ANYONE who has watched the military analysts hired by TV networks has heard rosy assessments of the war in Iraq. The similarities between their judgments and the Pentagon’s are not coincidental. As The New York Times demonstrated by suing the Pentagon to obtain 8,000 pages of documents, those analysts were enlisted by the Defense Department in a psychological warfare operation targeting the domestic audience. And, as the newspaper reported Sunday, many of the retired military officers appearing on news shows were using their access to the Pentagon and the airwaves to procure lucrative contracts for some 150 defense contractors, which employed them as consultants, board members, lobbyists, or executives.

Propaganda at home - The Boston Globe

Jimmy Hall for msnbc.com

U.S. troops in Afghanistan this month will receive a new tool that the Pentagon says will help them root out potential terrorists — a hand-held lie detector.

New U.S. weapon: Hand-held lie detector - Terrorism- msnbc.com

WASHINGTON —  The FBI has narrowed its focus to “about four” suspects in the 6 1/2-year investigation of the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, and at least three of those suspects are linked to the Army’s bioweapons research facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, FOX News has learned.

Among the pool of suspects are three scientists — a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist — linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID.

The FBI has collected writing samples from the three scientists in an effort to match them to the writer of anthrax-laced letters that were mailed to two U.S. senators and at least two news outlets in the fall of 2001, a law enforcement source confirmed.

The anthrax attacks began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, further alarming a nation already reeling from the deaths of 3,000 Americans. Five people were killed and more than a dozen others were infected by the deadly spores in the fall of 2001.

A leading theory is that the anthrax was stolen from Fort Detrick and then sealed inside the letters. A law enforcement source said the FBI is essentially engaged in a process of elimination.

Much of the early public focus fell on a Fort Detrick scientist named Steven Hatfill, who is suing federal authorities for identifying him as a person of interest. Now the FBI is focusing on other scientists at the facility.

FOXNews.com - FBI Focusing on About Four Suspects in 2001 Anthrax Attacks

Is the CIA’s “Mighty Wurlitzer” Playing Geraldo Rivera?On Fox and Friends, Geraldo declared Times Square is a “magnet for these crazy people, for anarchists… that’s what I think this is, this bomber isn’t al-Qaeda, isn’t anything like that, he is more like — it’s a man — he’s more like those 9/11 was an inside job kind of guys, they… they protest things in a violent way, but in a violent way almost like the eco-terrorist where they don’t intend the inflict casualties.”

Alex Jones’ Infowars: There’s a war on for your mind!

The Madness of John McCain

by Justin Raimondo

By 1999, in defense of Clinton’s war, McCain was declaring, “I think the United States should inaugurate a 21st-century policy interpretation of the Reagan Doctrine, call it rogue state rollback, in which we politically and materially support indigenous forces within and outside of rogue states to overthrow regimes that threaten our interests and values.” …

Prefiguring the revolutionary Jacobinism of Bush’s second inaugural address, which proclaimed the goal of U.S. foreign policy to be “ending tyranny in our world,” McCain was straining at the bit to launch a global crusade while George W. Bush was still touting the virtues of a more “humble foreign policy.” Neither time nor bitter experience has mitigated his militancy.

Other politicians were transformed by 9/11. McCain was unleashed. His strategy of “rogue state rollback” was exactly what the neoconservatives in the Bush administration had in mind, and yet, ever mindful to somehow stand out from the pack while still going along with the program, the senator took umbrage at Rumsfeld’s apparent unwillingness to chew up the U.S. military in an endless occupation. He publicly dissented from the “light footprint” strategy championed by the Department of Defense. More troops, more force, more of everything—that is McCain’s solution to every problem in our newly conquered province.

Read the rest.

Hat Tip to Scott Horton at Stress » The Madness of John McCain

Invictus: A blog on U.S. Politics and the Fight Against Torture

The Dark Nexus of the World: More on the Edmonds Revelations & the Meaning of Deep Politics

The “dark nexus” of the world is where its most secretive business is conducted, such as the bribes and secret payoffs that Sibel Edmonds recently revealed were behind a nuclear proliferation ring that involved many top U.S. officials. According to a recent compelling article by Chris Floyd (whose descriptor above I have quoted), this “shadowlands” is “where covert operations, criminal networks, terrorism, high finance and state policy mingle, and battle, in profitable murk.” I believe Peter Dale Scottdeep politics.” famously called this essential, if diabolical aspect of modern history, “

Twilight Language in the Dates

As I wrote in The Copycat Effect, the 11 in 9/11, as in September 11, 2001, has been pondered by many scholars, intelligence services, politicians, and others trying to find some meaning in the choosing of this date and others.

Read More: The Copycat Effect: Bombings on 11ths