Tag: 4@4

1. The Washington Post reports a House panel passes a limit on greenhouse-gas emissions. The so-called ‘American Clean Energy and Security’ (ACES) “legislation would create a cap-and-trade system: Over the next decades, power plants, oil refineries and manufacturers would be required to obtain allowances for the pollution they emit.”

   The bill was weakened considerably by the Democrats to appease members of their own party from the South and Midwest and “to reassure manufacturers and utilities”.

   Adam Siegel at Get Energy Smart! has a round-up of reactions from President Obama and environmental groups to the news. Of his own reaction, Siegel writes:

   This bill is filled with good … and bad elements. It has strong provisions for improving energy efficiency in the United States, a weak renewable energy standard, and massive (MASSIVE) direct and indirect subsidies and payoffs for the fossil fuel industries.

   This is a challenging moment…

   Fiscal analysis of the 85% of carbon pollution permits that are to be given away results in, from 2012 through 2030, $1 trillion 61 billion dollars in direct and indirect subsidies for fossil fuels against $127.4 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy.

   Have to wonder why “Clean Energy” is in the title. Would it be more appropriate to entitle it Coal Subsidy Act? …

   Sadly, with all due respect to Chairman Waxman and Chairman Markey, ACES doesn’t merit that description.

Four at Four continues with proposed oil and gas lease changes, the governor of Washington state executive orders to cut greenhouse gas emissions, a war update from Pakistan, and the Pentagon reward KBR for killing U.S. soldiers.

1. The NY Times reports U.S. pullout is a condition in Afghan peace talks. “Leaders of the Taliban and other armed groups battling the Afghan government are talking to intermediaries about a potential peace agreement, with initial demands focused on a timetable for a withdrawal of American troops, according to Afghan leaders here and in Pakistan.”

   “The discussions have so far produced no agreements, since the insurgents appear to be insisting that any deal include an American promise to pull out – at the very time that the Obama administration is sending more combat troops to help reverse the deteriorating situation on the battlefield.”

2. McClatchy reports Wall Street speculators may be to blame for spike in gasoline prices. “Big Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs & Co., Morgan Stanley and others are able to sidestep the regulations that limit investments in commodities such as oil, and they’re investing on behalf of pension funds, endowments, hedge funds and other big institutional investors, in part as a hedge against rising inflation.”

Four at Four continues with an update from Pakistan, a deadly day in Iraq, and what happens if we do nothing about climate change.

1. Pesticides indicted in bee deaths writes Julia Scott at Salon. “The National Honeybee Advisory Board, which represents the two biggest beekeeper associations in the U.S., recently asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban” imidacloprid, the world’s best-selling insecticide created by Bayer CropScience Inc. with annual sales of $8.6 billion.

   “We believe imidacloprid kills bees — specifically, that it causes bee colonies to collapse,” says Clint Walker, co-chairman of the board.

   “Beekeepers have singled out imidacloprid and its chemical cousin clothianidin, also produced by Bayer CropScience, as a cause of bee die-offs around the world for over a decade.”

2. McClatchy reports America’s poor are its most generous givers. “The generosity of poor people isn’t so much rare as rarely noticed, however. In fact, America’s poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show. What’s more, their generosity declines less in hard times than the generosity of richer givers does.”

   “What makes poor people’s generosity even more impressive is that their giving generally isn’t tax-deductible, because they don’t earn enough to justify itemizing their charitable tax deductions. In effect, giving a dollar to charity costs poor people a dollar while it costs deduction itemizers 65 cents.”

Four at Four continues with the CIA on trial in Italy, Republicans to offer 400 amendments to Waxman’s cap-and-trade legislation, and an update from the Swat Valley.

1. The CS Monitor reports in order To meet the June deadline, the U.S. and Iraqis redraw city borders.

   On a map of Baghdad, the US Army’s Forward Operating Base Falcon is clearly within city limits.

   Except that Iraqi and American military officials have decided it’s not. As the June 30 deadline for US soldiers to be out of Iraqi cities approaches, there are no plans to relocate the roughly 3,000 American troops who help maintain security in south Baghdad along what were the fault lines in the sectarian war.

   “We and the Iraqis decided it wasn’t in the city,” says a US military official.

   See problem solved! Just wait until 2011 when the U.S. and Iraqis redraw the borders of Iraq so American troops can remain. “If our long-term goal is strategic partnership in Iraq, I would suspect beyond 2011 we would have some kind of long-term presence here,” a senior US commander said.

2. The Washington Post reports Missile defense in Europe is ineffective a scam. A joint analysis done by a team of top U.S. and Russian scientists have found the planned missile shield in Europe “would be ineffective against the kinds of missiles Iran is likely to deploy”. Not only is Iran more than five years away from building any such missile and nuclear warhead that could threatten Europe, “if Iran attempted such an attack, the experts say, it would ensure its own destruction.” Duh.

   “If Iran were to build a nuclear-capable missile that could strike Europe, the defense shield proposed by the United States ‘could not engage that missile,’ the report says. The missile interceptors could also be easily fooled by decoys and other simple countermeasures, the report concludes.”

Four at Four continues with an update from Pakistan and an overhaul of federal emissions and fuel efficiency standards.

1. The NY Times reports Joint Chiefs chairman criticizes air strikes in Afghanistan. “The United States cannot succeed in Afghanistan if the American military keeps killing Afghan civilians, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Monday.”

   “We cannot succeed in Afghanistan or anywhere else, but let’s talk specifically about Afghanistan, by killing Afghan civilians,” Admiral Mullen said, adding that “we can’t keep going through incidents like this and expect the strategy to work.”

   Of course, but will the Obama adminstration actually stop the air strikes?

   According to the LA Times, “Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai, say the tactic is overused in populated areas. But the Obama administration has rejected Karzai’s calls for an end to airstrikes, saying they are an essential part of the Western arsenal.”

   The LA Times investigates Who is to blame for Afghan civilian deaths? “Afghan officials say at least 140 civilians died, two-thirds of them children and teenagers, in what may prove the most lethal episode of civilian casualties since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.”

   At some point in the late afternoon or early evening, the decision was made to call in airstrikes, a measure most often taken when Western commanders believe an outpost or a field contingent is in danger of being overrun…

   The aircraft summoned to Garani, two F-18 fighter jets and a B-1 bomber that U.S. officials said were based outside Afghanistan, took aim at three targets. In strikes that came about 20 minutes apart, three village landmarks, the mosque and two large compounds, were hit, residents said…

   American officials have advanced the theory that the Taliban killed large numbers of villagers with grenades, infuriating local people who describe buildings clearly blown apart by far larger external blasts.

   “We blame America,” said Saeed Barakat, a father who has three girls in the burn unit as a result of the attack. “With all their technology, they don’t determine who is a fighter and who is an innocent. Now my house is gone. My wife is dead. My children are burned.“

   Spiegel reports the German Army can’t protect Afghan girls’ schools. “Six girls’ schools were closed in the northern province of Kunduz following” letters received by the schools that threatened more “acid and gas attacks” on the teachers and students. “The German army, which has led a reconstruction team in Kunduz since 2003, doesn’t feel able to protect the schools, and the German government doesn’t know how to respond to the threats.” If an army cannot protect people, then what good is it?

   Elsewhere, the NY Times reports Ahmed Wali Karzai, the corrupt younger brother of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, claims he narrowly escaped assassination by the Taliban fighters “laying in wait for his motorcade while traveling from the eastern city of Jalalabad to the capital.”

   It was likely a drug deal gone bad, in my opinion. According to McClatchy, Karzai “routinely manipulates judicial and police officials to facilitate shipments of opium and heroin… People who accuse Ahmed Wali Karzai of ties to the drug trade often don’t stay around very long.”

Four at Four continues with an update on Pakistan, news from Iraq, the Tamil Tiger leader claimed to be killed, and Alaska’s melting glaciers.

1. The NY Times reports Afghan villagers describe chaos of U.S. strikes. “The number of civilians killed by the American airstrikes in Farah Province last week may never be fully known. But villagers, including two girls recovering from burn wounds, described devastation that officials and human rights workers are calling the worst episode of civilian casualties in eight years of war in Afghanistan.”

   “We were very nervous and afraid and my mother said, ‘Come quickly, we will go somewhere and we will be safe,’ ” said Tillah, 12, recounting from a hospital bed how women and children fled the bombing by taking refuge in a large compound, which was then hit.

   The bombs were so powerful that people were ripped to shreds. Survivors said they collected only pieces of bodies. Several villagers said that they could not distinguish all of the dead and that they never found some of their relatives…

   Tillah, the 12-year-old girl, whose face bears the scars of a scorching blast, still twisted in pain from the burning in her leg at the provincial hospital in Herat, where she and other survivors were taken to a special burn unit. Her two sisters, Freshta, 5, and Nuria, 7, were barely visible under the bandages swathing their heads and limbs.

   The three girls were visiting their aunt’s house with their mother when a plane bombed the nearby mosque, around 8 p.m., Tillah said. That is when they fled to Said Naeem’s seven-room home.

   “When we reached there we felt safe and I fell asleep,” Tillah said. She said she heard the buzzing noise of a plane, but then only remembers coming to when someone pulled her from the rubble the next morning.

   A second girl, Nazo, 9, beside her in another hospital bed, said she saw two red flashes in the courtyard that kicked up dust seconds before the explosion.

   “I heard a loud explosion and the compound was burning and the roof fell in,” she said.

   The Obama administration “deeply, deeply regrets” the loss of life, but not enough to stop the bombings.

Four at Four continues with an update from Pakistan, a former ‘extraordinary rendition’ agent worried about arrest, and Hubert Van Es and the fall of Saigon.

1. The Guardian reports Barack Obama’s climate change bill is weakened, but still intact. The legislation was “weakened in a number of key areas by the compromises with the Democratic hold-outs” in oil and coal producing states.

   In its current form, the bill now calls for a 17% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2020. That falls below the original target of 20%…

   The new version of the bill also lowers the bar for electricity companies to generate a portion of their power from renewable sources, such as wind or solar. The first version had set a standard of 25% by 2025.

   That has now been watered down to 15% by 2020, and as low as 12% for some parts of the country that have not developed renewable energy.

   Meanwhile, The Guardian adds Senate Republicans block Obama’s nominee for top environmental post. “David Hayes, an environmental lawyer, fell three votes short of the 60 needed for confirmation as the deputy interior secretary… It was the first time an Obama nominee has fallen on the Senate floor, in a defeat engineered by Republicans from oil-rich states.”

Four at Four continues with an update from Pakistan, Obama’s pictures reversal, and Russia hints at an Arctic war.

1. The Sydney Morning Herald reports the U.S. hands over control of new drones to Pakistan. According to American officials, the “U.S. military has begun a program of armed Predator drone missions against militants in Pakistan that for the first time gives Pakistani officers significant control over routes, targets and decisions to fire weapons”.

   “Under the new partnership, a separate fleet of US drones operated by the Defence Department will be free for the first time to venture beyond the Afghan border under the direction of Pakistani military officials, who are working alongside American counterparts at a command centre in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.”

   The Washington Post reports Pakistani commandos target Taliban bases. Pakistan army officials claimed “they were making a concerted effort to wipe out the hideouts and supply bases of Islamist guerrilla forces, mostly located in unpopulated hilly areas, but had not begun a ‘hard-core urban fight’ to dislodge the fighters from major towns in the region.”

   DAWN Media adds Fighter jets pound Taliban strongholds across Swat while “hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled the punishing offensive”. People trapped in Mingora are terrified. They said the Talibann has “planted mines and were digging trenches.” One said, “Please, please, please, do not call me again, they will cut my throat and say that I was spying”. Elsewhere, the Daily Times reports the Taliban has destroyed two boys’ primary schools in Ali Masjid area of Jamrud tehsil in Khyber Agency.

   Meanwhile, AFP reports Taliban attacks NATO terminal in Pakistan. The attack by dozens of Taliban fighters destroyed eight vehicles in the northwest city of Peshawar. “Around 40-50 armed militants attacked the depot before dawn. They lobbed several petrol bombs and fled,” police officer Mohammad Ehsanullah said.

   The NY Times reports Pakistan says 1.3 million flee fight with Taliban. “The exodus, if it proves to be as large as the government says, would be one of the largest migrations of civilians in the region since the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, when as many as 14 million people left their homes for one of the newly independent countries. The Pakistani government and relief agencies have set up a string of camps and food distribution centers in the area, but not nearly enough to accommodate all the people who need them.”

   Meanwhile, The Guardian notes a Banned jihadi group is running aid programme for Swat refugees. “The Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) offers food, medical care and transport to villagers fleeing into Mardan district, where authorities are struggling to cope with an influx of more than 500,000 people. But the charity, according to experts, officials and some of its own members, is the renamed relief wing of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a group the Pakistani government banned last December after the UN declared it a terrorist organisation.”

Four at Four continues with car free suburbia, stress test sham, and spying for China.

1. Afghan schoolgirls attacked by poisonous gas, reports AFP. “Another 98 Afghan girls were rushed to hospital on Tuesday in the latest in a spate of mysterious poisonings to hit three schools north of Kabul” in two weeks. The girls became ill as they entered their school in Mahmud Raq, a small town 45 miles north of Kabul.

   A doctor dealing with the case said that the school had apparently been filled with gas overnight, and that radical Islamist insurgent groups opposed to the education of girls could be responsible…

   “We admitted 98 schoolgirls and a few teachers today in our hospital with symptoms of semi-consciousness, weakness, vomiting, headache and dizziness,” the head of the hospital, Ahmad Khalid Anayat [said].

   They became ill “apparently from some poisoning gas they respired,” he said.

   BBC News says this is the third ‘incident’ of its kind. “There has been an increase in reported attacks on schoolgirls in Afghanistan in the past year… A group of Afghan schoolgirls had acid thrown in their faces in an incident in Kandahar province last year.”

   If Obama wanted to do some good in Afghanistan, he could post a military guard around girls schools there.

   Meanwhile, the LA Times reports 20 people killed in staged suicide bombings in Afghanistan. “A wave of up to a dozen suicide bombers staged synchronized attacks on government buildings in a provincial capital in eastern Afghanistan, triggering a day of chaotic fighting that left at least 20 people dead. Scores of people were injured in the fighting in Khost, the site of a large American military base. The wounded included at least three U.S. soldiers.”

   The NY Times reports the attack begain at 10 a.m. local time with ten Taliban suicide bombers storming two government buildings in the eastern province of Khost. “Shortly afterward, a group of nine suicide attackers stormed a nearby municipality building. Four of them blew themselves up in a battle with security guards outside the building, and five others entered the building and were killed after a standoff in which hostages were taken, the Interior Ministry said.”

   The LA Times also reports Afghan villagers get payments for battle that killed civilians.

   Turbaned elders and weather-beaten farmers trekked to this provincial capital today to accept reparation payments from a government commission that concluded 140 civilians were killed in a fierce battle last week between Taliban fighters and coalition troops.

   If the figure arrived at by the commission is correct, it would make last week’s fatalities in rural Farah province the worst single episode of civilian casualties since the U.S.-led invasion more than seven years ago.

   “This was an accident, and we offer condolences,” provincial Gov. Rosul Amin told the somber, ragged assemblage of villagers. Relatives received about $2,000 for family members killed and $1,000 for those injured.

   Back in the U.S., the NY Times reports A new approach is expected in Afghanistan. Defense War Secretary Robert Gates’ decision to replace Gen. David McKiernan as head of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan with Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal “was yet another signal of growing U.S. apprehension over the war in Afghanistan, compounded by concerns in neighboring Pakistan.”

   Lastly for the record, the Afghan president’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai threatened McClatchy writer reporting Afghan drug story.

Four at Four continues with an update from Pakistan, the space shuttle, BoA sells stake in Chinese bank, and outsourcing and profiting from torture.

1. The NY Times reports the Pentagon to replace top commander in Afghanistan. After less than a year, Gen. David McKiernan is out. His replacement is to be “Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, a former commander of the Joint Special Operations Command who recently ran all special operations in Iraq.”

   Meanwhile, the U.S. accuses Afghan militants of using white phosphorus. According to the U.S. military, “at least seven instances of militants using white phosphorus in improvised explosive attacks since spring 2007, including attacks in civilian areas. The military documents showed 12 attacks where militants used white phosphorus in mortar or rocket attacks.”

   All the while the West looked the other way as Afghan drug trade exploded, according to McClatchy. For more than six years, U.S. and NATO forces failed to take poppy cultivation seriously. “Now Helmand and Kandahar have become the core of a narco-state within Afghanistan, effectively ruled by the resurgent Taliban. Drugs are the main economic engine there, and most politicians and police are said to be under the thumbs of dealers… Poppy cultivation has shifted almost exclusively to five of the country’s southern provinces, Taliban areas such as Kandahar and Helmand have become even more volatile.”

Four at Four continues with an update from Pakistan, tossing out Bush’s antitrust policy, Somali pirates’ man in London, West coast high speed rail, and snail evolution.

1. The NY Times reports the U.S. admits civilians died in Afghan raids. Though the Pentagon still disputes the reported 100 civilian deaths were caused by their bombs. “Initial American military reports that some of the casualties might have been caused by Taliban grenades”.

   “It looks like at least some of the casualties were caused by the airstrikes,” the official acknowledged. A second Pentagon official said, “It wouldn’t surprise me if it was a mix,” but added that it was too soon to tell.

   The Washington Post callously notes all these Afghan civilian deaths present the U.S. with a strategic problem. “The truth of what happened in Farah may be less important than what the Afghan people believe took place in the remote western region.” Defense War Secretary Robert “Gates said that a cornerstone of the Taliban campaign is to blame civilian deaths on U.S. troops. And he suggested that the best way to counter the enemy’s strategy would be to reduce civilian casualties throughout the country.”

   “Even if the Taliban create these casualties or exploit them, we need to figure out a way to minimize them and hopefully make them go away,” he said. One such way would be to stop the air strikes.

   Meanwhile, the Post reports the Pentagon budget devotes more to war in Afghanistan than to Iraq. $65 billion will be spent on war in Afghanistan compared to $61 billion on war in Iraq. “The budget includes $700 million for training and equipment to improve Pakistan’s counterinsurgency capability”. But, as the NY Times notes, don’t expect war managersto let Iraq slip away quietly. Afterall, Concerns mount on the preparedness of Iraq’s forces. “A recent string of attacks by insurgents has highlighted shortcomings, large and small, despite billions of dollars in American training and equipment,” according U.S. officials.

   The LA Times reports the Pentagon is considering structural changes to the way they wage war in Afghanistan. “The U.S. military command structure in Afghanistan was designed for a much smaller force. But with the increase ordered by President Obama, the number of U.S. troops will rise to 60,000 by the end of summer and is expected to reach 68,000; NATO troops are increasing to 35,000. The U.S.-led force needs a larger headquarters operation, military officials and experts said.”

2. Meanwhile in Pakistan, McClatchy reports Pakistan launches full-scale military assault on Taliban. The government’s counterattack against the Taliban risks spreading the war. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Pakistan will no longer “bow our heads before the terrorists.” And added the negotiations with the Taliban in the Swat valley had failed. Pakistan’s army’s job now, he said, is to “eliminate the militants and the terrorists.”

   DAWN Media reports there are on-going Clashes, curfews, and displacement all across Malakand. Pakistan is building up for a full scale operation in the Malakand region. “Heavy reinforcements were seen being moved to Swat, Lower Dir and Malakand districts on Friday… Long columns of troops backed by tanks and artillery were heading towards Swat and Lower Dir.”

   Helicopters, jet fighters and artillery pounded suspected positions in the troubled region and fierce clashes between ground forces and militants have been reported from Maidan area of the Lower Dir. Telecommunication including cellular phones have been jammed in different parts of Malakand while most areas were without electricity…

   Witnesses said that entire Swat district, parts of Lower Dir and Buner districts were still under the militants’ control.

   The LA Times reports Pakistan appears unprepared for ‘massive displacement’ caused by the fighting. “Those on the humanitarian front lines warn that the displaced are angry and traumatized, enduring long days in hot tents with little to do but grow more frustrated.”

   “Displaced people are sources of instability,” said Manuel Bessler, head of the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Pakistan. “The situation creates tension and is obviously not sustainable.”

   Many refugees “blame the army at least as much as the Taliban, a political problem for the government” for having to flee their homes.

   The NY Times adds “Tens of thousands of civilians have fled the fighting this week and the United Nations refugee agency, quoting provincial authorities, said in a statement Friday that as many as 200,000 people may have been displaced, with ‘another 300,000 on the move or about to move.'”

Four at Four continues with April unemployment numbers, coal ash, gaming the stress tests, and NASA spaceflight program.

1. The Washington Post reports Refugees fleeing Swat Valley tell of Taliban crimes and abuses. “As the refugees begin streaming out of Swat and the neighboring Buner district in northwest Pakistan, they carry with them memories of the indignities and horrors inflicted by occupying Taliban forces — locking women inside their homes, setting donkeys on fire — as they tried to force residents to accept a radical version of Islam.”

   Refugees from Bruner, recently captured by the Taliban, say they are “especially vulnerable to Taliban attacks… The district is famous for its Sufi shrines, where people practice a mystical form of Islam that is anathema to the fundamentalist Sunni Taliban. In addition, residents formed militias to resist the Taliban last year”.

   DAWN Media reports “A mass exodus continued from Buner district on Thursday amid intense artillery shelling by the security forces targeting militant positions on the tenth consecutive day.”

   The NY Times reports the Red Cross warns of crisis in Pakistan.

   In a statement on Thursday, the Red Cross said that, “although figures remain unverifiable at this stage, reports indicated that up to 500,000 Pakistanis have been recently displaced by conflict in Dir, Buner and Swat.”

   The statement said a humanitarian crisis “is intensifying.”

   Benno Kocher, a Red Cross official in Peshawar, was quoted as saying: “We can no longer reach the areas most affected by the fighting on account of the volatile situation.”

   DAWN Media reports the Foreign Ministry says concern about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons is ‘invalid’. “Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit Pakistan has refuted US media reports that it has shared information about its nukes with US authorities saying that information about its nukes is sacrosanct and can not be shared with any country. ‘Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is safe and secure and concerns about their security are invalid,’ said Basit.”

   Meanwhile, Defense War Secretary Robert Gates praises Pakistan response to Taliban push, reports Reuters. Gates believes the “Taliban militants had ‘overreached’ by attacking the Buner district of Pakistan, coming within dozens of kilometres of the capital Islamabad.

   “I think it has served as an alarm for the Pakistani government that these violent extremists in the western part of Pakistan are a significant danger to the government of Pakistan,” he said.

   “I personally have been very satisfied with the strong response that the Pakistani government and army have taken in response to this.”

   Gates also said he thought there was “very little chance” of the Taliban being able to seize control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

   MSNBC reports Gates promising U.S. troops won’t be sent to Pakistan. “Speaking to about 300 Marines at Camp Leatherneck in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, Gates assured them that they wouldn’t be fighting in the neighboring sovereign nation. During a 12-minute question-and-answer session in sweltering heat, Gates told a sergeant he didn’t have to ‘worry about going to Pakistan.'”

   On top of Gates’ remarks, McClatchy reports Obama pledges ‘commitment’ to Afghan, Pakistan leaders.

   President Barack Obama Wednesday pledged a “lasting commitment” by the U.S. to the democratic governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan after an unusual three-way meeting that ended with promises but no concrete agreements.

   Flanked by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Obama told reporters that both men “fully appreciate the seriousness of the threat we face” from Islamic extremists. He didn’t invite either visitor to speak, however, and both appeared ill at ease.

   Zardari told Spiegel that ‘Nuclear Weapons Are Not Kalashnikovs’ and doubts the Taliban could use them if they captured the weapons. “The technology is complicated, so it is not as if one little Taliban could come down and press a button. There is no little button. I want to assure the world that the nuclear capability of Pakistan is in safe hands,” he said.

   Reuters reports Pakistan hopes the United States will halt drone attacks. Pakistan “says the drones violate its sovereignty and undermine efforts to deal with militancy by inflaming public anger and bolstering militant support.”

   For its part, Afghans protest civilian deaths as U.S. officials raise doubts, according to the LA Times.

   Angry anti-American protests erupted today in a provincial capital close to a string of desert villages where dozens of Afghan civilians were killed this week during clashes between insurgents and U.S.-led troops.

   U.S. military officials, meanwhile, expressed growing doubts that the deaths in the Bala Baluk district of western Farah province were the result of airstrikes called in by American special forces. Instead, they said preliminary findings suggested that the villagers sheltering in residential compounds were slain by Taliban fighters wielding grenades. Local officials contested that theory.

   The NY Times adds Afghan police fire on protesters. “Chanting ‘Death to America’ and hurling rocks, hundreds gathered Thursday in western Afghanistan to protest American airstrikes… In the main city of Farah province, protesters gathered at a police station and the local governor’s office, chanting slogans against the American and Afghan governments, witnesses reported… Outside the governor’s office, police opened fire on stone-throwing protesters and wounded three of them.”

Four at Four continues with Guantanamo documents set to be destroyed, an update from Iraq, stress tests and America’s big lie, and China ready for climate change deal while centrist Democrats in the U.S. House are not.