News you may have missed #0019

• More interesting podcasts on Afghanistan at Electric Politics. George Kenney, of Electric News, has posted a full transcript of last month’s interesting interview with Graham E. Fuller, CIA’s former station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan. Also, a new highly interesting interview on Afghanistan has been posted on the Electric News website, this time with George Wilson. A veteran reporter who covered the Vietnam and Iraq wars, Wilson makes some noteworthy comparisons between Vietnam and Afghanistan.
• Panetta, not Blair, should name CIA station chiefs, says ex-CIA agent. Haviland Smith, former CIA agent in Europe and the Middle East, has penned an editorial for The Baltimore Sun, in which he denounces as “simple insanity” efforts by Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, to have a say at who gets appointed as CIA station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.  This is the second ex-CIA agent to issue the same warning in recent days.
• Two more people arrested in Lebanon for spying for Israel. This raises the number of those arrested for belonging to an alleged Israeli spy ring in southern Lebanon to nearly 40. The latest arrestees include Ziad al Homsi, who in 1969 was photographed with Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat.