• Important – American Violet: docu-drama about racism and the drug-war – (Boing Boing)

• Sadism – Report: Abusive tactics used to seek Iraq-al Qaida link – (McClatchy)
• Incomplete – INTERROGATION TIMELINE – (WaPo)
• Allied sadism – Torture Tape Implicates UAE Royal Sheikh – (ABCnews)

• Funny – Jane Harman: Angry, partisan, civil liberties extremist – (Greenwald)

• Right but already backtracking – Kerry: Administration lacks 'real strategy' for handling Pakistan – (USAToday)
• Logistics – Militants burn NATO fuel tankers in Pakistan – (AP)
• Gareth Porter – U.S. Lacks Capacity to Win Over Afghans – (IPS)
• Be very afraid … – Taliban Seize Vital Pakistan Area Closer to the Capital – (NYT)
• Brown's recent "very big terrorist plot" – Britain: Last in ‘Terrorist Plot’ Freed – (NYT)

• "[E]xemplary primary health care and sanitation" – Tehran's Health Patrol – (Time)
• Can't let them have that – Hillary Clinton: US will organise 'crippling' Iran sanctions if diplomacy fails – (London Times)
• Orwellian legislation "Iran Diplomatic Enhancement Act" – US may target Iran gasoline imports – (Press TV)

• Organized crime – Replacing Iraq's money was a rip off – (Iran Affairs)

• He knew the real numbers – Police investigating death of Freddie Mac official – (TPM)

• 50% is not going to be enough – UK raises tax for top earners – (FT)

• Jeffrey D. Sachs – Water wars – (Zaman)

Please share your links, news and views in the comments.

Working through the quite detailed and long sadism and torture report Inquiry Into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody" (pdf) the most significant admission to me is the footnote 1219 on page 158:

Notwithstanding differences between the legal status of detainees held in Iraq and those in Afghanistan, the [Special Mission Unit Task Force] used the same interrogation approaches in both theaters. In addition, the [Combined Joint Task Force 7] interrogation policies included techniques that had been authorized for use at GTMO. By September 2003, interrogation approaches initially authorized for a war in which the President had determined that the protections of the Geneva Conventions did not apply, would be authorized for all U.S. forces in Iraq.

Abu Ghraib was not an accident but official policy promoted from the very top and many people knew that.

The report explains in detail how this developed. When the techniques used were taken from the SERE interrogation resistance training and pushed onto Guantanamo as "battle laboratory" and from there to Afghanistan and Iraq, a lot of people, mostly in lower positions, waved red flags and protested. But they were always pushed back from higher ups with the ultimate pressure coming from the White House and Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. In between there were a lot of banality of evil cowards eager to further their careers.

How much of this is still going on in Bagram, Afghanistan, and the various CIA bunkers around the world?

The report also includes several tales that support my stand that these tortures were pure sadism as they had no other purpose than to entertain some higher ups. From page 140/141:

Cont. reading: The Sadism Report

I postulated that by securing lenders, credit default swaps will create bankruptcies. Something that the Obama administration seems not to get.

Chrysler will now be a likely victim of this:

A group of big banks and other lenders rebuffed a Treasury Department request that they slash 85% of Chrysler LLC's secured debt, proposing instead to eliminate about 35% in exchange for a minority stake in the restructured car maker and a seat on its board.
…
In making their case for a significantly smaller sacrifice than what the government wants, the lenders have argued that their fiduciary duty to their own shareholders and investors requires them to recoup as much as possible from the car maker. The lenders have told Treasury officials they believe they could recover at least 65% of their loans if Chrysler is liquidated in bankruptcy.

It is very doubtful that the 65% could be recovered in a normal bankruptcy. If Chrysler closes down, there is not that much left to sell. Very likely these lenders have insured their loans and are confident that their  insurer will pay them when Chrysler goes into bankruptcy.

The only way the Obama administration could rein in those lenders and prevent more harm for the real economy is by declaring these insurances null and void.
That is easy to do. As I wrote:

The administration could simply declare CDS contracts to be "contrary to public policy" (i.e. immoral) which would make them not enforceable in court. The CDS would immediately lose their value as no-one makes such businesses when they are not enforceable. (Keep in mind – every contract you make involves three entities: you, the other side and the government that makes you and the other side stick to the commitment. If the government finds the contract to be void on public policy doctrine grounds, it is useless for you and the other side.)

Most societies find usury harmful and to be "contrary to public policy" and outlaw it. Likewise insuring a loan, which lifts the need for responsible lending, is harmful and should be forbidden.

• Sadism – Harsh Tactics Readied Before Their Approval – (WaPo)
• Sadism report – "Inquiry Into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody" – (Congress (pdf))

• Avoiding peace at all costs – Israel Puts Iran Issue Ahead of Palestinians – (WaPo)
• I guess he's right – Lieberman: U.S. to accept any Israeli decision – (Haaretz)
• Harman related – U.S. Might Not Try Pro-Israel Lobbyists – (WaPo)

• Liar – Geithner says big banks are healthy – ()McClatchy
• $4.1 trillion bank losses – Global Financial Stability Report – (IMF)
• Usually a typical German problem – The US Government: Over-engineering for Under-performance – (Information Arbitrage)
• Slump – Japan Suffers Trade Deficit In FY08, 1st Since 1980 – (WSJ)
• MoA Oct 2008: "destroy the excess housing supply" – Flint, Michigan: An Effort to Save a City by Shrinking It – (NYT)
• Sign of the times – Pawn Shop Opens In London Financial District – (VOA)

• Could become interesting – World Digital Library – (UN)

Please share your links, news and views in the comments.

Word cloud of the Full Text of President Ahmadinejad’s Remarks at U.N. Conference on Racism

bigger

• Loved for protecting sadists – Obama gets euphoric CIA welcome – (AFP)
• Spanish sadism prosecution continues – Proponents of Torture May Yet Face Universal Justice – (IPS)

• Abusing minorities for propaganda – Israel recruits gay community in PR campaign against Iran – (Haaretz)

• One trillion may be more accurate – Banks Face $400 Billion More in Losses, JPMorgan Says – (Bloomberg)
• Shareholder interest? – Pay Rule Led Chrysler to Spurn Loan, Agency Says – (WaPo)

• Dubious I – Pirates: the $80m Gulf connection – (Independent)
• Dubious II – Somali Pirates Form Unholy Alliance with Islamists – (Spiegel)

• Thoughts on Google street view and privacy – Short Cuts – (LRB)

Please share your links, news and views in the comments.

Congress women Jane Harman was caught on tape by the NSA talking to an Israeli agent. She agreed to influence a court case of an Israeli spy in return for a promise that Israel friendly lobbyists would further her (and their) interest.

The investigation against her was then shut down by the Bush administration for getting her support for furthering the administrations interest.

• The case is NOT an argument against NSA wiretapping. For all we know from the Congressional Quarterly piece the wiretap was court approved, likely on an international line and primarily directed at a foreign spy.
• The case is a scandal because Harman was willing to sell out to foreign interest.
• The case is a scandal because the Bush administration stopped an investigation to blackmail Harman into doing its business.

The questions now should be:

• Who else in Congress is directly working under Israeli direction on Israeli and against U.S. interest?
• Who else in Congress was blackmailed by the Bush administration?

Any answers?

Update: Missed one very important question:

• Why is this leaked now?

Today's NYT has an embed piece on a platoon firefight in the Korangal valley in Afghanistan. The platoon had earlier ambushed some 'Taliban' (the Korangalis say locals) and expected to be attacked while going to 'meet local elders' in some village. The attack happens, one soldier dies and the rest have to retreat.

The purpose of the whole action is not really explained but the writer gives us two important pieces of information.

First, who the U.S. soldiers are fighting:

Cont. reading: Why Fight In Korangal Valley?

• Hmmm – Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC – (CQ)

• Iran told to build thousands of nukes? – IAEA chief calls on Iran to reciprocate U.S. moves – (Reuters)
• Another good one from Roger Cohan – Israel, Iran and Fear – (NYT)

• Sadism as retribution – Power, humiliation and torture – (War in Context)
• NYT picks up from Emptywheel – Waterboarding Used 266 Times on 2 Suspects – (NYT)

• Nationalization – U.S. May Convert Banks’ Bailouts to Equity Share – (NYT)
• Get poor by saving – Zero Percent on Treasury Bills as China, Fed Converge – (Bloomberg)
• The U.S. turning Irish? – Krugman: Erin Go Broke – (NYT)

• How can he dare to … – Karzai asks NATO to explain civilian deaths – (MSNBC)

• Because they approve of racism – UN racism conference boycotted by more countries – (Guardian)
• Racism like this – World Bank: Israelis get four times more water than Palestinians – (Haaretz)

Please share your links, news and views in the comments.

by anna missed
Crossposted from anna missed

Emptywheel has
a post up today on the newly released torture memos, that reveal some
profoundly disturbing details. According to the documents (and in spite
of the presidents denials that we torture) both Al Qaeda Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah were tortured by waterboarding. While it’s
disturbing enough that the president broke both domestic and
international laws in authorizing the torture in the first place, had
doctors and psychologists (in violation of their hippocratic oath)
assist in the procedures, and had the whole process filmed repeatedly
by the CIA and delivered to the White House for viewing – these are bad
enough, but, now it also comes to light that both men were not only
subjected to torture, but tortured so many times repeatedly that it
defies all comprehension.

In the course of a month Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed was waterboarded no less than 184 times, and Abu Zubaydah was
waterboarded 84 times during one month. That averages out to being
waterboarded something like 6 and 3 times a day for 30 consecutive
days. Bear in mind also that these procedures were not the so called
“simulated drowning” technique (used in training), but the “real
drowning” technique of actually pouring water into the respiratory
system. Most experts in such matters agree that these methods are
unreliable as intelligence gathering tools because the terror inspired
by enduring one or two of these procedures is enough for the subject to
begin confessing and admitting to what ever information they think the
perpetrators are after in order to make it stop. The evidence of the
intelligence received from these two, according to many accounts, would
also confirm this, in that the only reliable information gathered was
early in their confinement. And when the information flow began to slow
to a tickle, the Bush administration then ordered that the torture
increase in intensity to the astronomically absurd levels now being
revealed.

There is really no other way to process or account for this
information other than to view it as an act of pure sadistic sickness,
hell bent, and addicted on the tactile pleasure of revenge. Is it any
wonder that just a year or so after this, the Abu Ghraib debacle would
also be revealed repeating the same mindset, if not in the same
proportions. There’s no way any of this can be reduced to euphemism or
the polite nomenclature of “what if’s” – this is pure evil, in
undeniably large, unfathomable, and unwieldy quantities, that will not
go away quietly, because there is a big difference between someone who
commits a crime of passion and one who keeps his victim alive and
locked in the cellar for his personal pleasure.

• Sadism – Justice Dept. Memos' Careful Legalese Obscured Harsh Reality – (WaPo)
• More sadism – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Was Waterboarded 183 Times in One Month – (Emptywheel)
• Orwellian Sadism – Scott Horton: Revealing the Secrets in Room 101 – (Harpers)
• No impunity – Obama Releases Memos; Promises Impunity; Misunderstands Estoppel by Entrapment – (Opinio Juris)

• "Do you want more gas?" – Palestinian resident of Bil'in killed during weekly nonviolent protest against the Wall – (Mondoweiss)
• Gideon Levy – Gaza, remember? – (Haaretz)

• Chávez book gift to Obama: Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent – (Amazon)

• Adult supervison demanded – China seeks oversight of reserve currency issuers – (Marketwatch)
• A major cause of the current mess – Rich-Poor Gap Tripled Between 1979 and 2006 – (CBPP)
• Some still want to lie – Bank Regulators Clash Over U.S. Stress-Tests Endgame – (Bloomberg)

• For anna missed – Our Man In Havana (1959) – (YouTube)

Please share your links, news and views in the comments.

Comments on the informal coast guards at the Horn of Africa and other issues …

—
Note:
You can always access b’real‘s most recent Africa comments in the second top box in the left column.

The antecedent thread to this one is here. A really interesting read.

The Institutional Risk Analyst folks say Citigroup is is insolvent and needs to be either restructured or liquidated. They believe restructuring is possible by three steps:

• Forced management change
• Agreement from bondholders to convert Citgroup's debt into common equity
• A 'prepacked' Chapter 11 filing under the FDIC's open bank assistance

I agree with the diagnosis. Citigroup is insolvent. But I believe that the restructuring is impossible as many Citigroup bondholders have no incentive to take a loss by agreeing to a debt for equity swap but instead have a huge incentive to let Citigroup fail.

The reason are Credit Default Swaps.

One can distinguish two types of Credit Default Swaps buyers:

Cont. reading: How Credit Default Swaps Create Bankruptcies

• On torture – Phillipe Sands: Nightmares made law – (Guardian)
• 'Lone gunman': Mumbai confessions under torture – (PressTV)

• Helena Cobban – Gaza Changed Everything, But Its People Still Suffer – (IPS)
• Living with a wall – Israel's barrier – (NPR)
• An importent project – Nakba History – (Palestine Remembered)

• Instead of buying treasuries … – Is China Hoarding Copper? – (Forbes)
• … China invests in commodities – Cash-rich China courts the Caspian – (ATOL)
• The ultimate election ploy – Japan plans emergency share purchases – (FT)

• The Pirate Bay Verdict and the Future of File Sharing – (PC World)

Please add your news and views in the comments.

I am quite sure I was the first, in August 2008, to point out and establish that 1st Sgt. Hatley, recently convicted for murdering innocent Iraqis, was the same person that slandered Scott Thomas Beauchamp, who anonymously wrote about that and other incidents for TNR.

Today Attaturk at Echaton as well as Josh Marshall at TPM post about that connection. No link for MoA though even when it is pretty obvious that this was picked from MoA by those who now run with it.

That might tell a bit about the big wigs in the blogsphere …

There is lot of fuzz in the 'western' media about a marital rape law that is supposed to be implemented in Afghanistan.

There are three big misunderstandings here.

1. Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic and according to its constitution Sharia is already the law of the land except for certain minorities who under the Afghan constitution can settle family disputes under their own jurisprudence. 

2. The 'martial rape' paragraph is part of the 270 page Shia personal status law implementing the civil code for the often abused Shia Hazara minority. It was introduced by the relative conservative Ayatollah Mohammed Asif Mohseni and certainly does not fit our liberal ideals. But the law is urgently needed to protect the minority and has already languished for one and a half year in the parliament. It is good that it passed at all.

3. The law has nothing to do with marital rape. In a comment to a post by Joshua Foust, Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International's Asia Director (but writing in private capacity), translates and comments on the law:

Cont. reading: The ‘Marital Rape Law’ That Isn’t One

Searching "class revolt" at the New York Times site, the third result is about an assassination attempt against Lenin and from 1918. The second is on Britain and was published 1956. The first result is from today and about the Swat area in Pakistan.

Class is usually not mentioned in U.S. media and conflicts are seldom depicted as class based. So kudos to Jane Perletz and Pir Zubair Shah for this piece even when they miss some important questions.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The Taliban have advanced deeper into Pakistan by engineering a class revolt that exploits profound fissures between a small group of wealthy landlords and their landless tenants, according to government officials and analysts here.

…
In Swat, accounts from those who have fled now make clear that the Taliban seized control by pushing out about four dozen landlords who held the most power.

…
Mahboob Mahmood, a Pakistani-American lawyer and former classmate of President Obama’s, said, “The people of Pakistan are psychologically ready for a revolution.”

Sunni militancy is taking advantage of deep class divisions that have long festered in Pakistan, he said. “The militants, for their part, are promising more than just proscriptions on music and schooling,” he said. “They are also promising Islamic justice, effective government and economic redistribution.”

…
The insurgents struck at any competing point of power: landlords and elected leaders — who were usually the same people — and an underpaid and unmotivated police force, said Khadim Hussain, a linguistics and communications professor at Bahria University in Islamabad, the capital.

At the same time, the Taliban exploited the resentments of the landless tenants, particularly the fact that they had many unresolved cases against their bosses in a slow-moving and corrupt justice system, Mr. Hussain and residents who fled the area said.

The authors and the headline Taliban Exploit Class Rifts to Gain Ground in Pakistan urge the point of exploitation. But is that really the case? Exploit them for what? Are the Neo-Taliban in Swat abusing the poor just as much as the rich landowners they drove away? Where is the proof for that?

Alternatively: Are these Neo-Taliban true revolutionaries who help the poor to stand up and to take their fair share of the economic society? Are the Mullahs who guide them the leaders of an Islamic liberation theology movement?

My hunch is that the real answers to the last two questions are more to the yes-side than to the no-side. The dark picture of gruffly backwoodsmen who want to install a worldwide reactionary caliphate that the 'western' media are usually painting never made much sense. The picture that accompanies the NYT story tells me something different.

What is your take?

• Sadism – The Tortuture Memos – (ACLU)
  "[Y]ou [the CIA] would also like to introduce an insect into one of the boxes with Zubaydah. As we understand it, you plan to inform Zubaydah that you are going to place a stinging insect into the box, but you will actually place a harmless insect in the box, such as a caterpillar. If you do so, to ensure you are outside the predicate death requirement, you must inform him that the insects will not have a sting that would produce death or severe pain. If, however, you were to place the insect in the box without informing him that you are doing so, you should not affirmatively lead him to believe that any insect is present which has a sting that could produce severe pain or suffering or even cause his death. Redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted."
• Sadists officially protected – Obama shields CIA interrogators from charges – (G&M)
• Spanish prosecution? Not likely. – Prosecutor: Drop case against Bush officials – (CNN)

• He fought the occupiers – U.S. Judge Sentences Dutch Man to 25 Years for Crimes in Iraq – (WaPo)

• Good embed reporting from Afghanistan – Obama's War – (GQ)
• U.S. experts: Pakistan on course to become Islamist state – (McClatchy)
  Experts? On course to?
  "After nine years of efforts, Pakistan was successful in framing a constitution in 1956. The Constituent Assembly adopted it on 29 February, 1956, and it was enforced on 23 March, 1956, proclaiming Pakistan to be an Islamic Republic."

• Plan for Palestinian state is 'dead end,' Israel tells U.S. – (McClatchy)

• Mostly good – Relations between Iran and Central Asia (Synopsis) – (Ferghana.ru)
• A New Approach to Iran –
  The Need for Transformative Diplomacy – (John Tirman/MIT (pdf))

• Facebook Group: World Leaders – (The Atlantic)

• Ken Silverstein – Invisible hands:
  The secret world of the oil fixer – (Harpers)
• The myth of U.S. productivity – Reconsidering a miracle – (Krugman)
• Right again – Stiglitz Says White House Ties to Wall Street Doom Bank Rescue – (Bloomberg)
• Not yet – End of economic gloom? – (Roubini)
• Also Krugman – Green Shoots and Glimmers – (NYT)
• Inequality creates bubbles – The asset bubble theory of income inequality – (Curious Capitalist)

Please add your news and views in the comments.

Obama sent Clinton to Russia to Geneva present a 'reset' to the Russian foreign minister button where the Russian text, not even in Cyrillic letters, did not says 'reset' but 'overcharge'.

It now seems to me that this was not a gaffe or a mistake, but the real message:

Russia demanded on Thursday that NATO call off planned military exercises in Georgia, saying they could undermine its efforts to rebuild ties with the Western alliance.

…
NATO says the exercises, from May 6 to June 1, will involve 1,300 troops from 19 countries. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the exercises would not help efforts to restore stability in the restive Caucasus region, Interfax news agency reported.

…
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman was dismissive of Russia's objections. "I don't think Russia's ever been particularly fond of NATO exercises," he said on Thursday.

This is stupid for several reasons.

• Russia will not sit still and let NATO snub its nose a few miles from its borders. There will be a diplomatic price to pay for this and it will not be a small one. "You're sure your logistic lines to Afghanistan are safe?"
• The pro-western opposition in Georgia today took to street for the eight day to oust the egomaniac and undemocratic Saakashvili. The EU is trying moderate a compromise solution. Holding the NATO exercise during this time will look like NATO is taking sides in the interior Georgian conflict, as future NATO membership is mainly a Saakashvili project.
• This renews the false impression of backing from NATO for Georgia's and other small players adventures. A backing that as last year little war showed is in reality not there at all.

So who had this very great idea? If Clinton and Obama are serious about 'reset' it is now time to press the speed dial button to NATO and call this stupidity off.

They took this guys medication away, but still let him lecture.

Today' sermon is about the evil of jeans:

Denim is the clerical vestment for the priesthood of all believers in democracy's catechism of leveling — thou shalt not dress better than society's most slovenly. To do so would be to commit the sin of lookism — of believing that appearance matters. That heresy leads to denying the universal appropriateness of everything, and then to the elitist assertion that there is good and bad taste.

…
Today it is silly for Americans whose closest approximation of physical labor consists of loading their bags of clubs into golf carts to go around in public dressed for driving steers up the Chisholm Trail to the railhead in Abilene.

This is not complicated. For men, sartorial good taste can be reduced to one rule: If Fred Astaire would not have worn it, don't wear it. For women, substitute Grace Kelly.

Hilarious …

Are there still ANY sane conservatives around?