Defense Secretary Robert Gates is at a security conference in Singapur and held side-talks with South Korean, Japanese and Chinese officials. The subject was North Korea and how to find an answer to its second nuclear test.

The Wall Street Journal has the official leaks on the talks and describes a two way approach.

The Obama administration will NOT go back to negotiations with North Korea through the six-party-talks to honestly bribe the nukes away:

Mr. Gates said North Korea has in the past been rewarded for bad behavior by creating a confrontation in order to force the U.S. and other allies to "pay a price" to return to the status quo that existed before the crisis — a practice he said shouldn't be repeated this time.

"We have to be very tough-minded about this," Mr. Gates said. "As the expression goes in the United States, I'm tired of buying the same horse twice."

That seems to exclude, for now, any renewed negotiations. Instead, the U.S. wants the five parties that negotiated with North Korea to now hurt it:

Mr. Gates said the U.S. preferred for the five countries that have engaged Pyongyang in talks on its nuclear program to present a unified front to punish North Korea.

The question is if China, part of the six-party-talks as well as the UN Security Council, is willing to "punish" North Korea or to influence its behavior.

Cont. reading: Pressing China With A Nuclear Japan?

Are these points a good concept for the occupation of Afghanistan?

• stabilize the country by garrisoning the main routes, major cities, airbases and logistics sites;
• relieve the Afghan government forces of garrison duties and push them into the countryside to battle the resistance;
• provide logistic, air, artillery and intelligence support to the Afghan forces;
• provide minimum interface between the occupation forces and the local populace;
• accept minimal own casualties; and,
• strengthen the Afghan forces, so once the resistance is defeated, the military can be withdrawn.

How much do they differ from the strategy Obama announced two month ago? As the Guardian described it:

The key to the new strategy is to build up the Afghan army and police force. Obama today announced an extra 4,000 US troops to help with training, with the intention of doubling the Afghan force from its current 65,000. He said this might have to be increased again as power was transferred to Afghanistan. This is a relatively cheap option for the US as the pay of each Afghan soldier is quite small.

This will be accompanied by a "surge" in US civilians to Afghanistan, doubling numbers to 900, to help rebuild the country's infrastructure.

Obama last month ordered 17,500 US combat troops to Afghanistan to reinforce the 38,000 already there.

Those concept and Obama's strategy seem quite similar to me. Behind both is the idea to nationalize the conflict part while the occupation force provides the national forces with the needed resources and takes care of the infrastructure.

The first strategy is from a paper published in 1995 about the Soviet war in Afghanistan and describes their strategy.

The paper, by U.S. military analyst Lester W. Grau and retired Afghan General Nawroz, ends with these words:

Lessons learned from this conflict were gathered by both sides. Whatever else these lessons may show, the most fundamental of them is that no army, however sophisticated, well trained, materially rich, numerically overwhelming and ruthless, can succeed on the battlefield if it is not psychologically fit and motivated for the fight. The force, however destitute in material advantages and numbers, which can rely on the moral qualities of a strong faith, stubborn determination, individualism and unending patience will always be the winner. These may not be the optimum qualities always found in the armies of western democracies.

The "motivation" and "unending patience" is what the 'western' forces in Afghanistan are missing. If Grau and Nawroz are right, they will lose that war.

• Taguba Denies Telegraph 'Rape Photos' Story HuffPo. The White House version of the story.
• Gen. Taguba Says Telegraph Quoted Him Correctly on Prisoner 'Rape' Photos RebelReports. The more correct version.

• U.S., Asian allies gear up for tougher stance toward N. Korea LAT. So what IS the plan?

• Embassy Envy Slate. Besides internal trouble selling ambassadorships is just stupid foreign policy.If the U.S. wants to be taken seriously, it should have serious ambassadors.

• Lebanon's intelligence war with Israel BBC. Is the Mossad's incompetent.

• Iran hangs three over deadly mosque bombing-report Reuters. Much too swift to be justice

• Taliban kill 4 truckers, set fire on 10 trucks in S Afghanistan Xinhua. Such supply line problems are missing in U.S. news.

• Embezzlement and Tainted Goods Threaten Iraq's Food Supply Counterpunch. Iraq is one huge racket.

• Troubled Bank Loans Hit a Record High NYT. And are likely to increase much further.
• G.M. Bankruptcy Plan Clears Bondholder Hurdle  NYT. A risky operation – any bets how long this might take?
• What Was THAT? (Friday Market Close) Market Ticker. A massive stock market manipulation. Is  the Fed doing this?

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

While California is releasing detainees from overcrowded prisons for lack of tax income, the Dutch have a quite different problem.

Not enough people commit crimes in the Netherlands and the demand for prison cells is down.

[M]easures must be taken to reduce the existing surplus of cells.

The Netherlands currently has capacity for 14,000 detainees but only 12,000 are needed. That number is expected to sink further.

Now group cells will be turned into single cells and prisoners will be placed as near as possible to their own region. Eight prisons will be closed or will sharply reduce their capacity.

Some prison guards will likely lose their job. The government tried its best to avoid that. According to rumors it considered the introduction of a "three strikes law" and to ask the European Union to criminalize the use of tobacco products.

But finally a better solution was found. Empty cells in the Netherlands will now be rented out to Belgium:

The Netherlands would get 30 million euros in the deal, and it will allow the closing of the prisons in Rotterdam and Veenhuizen to be postponed until 2012.

• More and worse pictures – The Bogus Torture Coverup – (Daily Beast)

• Pakistan – Number of displaced persons exceeds three million – (Dawn)
• Saudi and Kuwaiti money – Taliban's Foreign Support Vexes U.S. – (WSJ)

• Israeli police shut Palestinian literature festival in East Jerusalem – (Haaretz)
• Hill writer uncovered as redneck Netanjahu fan – 'The Hill' covers Obama-Abbas meeting with a Likudnik spin – (Mondoweiss)
• U.S. soft on (some) crimes – US fines Israeli agent in spy case – (AlJazeera)
• Richard Silverstein is optimistic – Putting the squeeze on Israel's settlements – (Guardian)
• He has some reason for it – Frank and Filner Refuse to Sign Aipac Letter – (Tikun Olam)

• McChrystal's troops or the CIA? – Gunmen attack Ahmadinejad election office – (AFP)
• Same question – Iran official blames U.S. in deadly mosque bombing – (Reuters)

• Oil records fifth consecutive gains as dollar drops – (Xinhua)

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

In the next days there will likely be a military clash between North and South Korea. With hardliners on both side and little attention in Washington a small sea skirmish could escalate into something much bigger.

Today North Korea launched another missile, this a ground-to-air one and warned of further measures. It clearly wants attention though not from the UN Security Council. From the AP account:

"If the U.N. Security Council makes a further provocation, it will be inevitable for us to take further self-defense measures," the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

North Korea also accused the Security Council of hypocrisy.

"There is a limit to our patience," the statement said. "The nuclear test conducted in our nation this time is the Earth's 2,054th nuclear test. The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council have conducted 99.99 percent of the total nuclear tests."
…
Fears have increased of military skirmishes, particularly in disputed waters off the western coast, after North Korea conducted the nuclear test on Monday and then renounced the truce that has kept peace between the Koreas since the Korean War ended in 1953.

That would be this line which the North wants to have moved further down.

Some historic background on that line can be found in this Joong Ang Daily piece from 2007.

There are already signs that something is imminent to happen there. AP continues:

Cont. reading: The Potential Korea Escalation

• Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape' – (Telegraph)
• Iraqi Victims Recall U.S. Abuse – (Reuters)
• Abused Palaces – Photography – (Richard Moose)

• Gideon Levi – How to talk to a right winger – (Haaretz)
• Rothkopf is a high class whiner – The Lobby reconsidered: irrefutable proof emerges… – (FP/Rothkopf)

• To sell more weapons – Why treat Russia as an enemy? – (W. Pfaff)

• Just another dangerous racket – Pentagon Plans New Arm to Wage Wars in Cyberspace – (NYT)

• McChrystal? – 15 dead in Iran mosque blast – (Globe&Mail)

• By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad – Somalia: one week in hell – inside the city the world forgot – (Guardian)

• Krugman – The Big Inflation Scare – (NYT)
• Scare? – Treasury yields continue upward march – (FT)
• Scare? – Crude jumps towards $65 on upbeat Opec – (FT)
• Banksters – Banks Want Government Subsidies to Buy Assets from Themselves – (Baseline Scenario)
• Their prey – Foreclosures, mortgage delinquencies climb at record rate – (McClatchy)

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

Yesterday a car bomb exploded in Lahore killing some 30 and wounding 250 people. Today four bombs exploded in Peshawar.

This is the backlash for the U.S. demanded campaign by the Pakistani military against the neo-Taliban. More will come.

2.4 million have fled from and at least 200,000 are trapped in the fighting areas. Some of the refugees are with relatives but many live in makeshift camps where some of the radical organizations are already recruiting new followers.

The Pakistani military lets no media into the fighting zone so reports about casualties are sketchy. I feared that it does not do counterinsurgency but fights as it was trained to do – with massive artillery barrages and air raids and with disregard of any collateral damage. Now the first accounts are coming in from refugees. It appears I was right:

Taken together, their accounts — along with those of aid workers and hospital staff — suggest significant civilian casualties, mostly as a result of aerial raids by an army more equipped for conventional war with India than guerrilla warfare with the Taliban.

…

"Civilian casualties are much higher than those of either the army or the Taliban," said Ali Bakt, speaking at a hospital in the northwestern capital of Peshawar after fleeing the Taliban mountain stronghold of Peochar. He said both sides were firing mortar shells — an inaccurate weapon that often hits targets other than the intended one.

The heavy handed campaign may well press the neo-Taliban out of Swat and other areas. Some may cross the border to Afghanistan and the U.S. hopes to fight them there. But this hammer and anvil operation will also see many flee into the big cities and the fight will carry on there.

With damage in the cities increasing and reports of civilian casualties rising the Pakistani public will at some point no longer support the armies campaign. Then the government will again have to make with the neo-Taliban.

Strategically nothing will have changed but millions will have been uprooted and thousands will be dead or wounded.

Despite what the Obama administration insists to believe the conflict can not be solved by military force. There must and will be a political solution in Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan. Meanwhile the civilians have to pay the bloody price for the politicians small-mindedness.

With child labor inflation  I do not mean an increase in the number of children working, but an increase in the age that is seen as borderline for child labor. It inflates the perceived problem and takes away attention from real cases.

A case in point is Juliette Terzieff's piece at WPR about concerns of increasing child labor in times of economic crisis. That concern is justified but I can not agree with the examples she links to and uses:

• A claim that Chinese factories are allowed to disregard some employment regulation if they avoid laying off workers. The report says nothing about children at all.
• A report on sixteen year old women working in a Chinese factory producing shoes for Nike while the Nike contract says the company should not employ anyone under eighteen. Sure the company should stick to its contracts, but why is a report on sixteen year old working in a factory headlined "Child Labor Allegations"?
• Another report linked in Terzieff's piece highlights the death of a seventeen year old adolescent due to a machine male-function in another Chinese factory that produces for Disney. He started working there when he was fourteen.
• The last example is of cotton harvest campaigns in Central Asia where, for a few weeks each year, children have to help the adults.

I regard none of those cases as child labor.

Cont. reading: Child Labor Inflation

• A regular MoA commentator is with these groups – good luck! (Gaza Delegation)

• Outrageous – Islamic charity leaders get 65-year jail terms – (Reuters)
• Fascism – Israeli bill seeks to outlaw denial of Jewish state – (WaPo/Reuters)
• Theft – Israelis get four-fifths of scarce West Bank water, says World Bank – (Guardian)
• No – Did Hizballah Kill Rafik Hariri? – (Time)
• Roger Cohen talks tough – Obama in Netanyahu’s Web – (NYT)

• A bit history and some interesting thoughts – Is North Korea About to Blow Up the World? – (AntiWar/Raimondo)
• Dangerous – S. Korea and U.S. Raise Alert Level – (NYT)

• Abducted kid – Afghan was taken to Guantanamo aged 12 – rights group – (Reuters)
• Yes – Was Rape an Enhanced Interrogation Technique? – (FFF)

• More to come – ‘Punjabi Taliban’ claim Lahore suicide bombing – (Dawn)
• Building a new target – Obama seeks funds for Pakistan super-embassy – (McClatchy)

• Stagflation? – Rising Treasury yields threaten recovery – (FT (alt-link)
• 24% loss rate on credit card loans – Deflation? – JPMorgan warns on credit card woes – (FT (alt-link)
• Lessons from the global financial crisis for regulators and supervisors – (FT/Mavercon)

• Death Star Canteen – (YouTube)

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

Roubini recommends that North Korea should open its economy the way China and North Korea did.

Impoverished North Korea can liberalize its economy while maintaining its political system if it follows the path taken by China and Vietnam, prominent economist Nouriel Roubini said Wednesday.

"I think the lesson is that progressive economic opening and liberalization even in a formerly centrally controlled economy can lead to beneficial changes," Roubini told reporters on the sidelines of a technology forum.

In principal I agree, but I fear the North Korea is different case than China and Vietnam. Those were and are oligarchic ruled states while North Korea is ruled by a personalized dictatorship. At least that is how it looks from the outside.

Another difference is the state ideology. The communism in North Korea and China after the late 1970s took a slow slide toward capitalism.

North Korea's ideology, Juche, is based on self-reliance and self-dependency of the country. While there is a walkable path from communism to capitalism (and back) via socialism and social-democracy in their various states, there is a large gap between state self-dependency and self-reliance and an open trade economy. Opening up could well mean a break down of the Juche ideology and the ruling system it was build to justify. The countries neighbors, China and South Korea fear the consequences of such a breakdown. 

Anyway – such an evolution would take years and the current problem with North Korea abandoning the armistice and pounding the wardrums can not be solved by that.

More difficult to solve than the long term economic stuff are indeed the current tensions. Any ideas what to do about these?

What are the next steps for China, the U.S. and South Korea to take?

• The Taliban silently take over north Afghanistan – 'If We Now Kill Schoolgirls, You Shouldn't Be Surprised'Spiegel)
• Much too late – US probes divisions within Taliban – (Boston Globe)
• McChrystal's slaughter campaign plans – A New Kind of War Part 1 – (SST)
• Background on Swat Valley – How Green Was My Valley – (FPJ)
• Backlash from the anti-Taliban campaign – Blast shakes Lahore police building – (AlJazeera)

• SOFA? What SOFA? – Army chief: U.S. troops could be in Iraq for 10 years – LAT

• Dennis Ross again making trouble – U.S. envoy Ross: Obama's plan won't bring Mideast peace – (Haaretz)
• Not dangerous at all – Exploring the Reach and Limitations of Iranian Power in the Middle East – (Rand)
• Provides a peaceful solution – Former diplomat: Iran won’t stop nuclear work – (LAT)

• Still heating up – N Korea threatens South over ship searches – (FT)

• USAID meddling in South America – More than $97 million from USAID to separatist projects in Bolivia – (Bolivia Risisng)

• The Greatest Swindle Ever Sold – Six Ways the Financial Bailout Scams Taxpayers – (TomDispatch)
• Dr. Doom – U.S. Inflation to Approach Zimbabwe Level, Faber Says – (Bloomberg)
• A funny scam – Reincarnation Bank – (Reincarnation Bank)

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

Part of a screenshot from the current TalkingPointsMemo homepage:

That headline is wrong. The Sudanese government said nothing about who might be responsible for the bombing of one or two convoys in Sudan in January and/or February.

The AP news piece the TPM headline is set to obfuscates who said that Israel bombed the convoy(s). Its lede:

Sudan's defense minister said air raids earlier this year, which the government suspects Israel conducted, killed 119 people involved in a smuggling ring.

Which government? When and where has the Sudanese government ever said it suspects that Israel was behind this bombing? To my best knowledge and research it never did do so. A few paragraphs further into the piece:

Cont. reading: Chinese Whisper Headlines

Judge Sonia Sotomayor as Obama's choice for the Supreme Court is political neutral. It is nothing the left can be really happy about. Various evaluations of her legal opinions can be found here (scroll down). Sotomayor is Hispanic and that is of course a plus for diversity. Politically she seems to be just slightly left of what in the U.S. is regarded as center. At a pretty right-wing Supreme Court she will be more of a balance than a change.

The right-wingers will hate her anyway. To them anyone left of Scalia is a "radical liberal" and "judicial activist". Some slum fighting about the nomination is anyway unavoidable. Remarks Tom Goldstein at Scotus Blog:

A cottage industry – literally an industry, given the sums of money raised and spent – now exists in which the far left and right either brutalize or lionize the President’s nominees. Because the absence of controversy means bankruptcy, it has to be invented by both sides, whatever the cost to the nominee personally and to the integrity of the judiciary nationally.

The Scotus Blog post evaluates what the various attack lines and responses will be. A likely good prediction of what the various surrogates in the media will shout about during the next months. You can read it now and spare yourself those coming diversions.

Goldstein predicts that:

All in all, […], her easy confirmation seems assured.

Haaretz' usually well informed diplomatic editor Aluf Benn muses about how Netanjahu might try to circumvent U.S. restrictions on an attack on Iran:

There are other possibilities to consider: a war in the north that drags Iran in, or a strike against a valuable target for the Iranian regime, which leads Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to take action against "the Zionist regime." If Iran attacks Israel first, the element of surprise will be lost, but then Israel's strike against the nuclear installations will be considered self-defense.

Another war with Hizbullah? Probably with the 'excuse' of hitting alleged new Hizbullah air defense weapons? But how would that drag in Iran?

And what might be a 'valuable target' that when attacked could incite Iran into declaring a war it can not wage and does not want? Cruise missiles from a submarine towards the Bushehr reactor?

Let me know your ideas.

Helena Cobban explains what would be Israel's real goal in such an attack:

There is good reason to believe that the goal [of an Israeli attack on Iran] would be not the direct physical destruction/incapacitation of Iran's nuclear programs but rather, to trigger an all-out US-Iran war in the course of which, Israel's planners hope, the US would do the dirty work in Iran that it is unable to do itself.

If Israel would launch some small attack on Iran, Iran might well, with some justification, retaliate against U.S. interests. This would then trigger an all out attack by the U.S. on Iran. Some action against the just opened French base in Abu Dhabi might even drag in the Europeans.

Helena fears that some people in the Obama administration and Congress would welcome such a chain of events. She urges to stop the still ongoing secret U.S. campaign against Iran and to start real direct diplomacy.

I do not see any real diplomacy coming up. There have been some words by Obama on this but zero signs of any behavior change. Some attempts of diplomacy might be made by the Obama administration after the elections in Iran. But these will be only for public relation reasons and Dennis Ross will make sure that any negotiations will fail.

My hope is that chain of events Israel will likely try to ignite would be stopped by two relevant entities:

1. The U.S. military which is in enough trouble already in the area and may not want a bigger war.
2. The Iranian government being smart enough to not fall for such a plot. It could shrug off an attack and respond to it only indirectly, asymmetrical and with a long time delay.

• Reidar Vissar – Disputed Territories in Iraq: The Practical Argument against Self-Determination in Kirkuk – (Historiae.org)
• Gog and Magog – Bush's Shocking Biblical Prophecy Emerges: God Wants to "Erase" Mid-East Enemies "Before a New Age Begins" – (Alternet)

• Paranoid lunatic – Netanyahu bringing Israel closer to war with Iran – (Haaretz)
• Propaganda – Secret document: Venezuela, Bolivia supplying Iran with uranium – (Haaretz)
• Uri Avnery sounds optimistic – Netanyahu Goes to Washington – (Counterpunch)

• 'Limited' is an overstatement – U.S. soldiers' options limited to protect Afghans from Taliban – (McClatchy)

• US/UK unwilling to cut back – When austerity does not come easily – (FT (alt. link))
• The Volkswagen/Porsche drama – Karma Is A Bitch v2 – (Zero Hedge)

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

Today North Korea tested, apparently successful, a nuclear device. The size of the explosion was given as 10,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT equivalent. That is much bigger than the last test which resulted in a ‘fizzle’ with only 500 tons TNT equivalent. NoKo also launched three surface to air missiles with a range of some 130km.

This was likely a test of a “Fat Man” type device, comparable to the first second nuclear bomb. It is the easiest to build plutonium design and the most likely one to work without more intensive engineering and testing. It is also a bulky design that is difficult to fit on the missiles North Korea has.

As far as known, today’s detonation left North Korea with enough Plutonium for two to six more bombs. It may restart reprocessing old nuclear fuel from its sole reactor and get material for another one within six month. It would have to restart the half dismantled reactor to produce more which would take some three to four years. North Korea may have an Uranium enrichment program, another possible way to nukes, but this program is likely not at industrial scale.

Everyone and his brother is condemning today’s test including the Russians and the Chinese. The UN Security Council will meet and release some harsh words. But I doubt that any new sanctions will be issued.

Even if North Korea manages to put a nuclear device on a missile it is unlikely that it would use it in a first strike. There would be nothing to gain but devastation for itself and the certain end for its regime. Under attack the calculation would be different.

The concerned global parties about a North Korean nuclear strike are South Korea, Japan, the U.S. and China. South Korea and the especially the U.S. troops stationed there would be a likely aim for a defensive strike. Japan and U.S. garrisons there are another possible target. China does not fear a North Korean weapon. But it has two other concerns.

The first is a nuclear armed Japan. Japan is a latent nuclear state. It has the material and the know how to build a few nukes over a weekend or two. It also has the means to deliver them. If Japan officially takes up nuclear arms China would feel endangered. The Japanese occupation is not forgotten.

The second Chinese fear is a collapse of the North Korean regime followed by a ‘peaceful’ invasion from South Korea and the U.S. troops there that would come to ‘help’ the ‘poor North Korean people’. This would put U.S. troops directly at its border.

Therefore I believe that China will block any attempt to put even more sanctions on North Korea.

But next to a nuclear strike there is another fear out there. North Korea could, in theory, export a nuclear device to interested party. As it has so few, the price would certainly be very high and I find it unlikely that anyone who can pay that price is interested in acquiring one or two weapons. But who knows? The U.S. will certainly play along that fear to further it aims.

It could argue that to prevent proliferation all ships must be searched when they enter and leave North Korea’s territorial waters. If the UN security council would agree to that it would set a precedent that could later be used to essentially blockade Iran. 

• As expected – North Korea Claims to Conduct 2nd Nuclear Test – (NYT)
• South Korean Stocks, Won Drop After North Tests Nuclear Weapon – (Bloomberg)
• Japan wants UNSC meeting on N.Korea test – Kyodo – (Reuters)
• Japan panel wants "first strikes" against enemies – (Reuters)

• So where is the pressure? – Netanyahu defies Obama on Israeli settlement freeze – (Reuters)

• IPI wins over TAPI – Pakistan, Iran finally sign gas pipeline accord – (Dawn)
• Good Iran portait – Tehran or Bust – (Newsweek)
• Mohamed ElBaradei – ‘They are not Fanatics’ – (Newsweek)

• Almost? – Africa almost giving land away, says UN – (FT (alt. link))
• The mystery – Sudan Airstrikes: How Contradiction Became Evidence – (Palestinian Chronicle)
• Best way for development aid? – How to help the poor have more money? Well, you could give it to them – (NYU)

• The second wave – Job Losses Push Safer Mortgages to Foreclosure – (NYT)
• Krugman on the Banana Republic of California – State of Paralysis – (NYT)
• Why Britain is fucked – It’s Finished – (LRB) (lengthy)
• Funny headline – Geithner rejects charges US moving toward socialism – (AFP)
• Just cut out the bad news – The Recession Blocker – (Recession Blocker)

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

One issue I have with the U.S. media is its complete inability to reflect on what the U.S. is actually doing when they report on foreign reactions.

Today the Washington Post's Craig Whitlock is outraged that Spanish prosecutors and judges care about international crimes against humanity. He does not spend a second on thinking about how much of that may be really justified when one takes into account the openly admitted misdeeds of the U.S.

Spain's Judges Cross Borders In Rights Cases –
High-Ranking U.S. Officials Among Targets of Inquiries

MADRID — Spanish judges are boldly declaring their authority to prosecute high-ranking government officials in the United States, China and Israel, among other places, delighting human rights activists but enraging officials in the countries they target and triggering a political backlash in a nation uncomfortable acting as the world's conscience.

Reality version:

WASHINGTON D.C. — American and Israeli officials are boldly declaring their authority to kill high-ranking government officials in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, among other places, delighting Zionists activists but enraging officials in the countries they target and triggering a political backlash in nations comfortable acting as the world's conscience.

WaPo:

Judges at Spain's National Court, acting on complaints filed by human rights groups, are pursuing 16 international investigations into suspected cases of torture, genocide and crimes against humanity, according to prosecutors. Among them are two probes of Bush administration officials for allegedly approving the use of torture on terrorism suspects, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

My version reads:

Officials at the U.S. National Security Council, acting on complaints filed by Zionist groups, are pursuing international crimes by pursuing torture, genocide and crimes against humanity, according to U.S. officials. Among them are Bush administration officials who approved the use of torture on terrorism suspects, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

And so on.

The U.S. is pressing Spain to change its laws so that international U.S. crimes, even when effecting Spanish citizens, can no longer be prosecuted. At the same time the U.S. claims it has the right to snatch or kill anyone, anywhere, anytime for whatever reason.

Not one bit of that comparison makes it into the piece. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality …"

• Must read in full – A Deeply Unfair Cast of Mind – (Garett/DKos)
• Obama outsources torture – U.S. Relies More on Allies in Questioning Terror Suspects – (NYT)
• U.S. holds journalist without charges in Iraq – (LAT)
• Robert Dreyfuss on the NY 4 – Yet Another Bogus 'Terror' Plot – (The Nation)

• How the IDF manipulates the media – Explaining War – (JPost)

• Flynt and Hillary Leverett on missed opportunities – Have We Already Lost Iran? – (NYT)
• Iran wins in U.S. Supreme Court – Law Professor Wins Supreme Court Case – (EmoryWheel) via Iran Affairs

• One Mullen unit=two Friedman units – Next year crucial for war against Taliban: US – (Dawn)

• Prospects are dismal for returning Iraqi refugees – (McClatchy)
• For Displaced Iraqis, 'No Life' – (WaPo)

• Refuted economic doctrines #8: the superiority of flexible labor markets – (Crooked Timber)
• Wall Street rulez – Geithner Adopts Part of Wall Street Derivatives Plan – (Bloomberg)

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