Scott Horton Interviews Marcy Wheeler
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Blogger Marcy Wheeler discusses possible evidence that Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales didn’t commit the Afghan massacre by himself; the surprising WSJ article that sympathetically tells the massacre story from an Afghan’s perspective; James Risen and the NY Times’ honest accounting of Iran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons program; how the Obama administration is re-doing “total information awareness” and getting away with it; and how the National Counterterroism Center (NCTC) – the same agency that flubbed the underwear bomber case – is using bureaucratic word games to grant itself unlimited access to data on Americans.
MP3 here. (27:36)
Blogger Marcy Wheeler, a.k.a. emptywheel, grew up bi-coastally, starting with every town in New York with an IBM. Then she moved to Poway, California, home of several participants in the Duke Cunningham scandal. Since then, she has lived in Western Massachusetts, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Ann Arbor, and — just recently — Western Michigan.
She got a BA from Amherst College, where she spent much of her time on the rugby pitch. A PhD program in Comparative Literature brought her to Michigan; she got the PhD but decided academics was not her thing. Her research, though, was on a cool journalistic form called the “feuilleton” — a kind of conversational essay that was important to the expansion of modern newspapers in much of the rest of the world. It was pretty good preparation to become a blogger, if a PhD can ever be considered training for blogging.
After leaving academics, Marcy consulted for the auto industry, much of it in Asia. But her contract moved to Asia, along with most of Michigan’s jobs, so she did what anyone else would do. Write a book, and keep blogging. (Oh, and I hear Amazon still has the book for sale.)
Marcy has been blogging full time since 2007. She’s known for her live-blogging of the Scooter Libby trial, her discovery of the number of times Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded, and generally for her weedy analysis of document dumps.
Marcy met her husband Mr. emptywheel playing Ultimate Frisbee, though she retired from the sport several years ago. Marcy, Mr. EW and their dog — McCaffrey the MilleniaLab — live in a loft in a lovely urban hellhole.
@JohnEllis02
March 26th, 2012 at 5:00 am
One in a million — A dissident who will differ openly against the rich and powerful
Surely, no small matter is this ability of a government to identify all those who cause trouble for the elite who rule government. For they are the call to rebellion, the leaders of the charge and if you silence them never can there be a rebellion. As that old sweet song lingers in the back roads of our memory,
“His music fills my instrument,
his blood runs in my soul,
I’m just a living legacy
to the leader of the band.”
Unheard Masses
March 26th, 2012 at 5:22 am
I can't imagine they just let 1 person wander off a military base at 2 am… come back all bloodied up, and then go out again and do the same thing!!
most likely a patrol of soldiers did it.
IP Khalifah
March 26th, 2012 at 10:20 am
It is an OBAMA Xorgy 2am mission to rape-eat whatever U$ arm can get…then TEMP pribe the remaining of Family FIRST islamic build UP + Israel just waved all UN cookies for checking their bloody 100yrs occupy_kill/theft of falastin and Obama approved = ZoO 'X' in Anan acommi$$ion's
@JohnEllis02
March 26th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
Me smell — A conspiracy
Latest hot news from the lawyer for the one-man slaughter squad is, “Where is the evidence against my client? The military has none.”
So, that is why the victims were set on fire, for gas soaked bodies burnt to charcoal not even a husband could identify. And so, did lawyer for the Sgt. make that comment to the military before or after the slaughter? For we are ruled by a military complex so inhuman cruel it makes the Christian Crusades look pale in comparison.
@JohnEllis02
March 26th, 2012 at 6:46 pm
Sgt Bales did it — Impossible
If the military were correct, that Sgt. Bales with one gun, one knife and a can of gas slaughtered 17 victims, then much blood would there have been on his boots and cloths. Then the military would have preserved the bloody clothes, collected DNA samples of all the victims and the whole world would have to stop guessing at the facts because self-evident would be the reality of it.
But, surely reverse is the truth, for the military is not showing the bloody cloths which means that it has no such cloths and Sgt. Bales lawyer is now claiming,
“Where is the evidence against my
client? The military has none.”
John Ellis
March 27th, 2012 at 3:46 am
British teenager arrested for Facebook comments criticizing Afghan war
By Harvey Thompson and Mark Blackwood
26 March 2012
Azhar Ahmed, a19-year-old from Ravensthorpe, England, was arrested last week by West Yorkshire Police and charged with a “racially aggravated public order offence”.
On March 8, following two days of saturation media coverage of the deaths of six British soldiers in Afghanistan, Ahmed wrote on his Facebook page:
“What about the Innocent families who have been brutally killed… The women who have been raped… The children who have been sliced up..! Your enemies were the Taliban not innocent harm[less] families. All soldiers should DIE & go to HELL! THE LOWLIFE F*****N SCUM! gotta problem go cry at your soldiers grave & wish him hell because that where he is going.”.
Explaining Ahmed’s arrest, a spokesperson for Yorkshire police said, “He didn’t make his point very well and that is why he has landed himself in bother”.
MvGuy
March 27th, 2012 at 5:21 am
Maybe it could be arranged to bring a medium sized body from the massacre and store it in Sgt. Bales cell with him where it would be safe and available for the court marshal………..
John Ellis
March 27th, 2012 at 5:25 am
‘Russia is Public Enemy No. 1’ – Mitt Romney
US presidential candidate Mitt Romney has branded Russia as America’s number one geopolitical enemy. He slammed President Obama’s comments to Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev over flexibility concerning US missile defense as alarming and worrying.
“This is without question our number one geopolitical foe; they fight for every cause for the world’s worst actors. The idea that he has more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling indeed,” he said
The presidential hopeful cited this case, along with the new START treaty and the decision to reduce missile defense sites in Poland and Alaska, as “unfortunate developments.”
While saying that the greatest current threat to the world is a “nuclear Iran,” he lambasted Russia for consistently “standing up for the world’s worst actors,” referencing the Russian veto of the Security Council resolutions on Syria.
“The idea that our president is planning to do something with them [Russia] that he’s not willing to tell the American people is something I find very alarming,” Romney stressed.
.
. http://rt.com/news/romney-russia-enemy-obama-532/
@JohnEllis02
March 27th, 2012 at 5:49 am
Worst enemy of voting majority USA — Itself
The American voting majority has this fascination with killing off our enemies, which seems to have the reverse effect, for we are number one among Western nations in assassination of capital punishment prisoners and number one in wars of aggression world wide. Comes now paid actor Mitt Romney to feed this fascination:
"Russia is without question our number one geopolitical foe;
they fight for every cause for the world's worst actors. The
idea that he has more flexibility in mind for Russia is very,
very troubling indeed… “The idea that our president is
planning to do something with them [Russia] that he’s not
willing to tell the American people is something I find very
alarming.”
Naomie Harris Interview
April 2nd, 2012 at 6:44 pm
Wow! This can be one particular of the most helpful blogs We’ve ever arrive across on this subject. Basically Wonderful. I am also an expert in this topic therefore I can understand your effort.
6/6/13 Marcy Wheeler | The Scott Horton Show
June 10th, 2013 at 2:33 pm
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