) praise on Twitter:

Yemeni Transfers From GTMO on Hold

By | 01.05.10 | 3:27 pm

Jake Tapper reports from the White House press briefing today:

“One of the very first things that Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula used as a recruiting tool was the existence of Guantanamo Bay,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said at his daily briefing. “We are not going

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Counterterrorism Center Has Only ‘Eight or Nine’ Middle East Analysts

By | 01.05.10 | 12:41 pm

President Obama is scheduled to meet on Tuesday afternoon with 20 of his security advisers to receive the results of two inquiries into how Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab snuck a bomb onto Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day. One of those advisers is Michael Leiter, the Bush-appointed director of the More…

A ‘Global Threat’ From al-Qaeda in Yemen?

By | 01.04.10 | 5:23 pm

From Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s remarks today with the prime minister of Qatar:

Among the matters that we consulted on, the situation in Yemen is a top concern. How can we work together and with others to stabilize Yemen, assist in securing its borders and providing for

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