On Thursday the Wall Street Journal reported that a list of interrogation techniques approved for Guantanamo in December 2002, included "fear of dogs." The article says it isn't clear whether rules on an April 2003 list that replaced it "were applied to military prisons in Iraq or elsewhere. But some of the practices disclosed this year at Abu Ghraib... resemble methods" on the 2002 list.

The Abu Ghraib photos are now "obscuring the story far more than they once illustrated it," writes Josh Marshall. "In fact, the prison abuse and torture story itself has become a perfect example of how two separate media storylines -- ones that clearly contradict each other -- can coexist and yet seemingly never cross paths." Are they about to cross paths?

In what TalkLeft calls "a resounding rejection of the government's ambitious use of the Patriot Act," an Idaho jury acquitted a Saudi graduate student who set up and ran Web sites that prosecutors said were used to recruit terrorists. Plus: A British expat describes her life inside the Kingdom.

CorpWatch reports on the awarding of a $293 million "cost-plus" contract to London-based Aegis Defense Services Ltd., to coordinate security for all Iraqi reconstruction projects, calling the contract "a license to over-bill" that will effectively create "the world's largest private army."

The article is accompanied by a profile of the controversial head of Aegis, former SAS commando and "freelance adventurer," Col. Tim Spicer. "I am doubtful that the folks awarding the contract had any sense of Spicer's spicier history," said "Corporate Warriors" author, Peter Singer.

Singer is also quoted in 'Contracting Justice,' a Mother Jones report on how private contractors are "getting away with -- not to say cashing in on -- criminal behavior" in Iraq, where not a single civilian contractor, including those said to be responsible for abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, has been charged with any crime by the U.S. Justice Department.

'Corporations on the Couch' Ted Nace reviews the companion book to the film, "The Corporation," in which Joel Bakan "finds a trait-by-trait match between the standard actions of corporations and the diagnostic criteria of a psychopath." Read an excerpt and an interview with Bakan.

The WSWS reviews Paola di Florio's "Home of the Brave," a documentary about Viola Liuzzo, the only white woman killed during the civil rights struggles of the 50s and 60s -- "gunned down by a carload of Ku Klux Klan members, one of whom was an FBI informer."

"Democracy Now!" interviews "Ghost Wars" author Steve Coll, on 'How Reagan armed the mujahadeen in Afghanistan,' and Slate's Fred Kaplan uses Coll's "magisterial" book, along with recently declassified documents, in arguing that Reagan 'turned a jihadist into a terrorist kingpin.'

'Pennies From Heaven' "I've been watching the coverage of my funeral and, Peg, seriously, I don't recognize the guy you're all talking about." Plus: One of the U.S. media's "more depraved moments?"

In 'Reagan worship,' Eric Boehlert writes that "this week's uncritical treatment of the 40th president is a natural culmination of what has been going on for the past quarter of a century... this week has been the 1980s redux...It's morning again in America -- on a feedback loop." The article was initially titled 'Reagan porn.' Plus: 'Epitaph and Epigone.'

Writer who penned the Boston Globe's obituary on Reagan says, "I wrote it so long ago that the bit about the Alzheimer's had to be inserted into it."

A tale of two cemeteries: one organic, the other refined.

Act Three  A research firm commissioned by the Bush administration to analyze the Clear Skies Act, its plan to lower emissions from coal-fired power plants, has issued a study finding that the administration's plan is weaker than two competing legislative proposals.

Sen. John Edwards' recently-formed One America Committee "has an unstated mission," reports the Boston Globe, "to help Edwards emerge as the most attractive choice for vice president... More than any other potential number two, Edwards is waging a passive-aggressive bid for the vice presidency."

Interviewed by Pat Buchanan in American Conservative, Ralph Nader vows he won't drop out, and asks conservatives to send a "message" against corporatism by voting for him, but a Salon article says Nader's Republican backers exist only in his mind. The Hill characterizes Rep. Dennis Kucinich's continuing role in the presidential campaign as "protecting Kerry's left flank" from Nader.

Read 'Em and Reap Cursor is seeking an experienced editor/writer with a strong background in media, politics and post-9/11 issues for "Media Patrol." The position is 2-3 days a week and could become full time. Send a brief introduction and links to writing samples -- no attachments please -- to mediapatrol@cursor.org. Finalists will be contacted by mid-June.

June 10

Global military spending rose to $956 billion in 2003, with the U.S. accounting for 47 percent of the total, followed by Japan with 5 percent, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which called the 11 percent increase from 2002, "remarkable." Plus: 'War! War! War!'

The report warned of fears that biotech research could lead to the development of a new class of biological weapons. An Oakland Tribune article that says the Bush administration's bioterrorism research "will press beyond traditional defenses against natural biowarfare germs," quotes the head of the Sunshine Project as saying, "If any other country set forth a program like this, U.S. intelligence undoubtedly would call it an offensive program."

The U.S. State Department is revising its 2003 "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report, which said terrorist attacks were at their lowest level in 34 years. The Los Angeles Times reports that "U.S. officials and terrorism experts familiar with that revision effort said the new report will show that the number of significant terrorist incidents increased last year, perhaps to its highest level in 20 years."

Tampa International Airport officials have confirmed that two days after 9/11, three Saudi men were flown from Tampa to Lexington, KY, as reported by Craig Unger in a Vanity Fair article last October. More background on the 'Evacuation of Saudi Nationals.'

A report from the Center for Economic and Social Rights, "Beyond Torture: U.S. Violations of Occupation Law in Iraq," calls the June 30th "transfer of sovereignty" to Iraqi authorities "a form of political theatre with no legal effect," and the group's head says "the U.S. is violating almost every law intended to protect civilians living under foreign military occupation."

Torture's Bottom Line The Center for Constitutional Rights has filed a racketeering lawsuit against Titan Corp. and CACI International on behalf of eight Iraqis and the estate of an Iraqi man who lawyers said was tortured to death. The AP report says the companies are accused "of conspiring to torture, rape and kill Iraqi prisoners in order to generate more business."

The Washington Post reports that an Army reservist who headed the interrogation center at Abu Ghraib, told Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba in February "that he understood some of the information being collected from prisoners there had been requested by 'White House staff.'"

The Post also reports that medical records of prisoners at Guantanamo were given to military interrogators, and editorializes that recently leaked memos "lay out a shocking and immoral set of justifications for torture."

With 5,000 more Marines scheduled for deployment to Iraq, Army "maverick" Colonel Douglas Macgregor tells the Financial Times that the emphasis on numbers is misplaced, and that U.S. failures in Iraq stem from a "sycophantic" defense culture in which "there are no arguments. Arguments are a sign of dissent. Dissent equates to disloyalty."

The U.S. General in charge of training Iraqi recruits shoots straight: "It hasn't gone well. We've had almost one year of no progress."

The Army announces that all U.S. troops in Iraq are now equipped with body armor -- just in time for summer -- and Patrick Cockburn details the "dangerous anarchy of everyday life" in Iraq, where kidnapping is rampant and highway robbery goes unreported.

As "Kurd Sellout Watch" ramps up, the New York Times reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is promising to adhere to minority protections in Iraq's interim constitution -- which the U.N. resolution failed to include -- until elections are held. The U.S. is now focusing on a second U.N. resolution that would renew its troops' immunity from war crimes prosecution.

Human rights groups tell G8 leaders that Afghan elections could be derailed unless western nations commit more troops, and Reuters reports that insurgents gunned down 11 Chinese nationals near the northern city of Kunduz, "until now deemed a secure area."

A Los Angeles Times poll finds that 56% of respondents think the country "needs to move in a new direction" and shows Sen. John Kerry leading President Bush by 51% to 44%, and by 48% to 42% in a three-way race with Ralph Nader. Plus: A new recruit to the Bush-Cheney campaign does heavy lifting.

As Senate Majority leader Bill Frist proposes renaming the Pentagon to the Ronald Reagan National Defense Building, tribute ideas are deemed "off the money."

'A Uniter, Not a Divider' Slate's David Greenberg lists five "myths about Reagan now being bruited about" in the media, and FAIR says "journalists are redefining the former president's life and accomplishments with a stream of hagiographies that frequently skew the facts and gloss over scandal and criticism."

"I don't have it. Do you?" AMERICAblog unearths transcripts of White House press briefings between 1982 and 1984, in which spokesman Larry Speakes jokes and laughs off reporters' questions about AIDS. Scroll up for Jr. on Jr. interview. Plus: Hip-hop fans owe a debt to Reagan?

June 9

A Reuters article says the U.N. resolution on Iraq is "expected to help patch up deep divisions," but CBS News reports that people at the U.N. say they have "lost all trust in the Bush administration" and are "skeptical, if not downright displeased, with current U.S. efforts to rekindle ties."

A Christian Science Monitor analysis describes the resolution as "ambiguous enough that all sides can claim victory," with the exception of a naysaying strawman set up by President Bush.

In Juan Cole's view, "that the U.S. and the U.K. had to give away so much to get the resolution shows how weak they are in Iraq." He also said the big winner is Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the losers are the Kurds, who are threatening to bolt the government. Cole also appeared on PBS' "News Hour," where he said "I don't think anybody in their right mind is going to want to send troops to help out" with Iraq's security situation.

"NewsHour" also interviewed the Wall Street Journal reporter who broke the story on the March 2003 torture memo. He said that while he doesn't know of a direct connection between various legal memoranda "and what's going on in the field... certainly there is a fair segment of military and national security people who believe that the rules restraining harsh interrogation techniques are no longer appropriate."

The segment also features highlights of testimony by Attorney General Ashcroft before the Senate Judiciary Committee, during which he declined to release a 2002 policy memo on the degree of pain and suffering legally permitted during enemy interrogations. And the Los Angeles Times reports that the Defense Secretary's office instructed military intelligence to "take the gloves off" in interrogating John Walker Lindh.

The March 2003 memo was scheduled for declassification one year after the next transit of Venus.

The New York Times reports that a power plant capable of supplying nearly 20 percent of Iraq's electricity "plunged nearly to zero" following sabotage attacks on fuel and transmission lines last weekend, "raising new fears that insurgents were targeting major sectors of the Iraqi infrastructure as part of an overall terror plan." Plus: Tigris river also under siege.

Baghdad Burning's Riverbend says that during the last year "a certain sort of special bond has formed between your typical Iraqi and the roof of his or her home," in part because "we sleep on the roof during the endless, powerless nights."

"What we need to do is to help in the cause of, ah, downfall of California," says an Enron employee in new tapes aired by CBS. One employee tells another that "It's called lies. It's all how well you can weave these lies together," drawing the response, "I feel like I'm being corrupted now." "No," says the first employee, "this is marketing." Plus: Can David Mamet's characters compete with Enron's?

A GAO reports says that the Pentagon has wasted at least $100 million on unused airline tickets, and that it wasn't even aware of the problem until the audit.

The Washington Post reviews James Bamford's "A Pretext For War. In addition to arguing that Bush administration officials were "locked in a plan to wage war in Iraq well before" 9/11, he says that on 9/11, the entire U.S. "mainland was protected by just fourteen planes spread out over seven bases," and that "the general in charge of the country's military was completely ignorant of the fact that the United States was under its worst attack in nearly two centuries."

An AP article based on interviews with 9/11 commission panelists, says that draft portions of the final report "offer a stinging rebuke of the FBI and intelligence agencies but refrain from assigning blame to individuals in government to avoid the appearance of partisanship."

A rival presidential candidate has accused Afghan President Karzai of offering cabinet posts to mujahedeen warlords in return for their support in elections scheduled for September. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid says rising violence threatens the elections that the Bush administration is "desperately keen" to see take place to help hide the fact that coalition troops have failed to end terrorism or find bin Laden. Plus: Children kidnapped in Afghanistan said to have been murdered for body parts.

Chris Floyd describes a recent news cycle in which "the image of Kissinger in 1970, calmly ordering mass death, morphed into the picture of Pentagon chief Don Rumsfeld addressing West Point graduates in 2004, exhorting the Army cadets to a life of moral purpose." Floyd notes that in Rumsfeld's address, the target also morphed, from "terrorism" to "global insurgency."

Pollster Daniel Yankelovich says that to win in November, Sen. John Kerry must reframe the debate over Iraq and terrorism and "displant assumptions that keep Americans seeing the problem only through Bush's frame." More from Yankelovich on "Rethinking Islamist Terrorism."

The New Yorker's Ken Auletta discusses his article about PBS, "Big Bird Flies Right," as CNN also takes a right flight.

A CNN correspondent reportedly threw a tantrum after learning that the network had been scooped by ABC on Ronald Reagan's death, which, interrupted an annual conference of obituary writers.

In an interview with the Washington Times, Ted Rall defends his comment that Reagan is "turning crispy brown right about now," and writes in a new column that President Bush "models his approach to foreign policy on that of the original Teflon President. Reagan elevated unjustifiable military action to an art." Plus: Reagan and FDR to face off on Fox's "American Idol?"

Although CIA Director George Tenet is said to have been a victim of an Albanian jinx, the number of news reports mentioning him dropped significantly following Reagan's death, from 2,900 between last Thursday and Saturday, to fewer than 500 since Sunday.

June 8

Intel Dump's Phil Carter says a memo leaked to the Wall Street Journal goes much further than other memoranda in "justifying the White House's overall Guantanamo Bay plan," in that "it specifically authorizes the use of torture tactics, up to and including those which may result in the death of a detainee." The memo also claims that the authority to set aside laws is "inherent in the president."

The memo appears to be based on a 2002 Justice Department advisory that "international laws against torture 'may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations' conducted in President Bush's war on terrorism," reports the Washington Post, which quotes a Human Rights Watch spokesman as saying, "It appears that what they were contemplating was the commission of war crimes and looking for ways to avoid accountability."

More on the memo from Jim Lobe, 'New Evidence Prison Torture Was Approved at Top Levels,' the Progress Report, 'Legitimizes Torture, Puts President Above Law,' and Billmon, 'Praise the Lord and Pass the Thumbscrews.'

The New York Times reports that "forced nudity of prisoners was pervasive in the military intelligence unit of Abu Ghraib," with some detainees "ordered to do jumping jacks and sing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' in the nude, according to several witnesses." The article includes a photo that was taken in April 2003.

As 'Battles take daily toll in Sadr City,' Back to Iraq's Christopher Allbritton writes from Baghdad that "this environment is killing our ability to give a damn about anything other than staying alive." Plus: Iraqi veto out and U.S. troops in.

The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram's ombudsman sees an "explosive intensity in readers' demands for good news" from Iraq, adding that they're "not inclined to sympathize" with media complaints of limited access and heightened dangers.

Robert Parry says that what's missing from media commentary about Ronald Reagan, which he calls "fawning almost in a Pravda-like way," is "the one fundamental debate that must be held before any reasonable assessment can be made of Ronald Reagan and his Presidency: "How, why and when was the Cold War 'won'?"

Since Reagan's death, only Parry and the Boston Globe have mentioned "Team B," with the latter editorializing that "In the late '70s, Paul Wolfowitz and other neoconservatives distrusted CIA estimates of Soviet strength and participated in a government ''Team B" exercise replacing the CIA's assumptions with more hawkish ones of their own. When the Iron Curtain crumbled, it turned out the CIA was more on target than Team B, but the hawks quickly forgot that fact." More from Eric Alterman on Team B and on Reagan.

In an interview with "Democracy Now!", Parry said the Bush administration is continuing approaches that became prominent during Reagan's Presidency, including manipulating intelligence and exaggerating foreign policy dangers.

"Paying respect is one thing, and well deserved," writes Editor & Publisher's Joe Strupp, "but the way the press is gushing over Reagan is too much to take, sparking renewed talk of putting him on the $10 bill or Mount Rushmore."

Strupp cites a Los Angeles Times editorial as offering "the best assessment" of Reagan's presidency, and a Sacramento Bee editorial claiming that Reagan "took full responsibility" for Iran-contra, as being "among the worst." More on Reagan from Paul Krugman, Christopher Hitchens and Morrissey.

Reagan's name appears in the headline of all but one of 27 CNN segments for Monday, a transcript of a G-8 press conference in which national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said that her boss has been inspired by Reagan's "willingness to tell the truth."

Although a Christian Science Monitor article says this year's G8 Summit "could practically be a love feast," The Scotsman reports that outraged Arab leaders are boycotting it to protest Bush's plans to lay down goals for a Greater Middle East.

Barron's interviews 90-year-old money fund manager Seth Glickenhaus, who says that while Sen. John "Kerry is a mediocrity... Bush has been worse than zero as a president." He predicts that "If Kerry is elected, the doctrinaire Republicans will sell stocks for a day or two, but then the market will go up considerably." Earlier: Glickenhaus questions Gen. Anthony Zinni.

Foreign policy analyst Anthony Cordesman says "there's going to be a hell of a hangover" when the U.S. quits subsidizing gas in Iraq, which sells for 5 cents a gallon.

The Los Angeles Times reports that a Supreme Court decision clearing the way for Mexican trucks to roll onto U.S. highways without an environmental impact statement, was "criticized by environmentalists and by truckers on both sides of the border." A U.S. trucking industry official said: "We don't want them here and they don't want us there. The only ones who are going to benefit are the big boys."

Controversy over airing of 10-year anniversary interview prompts question: "What is this world coming to when you can't trust O.J. Simpson?"

June 7

ARCHIVES

Current month
May, 2004
April, 2004
March, 2004
February, 2004
January, 2004
December, 2003
November, 2003
October, 2003
September, 2003
August, 2003
July, 2003
June, 2003
May, 2003
April, 2003
March, 2003
February, 2003
January, 2003
December, 2002
November, 2002
October, 2002
September, 2002
August, 2002
July, 2002
June, 2002
May, 2002
April, 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
Pre-9/11

We Want Your Link! If you've seen any recent articles that you think other readers might be interested in, send us the link.

Thanks to Francis Hwang for RSS programming.