Tag: 4@4

1. Former VP Dick Cheney is linked to the secrecy of a mysterious CIA program, reports the LA Times on a story broken over the weekend by the NY Times. “The CIA kept a highly classified counter-terrorism program secret from Congress for eight years at the direction of then-Vice President Dick Cheney”. After years of being kept in the darkness, CIA Director Leon Panetta told the House and Senate about the program last month after he, himself, learned about it.

   A senior congressional aide said the magnitude of the program and the decision to keep it secret should not be downplayed. “Panetta found out about this for the first time, and within 24 hours was in the office telling us,” the aide said. “If this wasn’t a big deal, why would the director of the CIA come sprinting up to the Hill like that?”

   The CS Monitor adds As Congress fumes over CIA secrets, whither Cheney? Cheney has slunk back to his undisclosed secret lair once again and has been keeping silent since the bombshell disclosure. How does a member of the executive branch with no authority order the CIA to break the law? Sen. Dick Durban “flat-out stated that such a failure to inform Congress is illegal.”

   The National Security Act of 1947 does require Congress to be briefed about CIA operations. Section 501 states unequivocally that “the President shall ensure that the congressional intelligence committees are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity….”

   The Monitor notes, however, “may be a little wiggle room” and, if past behavior is any guide, Congress will let Cheney wiggle away on this crime too.

Four at Four continues with an update from Afghanistan, Goldman Sachs to post enormous profits, and Pakistani refugees begin to trickle home.

1. McClatchy reports the U.S. military didn’t want to release Iranians held in Iraq. “The U.S. military on Thursday reluctantly turned over to Iraq five Iranians it had accused of fomenting violence in Iraq”, but “said the United States had no choice but to free the five men under the terms of last year’s Status of Forces Agreement, which requires the United States eventually to transfer the more than 10,000 Iraqi and third-country detainees it now holds.” The five Iranians were “invited them to meet Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and then released them to Iranian custody.”

2. The CS Monitor reports that Once an empire, Britain faces big military cuts. “The global recession is causing Britain to face hard choices about its future military role in the world – putting at risk plans to build new aircraft carriers and heralding consequences for everything from operations alongside the US in Afghanistan to whether the UK remains nuclear-armed.”

   “The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), warned that the UK cannot afford much of the defense equipment it plans to buy, questioned the value of renewing the submarine-launched Trident nuclear deterrent, and said it was ‘delusional’ to think the UK could act alone without closer European defense cooperation.”

   Meanwhile, The Guardian reports the Afghan conflict has now claimed lives of as many British servicemen and women as that in Iraq. ‘Ten servicemen have died within the last nine days and the casualty rate is as high as at any point since Afghanistan was invaded in 2001… The latest casualty – the third to be announced today – was a soldier from the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment… The death is likely to intensify the debate about whether the Afghanistan operation is worthwhile.”

Four at Four continues with Iraqi Kurds struggle with Baghdad over land and oil, the warrantless surveillance report, and Mars.

1. McClatchy reports China is replacing the U.S. as Latin America’s top trade partner. China has “supplanted the United States to become the biggest trading partner with Brazil, South America’s biggest economy. China has moved aggressively to fill a vacuum left by the United States in recent years, as the U.S. focused on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the global economic crisis sapped its economy.”

2. Bombings in Iraq as the LA Times reports on Double suicide bombings kill 34 people and wound at least 70 others in Tall Afar, “a predominantly Shiite Turkmen city in Nineveh province, where Arabs, Kurds and other religious groups are engaged in a dispute over the Iraqi state’s internal boundaries… The quarrel is complicated by the lucrative oil reserves that exist in Kirkuk province, which all sides want.”

   And in Afghanistan as the NY Times an reports Afghan truck blast kills 16 children. “A huge explosion in a truck Thursday killed 24 people south of Kabul, including 16 schoolchildren, 4 police officers and 4 bystanders, local officials said, as the death toll rose among American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan.”

   Meanwhile, the LA Times adds Two U.S. soldiers killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan. In addition, casualties for British, Canadian and Dutch troops also “have spiked in the last few weeks.” More U.S. and NATO casualties are expected.

Four at Four continues with what happens when al Qaeda members comes home after training in Iraq, Pakistan tortured on behalf of the UK and US, and the father of Hacky Sack.

1. The NY Times reports G-8 nations fail to agree on climate change plan. Big surprise there. “In the end, people close to the talks said, the emerging powers refused to agree to the limits because they wanted industrial countries to commit to midterm goals in 2020 and to follow through on promises of financial and technological help in reducing emissions.”

   “They’re saying, ‘We just don’t trust you guys,’ ” said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group based in the United States. “It’s the same gridlock we had last year when Bush was president.”

   Spiegel reports on How the U.S. is blocking progress on climate change. “The latest information coming from the scientific world suggests that the consequences of climate change could be far worse than previously predicted… The latest information coming from the scientific world suggests that the consequences of climate change could be far worse than previously predicted.”

   “A majority of Americans do not consider the climate crisis to be particularly important: According to a poll carried out in January by the Pew Research Center, only 30 percent of Americans rated global warming as a top priority for President Obama. The issue came last on the list of priorities, far below the economy and terrorism.”

   Meanwhile, The Guardian reports NASA satellites reveal extent of Arctic sea ice loss.

   

   “A new study has revealed that the Arctic Ocean’s permanent blanket of ice around the North Pole has thinned by more than 40% since 2004. Scientists said the rapid loss was ‘remarkable’ and could force experts to reassess how quickly the Arctic ice in the summer may disappear completely. They blame the loss on global warming, which has driven temperatures in the Arctic to record highs and summer ice extent to recent lows.”

Four at Four continues with a U.S. Guantanamo ‘terrorist’ advocating on the behalf of Afghans, U.S. Marine commander calling for more Afghan troops in Afghanistan, House Democrats want to undo Congressional insider trading shield, and an art museum secures future by leasing land for wind farm.

1. Surprise! As US troops move into south, Taliban strike elsewhere, reports the CS Monitor. “NATO forces meet light resistance in Helmand Province, but Afghan insurgents hit back in other parts of the country. Are more US troops needed?” Pretty much sums up the ‘whack-a-mole’ mission that President Obama sent the U.S. military on in Afghanistan and now some want to send more soliders there.

   Meanwhile, the LA Times reports 7 U.S. troops in Afghanistan are killed. “As U.S. troops in Afghanistan suffered the largest one-day death toll in months Monday, military officials and experts warned Americans to brace for rising casualties as thousands of additional service members pour into the country to confront a resurgent Taliban.”

   95 American troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year. “At the current rate, 2009 would be the deadliest for the U.S. in more than seven years of fighting, surpassing the number killed last year, the military said.”

   The NY Times adds a Helicopter crash adds to a deadly day in Afghanistan. Three NATO soldiers were killed at a base in Zabul in southern Afghanistan. The “helicopter crashed on takeoff, killing two Canadians and a Briton, NATO officials said. A preliminary inquiry had established that the helicopter was not brought down by enemy fire,” according to NATO officials.

2. The Washington Independent reports socuments show that Chaos reigned in Guantanamo’s early days. Statements by two former commanders of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, Majs. Gen. Michael Dunlavey and Geoffrey Miller, were released “late on July 2 as part of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU for Defense Department documents related to the Bush administration’s interrogation and detention policies”.

   The statements “paint an alarming picture of the camp’s early years, as interrogators’ and guards’ competence and discipline were frequently in doubt, befitting one commander’s assessment that the facility’s command was ‘an ad hoc organization that started from a cold start.'”

3. The Guardian reports Coral condemned to extinction by CO2 levels. “David Attenborough joined scientists yesterday to warn that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is already above the level which condemns coral reefs to extinction in the future, with catastrophic effects for the oceans and the people who depend upon them.”

   “He was speaking yesterday at the Royal Society in London, following a meeting of marine biologists. At the current rate of increase of atmospheric CO2, they said, coral would become extinct within a few decades.“

4. The Des Moines Register reports Coal burning plant switches to low-sulfur coal when air monitors are active. “Workers at the Grain Processing Corp. facility in Muscatine acknowledged last fall that they switch from burning high-sulfur coal to a low-sulfur variety when the wind blows toward a nearby sulfur-dioxide monitor, an Iowa Department of Natural Resources complaint investigation shows.”

   “When the wind blows toward the local SO2 monitoring station, (plant operators) switch from ‘regular’ to low-sulfur coal,” DNR senior environmental specialist Kurt Levetzow wrote…

1. The LA Times reports Presidents Obama and Medvedev announce framework for nuclear cuts. Obama and the Russian president annonced “they had reached agreements on a range of issues including a framework to reduce their nations’ nuclear arsenals and steps to fight terrorism, including the war in Afghanistan.”

   “The goal is to replace the START arms control treaty, which expires at the end of this year. The eventual deal could cut warheads from more than 2,000 to as few as 1,500 for each country.”

2. The NY Times reports George W. Bush wants Saddam Hussein’s gun as trophy for his ‘library’. “when the library for George W. Bush opens in 2013 on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, visitors will most likely get to see one of his most treasured items: Saddam Hussein’s pistol… For nearly five years, Mr. Bush kept the mounted, glass-encased pistol in the Oval Office or a study, showing it with pride, especially to military officials”.

   Other items Bush prized was “a brick from the Iraq safe house where the Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed by an American air strike in 2006. The gun is among 40,000 artifacts and gifts the Bushes had collected, including the bullhorn Mr. Bush used to address rescue workers at ground zero”.

3. The Boston Globe reports More female veterans are winding up homeless. “The number of female service members who have become homeless after leaving the military has jumped dramatically in recent years, according to new government estimates, presenting the Veterans Administration with a challenge as it struggles to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.”

   For young veterans, “one out of every 10 homeless vets under the age of 45 is now a woman” and “many have the added burden of being single parents.”

4. Bloomberg reports India joins Russia and China in questioning the U.S. dollar’s dominance. “Suresh Tendulkar, an economic adviser to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said he is urging the government to diversify its $264.6 billion foreign-exchange reserves and hold fewer dollars.”

1. The LA Time reports U.S. drone attacks said to kill 17 at Taliban outposts in Pakistan. Missile strikes allegedly launched by U.S. drone aircraft hit a suspected Taliban training center and communications base in South Waziristan supposedly run by Baitullah Mahsud, “one of Pakistan’s most wanted militant leaders, killing 17 people and injuring 27 others.”

   Elsewhere in Pakistan, the NY Times reports a Pakistani army helicopter crash kills 26 soldiers. “The military said the helicopter had technical problems, but Dawn TV reported that local officials said insurgents had shot it down.”

Four at Four continues with Afghanistan update, climate change deal in Moscow, and an update on CIA torture and secret prisons.

1. Well that was quick. A day after the U.S. announced a massive military operation in Afghanistan, the LA Times reports an American soldier is believed to have been captured in Afghanistan. Missing since Tuesday, a U.S. “soldier is believed to have been captured by insurgents in eastern Afghanistan”.

   Mullah Sangeen, a senior Taliban commander, claims the soldier “was captured this week as he left a base in Paktika province on patrol. If the reports are borne out and an American soldier was seized alive, it would be an unprecedented coup for the insurgents. They could exploit a capture for propaganda purposes or demand concessions such as a prisoner exchange.”

   The Guardian adds the U.S. soldier is first to be captured since the invasion began in 2001, adding that American forces are “frantically hunting” for the missing soldier. “The soldier, whose unit is based in eastern Paktika province, was not involved in the ongoing operation in the south of the country.”

   While in southern Afghanistan, the NY Times reports on Operation Khanjar where U.S. Marines try to retake an Afghan valley from the Taliban. “Almost 4,000 United States Marines, backed by helicopter gunships, pushed into the volatile Helmand River valley in southwestern Afghanistan on Thursday morning, reporting little resistance from Taliban fighters, whose control of poppy harvests and opium smuggling in the area provides major financing for the Afghan insurgency.” The Taliban is withdrawing rather than fighting.

   Back in eastern Afghanistan, the LA Times reports Change may be at hand on the Afghanistan frontier with Pakistan. At Forward Operating Base Salerno, the Taliban fires rockets at the Ameircans and then slip away to Pakistan just 20 miles away. “American commanders, however, believe a greater concentration of U.S. and Afghan troops in the border region is beginning to change the equation.”

   However, their “mandate to give chase to the insurgents, at least using Western ground troops, stops at the rugged, mountainous border.”

Four at Four continues with secret CIA jails an issue in Guantánamo detainee trial, Iraq has highest civilian death toll in 11 months, and global overfishing despite promises.

1. The LA Times brings news of an amazing survival story of a 14-year-old girl of the Yemeni plane crash: ‘Daddy, I don’t know what happened‘. Bahia Bakari is the lone survivor of the 153 people aboard Flight 626. When the jet crashed into the Indian Ocean, she was “was thrown from the plane and into the waves, where she heard voices but saw no one in the darkness”.

   “She is a very, very shy girl. I never thought she would survive like that,” Kassim Bakari said of his daughter. “I can’t say that it’s a miracle. I can say that it is God’s will… When I had her on the phone, I asked her what happened and she said, ‘Daddy, I don’t know what happened, but the plane fell into the water and I found myself in the water . . . surrounded by darkness. I could not see anyone’.”

   The NY Times adds Bahia clung to wreckage for more than 13 hours before she was rescued. ‘Officials said that the search for survivors continued in the deep waters around the crash site, about 10 miles off the coast of the island of Grand Comore, but they said that heavy winds and rough seas diminished the chances of finding anyone else alive.”

Four at Four continues with former top CIA official in Algeria charged with sexual assult, ExxonMobil funding climate change deniers, and the EPA releases list of 44 toxic coal ash sites.

1. News from around Iraq. The LA Times reports Iraqis are in festive mood on eve of U.S. troop exit. “People sing and dance and set off fireworks to celebrate their ‘day of national sovereignty’ as U.S. troops prepare to leave cities and hand over security to the Iraqi government.”

   “Fireworks exploded over the city and several thousand people crowded into central Baghdad’s Zawra Park, ignoring a mild dust storm to say goodbye to more than six years of American forces patrolling their major cities.”

   The Washington Post declares This is no longer America’s war. “Six years and three months after the March 2003 invasion, the United States has withdrawn its remaining combat troops from Iraq’s cities,” but “more than 130,000 U.S. troops remain in the country”.

   “Iraqis danced in the streets and set off fireworks overnight in impromptu celebrations of a pivotal moment in their nation’s troubled history. The government staged a military parade to mark the new national holiday of ‘National Sovereignty Day,’ and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki made a triumphant, nationally televised address.”

   But, don’t let the happiness of the Iraqis stop a little Iran-bashing by the U.S. military. The commander of the U.S. troops in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, said, “there are still people who do not want the government of Iraq to succeed.” He “accused Iran of continuing to train, fund and support groups who carry out attacks in Iraq”.

   Meanwhile, the AP reports Four U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq on the eve of the American withdrawal. “The U.S. military said the four were died on Monday as a ‘result of combat related injuries.'”

   According to iCasualties.org, 4,321 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq, plus 179 British troops and 139 coalition troops were killed since George W. Bush ordered the invasion in March 2003. IraqBodyCount.org places the documented number of civilian deaths in Iraq between 92,435 and 100,911, but the likelihood is the Iraqi death toll is significantly higher.

   So, was the war worth it? The Washington Post reports Foreign oil companies balk at Iraq oil auction terms. “During a day-long live auction for eight 20-year service contracts, the Iraqi oil ministry was able to nail down just one — for the Rumaila field in southern Iraq. The ministry accepted a joint bid submitted by British Petroleum and the China National Petroleum Corp. to boost output there.”

   And, the CS Monitor speculates Could violence bring U.S. forces back to Iraqi cities? It would take a lot, but it could happen. “Attacks on US interests in Iraq, and consequent US casualties, are likely to remain a challenge until Sunni Arabs, upset at what they see as the dominance of Maliki’s Shiite coalition over the state and the distribution of its resources, cease their low-level insurgency. But some analysts warn that the biggest threat to Iraq’s stability will be a failure to integrate some of the Sunni fighters that once fought the Americans and the Iraqi government.”

Four at Four continues another benefit for shipping manufacturing to China, the impact of climate change in the Florida Keys and Louisiana, and Obama puts global trade before global warming.

1. Foreign Policy reports Climate change will soon be the world’s greatest health crisis. “We tend to think of climate change as an environmental issue, which, of course, it is… But climate change is also a public health issue, one whose profound effects on the lives and wellbeing of billions of people are just beginning to be understood.”

   “Health experts and advocates ought to be at the forefront of calling for action on climate change. Their help is urgently needed: plans need to be put in place immediately to manage the worst effects, requiring unprecedented levels of international cooperation.”

Four at Four continues with a contrary view on climate refugees, Obama’s list of economic errors, and the last gasp of the U.S. dollar.

1. The Washington Post reports the White House says that a transportation system overhaul must wait. One area where reform must wait, according to the Obama administration, is “overhauling the nation’s aging, congested and carbon-emitting transportation system.”

   “The 18.4-cent federal gas tax has not been raised since 1993, and revenue from it falls increasingly short every year because of inflation and the shift to more fuel-efficient cars.” An increase in gas tax or changing it to a “miles driven” fee is off the table until after the 2010 elections.

   To do so, the administration will need “Congress to provide a $20 billion patch to continue funding at current levels, because the Highway Trust Fund, supported by the gas tax, is expected to run dry next month.”

2. The NY Times reports a Derivatives tug of war takes shape. Banks are resisting attempts by Congress to create a new regulator system for derivatives.

   Instead of regulating them, some believe “there needs to be consideration as to whether some derivatives deserve to exist at all.”

   “Simply put,” said Richard Bookstaber, one of the pioneers of financial engineering on Wall Street, “derivatives are the weapon of choice for gaming the system.”

   The Obama administration’s outline favors regulation, but what the actual details of the regulations are will be critical.

   “Wall Street will try to keep as much of the market as possible from moving to exchanges, where prices would be transparent and those taking risks would have to put up collateral immediately when prices moved against them. Instead, the derivatives industry has already started a public relations campaign claiming that it is helping businesses”.

   Despite the clear evidence that Warren Buffett was right when he called derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction,” there has been little talk of giving regulators authority to ban some derivatives.

Four at Four continues with stoned wallabies and the world’s oldest musical instrument.