Although Yemen has been on the United States terrorism watch list for years, it is only since the Christmas Day underwear bomber that the fiefdom on the Arabian Peninsula became a household word to Americans, courtesy of our media’s flavor of the month and gotcha journalism. In examining the stronghold al-Qaeda has grasped in Yemen, it makes the threat of that terrorist group seem meek in Afghanistan by...

According to the AFP, Nigeria has “branded new security measures for passengers flying to the United States unfair and said they amounted to discrimination against its 150 million people.” Nigeria, home of failed underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is one of 14 countries from which all air travellers to the U.S. will be “subjected to extra checks including body pat-downs.” I tend...

Cartoon by Sarjex, who describes herself as “a lonely little wingnut in the crazy liberal mecca of San Francisco.”

Writing in the NYT, Michael Kinsley begs the question and suggests “the nation’s border is as good a line as any” … … the national border is a “bright line,” and if people captured within the United States are going to be treated as if they were somewhere else — provided that they are certified terrorists — things are going to get complicated quickly. What about Maj. Nidal...

For being the world’s only Superpower and global empire, we certainly are a pathetic, fearful, demented, wimpy, and easily frightened group. Our shores are filled with Chicken Little’s screaming about Al Qaida and airport security at the drop of a terrorist’s underwear. Now let’s get a grip on our emotions running amok and start thinking as rational human beings. I’m ashamed of many Americans in politics...

That is the question Matthew Yglesias poses, now that advocates for torture are promoting its use for routine intelligence-gathering as opposed to the original rationale that torture should be limited to the mythical “ticking time bomb” scenario (emphasis is mine):

Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

NBC News reports that the suicide bomber responsible for killing seven C.I.A. agents in Afghanistan was a double agent working for Al Qaeda:

‘THE TRAVELS OF THE MAGI’ A little over a week after the alleged terrorist attack aboard an American aircraft, a pattern is emerging. While European writers tend to think new U.S. rules for passengers are ineffective if not absurd, many Arab columnists believe that the suspicious aspects of the case suggest that some kind of plot to demonize Muslims and extend the war on terror is involved. For...

Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

I hadn’t listened to this song in years, and it’s just as electrifying as it was the first time I heard it. When I hear the anger and utter frustration in her voice, at the impossibility of reaching hearts that have been deadened and stripped of all humanity, it just feels so good to know I’m not the only one.

For West Asia, 2010 has not begun well. The mess in Iran is increasing by the day and holds peril unprecedented for the entire region. If the government, however reprehensible, falls into disarray the real possibility arises of a huge arc of violent political and civil instability stretching through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Palestine to Israel. The possibility of a new American war is small but...

RealClearWorld’s Kevin Sullivan explains why HERE.

The United States, Great Britain, and Spain have closed their embassies in Yemen, pointing to threats from Al Qaeda amid signs that the perception of Yemen has now shifted so the country is being clearly perceived as a growing threat as an Al Qaeda base. Spain’s embassy staff will remain working, although its embassy will be closed to the public Monday and Tuesday. The Christian Science Monitor reports: The...

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Boxers or briefs…but someone was briefed: that’s the gist of yet another investigative tidbit from Newsweek, this time via reporters Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball who have learned that White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan learned about Al Qaeda’s underwear explosive tactic in October: White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan was briefed in October on an assassination...

Adding on to Dr. Steven Taylor’s fine post highlighting some of the more irrational responses to Mark Hosenball’s Newsweek article about the intelligence briefing Pres. Obama received three days before the Christmas Day attempted airline bombing, here is a much more thoughtful and sensible piece by the always-worth- reading Spencer Ackerman:

Was this sheer incompetence – or is there something else going on? The scale of the intelligence mistakes surrounding the case of suspected Christmas Day underwear bomber Omar Farouk Abdul Muttalab are such, that many people, particularly Muslims, suspect that there is some “hidden force” behind the story. According to columnist Hilmi Al Asmar of Jordan’s Ad Dustour newspaper, that...

How many times have we heard this? North Korea calls for an end of hostile relations with the United States in a New Year’s message pledging to make the Korean peninsula nuclear free. Makes me wonder if the official issuing the statement carried by the government’s Korean Central News Agency, state radio and television had celebrated too far into the early morning hours of the new year which I guess...

In a column on New Year’s Eve in the NYT, David Brooks wrote: Various experts have gathered bits of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s biography. Since they can string the facts together to accurately predict the past, they thunder, the intelligence services should have been able to connect the dots to predict the future. This passage came to mind upon reading some of the responses to the following Newsweek report:  ...

In his weekly Radio/You Tube address President Barack Obama focuses on national security, terrorism — and the Christmas Day attempted underwear bombing which he places squarely at the door of Al Qaeda:

I see that Andrew Sullivan has a post up about the same subject I blogged about earlier this evening under the title “The Normalization of Evil.” And he is on to the same expanded argument for the use of torture that I saw in the Andy McCarthy piece I quoted from (emphasis is mine):

THE NOSE OF AHMADINEJAD SAYS: ‘ELECTIONS’ THE CAPTION READS: ‘OPPOSITION’ This article from Iran’s state-controlled Kayhan newspaper is as close to a public admission of a challenge to the regime’s authority as we’ve seen from the mullahs that run the country – and it’s striking. For Kayhan, columnist Kian Mokhtari writes in part: There’s no denying...

Josh Marshall and Marc Thiessen have been going back and forth about the inconsistency of right-wing calls for Abdulmutallab to be tried within the extra-legal military tribunal system set up by the former Pres. Bush, given the fact that the Bush administration gave Richard Reid and Zacharias Moussaoui civilian trials in federal court. You can trace the history of this debate here.

Apparently I am not the only one who has taken umbrage at Dick Cheney’s shameful attack on President Obama, using the Christmas Day attempted attack on Northwest Flight 253 strictly for political gain. Among Cheney’s outrageous accusations was his “As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war.” In a Washington...