And a part of me dreams that Chuck Norris from The Delta Force aka Major Scott McCoy was part of at least one of these missions...

I was reading this article in The New York Times about an order signed by then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld secretly authorizing the military to go into a number of foreign countries we weren't actually at war with to hunt down Al Qaeda targets:

The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

In 2006, for example, a Navy Seal team raided a suspected militants’ compound in the Bajaur region of Pakistan, according to a former top official of the Central Intelligence Agency. Officials watched the entire mission — captured by the video camera of a remotely piloted Predator aircraft — in real time in the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorist Center at the agency’s headquarters in Virginia 7,000 miles away.

I'm still deciding whether I think this is a good or bad idea.  I'm not sure anyone really knows how we're supposed to conduct this war on terrorism, but a part of me thinks you have to hit targets when the opportunity arises and not become Boss Hogg chasing after the Duke brothers having to stop at the county line when the General Lee makes that jump over the river.  But that's just my first impression.  Regardless, this directive sounds like something straight out of the movies.  

Spies among us...

Just to make sure Firecracker George didn't think I was dogging him about being a dork and taking pictures of hand dryers in the bathroom, here's a picture I took of a trash bin in the bathroom from a place called The London Tea Room back in St. Louis. Hey, when you see something cool, might as well share:

If you see something strange, going on in your neighborhood...

Who ya gonna call?  Terrorist Busters!  

Just sing the title of this post to that old theme song from Ghostbusters, then insert a trio of idiots in jumpsuits with this logo on their chests:


I imagine Osama bin Laden is sitting in some cave somewhere and has milk all over his beard because he was laughing so hard. Yes, this really is an official logo from the CIA counter-terrorist unit.  

If only Fox Mulder worked for the CIA and not the FBI...

Yesterday, a two-year old secret document was declassified and released to the public which criticized former CIA director George Tenet and the top leadership in the spy agency of a mess of bureucratic red tape and budgeting snafus that failed to prepare the United States for the threat of al-Qaeda prior to the events of September 11th. Well, apparently the CIA did have knowledge of the terrorist plot straight from their own experiments in remote viewing and psychics, as you can see from this post in Wired.

But those pre-cogs hidden away in some secret spy room at Langley aren't the only ones that foresaw an attack on the World Trade Center. If you recall the pilot episode for The Lone Gunmen, a spin-off from The X-Files, the writers of that show didn't think flying a plane into the the Twin Towers was that farfetched either:



Obviously, mere coincidence, but kind of spooky if you let your mind wander and allow your paranoid side a chance to take over.

They are tyring to get our cheese

EQUALS

A new espionage threat? Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters hidden inside. The mysterious coins were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.

I know the picture is of an American dollar coin, but it was the associated picture in the AP article. I am always leery of our "friends" to the north. Watch your cheese. That is the real reason for the espionage. They are trying to find weaknesses in our cheese defenses. Just look at where Canada borders. While I am sure the location of Canada is not their fault, it has given them an overwhelming appetite for our cheese. Wisconsin, New York, Vermont - Watch your Cheddars!