Yearly Kos is still only providing the first few sentences of Glenn. I asked posters who did see the full session if they could fill us in. So far they have not told us much.

I did a little background checking on the Saban Center at Brookings which Kenneth Pollack is a part of. I found some very interesting members of this center. They include three former CIA agents, a former Israel ambassador and AIPAC member & an ExxonMobil advisor. I will let people draw there own conclusions on these members but I don’t know how I feel about these people providing non-bias analysis about Iraq and then writing liberal anti-war Op-Ed pieces for a liberal news paper. They are at best questionable in my book for reliable research.

Time magazine is quoted as saying that the Brookings institute is the nation's pre-eminent liberal think tank? I don’t know if that’s true but its seems to me that the Saban Center at the Brookings institute is a more NeoCon pro-war than it is liberal.

Martin S. Indyk (director of saban) he is the former ambassador to Israel 2000-2001. He is also a former member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). (note: I would wager that he is probably pro-war when it comes to Iraq. Doesn’t seem much like a liberal when it come to the middle-east)

Kenneth M. Pollack (Director of Research at saban) Iran-Iraq Military Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency (1988-1995)(Of course we all know Kenneth's views on Iraq. Again he is clearly a pseudo-liberal democrat and is very pro-war)

Daniel L. Byman (Senior Fellow) Political Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency (1990-1993), Policy Analyst and Director for Research, Center for Middle East Public Policy, the RAND Corporation (1997-2002). His latest book is Deadly Connections: State Sponsorship of Terrorism which happens to spend a great deal of its pages on Iran and its state supported terrorism in Iraq and the middle east. (if we invade Iran I wonder if this guy will end up being the next Ken Pollack and write an article titled: "Iran: A war we just might win")

Bruce Riedel (Senior Fellow) National Intelligence Officer for Near East and South Asian Affairs, National Intelligence Council (1993-1995); Director for Gulf and South Asia Affairs, National Security Council (1991-1993); Deputy Chief Persian Gulf Task Force, Central Intelligence Agency (1990-1991); Various assignments, Central Intelligence Agency (1977-1990).

Suzanne Maloney (Senior Fellow) policy Planning Staff Member, U.S. Department of State (2005-2007); Project Director, Task Force on US-Iran Relations, Council on Foreign Relations (2003-2004); Middle East Advisor, ExxonMobil Corporation (2001-2004); Olin Fellow, The Brookings Institution (2000-2001)

The military whitewash is getting worse. The AP filed this story an hour ago

Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal was spared punishment in the latest review of Tillman's shooting. On Tuesday, the Army overruled a Pentagon recommendation that he be held accountable for his "misleading" actions.

In a sometimes contentious November interview under oath and via videoconference, Pentagon investigators sharply questioned McChrystal about the conflicting accounts, according to the testimony obtained by the AP under the Freedom of Information Act.

McChrystal acknowledged he had suspected several days prior to approving the Silver Star citation on April 28, 2004, that Tillman may have died by fratricide.

He said that suspicion led him to send a memo to top generals imploring "our nation's leaders," specifically "POTUS" — the acronym for the president — to avoid cribbing the "devastating enemy fire" explanation from the award citation for their speeches.

"Why did you recommend the Silver Star one day and then the next day send a secret back-channel message warning the country's leaders about using information from the Silver Star in public speeches because they might be embarrassed if they do?" an investigator asked McChrystal.

Despite numerous questions, the general never directly explained the discrepancies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070803/ap_on_re_us/tillman_friendly_fire

...couldn't find anything on C-Span (yet?) or at Crooks and Liars, so I checked out Technorati:

http://technorati.com/posts/tag/Glenn+Greenwald+at+YearlyKos

I haven't read all of the links yet, but here's a great quote:

A stand-alone fact to take away: as far as people at YK07 are concerned, Glenn Greenwald is a GOD. He got a loud reception, as is tallying more applause lines than some candidates. I probably need to start reading him more. Usually I only go to his site via other site's links.

from Dave Wilcox at Kerfuffle:

http://kerfuffle.typepad.com/kerfuffle/2007/08/hows-this-blogg.html

I found a very interesting article online relating to Kenneth Pollack and Daniel Byman. Of course both of them are Saban Center Scholars at the Brookings institute and both former CIA agents. This article is quite long and interesting in its own right but there is a statement at the beginning that I find VERY interesting.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1006/102006nj2.htm

U.S. options to control violence in Iraq narrowing

By James Kitfield National Journal October 20, 2006

Civil wars come on slowly at first, and then in a rush. They follow the track of contagion and the law of the tipping point.

A recent war game organized by two former CIA analysts, Ken Pollack of the Brookings Institution and Daniel Byman of Georgetown University, posed this question: What actions could the United States plausibly take to control the unfolding civil and sectarian strife in Iraq? Scenarios ranged from a redeployment of U.S. forces to complete withdrawal, and even included voluntary ethnic and sectarian relocations to separate Sunni from Shiite and thus keep a step ahead of the ethnic-cleansing mobs. Participants in the game included former senior military, intelligence, and policy-making officials. One insight gleaned from the exercise was that the United States faces a dwindling and increasingly unsavory set of options in Iraq.

I find this very curious for many reasons.

1. Pollack and Byman are running war games with former senior military, intelligence, and policy-making officials? That seems strange in itself to me?

2. Are they running these war games for the bush administration? It would seem that they would be the most likely client for this information?

3. If they are running these war games for the Bush administration is this part of the new strategy that General Petraeus & the surge are a part of? It would seem logical to me.

4. If these war games were part of the new Iraq strategy we are now seeing implemented, it seems unethical for Ken Pollack to then portray himself as liberal critic of the bush administration that has seen the light and agrees with the new strategy for Iraq that he was a part of creating.