Turkish warplanes hit Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq early Sunday, Turkey's military said, the first such attack since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

As predicted, the war starts to widen.

Turkish planes hit rebel targets in Iraq - Yahoo! News

The CIA videotaped its interrogations of two terror suspects in 2002 and destroyed the tapes three years later out of fear they would leak to the public and compromise the identities of U.S. questioners

Oddly, that's a valid reason to have destroyed them, but given how often things have been done with a stated purpose that is then demonstrated to be bullshit, I can't say I buy it. Of course, it also protects the identities of questioners from the courts who may be interested as well.

Hayden says CIA videotapes destroyed - Yahoo! News

American military chiefs have been left dumbstruck by an undetected Chinese submarine popping up at the heart of a recent Pacific exercise and close to the vast U.S.S. Kitty Hawk - a 1,000ft supercarrier with 4,500 personnel on board.

By the time it surfaced the 160ft Song Class diesel-electric attack submarine is understood to have sailed within viable range for launching torpedoes or missiles at the carrier.

Yep, all that work to "free" Iraq, and what do we get? The Chinese telling us we can't even watch our own asses. The hard way.

The uninvited guest: Chinese sub pops up in middle of U.S. Navy exercise, leaving military chiefs red-faced | the Daily Mail

Like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists.

The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.

THIS is how we're fighting the Global War On Terror. These are your, and my, tax dollars at work. This is... WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS??? Jesus Christ, enough with the inane police state! Enough with the sheer stupidity of these morons. Enough! They've stolen the phone records, stuck people in jails, sent people to be tortured in lovely vacations spots like SYRIAN JAILS, who we won't even talk to about the bogus GWOT, and now we're spending money to track... GROCERIES??? This is beyond lunacy.

CQ Politics | FBI Hoped to Follow Falafel Trail to Iranian Terrorists Here

What happened this time? Military officials admit there were unidentified "planning and coordination problems" even before it got to execution, “primarily between the operators and the generals who give the go-orders” added an intelligence official. A company of the 82nd Airborne was brought in since a Ranger team trained in special operations was not available. But the combination of the “dark side” — the SEALs — and the conventional — the 82nd Airborne — didn't work. "They didn't gel," said the military official. There was "a lack of responsiveness to the intelligence and a lack of aggressiveness."

To quote Demolition Man...

Lenina Huxley: Let's go blow this guy.
John Spartan: Away! Blow this guy *away*!
Lenina Huxley: Whatever.

Bin Laden may have just escaped U.S. forces - Nightly News with Brian Williams - MSNBC.com

A principal architect of Iraq’s interim constitution, who resigned in August as one of the country’s top diplomats, has laid out a devastating critique of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the U.S. occupation, telling NBC News that, functionally, “there is no Iraqi government.”

But, but, we've turned the corner! The surge is working! The...

We've seen this play before. The first time it was called Little Big Horn starring George Armstong Custer, the second Khartoom starring Chinese Gordon, and recently it was called Dien Bien Phu starring Henri Navarre. The reviews haven't come in yet but Petreaus has given a bravura performance so far.

Ex-top envoy calls Iraqi government a failure - Conflict in Iraq - MSNBC.com

Former Chief Executive Joseph Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week.

Details about the alleged NSA program have been redacted from the documents, but Nacchio's lawyer said last year that the NSA had approached the company about participating in a warrantless surveillance program to gather information about Americans' phone records.

So really, the wiretaps have NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11. This is something they wanted and used that as their excuse to get it.

Pre-9/11 wiretap bid is alleged - Los Angeles Times

Exactly what happened next is unclear. But within minutes of Katz's e-mail to the White House, government-registered computers began downloading the video from SITE's server, according to a log of file transfers. The records show dozens of downloads over the next three hours from computers with addresses registered to defense and intelligence agencies.

By midafternoon, several television news networks reported obtaining copies of the transcript. A copy posted around 3 p.m. on Fox News's Web site referred to SITE and included page markers identical to those used by the group. "This confirms that the U.S. government was responsible for the leak of this document," Katz wrote in an e-mail to Leiter at 5 p.m.

I'm seeing this as most damning out of this. Yes, SITE may have wanted to be able to point at this as a coup for getting funding, The fact that it was leaked so quickly, and who it was leaked to does indicate this one came from the top.

Leak Severed a Link to Al-Qaeda's Secrets

Al Qaeda's Internet communications system has suddenly gone dark to American intelligence after the leak of Osama bin Laden's September 11 speech inadvertently disclosed the fact that we had penetrated the enemy's system.

Want a leak worth investigating? How about this one. Who in the government leaked this to ABC, and why? I have my suspicions, but this is a case of releasing specific, secret, legal, methods and means. That places this in an entirely different category from other leaks (black sites - not legal, nor specific. wiretaps - again, not specific, not secret, and probably also illegal).

Qaeda Goes Dark After a U.S. Slip - October 9, 2007 - The New York Sun

"We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities," Khalaf said.

Gee, guess that privatization of the military isn't doing so well is it?

Blackwater License Being Revoked in Iraq