1. The NY Times reports the U.S. plans a vastly expanded Afghan security force. “President Obama and his advisers have decided to significantly expand Afghanistan’s security forces in the hope that a much larger professional army and national police force could fill a void left by the central government and do more to promote stability in the country”.

   The plan awaiting Obama’s approval calls for a force of 400,000 Afghan troops and national police officers. “The cost projections of the program… range from $10 billion to $20 billion over the next six or seven years.”

   “The cost is relatively small compared to the cost of not doing it – of having Afghanistan either disintegrate, or fall into the hands of the Taliban, or look as though we are dominating it,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

   Meanwhile, the Times also reports an Afghan legislator and four others were killed by a powerful bomb attack on the the road between Kandahar and Helmand Provinces in southeast Afghanistan. All five travelling in the car were killed on the road a few miles from Lashkar Gah. “The legislator, Dad Mohammad Khan, was a former mujahedeen commander who served as Helmand’s head of intelligence after the American-led invasion of the country in late 2001.”

   As noted in this morning’s news, the CS Monitor is reporting that Key Afghan insurgents are open to talks. “Kabul has opened preliminary negotiations with the country’s most dangerous rebel faction, the Al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network. The group is accused of masterminding some of the most brazen attacks here in recent years, and a deal with them will likely be key to ending the war.”

   Elsewhere, the NY Times reports Pakistan is accused of a link to recent Kabul attack. According to Afghan intelligence officials, the Feb. 11 attack on the Justice Ministry and prison department building that left 26 people dead and more than 50 wounded, was the work of eight armed men wearing suicide vests that were “trained in Pakistan’s lawless border region”. The Afghans suggest “Pakistani intelligence had a role in the planning of the attacks.”

Four Four continues with climate change and one third of U.S. birds are threatened, the Tongan volcanic eruption, and naked short sales fraud may have toppled Lehman Brothers.

1. The Washington Post reports the ACLU seeks answers from Holder about torture.

   The ACLU called on Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. yesterday to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture at CIA secret prisons, following the leak last weekend of a secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross…

   Although Holder described waterboarding as torture during his confirmation hearings, the Obama administration has shown little willingness to support an investigation of interrogation techniques undertaken while George W. Bush was president…

   “Allegations of crimes is not a discretionary matter,” said Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the ACLU. Romero argued that Holder must act to meet the obligations of his office.

   The civil liberties groups also said time is running out for any criminal investigation into the interrogation of the first major terrorism suspect captured after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, a Saudi-born Palestinian better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Zubaida.

   Obama’s plan seems to be to run out the clock.

2. The Guardian reports the West Antarctic ice sheet could melt. Research to be published tomorrow in Nature states the giant West Antarctic ice sheet will melt if temperatures continue to rise. Enough water is trapped in the ice to raise sea levels by 15 feet (5 meters). A 9° F (5° C) rise in local “ocean temperatures could be enough to trigger” the meltdown, which will take just a few “thousands of years to unfold”.

Four at Four continues with fresh water and Pentagon procurement.

 

Little more than a week ago, U.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview with the New York Times:

At the heart of a new Afghanistan policy is going to be a smarter Pakistan policy. As long as you’ve got safe havens in these border regions that the Pakistani government can’t control or reach, in effective ways, we’re going to continue to see vulnerability on the Afghan side of the border. And so it’s very important for us to reach out to the Pakistani government, and work with them more effectively.

How then is expanding the war in Pakistan “smarter” policy? How is this reaching out? The NY Times is reporting on a trial balloon being floated by anonymous senior officials in the administration –

President Obama and his national security advisers are considering expanding the American covert war in Pakistan far beyond the unruly tribal areas to strike at a different center of Taliban power in Baluchistan, where top Taliban leaders are orchestrating attacks into southern Afghanistan.

1. Well I bet nobody could have predicted this. According to the Washington Post, Anger over AIG depletes Obama’s political capital.

   “The populist anger at the executives who ran their firms into the ground is increasingly blowing back on Obama, whom aides yesterday described as having little recourse in the face of legal contracts that guaranteed those bonuses… The Obama administration was already facing a skeptical public and members of Congress critical of the huge sums of money the government has allocated to shoring up the devastated financial system.”

   WaPo also reports Senate Democrats look at new taxes seek to recoup $165 million in AIG bonuses.

2. Over at the NY Times, they report on some other tax news — the Internal Revenue Service plans a deduction for Madoff victims.

   IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman told the Senate Finance Committee that the agency will allow victims of Bernard “Madoff’s investment fraud to claim a tax deduction related to the bulk of their losses… The plan would ease existing rules governing what are known as theft-loss deductions, which are losses claimed by investors who are cheated by their investment advisers and others in Ponzi schemes and other frauds.”

   So much for the people who were defrauded out of their retirement savings in IRA and 401(k) plans.

Four at Four continues with China wants consumers to pay for CO2 reduction, Rudman advising CIA on how to beat torture rap, and scientists use lasers to shoot mosquitoes.

1. The NY Times reports Suicide attacks kill 11 people in Afghanistan. A suicide bomber on foot attacked a police convoy in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province, Afghanistan, leaving 11 people dead and 28 wounded. “Most of the casualties were members of a counternarcotics squad” that “were about to head out on a poppy-eradication mission in what is the world’s largest heroin-producing region.”

   The Washington Post adds Troops face new tests in Afghanistan. “The southern part of the country is now regarded by U.S. and NATO commanders as the central front in the Afghan war.” The Taliban has “a significant degree of popular support”. Despite U.S.-led coalition “efforts to pry information about the Taliban from the local population — by conducting foot patrols, doling out money for mosques to buy new prayer rugs and offering agricultural assistance to subsistence farmers — have been met with indifference, if not downright hostility.”

2. While President Obama has ordered Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to ‘try’ to try to block A.I.G. bonuses, according to the NY Times, I find it doubtful anything substantial will be done. While Obama asked of the $165 million in A.I.G. bonuses — “How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?” — I think it’d be better if he asked himself that question.

   Meanwhile, Rep. Barney Frank criticizes A.I.G. “It does appear to me we’re rewarding incompetence,” Frank said. “These bonuses are going to people who screwed this thing up enormously, who made terrible decisions.” A.I.G. has defended these ‘retention’ bonuses as neccesary for keeping ‘top’ talent in place. It seems like a lot of people are lining up for their jobs.

   McClatchy reports MBA programs grow as economy shrinks. 246,957 “aspiring MBA candidates”, a record-high number, took the GMAT exam last year. This year, the number of test-takers is set to break that record. “About 77 percent of full-time MBA programs across the country say applicants were up last year.”

3. The CS Monitor reports Job losses hit black men hardest. “No group has been hit harder by the downturn. Employment among black men has fallen 7.8 percent since November of 2007, according to a report by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.”

4. The NY Times reports a Reform candidate withdraws in Iran. “Reversing a decision made five weeks ago, Mohammad Khatami, the reformist former president, has decided to withdraw from the June presidential race to support a political ally, close aides said Monday.” According to a close aid, Khatami does not want to run against Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

1. The Wall Street Journal reports Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao voices concern over China’s U.S. Treasuries. Wen said China is closely watching the policies of President Obama and what impact they have on the U.S. economy.

   “We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S., so of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. I do in fact have some worries,” Mr. Wen said in response to a question. He called on the U.S. to “maintain its credibility, honor its commitments and guarantee the safety of Chinese assets.”

   China holds the world’s largest foreign-exchange reserves, reported at $1.946 trillion at the end of 2008.

   About two-thirds of that sum is believed to be held in U.S. dollar assets, primarily Treasury bonds. Mr. Wen repeated China’s position that those investments are managed with a view to “safety, liquidity and profitability” — in that order.

   He said that while China’s first priority is to protect its own interests, it will “at the same time also take international financial stability into consideration, because the two are inter-related.”

   Larry Summers, ugh, Obama’s economic aide tries to reassure China over its bond investments, according to AFP. “This is a commitment that the president has made very clear — we need to be sound stewards of the money we invest,” Summers said. “Summers… stressed that the United States had to utilize all resources available at present to jolt its economy from prolonged recession.”

Four at Four continues with Amtrak capital investment, climate change warning, and spy blimp.

1. The Guardian reports Severe global warming will render half of world’s inhabited areas unliveable, Steven Sherwood, a climate expert at Yale University, told a global warming conference in Copenhagen today.

   “Parts of China, India and the eastern US could all become too warm in summer for people to lose heat by sweating – rendering such areas effectively uninhabitable… People will not be able to adapt to a much warmer climate as well as previously thought.”

   “There will be some places on Earth where it would simply be impossible to lose heat,” Sherwood said. “This is quite imaginable if we continue burning fossil fuels. I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t end up there.”

2. The NY Times reports President Obama issues his first signing statement, “reserving a right to bypass dozens of provisions in a $410 billion government spending bill even as he signed it into law.”

   “One of the budget bill’s provisions that Mr. Obama said he could circumvent concerns United Nations peacekeeping missions… He also raised concerns about a section that establishes whistle-blower protections for federal employees who give information to Congress.” The “majority of the challenged provisions are those allowing money to be reallocated to a different program only with the approval of a Congressional committee.”

3. McClatchy reports the Iraqi who threw shoes at Bush sentenced to 3 years. “An Iraqi court Thursday sentenced television journalist Muntathar al Zaidi to three years in prison for throwing his shoes at former U.S. President George W. Bush… Zaidi’s immediate family wept on hearing the sentence. His brother Udai accused the court of being Americanized. ‘This was expected from an Americanized court,’ he said. ‘We don’t feel sorry for Muntathar, we only feel sorry for Americanized Iraq.'”

4. The Houston Chronicle reports Space debris threat forces temporary evacuation of the space station. “The three American and Russian astronauts aboard the international space station took shelter in their Soyuz escape capsule briefly today to wait out the close approach of debris from an old U.S. commercial rocket stage, NASA said today… The debris, about 4 inches long, whizzed within three miles of the orbital outpost… causing no damage.”

   Back on the ground, the lauch of the space shuttle Discovery is postponed because of a leak in a hydrogen fuel line and NASA’s future is unclear. The LA Times reports President Obama says a ‘Sense of drift’ ails NASA.

   President Obama said Wednesday that NASA was an agency afflicted by “a sense of drift” and that it needed a “mission that is appropriate for the 21st century.”

   During an interview, Obama said the first priority of a new agency administrator — whom he promised to appoint soon — would be “to think through what NASA’s core mission is and what the next great adventures and discoveries are under the NASA banner.” …

   “Shaping a mission for NASA that is appropriate for the 21st century is going to be one of the biggest tasks of my new NASA director,” he said. “What I don’t what NASA to do is just limp along. And I don’t think that’s good for the economy in the region either.”

 

Last month, U.S. President Barack Obama ordered 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan without setting clear goals and an exit strategy. “This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction, and resources it urgently requires,” Obama said at the time.

Since the announcement three weeks ago, signs are beginning to emerge to what Obama’s Afghanistan strategy will be. Obama mentions three tools – the military, economic development, and diplomacy – he has available to eliminate the threat to the United States.

“We’ve got to recast our policy so that our military, diplomatic and development goals are all aligned to ensure that al Qaeda and extremists that would do us harm don’t have the kinds of safe havens that allow them to operate. At the heart of a new Afghanistan policy is going to be a smarter Pakistan policy,” Obama told the NY Times on Friday.

1. The Guardian reports the U.N. climate chief saus U.S. CO2 cuts could spark ‘revolution’. “Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said domestic political constraints made it impossible for the US president to announce ambitious short-term climate targets similar to those set by Europe. And he questioned the value of a new global climate deal without such a US pledge.” The cuts that scientists say are needed are politcally ‘impossible’ for the United States to make.

   Pachauri said regarding President Obama’s climate policy: “He is not going to say by 2020 I’m going to reduce emissions by 30%. He’ll have a revolution on his hands. He has to do it step by step.”

2. McClatchy reports the U.N. expert says U.S. rendition policy broke international law. “Martin Scheinin, a U.N. special rapporteur and expert on international law, issued his annual report to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday.” His report accuses the U.S. and some of its allies “of breaching international law for the so-called extraordinary renditions and subsequent alleged torture of terrorism suspects during the Bush administration’s global war on terrorism, and is launching a probe into the detention of suspects.”

   According to the report, the U.S. masterminded “a ‘comprehensive system’ of rendition and detention of suspects as well as creating “an international web” of intelligence sharing, his report notes that it was possible only through collaboration with many other countries.”

3. The Hill reports President Obama lays out five steps to mend earmarks. “Obama’s reforms are five-fold. First, Obama said, lawmakers must post their spending projects on their websites ‘so the public and the press can examine them and judge their merit for themselves.’ Second, those earmarks must also be open to scrutiny at public hearings… Third, earmarks that go to for-profit private companies would be subject to a competitive bidding contract structure like the one used for other federal contracts… Fourth, Obama said that earmarks should never be traded for ‘political favors.’ And fifth, he noted that his administration will review each spending project and, if it is deemed unworthy, will work to eliminate it.”

4. The Guardian reports Amazon could shrink by 85% due to climate change, scientists say.

   Global warming will wreck attempts to save the Amazon rainforest, according to a devastating new study which predicts that one-third of its trees will be killed by even modest temperature rises.

   The research, by some of Britain’s leading experts on climate change, shows that even severe cuts in deforestation and carbon emissions will fail to save the emblematic South American jungle, the destruction of which has become a powerful symbol of human impact on the planet. Up to 85% of the forest could be lost if spiralling greenhouse gas emissions are not brought under control, the experts said. But even under the most optimistic climate change scenarios, the destruction of large parts of the forest is “irreversible”.

1. The NY Times reports a Bomber kills dozens in Iraq as fears of new violence rise.

   A suicide bomber took aim at a group of Iraqi Army officers on their way to a reconciliation conference on the western outskirts of Baghdad on Tuesday, and wild gunfire ensued. A total of 33 people were killed, including two journalists.

   It was the second attack since Sunday to kill more than two dozen people, suggesting a renewed ability by insurgents to mount effective suicide bombings, after a long period in which such attacks were relatively few and less lethal because of heavy security precautions.

2. The AP reports Top U.S. intelligence officials state Iran does not have key nuclear material, despite what Israel claims. “U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Maples said Tuesday that Iran has only low-enriched uranium – which would need to be refined into highly enriched uranium before it can fuel a warhead. Neither officials said there were indications that refining has occurred.”

   “Maples said the United States and Israel are interpreting the same facts, but arriving at different conclusions. ‘The Israelis are far more concerned about it,’ Maples told the Senate Armed Services Committee.”

3. Yesterday McClatchy reported Regulatory reports show 5 biggest banks face huge losses. Despite having already taken $145 in bailout money, Citibank, Bank of America, HSBC Bank USA, Wells Fargo Bank, and J.P. Morgan Chase “still face potentially catastrophic losses from exotic investments if economic conditions substantially worsen, their latest financial reports show… Their ‘current’ net loss risks from derivatives – insurance-like bets tied to a loan or other underlying asset – surged to $587 billion as of Dec. 31.”

   While today, the NY Times reports Stocks push higher on an upbeat memo from Citigroup. Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup, wrote a memo that said “the bank had turned a profit in the first two months of the year, and that its quarterly performance to date, before taxes and special items, was the best since the third quarter of 2007.” He gave “no indication of how much special items, like write-downs or credit losses, would be”.

4. The Guardian reports Carbon emissions are creating acidic oceans not seen since the dinosaurs. “Human pollution is turning the seas into acid so quickly that the coming decades will recreate conditions not seen on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs, scientists will warn today.”

   “The rapid acidification is caused by the massive amounts of carbon dioxide belched from chimneys and exhausts that dissolve in the ocean. The chemical change is placing ‘unprecedented’ pressure on marine life such as shellfish and lobsters and could cause widespread extinctions, the experts say.”

1. The NY Times reports Bush’s signing statements are put on notice. “Calling into question the legitimacy of all the signing statements that former President George W. Bush used to challenge new laws, President Obama on Monday ordered executive officials to consult with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. before relying on any of them to bypass a statute.” However, Obama, himself may still use signing statements.

   “In exercising my responsibility to determine whether a provision of an enrolled bill is unconstitutional, I will act with caution and restraint, based only on interpretations of the Constitution that are well-founded,” Mr. Obama wrote in a memorandum to the heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch.

2. The Washington Post reports the U.S. protests ‘harassment’ of Navy ship by Chinese vessels. “The Pentagon today protested what it called harassment and aggressive shadowing of a U.S. Navy ocean surveillance ship by five Chinese vessels in international waters off the South China Sea on Sunday, warning such behavior could lead to collisions or the loss of life.”

   The U.S.N.S. Impeccable was “surrounded” by Chinese vessels and told to leave the area. When the Impeccable turned fire hoses at one of the ships, “the Chinese crewmembers stripped to their underwear and the ship ‘continued closing to within 25 feet'”. When the Impeccable tried to leave, it was blocked by two ships.

3. BBC News reports a U.S. General says allies ‘not winning’ in Afghan south. Gen. David D. McKiernan, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, believes the coalition in areas of the north, east, and west Afghanistan where “coalition efforts in support of the government of Afghanistan [are] winning.

   “But there are other areas – large areas in the southern part of Afghanistan especially, but in parts of the east – where we are not winning,” he said.

   The NY Times adds Western-style democracy ‘no question’ in Afghanistan. McKiernan “raised the possibility of the American military reaching out to moderate elements of the Taliban, much as it did with Sunni militias in Iraq.”

   “If nationalist-minded Taliban come to power through the ballot-box and respect the constitution, that is the Afghans’ business,” he said. “What we reject is support for international jihad,” he said.

4. The Observer reports Scientists issue stark warning over dramatic new sea level figures.
   Scientists will warn this week that rising sea levels, triggered by global warming, pose a far greater danger to the planet than previously estimated. There is now a major risk that many coastal areas around the world will be inundated by the end of the century because Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are melting faster than previously estimated. Low-lying areas including Bangladesh, Florida, the Maldives and the Netherlands face catastrophic flooding”.