Tag: 4@4

1. The LA Times reports the Red Cross backs reports of Afghan civilian deaths.

   Villagers said dozens of people — including women, children and elderly men — were killed while sheltering in crowded civilian compounds as fighting raged in the area Monday. About two dozen insurgents were thought to have died in the confrontation as well. Provincial officials Tuesday put the number of dead around 70.

   The International Committee of the Red Cross said its representatives in the area saw dozens of corpses that had been pulled from the rubble in two separate locations in the district. Spokeswoman Jessica Barry in Kabul said the dead included women and children.

   The Washington Post reports Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expresses regret for civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

   Referring to an airstrike in western Afghanistan Monday that Afghan officials and foreign relief workers say killed dozens of civilians, Clinton expressed “my personal regret, and certainly the sympathy of our administration, on the loss of civilian life in Afghanistan.” She told Karzai: “We deeply regret it. We don’t know all of the circumstances or causes. And there will be a joint investigation, by your government and ours. But any loss of life, any loss of innocent life, is particularly painful. And I want to convey to the people of both Afghanistan and Pakistan that . . . we will work very hard, with your governments and with your leaders, to avoid the loss of innocent civilian life. And we deeply, deeply regret that loss.”

   On top of the loss of life, the real problem is the Obama administration doesn’t “deeply, deeply regret” the loss of life enough to stop the air strikes. Each bomb and missile that we use in Afghanistan is an admission our strategy has failed.

   Meanwhile, the LA Times reports President Obama prepares for talks with presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Two days of talks are planned, “Afghanistan to overhaul a painstakingly developed security strategy that was unveiled only five weeks ago but already has become badly outdated. The three countries spent months developing their plan to combat an Islamic insurgency centered in eastern Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border. But growing militant activity in Pakistan is forcing them to hastily switch focus.”

   The NY Times adds the Pakistani president tries to assure the U.S. over the Taliban. “President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan met privately for 90 minutes with members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee”. His “presentation, however, left some members confused and disappointed, according to a person who attended the meeting. He said little about how the Pakistani government planned to regain momentum in the fight against the militants. And when he asked for financial assistance, he likened it to the government’s bailout of the troubled insurance giant, American International Group.”

   The United States has become the punchline to an international joke.

   Meanwhile, Pakistan is up to their old con game. The NY Times adds Pakistan claims combat gains before U.S. talks.

Four at Four continues with governmental reports, another two bombs in Baghdad, and a stealth nationalization plan for Bank of America.

1. McClatchy reports Pakistan advises Swat inhabitants to evacuate as Taliban takes Mingora. The Taliban has taken the Swat valley’s main town. “Up to now, Pakistan had pretended that a controversial peace accord with Taliban in Swat was still holding.”

   The CS Monitor asks what’s the Next Taliban conquest? A view from Pakistan’s frontline. Zeeshan Aslam, shopkeeper and local reporter in Haripur, Pakistan said:

   “We are already living in fear”… Additional security forces have come to this city of 100,000, he says, but too few. “The cordon is porous, and they [the Taliban] can easily come in.”

   Military spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas offers a different assessment: “There is absolutely no threat to the city of Haripur given the military operation, and all the out routes from Swat [are sealed].”

   But that’s not how the NY Times sees it. A Porous Pakistani border could hinder the U.S. in Afghanistan. “The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan barely exists for the Taliban, who are counting on the fact that American forces cannot reach them in their sanctuaries in Pakistan.”

   In addition, one Taliban strategist told the Times:

   “I know of the Petraeus experiment there,” he said. “But we know our Afghans. They will take the money from Petraeus, but they will not be on his side. There are so many people working with the Afghans and the Americans who are on their payroll, but they inform us, sell us weapons.”

   He acknowledged that the Americans would have far superior forces and power this year, but was confident that the Taliban could turn this advantage on its head. “The Americans cannot take control of the villages,” he said. “In order to expel us they will have to resort to aerial bombing, and then they will have more civilian casualties.”

   Meanwhile McClatchy also reports Pakistani army flattening villages as it battles Taliban. “The Pakistani army’s assault against Islamic militants in Buner, in northwest Pakistan, is flattening villages, killing civilians and sending thousands of farmers and villagers fleeing from their homes”.

   “We didn’t see any Taliban; they are up in the mountains, yet the army flattens our villages,” Zaroon Mohammad, 45, told McClatchy as he walked with about a dozen scrawny cattle and the male members of his family in the relative safety of Chinglai village in southern Buner. “Our house has been badly damaged. These cows are now our total possessions.”

   I think its pretty obvious that the U.S. has military trainers in Pakistan. Hearts and minds, people… hearts and minds.

   Don’t worry though, the U.S. military is warily encouraged over Pakistan. While Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is “gravely concerned” but noted the Pakistan military may finally be engaging the Taliban.

   “That’s where the patience and persistence piece must kick in, as far as I’m concerned, from our perspective.”

   The Washington Post seems to dispute Pakistani military cliams, because the newspaper reports the Taliban tightens its hold in Pakistan’s Swat Region and “continued resisting the military’s efforts to dislodge them from neighboring Buner”.

   The reason why the Pakistan military may appear to be on the offensive is “an action that could coincide with a crucial aid-seeking visit to Washington this week by President Asif Ali Zardari, whose government has been criticized by U.S. officials for capitulating to the insurgents.”

Four at Four continues with major FAIL for corn ethanol, UN wants to investigate alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza, wha?! Sen. Inhofe does something good, and Sec. LaHood’s describes himself as “window dressing”.

1. The Guardian reports Pakistan’s expanding nuclear projects raise fears. “Pakistan is continuing to expand its nuclear bomb-making facilities… The Khushab reactors are situated on the border of Punjab and North-West Frontier province, the scene of heavy fighting between Taliban and government forces. Another allegedly vulnerable facility is the Gadwal uranium enrichment plant, less than 60 miles south of Buner district, where some of the fiercest clashes have taken place in recent days.”

   McClatchy adds the U.S. is still confident that “the Pakistani military, which maintains a special 10,000-man force to guard its nuclear facilities, is taking extraordinary steps to protect its nuclear sites, as well as the warheads themselves.” But, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thinks the Taliban’s advance is a “mortal threat” to the United States and the world.

   “If the worst, the unthinkable, were to happen, and this advancing Taliban encouraged and supported by al Qaida and other extremists were to essentially topple the government for failure to beat them back, then they would have the keys to the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan,” she said…

   “‘There is a rising tide of jihadist sympathizers within the Pakistani military,’ asserted the U.S. defense official.”

   Spiegel reports on The battle for control of Pakistan.

   A British regional expert with top intelligence agency connections recently told an exclusive circle of members of parliament in London: “The ally Pakistan does not share our interests.” He said Islamabad intends “to topple Afghanistan’s President Karzai, install a Pakistan-friendly Pashtun government and drive the British, the Americans and NATO out of the country.”

   …Pakistani courts have not convicted a single prominent Islamist since 2001…

   Pakistan’s key vulnerability may not actually lie with the security system for its nuclear warheads. A greater threat to the 166 million Pakistanis appears to emanate from the country’s immeasurably corrupt society, with its stark class differences. The rich elite ignore the miseries of the poor, and there is no compulsory education or functioning health-care system. This makes society’s underprivileged particularly receptive to any form of attention, even from the otherwise dreaded Islamists. The militants at least offer income and opportunities to rise through the ranks…

   By contrast, the powerful army is more concerned with pursuing its own business deals than with protecting the Pakistanis from Islamist aggressors.

   The NY Times adds Pakistan’s Islamic schools fill a void, but fuel militancy. “With public education in a shambles, Pakistan’s poorest families have turned to madrasas, or Islamic schools, that feed and house the children while pushing a more militant brand of Islam than was traditional here.”

   “We are at the beginning of a great storm that is about to sweep the country,” said Ibn Abduh Rehman, who directs the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent organization. “It’s red alert for Pakistan.”

   Even if the madrasas do not make militants, they create a worldview that makes militancy possible. “The mindset wants to stop music, girls’ schools and festivals,” said Salman Abid, a social researcher in southern Punjab. “Their message is that this is not real life. Real life comes later” – after death.

Four at Four continues with Iraq, U.S. collapsing from debt, swine flu ebbs in Mexico, and crowded oceans.

1. On the 6th anniversary day of “Mission Accomplished”, Three U.S. Troops Are Killed in Iraq reports the NY Times. “Two American Marines and a sailor were killed during a military operation in Anbar, the vast province west of Baghdad… The three Americans died on Thursday ‘while conducting combat operations against enemy forces,'” according to a statement by the U.S. military command. 18 American troops were killed in Iraq in April, the deadliest month in Iraq since September.”

   Meanwhile, Greg Mitchell at Editor & Publisher has “A 6th Anniversary Look Back at Media Coverage of ‘Mission Accomplished’“. “Exactly six years ago, President Bush, dressed in a flight suit, landed on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and declared an end to major military operations in Iraq — with the now-infamous ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner arrayed behind him in the war’s greatest photo op. Chris Matthews on MSNBC called Bush a ‘hero’ and boomed, ‘He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics.’ … Everyone agreed the Democrats and antiwar critics were now on the run.”

2. On one hand, the Washington Post reports U.S. colleges bask in surge of interest among Chinese. “It’s an admissions officer’s dream: ever-growing stacks of applications from students with outstanding test scores, terrific grades and rigorous academic preparation. That’s the pleasant prospect faced by the University of Virginia and some other U.S. colleges, which are receiving a surging number of applications from China… About eight years ago, U-Va. began offering full scholarships to a couple of Chinese students each year.”

   While on the other hand, the NY Times reports Finding financial aid is a hurdle to going to college. “Each afternoon this spring, Brennan Jackson, an A-student who ranks near the top of his high school class, has arrived at his guidance counselor’s office to intercept the latest scholarship applications… Because his father is out of work and his mother works only part time, Brennan has set an ambitious goal for himself: to raise the $25,000 he still needs for his freshman year at the University of California, Berkeley, by stitching together a quilt of merit scholarships.”

Four at Four continues with Pakistan and genetic diversity of Africa.

1. The Guardian reports Taliban vow to meet U.S.-led surge with violence against Karzai government. The Taliban vowed to meet any U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan with a summer of violence. “Mullah Brother Akhund, the second most powerful man in the hardline movement, published a statement on the Taliban website announcing the start of ‘Operation Victory’ today, which he said will involve ambushes on security forces and suicide bomb attacks.”

   “Zabihullah Mujahid said the promised upsurge in violence was a response to the decision of the US and several other Nato allies to send more troops to Afghanistan to challenge the influence Taliban insurgents who influence over huge swathes of countryside in the south and in the provinces next to Kabul, the capital.”

2. The LA Times Scientists see this flu strain as relatively mild.

   As the World Health Organization raised its infectious disease alert level Wednesday and health officials confirmed the first death linked to swine flu inside U.S. borders, scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus that this hybrid strain of influenza — at least in its current form — isn’t shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that caused some previous pandemics.

   In fact, the current outbreak of the H1N1 virus, which emerged in San Diego and southern Mexico late last month, may not even do as much damage as the run-of-the-mill flu outbreaks that occur each winter without much fanfare.

Four at Four continues with DoJ corruption, Somali piracy, and same-ol’, same ol’ in Iraq.

1. The Guardian reports Only half a trillion tonnes of carbon left to burn before dangerous climate change. “The world has already burned half the fossil fuels necessary to bring about a catastrophic 3.6º F (2º C) rise in average global temperature”. Scientists at Oxford University “say about half a trillion tonnes of carbon have been consumed since the industrial revolution.” At the current rate of carbon burn, the world will a trillion tonnes in 40 years.

   Meanwhile, the MercoPress reports a Massive Antarctic ice shelf is breaking up into icebergs. “Scientists estimate the Wilkins Ice Shelf… had been in place for several hundred years. But satellite images taken over the past week show it has begun collapsing into the ocean”.

   Science Daily adds this is the largest ice shelf retreat to date.

2. The LA Times reports Justice Department official slams ‘lawless’ Bush terror policies. Todd Hinnen, deputy assistant attorney general for law and policy in the department’s National Security Division, said the Bush administration’s “lawless response to terrorism” helped strengthen al-Qaeda and undermined U.S. moral credibility and international standing. Hinnen was a Bush administration’s counter-terrorism official until 2007.

   The Obama administration is “struggling to deal with the fallout left by its predecessors, both in the U.S. and overseas on issues such as coercive interrogations, ‘extraordinary renditions,’ and the indefinite detention of suspected terrorists”, he noted.

Four at Four continues with shrinking U.S. GDP, America’s most polluted cities, and an update from Pakistan.

1. The Guardian reports Al Gore calls on world to burn less wood and fuel to curb ‘black carbon’. Al Gore “backed by government ministers and scientists, said that the soot, also known as “black carbon”, from engines, forest fires and partially burned fuel was collecting in the Arctic where it was creating a haze of pollution that absorbs sunlight and warms the air. It was also being deposited on snow, darkening its surface and reducing the snow’s ability to reflect sunlight back into space.”

   “The principle [climate change] problem is carbon dioxide, but a new understanding is emerging of soot,” said Gore. “Black carbon is settling in the Himalayas. The air pollution levels in the upper Himalayas are now similar to those in Los Angeles.”

   The soot “is accelerating the melting of ice in polar and mountainous regions.”

2. The Washington Post reports Interior Secretary Ken Salazar seeks to vacate Bush-era mountain top removal mining rule. He “instructed the Justice Department yesterday to seek a court order to overturn a Bush administration regulation allowing mining companies to dump their waste near rivers and streams, calling the regulation ‘legally defective.'”

   “The government estimates that 1,600 miles of streams in Appalachia have been wiped out since the mid-1980s… Mining executives did not welcome Salazar’s move, saying they would explore legal options to keep the rule in place.”

3. The Washington Post reports In Ecuador, high stakes in case against Chevron. Chevron is accused of having deliberately fouled a vast area of the northern Ecuadoran rain forest with pits filled with noxious sludge. The law suit against the oil company began in New York in 1993 and is being argued by lawyer and former oil worker, Pablo Fajardo, aand is his first case.”

   f the judge rules against Chevron, the company could face the largest damages award ever handed down in an environmental case…

   A report by a court-appointed team last year concluded that pollution caused mainly by Texaco’s Ecuadoran affiliate, Texaco Petroleum, had led to 1,401 cancer deaths in this stretch of Amazonian jungle. The team’s leader, Ecuadoran geologist Richard Cabrera, reported finding high levels of toxins in soil and water samples near Texaco’s production sites and assessed damages at up to $27.3 billion.

Four at Four continues with torture news below the fold.

1. Newsweek reports How Ali Soufan, an FBI agent, got Abu Zubaydah to talk without torture.

   The arguments at the CIA safe house were loud and intense in the spring of 2002. Inside, a high-value terror suspect, Abu Zubaydah, was handcuffed to a gurney. He had been wounded during his capture in Pakistan and still had bullet fragments in his stomach, leg and groin. Agency operatives were aiming to crack him with rough and unorthodox interrogation tactics-including stripping him nude, turning down the temperature and bombarding him with loud music. But one impassioned young FBI agent wanted nothing to do with it. He tried to stop them.

   The agent, Ali Soufan, was known as one of the bureau’s top experts on Al Qaeda. He also had a reputation as a shrewd interrogator who could work fluently in both English and Arabic. Soufan yelled at one CIA contractor and told him that what he was doing was wrong, ineffective and an affront to American values. At one point, Soufan discovered a dark wooden “confinement box” that the contractor had built for Abu Zubaydah. It looked, Soufan recalls, “like a coffin.” The mercurial agent erupted in anger, got on a secure phone line and called Pasquale D’Amuro, then the FBI assistant director for counterterrorism. “I swear to God,” he shouted, “I’m going to arrest these guys!“

   D’Amuro and other officials were alarmed at what they heard from Soufan. They fretted about the political consequences of abusive interrogations and the Washington blowback they thought was inevitable, say two high-ranking FBI sources who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. According to a later Justice Department inspector general’s report, D’Amuro warned FBI Director Bob Mueller that such activities would eventually be investigated. “Someday, people are going to be sitting in front of green felt tables having to testify about all of this,” D’Amuro said, according to one of the sources.

   Soufan wrote an April 23rd op-ed for the NY Times, titled “My Tortured Decision“.

   For seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned…

   It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence…

   There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions – all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.

Four at Four continues with torture, swine flu, Iraq, Afghanistan-Pakistan, and wave power.

1. The NY Times reports Industry ignored its scientists on climate change. “A document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the “Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming”, “its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.”

   “The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.

2. The Taliban hold valley in Pakistan as they remove some forces, according to the NY Times.

   On Friday, local political leaders in Buner, home to about one million people, met with Sufi Mohamed, the Taliban leader who negotiated a February truce in Swat, and Mohamed Javed, the commissioner of Malakand, whose authority extends over both Swat and Buner, local residents reported.

   Mr. Javed, who travels with a dual security contingent of police and Taliban, has been criticized in the local Pakistani press for having sympathies with the Taliban and for helping the militants enter Buner.

   After the talks, a convoy of Taliban vehicles left Buner, but Amir Zeb Bacha, the head of the Buner chapter of the Pakistan International Human Rights Organization, called the withdrawal “a tactical show.”

   The militants remained in control, according to a Taliban fighter reached by telephone and local residents. “They will come back when they want,” Mr. Bacha said. “They are in the mountains where they have made bunkers.”

   Meanwhile, the NY Times notes Democrats have qualms over escalating war in Afghanistan. “Congressional Democrats are voicing increased concern about the Obama administration’s plans to escalate military involvement in Afghanistan and to try to stabilize the rapid deterioration in Pakistan”.

   “I’ve got the sinking feeling we are getting sucked into something we will never get out of,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts.

   No kidding!

   Meanwhile, “On Friday, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in the region, told members of a committee in the House of Representatives that the Taliban and other extremists who have set up sanctuaries along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan are eroding security in Afghanistan and threaten ‘Pakistan’s very existence.'”

Four at Four continues with the staying in Iraq forever, Guantanamo Uighurs may be allowed to live in America, the drug wars, and how Obama released the torture memos.

1. The LA Times reports Prosecuting ‘torture memo’ authors called ‘a real stretch’. Prosecuting torture memo authors, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, and Steven Bradbury, will be challenging. “First, the lawyers would have to be shown to have deliberately misinterpreted the law against torture.”

   “It would be a real stretch. As long as they thought they were honestly interpreting the [anti-torture] law, they are not criminal conspirators,” said Stephen A. Saltzburg, a law professor at George Washington University and a former prosecutor. “They may be bad lawyers who gave extremely bad advice,” he said, but that is not a crime.

   But we know that’s not the real problem.

   The other problem looms even larger. How could the government prosecute the mid-level lawyers who wrote memos but not the top officials — including former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney — who ultimately authorized the waterboarding of suspected Al Qaeda operatives?

   This is a problem, how? They are likely war criminals and must be held accountable to the fullest extent of U.S. and international law.

   McClatchy reports Cheney and Rice signed off on torture. “The Justice Department lawyers who wrote memos authorizing harsh interrogation torture techniques were operating not on their own but with direction from top administration officials, including then-Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.”

   The de-classified narrative (pdf) of Department of Justice torture advice is on the Senate Intelligence Committee’s website.

   The LA Times underscores that Torture got the OK early on from senior Bush administration officials. The Senate report states the Bush administration approved using torture in July 2002 “after a series of secret meetings that apparently excluded the State and Defense departments… Bush administration sought to keep details of the CIA program away from high-level officials — particularly former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell — who were perceived as potential opponents of the use of harsh interrogation techniques torture.”

   It identified Rice as the official “who advised that the CIA could proceed with its interrogation of Abu Zubaydah” — the first suspected high-level Al Qaeda operative captured by the agency and the first to be subjected to waterboarding and other harsh methods tortures.

   That message was sent on July 17, 2002, according to the document, pinpointing for the first time the date that the Bush administration formally backed the CIA’s aggressive plan.

   “It wasn’t until September 2003 that the CIA briefed Powell and Rumsfeld on the interrogation program, the Senate report said.” And of course, neither man publicly condemned the use of torture and have remained silent on its use to this day.

   Earlier this week, McClatchy reported why the Bush administration used torture. Torture was used to seek Iraq-al Qaida link. Torture was used “as part of Bush’s quest for a rationale to invade Iraq”. “In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network and Saddam’s regime.”

   A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.

   “There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used,” the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.

   Release of CIA torture memos was backed by Defense War Secretary Robert Gates, according to the Washington Post. “He viewed their ultimate disclosure as inevitable.” As a former CIA directory, Gates’ chief concern was protecting CIA officers from prosecution.

   Gates was also concerned the memos would “cause a ‘backlash in the Middle East’ that could adversely affect U.S. forces operating there.”

   Of course, there was no concern on part of the Bush administration of such backlash in the first place. Did those criminals really believe they could conspire to keep the torture secret forever? Apparently so.

Four at Four continues with military reservists to fill civilian jobs in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s weak response to the Taliban, the economy and the rise of China, bombings in Iraq, and dust on Earth and the Moon.

1. ProPublica reports Dozens of prisoners held by the CIA are still missing, their fates unknown. “At least three dozen others who were held in the CIA’s secret prisons overseas appear to be missing as well. Efforts by human rights organizations to track their whereabouts have been unsuccessful, and no foreign governments have acknowledged holding them.”

   The newly released Bush administration torture memos “inadvertently confirmed that the CIA held an al-Qaeda suspect named Hassan Ghul in a secret prison” and tortured.

   “Former officials in the Bush administration, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing classified information, said that the CIA spent weeks during the summer of 2006 — shortly before Bush acknowledged the CIA prisons and suspended the program — transferring prisoners to Pakistani, Egyptian and Jordanian custody.” ProPublica has a full list of the disappeared.

   Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports European nations may investigate Bush officials over prisoner treatment. “European prosecutors are likely to investigate CIA and Bush administration officials on suspicion of violating an international ban on torture if they are not held legally accountable at home, according to U.N. officials and human rights lawyers.”

   “Torture is an international crime irrespective of the place where it is committed. Other countries have an obligation to investigate,” [Martin Scheinin, the U.N. special investigator for human rights and counterterrorism] said in a telephone interview from Cairo. “This may be something that will be haunting CIA officials, or Justice Department officials, or the vice president, for the rest of their lives.”

   In a related story, the NY Times claims the Bush administration did not look at past use when adopting torture. In addition to partially documenting the complicty of Congress, the article also notes:

   Government studies in the 1950s found that Chinese Communist interrogators had produced false confessions from captured American pilots not with some kind of sinister “brainwashing” but with crude tactics: shackling the Americans to force them to stand for hours, keeping them in cold cells, disrupting their sleep and limiting access to food and hygiene.

   “The Communists do not look upon these assaults as ‘torture,’ ” one 1956 study concluded. “But all of them produce great discomfort, and lead to serious disturbances of many bodily processes; there is no reason to differentiate them from any other form of torture.”

   Worse, the study found that under such abusive treatment, a prisoner became “malleable and suggestible, and in some instances he may confabulate.”

Four at Four continues with a look at the U.S. economy, Brazilian style economic stimulus, wind power off the Atlantic coast, and nuclear talks with Iran.

1. As buhdydharma hinted earlier, justice may be forthcoming. The White House has a transcript of President Obama’s joint-press conference with King Abdullah II of Jordan where the president reiterated his view that the CIA torturers should not be prosecuted, however —

   For those who carried out some of these operations within the four corners of legal opinions or guidance that had been provided from the White House, I do not think it’s appropriate for them to be prosecuted.

   With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that that is going to be more of a decision for the Attorney General within the parameters of various laws, and I don’t want to prejudge that. I think that there are a host of very complicated issues involved there.

   As a general deal, I think that we should be looking forward and not backwards. I do worry about this getting so politicized that we cannot function effectively, and it hampers our ability to carry out critical national security operations.

   For the first time, Obama opened the possibility that senior Bush administration officials could be prosecuted for approving torture, the NY Times reports. Obama said, “if and when there needs to be a further accounting,” he hopes Congress would investigate independently and “in a bipartisan fashion”.

   The president’s decision last week to release secret memorandums detailing the harsh tactics employed by the C.I.A. under his predecessor provoked a furor that continued to grow as critics on various fronts assailed his position…

   Aides said, Mr. Obama opted to disclose the memos because his lawyers worried that they had a weak case for withholding them and because much of the information had already been made public in The New York Review of Books, in a memoir by George J. Tenet, the former C.I.A. director, and even in a 2006 speech by President George W. Bush.

   The decision to promise no prosecution of those who followed the legal advice of the Bush administration lawyers was easier, aides said, because it would be hard to charge someone for doing something the administration had determined was legal. The lawyers, however, are another story.

   But according to the Washington Post, Obama defended his decision to release the torture memos. Obana said the memos “reflected, in my view, us losing our moral bearings,” adding, “That’s why I’ve discontinued those enhanced interrogation programs.”

Believe it or not, there is other news! Four at Four continues with the accused Somali pirate lands in New York, financial meltdown and bailout, and military rule in Mexico.