Since at least last May, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been chastising publicly our “frienemies” in Pakistan for protecting Al Qaeda  leadership in their country and aiding and abetting Taliban operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan that are killing Americans and allied forces.

Hillary Clinton is right. She has seen the same intelligence as President Obama. But this administration leaves out a large piece of this very ugly pie: The Pakistani intelligence service – the ISI – takes its cues not from the United States or its own government but from the most extreme elements in the Saudi Royal family. That connection has brought Pakistan money to build nuclear weapons and helped create and now protects the Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership. Saudi money continues to flow into places like Yemen and Somalia. So while Hillary Clinton takes on the Pakistani regime in public, their real puppet masters go about their deadly business through the Saudi intelligence service, unchallenged by U.S. policymakers. They are paying to kill our kids. George Bush let it happen and now Barack Obama follows the same policies. Saudi Arabia in intelligence parlance is the frienemy of our “frienemies.”

The FBI investigation into a group of Russian spies was rushed to conclusion because these illegals seemed to have been tipped off that they were in trouble. The fact that the Russians knew that their spy ring had been discovered is worrying because it may mean that the Bureau or another American intelligence agency has been penetrated by SVR – the follow-on agency to the KGB. It would not be the first time.

One of the most important U.S. agents in our history – codenamed GRAPHIC IMAGE – was a veteran Army warrant officer who fed the Russians phony plans for missile systems and other equipment to get them to spend huge amounts of money on dead-end weapons. The Russians had bought into this agent in a very big way. They had flown him to Vienna and had driven him to meetings with high Soviet officials. He had even been photographed with the Soviet leadership in his Russian military uniform, a rare honor for an American spy. Ralph Sigler, the real name of the agent, was a serious American hero.

The world is full of many strange materials, from silly putty to artificial blood and buckyballs, but none is stranger than the flammable ice called “methane hydrate” lying on the ocean floor in quantities vast enough to end the energy crisis.

The Washington Post used to be a trusted newspaper where a reader could find accurate information. But on Tuesday March 16, 2010, the Post ran in its “Planet Panel” column anti-climate change propaganda from the notorious George C. Marshall Institute. There is no doubt that the late General Marshall would be spinning in his grave if he knew that the gas and petroleum industry was exploiting his reputation through an institute that specializes in confusing the public with industry-paid junk science.

Apparently, it is coming as a shock to some of the millions of angry, jingoistic Americans, who thought Fox News was seriously patriotic and not just one of Rupert Murdoch’s money grubbing ventures, that the prince of media darkness is now in business with a real Saudi prince. My earlier column on Rupert’s Saudi business playmate, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a nephew of the Saudi king, seemed to upset the Tea Party crowd almost as much as Senator Scott “Benedict Arnold” Brown voting with the Democrats on the jobs bill last month.

Please, try to get control. You forgave Rush Limbaugh for shaking down his maid for OxyContin. Surely you can forgive a needy businessman for taking money from a donor to the survivors of suicide bombers. Is there no compassion among you? Murdoch is merely fighting to keep control of the very company that created Fox News just for you. Without Prince bin Talal’s voting shares, your patron might lose control of the company that created America’s Most Trusted News Network. Murdoch losing control would be like Al Gore taking over Springfield’s nuclear plant and kicking Mr. Burns to the curb. Imagine a cable “liberal” like John Malone running News Corp.

Dubai is a very curious place. It is run by a very rich sheik who allows very bad things to happen in his glittering little Sheikdom and always gets away with it. It is the kind of place where they give expensive cars away at airport raffles, AQ Khan buys and sells nuclear weapons plans and components almost openly, and the Dubai authorities make few arrests.

Intelligence services operate in enormous numbers with the license to steal, kill, frame and the local cops take no action until after the deed is done. They import hookers from Eastern Europe by the thousands, and they have a special parking lot for all the Lamborghinis and Ferraris cracked up on Saturday night. Dubai is like Las Vegas with much less restraint.

Last month I appeared on Fox News Network’s morning show, Fox and Friends, to talk about airline security. Normally such appearances end up as clips on the Fox News Web site. Granted, the Steve Doocy interview was hardly groundbreaking, but that is seldom a criterion for feeding the beast that is a major cable network news Web site. Curiously, I was quoted in a written piece on the site that got a fair amount of pick-up, but no video.

It was not until a few days later that I learned what may have been behind the absence of a video clip on the Web site. I had said to Doocy that Saudi Arabian money was still financing Al Qaeda. Doocy did not react to my comment. But ten days later I learned that Fox’s parent company, News Corporation, was, at the time of my interview, negotiating with a Saudi prince to vastly increase his stake in the company.

Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan’s report to President Obama seemed the essence of candor. What was released to the public on January 7, 2010, seemed hard hitting and provided the illusion that Brennan had gotten to the bottom of what went wrong on Christmas Day with America’s intelligence apparatus. But like TSA and the rest of the airline security illusion, the Brennan report is another fairy tale told to make us feel better.

The CIA is desperate for a win against Al Qaeda – desperate enough, in fact, to abandon airline security in favor of allowing terrorists to fly in the hopes of following them to a solid lead. They have been doing this at Langley since 9/11. It has not paid off. But as a result, airline passengers are being put at risk every day around the world.