Morning Joe: May 14, 2009

Drone Sharing

Stories we're following today:

In a First, U.S. Provides Pakistan With Drone Data - New York Times [link]

• The United States military for the first time has provided Pakistan with a broad array of surveillance information collected by American drones flying along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, American military officials said Wednesday.

In Bleak Afghan Outpost, Troops Slog On - New York Times [link]

• The valley quieted. Had the insurgents been killed? Probably not, the soldiers said. Another day in the Korangal, with both sides making the point they made during the sweep: Do what you will. We are still here.

Iran's Potato Revolution - Mehrzad Boroujerdi in Foreign Policy [link]

• Although many Iranian liberals - and a few Western analysts - see in Moussavi a potential reformist corrective to Ahmadinejad's excesses, the former prime minister, should he overcome long odds and win in June, is likely to tweak, rather than overhaul, the Islamic Republic. Think Leonid Brezhnev, not Mikhail Gorbachev.

Dictator Deal Could Open Back Door Supply Route to Afghanistan - Wired's Danger Room [link]

• The clock may still be ticking on the possible closure of a key U.S. airbase for supplying troops in Afghanistan. But some back-channel diplomacy may secure a new route — if America agrees to make nice with a blood-stained autocrat.

Pakistan's displacement camps: A study in contrasts - L.A. Times [link]

• The government's large Jalala camp pales in comparison to privately run Hazrat Usman. Analysts warn that could turn huge numbers of Pakistanis against the military crackdown on the Taliban.

I'll See Your Cyber Attack and Raise You Nuclear Armageddon - Kingston Reif in Nukes of Hazard [link]

• The idea that a U.S. president would even consider, let alone authorize, consigning millions of people to their deaths because hackers shut down the northeast is so ludicrous I have difficulty even writing it down.
• There's no nice way to say this so I'll just say it: Threatening a nuclear response in the event of a cyber attack is...