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Tom Hayden, the liberal activist best known for his work in the 60's, when he helped found Students for a Democratic Society, was once pretty enthusiastic about Barack Obama. Back in March of 2008 he had the first byline on an article in the Nation -- also attributed to Bill Fletcher Jr., Danny Glover and Barbara Ehrenreich -- that began, "All American progressives should unite for Barack Obama." Now, though, after the president announced his decision to send an additional 30,00 troops to fight in Afghanistan, Hayden's had enough. His latest piece for the Nation begins with a very different...

Two big questions hang over President Obama's radical "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones. Is he still a communist? Is he a security threat? Many have assumed that Van Jones' committment to communism ended when the organization he helped to lead STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement) dissolved in 2002. Yet a 2004 treatise Reclaiming Revolution: History, Summation, and Lessons from the Work of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement written and endorsed by a majority of former STORM members makes it clear that most ex STORMers are still committed to the revolutionary movement; From page 49. When...

Three former CIA directors have privately told their successor he had his facts wrong when he revealed an illegal assassination program, reports Joseph Finder, and his spies will suffer for it. according to a half-dozen sources, including several very senior, recently retired CIA officials, clandestine-service officers, and Cabinet-level officials from the Bush administration, the real story is at once more innocent—Panetta was mistaken; no law was broken—and far more troubling: an inexperienced CIA director, unfamiliar with how his vast, complicated agency works, unable to trust senior officials within his own agency, and desperate to keep his hands clean, screwed up....

The death of Pol Pot, 23 years to the day after he and the Khmer Rouge seized control of Cambodia, occasioned long backward glances at one of the 20th century's most horrific genocides. It was noted everywhere that the communist reign of terror in Cambodia lasted nearly four years and that at least 1 million human beings -- by some estimates as many as 2 1/2 million -- were murdered in an orgy of executions, torture, and starvation. "In the name of a radical utopia," The New York Times recalled in its long obituary, "the Khmer Rouge regime had turned...

The man who ran the CIA from 2006 through January says he wasn't told by then-vice president Dick Cheney not to brief Congress about a covert program aimed at members of al-Qaida, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reports. Gen. Mike Hayden's statement is at odds with a New York Times report Sunday that said the CIA: Withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency's director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said...

WASHINGTON – Former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden angrily struck back Saturday at assertions the Bush administration's post-9/11 surveillance program was more far-reaching than imagined and was largely concealed from congressional overseers. In an interview with The Associated Press, Hayden maintained that top members of Congress were kept well-informed all along the way, notwithstanding protests from some that they were kept in the dark. "One of the points I had in every one of the briefings was to make sure they understood the scope of our activity 'They've got to know this is bigger than a bread box,' I said,"...

As President Obama prepared last month to release secret memos on the CIA's use of severe interrogation methods, the White House fielded a flurry of last-minute appeals. One came from former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, who expressed disbelief that the administration was prepared to expose methods it might later decide it needed. "Are you telling me that under all conditions of threat, you will never interfere with the sleep cycle of a detainee?" Hayden asked a top White House official, according to sources familiar with the exchange. From the beginning, sleep deprivation had been one of the most important...

President Obama released legal memos revealing our interrogation methods of terrorists, essentially referring to the Bush years following 9/11 as a "dark and painful chapter in our history." Thus we found out that: Prisoners could be kept awake for more than a week. They could be stripped of their clothes, fed nothing but liquid and thrown against a wall 30 consecutive times. In one case, the CIA was told it could prey on one prisoner's fear of insects by stuffing him into a box with a bug. When all else failed, the CIA could turn to what a Justice Department...

...HAYDEN: I wasn't asked. We weren't asked. We were informed as a courtesy by the agency that this was a pending decision, and all of us self-initiated, voluntarily, to call the White House and express our views. I should add, too, that the current director, Director Panetta, shared our views. I mean, if you look — if you look at what this really comprises, if you look at the documents that have been made public, it says top secret at the top. The definition of top secret is information which, if revealed, would cause grave harm to U.S. security. And...

WASHINGTON – Days after releasing top-secret memos that detailed the CIA's use of simulated drowning while interrogating terror suspects, President Barack Obama went to the spy agency's Virginia headquarters on Monday to defend his decision and bolster the morale of its employees. "I acted primarily because of the exceptional circumstances that surrounded these memos, particularly the fact that so much of the information was public," Obama said.

President Obama made what a spokesman called a "weighty" decision last week. He released a Bush administration memo that lists and precisely describes the harsh interrogation techniques the CIA was allowed to use when questioning al-Qaida suspects. What could he possibly have been thinking? Although the President signed an executive order halting the use of these methods soon after he took office, he and his CIA director both acknowledged that the administration reserved the right to use them in the future should they be needed. Now, they cannot be used even if this or any future administration finds them necessary....

Here is video of former CIA Director Michael Hayden yesterday on Fox News Sunday being very critical of President Obama for releasing CIA Memos that detail the "outer limits" of what the CIA will do in terms of interrogating prisoners. Hayden argues that is very dangerous, making it far more difficult for CIA Officers to defend the nation. He also believes Obama's decision has demoralized CIA employees, making them far less aggressive since they do not know whether or not their actions will be fodder as a political football in the future. It has left the Agency feeling that what...

p>The Talk Shows Sunday, April 19th, 2009 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Former CIA Director Michael Hayden; Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.; Denyce Graves, opera singer.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council; FreedomWorks chairman and former Rep. Dick Armey, R-Texas; Democratic Leadership Council chairman and former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn.FACE THE NATION (CBS): David Axelrod, White House senior adviser; Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa.; Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.THIS WEEK (ABC): White House chief of staff Rahm...

A former head of the CIA slammed President Obama on Sunday for releasing four Bush-era memos, saying the new president has compromised national security. Former CIA chief Michael Hayden said Sunday it is wrong to make interrogation methods public. Michael Hayden, who served as former President Bush's last CIA director from 2006 to 2009, said releasing the memos outlining terror interrogation methods emboldened terrorist groups such as al Qaeda. "What we have described for our enemies in the midst of a war are the outer limits that any American would ever go to in terms of interrogating an al Qaeda...

Four former CIA directors opposed releasing classified Bush-era interrogation memos, officials say, describing objections that went all the way to the White House and slowed release of the records. Former CIA chiefs Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet and John Deutch all called the White House in March warning that release of the so-called "torture memos" would compromise intelligence operations, current and former officials say. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to detail internal government discussions. President Barack Obama ultimately overruled those concerns after internal discussions that intensified in the weeks after the former directors intervened. The...

The point of interrogation is intelligence, not confession. The Obama administration has declassified and released opinions of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) given in 2005 and earlier that analyze the legality of interrogation techniques authorized for use by the CIA. Those techniques were applied only when expressly permitted by the director, and are described in these opinions in detail, along with their limits and the safeguards applied to them.

The President Ties His Own Hands on Terror The point of interrogation is intelligence, not confession. By MICHAEL HAYDEN and MICHAEL B. MUKASEY The Obama administration has declassified and released opinions of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) given in 2005 and earlier that analyze the legality of interrogation techniques authorized for use by the CIA. Those techniques were applied only when expressly permitted by the director, and are described in these opinions in detail, along with their limits and the safeguards applied to them. The release of these opinions was unnecessary as a legal matter, and is...

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden says release of the memos will give terrorists a precise guide for what to expect in a CIA interrogation if those methods are ever approved for use again. WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama absolved CIA officers from prosecution for harsh, painful interrogation of terror suspects Thursday, even as his administration released Bush-era memos graphically detailing -- and authorizing -- such grim tactics as slamming detainees against walls, waterboarding them and keeping them naked and cold for long periods. Human rights groups and many Obama officials have condemned such methods as torture. Bush officials have vigorously...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Amid calls for torture prosecutions, former Bush administration officials Friday slammed President Barack Obama's release of terror interrogation memos, warning the move would fuel "timidity and fear" among US spies. Unhappy with Obama's promise not to prosecute CIA officials, human rights groups have demanded criminal investigations of officials who approved or used the interrogation techniques chillingly detailed in the Justice Department memos. But in an editorial in The Wall Street Journal, former CIA director Michael Hayden and former attorney general Michael Mukasey charged that disclosure of the memos "was unnecessary as a legal matter, and is unsound...

Quick, Make Like an AntApril 5, 2009 — Ants deserve a lot of respect, despite being a nuisance in the kitchen.  The very fact they are so effective at bugging us is a testament to their ingenuity in foraging, communicating and organizing themselves into successful colonies.  We might just gain some valuable knowledge by watching them more closely. Foraging: Live Science says that ants forage haphazardly, but there might be a method to their madness.  Anyone who has watched ant scouts on the kitchen sink knows they seem to go this way and that without a plan.  Why don’t they...

SNIPPET: "Fox Correspondent Catherine Herridge interviewed CIA Director Mike Hayden on January 15, 2009. Below is the transcript of the interview." SNIPPET: "HERRIDGE: You said today that one of the greatest accomplishments was the number of days it had been since the attack [on the homeland]. Why do you consider that to be one of the most important accomplishments? HAYDEN: It has been ((word indistinct)) for the Agency since about mid-morning on September 11th. I’ve said this publicly before. One of the most operational offices, the one that really does things in the war on terror, you walk in and...

Which two countries offer the greatest threat to the United States? If you answered that they both must be in the Middle East, you would be only half right. You would be amazed to learn, as I was, that the second greatest threat to America comes from this hemisphere – yes, right next door to us. Former CIA chief Michael Hayden told reporters in January of this year that Mexico could rank alongside Iran as a challenge for President Obama – perhaps a greater problem than Iraq. The U.S. Justice Department said last month that Mexican gangs are the "biggest...

LANGLEY, Va. -- Outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden on Thursday vigorously defended the agency's use of secret prisons and coercive interrogation methods on suspected al Qaeda terrorists, saying they helped avert new terrorist attacks and were done "out of duty, not out of enthusiasm." Hayden argued that the CIA detainee program shouldn't be subjected to a public investigation because the administration had obtained Justice Department legal opinions to support it and had informed members of Congress. A public inquiry also would damage the careers of dedicated intelligence officers and the agency's espionage operations, he said. "We are asked to do...

ABC News' Luis Martinez reports: CIA Director Michael Hayden offered a spirited defense of the agency's controversial detention and interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, which Attorney General nominee Eric Holder characterized today as "torture." Hayden said the techniques provided extremely useful information about al Qaeda and have led to repeated successes against the terror network. "You can't say it didn't work. It worked," Hayden said in a wide-ranging farewell interview with reporters at the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Va.

Barack Obama is being given ominous advice from leaders on both sides of the Atlantic to brace himself for an early assault from terrorists. General Michael Hayden, director of the CIA, this week acknowledged that there were dangers during a presidential transition when new officials were coming in and getting accustomed to the challenges. But he added that no “real or artificial spike” in intercepted transmissions from terror suspects had been detected. President Bush has repeatedly described the acute vulnerability of the US during a transition. The Bush Administration has been defined largely by the 9/11 attacks, which came within...

<p>A founding member of the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois met in New York City tonight with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.</p> <p>Jodie Evans, who co-hosted Obama's first major fundraiser in Hollywood in February 2007 just after Obama announced his candidacy and is a top fundraiser and donor to Obama's campaign, led a delegation of leftist anti-American groups that held a private meeting near the United Nations. The stated purpose of the meeting was to "serve as an opening for diplomatic resolution" to prevent war between Iran and the United States.</p>

A year ago in July, a National Intelligence Estimate warned that al Qaeda had "protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability," meaning it could be poised to strike America again. The political reaction was instantaneous and damning. "This clearly says al Qaeda is not beaten," said Michael Scheuer, the former CIA spook turned antiterror scold. What a difference 10 months – and a surge – make. CIA Director Michael Hayden painted a far more optimistic picture in an interview yesterday in the Washington Post. "On balance, we are doing pretty well," he said. "Near strategic defeat of...

CIA Director Michael Hayden gave a noteworthy interview to the Washington Post this week. According to the Post: Less than a year after his agency warned of new threats from a resurgent al-Qaeda, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden now portrays the terrorist movement as essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest of the world, including in its presumed haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. In a strikingly upbeat assessment, the CIA chief cited major gains against al-Qaeda’s allies in the Middle East and an increasingly successful campaign to destabilize the group’s core...

Download this latest episode of Covert Radio to find out. Bill Roggio from the Long War Journal reacts to CIA Director Hayden on his claims that AQ is largely defeated. Bill raises questions about the claim including issues of Al Qaeda fundraising in the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia–the so called Golden Chain. Bill looks at Al Qaeda ascendancy in other areas including Somalia and Egypt. It is l10 minutes of critical analysis.

CIA director Michael Hayden came under stiff challenge for portraying Al-Qaeda as on the defensive after global setbacks, even in its safe havens along the Afghan-Pakistani border.Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Jay Rockefeller, said Hayden's upbeat appraisal was not consistent with intelligence assessments provided his committee over the past year."In fact, I have seen nothing, including classified intelligence reporting, that would lead me to this conclusion," Rockefeller said in a scathing letter to the Central Intelligence Agency director.Hayden's assessment -- one of the most positive since the September 11, 2001 attacks -- comes less than a year after US intelligence warnings...

Swelling populations and a global tide of immigration will present new security challenges for the United States by straining resources and stoking extremism and civil unrest in distant corners of the globe, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said in a speech yesterday. ...Hayden, speaking at Kansas State University, described the projected 33 percent growth in global population over the next 40 years as one of three significant trends that will alter the security landscape in the current century. By 2050, the number of humans on Earth is expected to rise from 6.7 billion to more than 9 billion, he said....

CIA Director Michael Hayden said Wednesday that Iranian policy, at the highest government level, is to help kill Americans in Iraq, the boldest pronouncement of Iranian involvement by a U.S. official to date. Hayden made the statement in response to a student question while delivering the Landon Lecture at Kansas State University. "It is my opinion, it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq," Hayden said. "Just make sure there's clarity on that." In recent weeks, U.S. officials have ratcheted up their complaints that Iran...

CIA Director Michael Hayden said Monday that the alleged Syrian nuclear reactor destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in September would have produced enough plutonium for one or two bombs within a year of becoming operational. U.S. intelligence and administration officials publicly disclosed last week their assessment that Syria was building a covert nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance. They said it was modeled on the shuttered North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, which produced a small amount of plutonium. The Syrian site, they said, was within weeks or months of being operational. "In the course of a year after they got...

CIA director Michael Hayden said today al-Qaeda was training operatives who "look western" and could enter the United States undetected to conduct terrorist attacks. General Hayden said the terror network over the past 18 months has established a safe haven in tribal areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan where they are preparing militants for attacks against the West. "They are bringing operatives into that region for training - operatives that, a phrase I would use, wouldn't attract your attention if they were going through the customs line at Dulles (airport near Washington DC) with you," Gen Hayden told NBC television. The new...

The Talk Shows Sunday, March 30th, 2008 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Jack Reed, D-R.I.; Stan Kasten, team president of the Washington Nationals. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): CIA Director Michael Hayden. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M.; Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter; Democratic strategist Joe Trippi. THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.; Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa. LATE EDITION (CNN) : Aaron Miller, former State Department adviser; Heraldo Munoz, Chilean ambassador to the United Nations; Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and...

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden yesterday named Michael J. Sulick to head the National Clandestine Service, bringing back to government service a veteran covert operator who left almost three years ago after a confrontation with aides to Hayden's predecessor, former congressman Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.). In announcing the appointment, Hayden described Sulick as "a familiar figure to many of you" and "a seasoned operations officer" who "earned a reputation for superior tradecraft and sound judgment." In November 2004, Stephen R. Kappes, then CIA deputy director of operations, the top spy position, and Sulick, then his deputy, became involved in a...

Hayden: CIA had fewer than 100 prisoners By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer 11 minutes ago Most of the information in a July intelligence report on the terrorist threat to America came from the U.S. government's much-criticized program of detaining and interrogating prisoners, CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden said Friday in defending the policy. The CIA has detained fewer than 100 people at secret facilities abroad since the capture of Abu Zubaydah in 2002, Hayden told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, according to an advance copy of his speech. He staunchly defended the program, saying even...

Cindy Sheehan, Tom Hayden, and the Hate America Left meet with pro-Ba'athist members of the Iraqi parliament to discuss “peace.” TO FIND PEOPLE WHO HATE AMERICA AS MUCH AS THEY DO, the Fifth Column Left had to go halfway around the world to meet with Iraqi political leaders who call terrorism “honorable national resistance” and say foreign jihadists “are guaranteed Paradise” – and at least one of whom has ties to militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. By the end of the trip, the American leftists would echo these sentiments. Somehow most of the media – occupied with interminable coverage of Hurricane...

The Central Intelligence Agency violated its charter for 25 years until revelations of illegal wiretapping, domestic surveillance, assassination plots, and human experimentation led to official investigations and reforms in the 1970s, according to declassified documents posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden announced today that the Agency is declassifying the full 693-page file amassed on CIA's illegal activities by order of then-CIA director James Schlesinger in 1973--the so-called "family jewels." Only a few dozen heavily-censored pages of this file have previously been declassified, although multiple Freedom of Information...

C-SPAN, Q&AWashington, District of Columbia (United States) ID: 197533 - 04/09/2007 - 0:58 - $19.95 Hayden, Michael V. Director, Central Intelligence Agency General Michael Hayden discussed how he runs the Central Intelligence Agency, how decisions are made, and his previous work in other areas of intelligence.

In Fonda’s Footsteps: Murtha, Kucinich, and the Antiwar Movement’s Economic WarBy Fedora There is only one way to end this war. Cut off the funds. --Dennis Kucinich, November 15, 2006 When John Murtha recently announced legislative plans to cut off funding for US troop deployment in Iraq, he was following the same game plan Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden had used three decades earlier in Vietnam. The descent of this antiwar strategy can be traced from Fonda and Hayden to Murtha through an antiwar lobby that dates from the Vietnam War and has been spearheaded through the current war by...

When CODEPINK launched our hunger strike, called Troops Home Fast on July 4, our goal was to push forward a peace process in Iraq that included the withdrawal of US troops. Our efforts were rewarded when Iraqi Parliamentarians, expressing sympathy for the hunger strikers, invited us to Amman, Jordan, to break our 30-day fast and discuss how we could work together to promote a comprehensive Reconciliation Plan. On Wednesday, August 2, a 14-person delegation, including "peace mom" Cindy Sheehan, former Colonel Ann Wright, Iraq war veteran Geoffrey Millard, writer/politician Tom Hayden, Iraqi analyst Raed Jarrar and CODEPINK co-founders Medea Benjamin,...

American Flyer! Hayden Wins USGP At Laguna Seca BOMBSHELL: ROSSI DNF by staff Sunday, July 23, 2006 Pos. Rider Team Bike 1 Nicky Hayden Repsol Honda Team Honda RC211V 2 Dani Pedrosa Repsol Honda Team Honda RC211V 3 Marco Melandri Fortuna Honda Honda RC211V 4 Kenny Roberts Jnr. Team Roberts KR211V 5 Chris Vermeulen R izla Suzuki MotoGP Suzuki GSV-R 6 John Hopkins Rizla Suzuki MotoGP Suzuki GSV-R 7 Carlos Checa Tech 3 Yamaha Yamaha YZR-M1 8 Loris Capirossi Ducati Marlboro Ducati Desmo GP-6 9 Colin Edwards Camel Yamaha Team Yamaha YZR-M1 10 Sete Gibernau Ducati Marlboro Ducati Desmo GP-6...

Whether The New York Times damaged national security by disclosing a highly classified intelligence program monitoring terrorist financing is, of course, the overriding question in the debate over that newspaper's controversial revelation. But, inevitably, the issue raises another question that so far has gone largely unexamined: Who is winning the resulting political battle over the press and national security? If it's President Bush, the administration and Republicans are being handed a potentially potent wedge issue. That could strengthen Bush's hand, not only in domestic political terms but in the far more important global struggle against a lethal terrorist enemy. If,...

Here we go again???

When President Bush nominated Gen. Michael Hayden to run the CIA, the press focused on disapproving Democrats and even some Republicans who were dubious about confirmation. A month later, when the Senate confirmed Hayden by a 78-15 vote, the story was given much less emphasis in the media, which had moved on to other stories critical of the Bush administration. Similarly, when Bush nominated one of his aides, Brett Kavanaugh, to the federal judiciary, the press was filled with reports about Democrats threatening a filibuster because Kavanaugh once worked for special prosecutor Kenneth Starr in the case against President Clinton....

President Bush attended the swearing-in ceremony for Gen. Michael Hayden as the new CIA Director. Read the president's remarks here. He met with Rwandan President Paul Kagame at the White House to discuss AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), peacekeeping contributions in Sudan, and Rwanda's strides toward reconciliation, democracy, and inclusiveness, and the important role of women in advancing these vital objectives. US sets conditions for talks with Iran. The first lady was in New Orleans, speaking at Tulane University; and for a tour of an exhibition at The Historic New Orleans Collection. Welcome to Sanity...

Pittsburgh's CIA chief honors 'family, country, God' By Francis Garland TRIBUNE-REVIEW Saturday, May 27, 2006 Harry Hayden's oldest son has been the source of much pride to his father since he stepped off the campus of Duquesne University and began jetting through the ranks of the U.S. Air Force in the late 1960s.

Senate confirms Hayden as CIA director By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer After hearing assurances he will be independent of the Pentagon, the Senate on Friday easily confirmed Gen. Michael Hayden, a career Air Force man, to head the CIA. Hayden, a four-star general, currently is the top deputy to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte. Hayden, 61, would be the first active-duty or retired military officer to run the spy agency in 25 years. He was approved by a vote of 78-15.

Gen. Hayden: "4th Amendment and wrong" http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/05/06.html#a8184