If you look at the Army Field Manual's section on interrogation techniques, you will find an enlightening little passage on the subject of "coercive" interrogation, which says in part:

The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind is prohibited by law and is neither authorized nor condoned by the US Government. Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.

Yesterday evening, John McCain passed an amendment to the next military appropriations bill which if followed would end such practices by simply requiring the treatment of detainees to be held to the standards in the Army field manual. Bush claims he's going to veto it. This would mean the first, and so far only, veto of Bush's entire presidency would be performed in support of torture.

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Iraqi version

On Monday, two persons were approached for suspicious activity. They fired at police, killing one and wounding another. They attempted to flee in a car, after which they were apprehended and photographed. It was discovered that though the two were in civilian clothes, they were in fact British soldiers. Explosives were found in their car, and it is believed that they were in the process of planting explosives for the purpose of inciting violence. It is for this reason they are believed to have fled from the Iraqi authorities.

These events set off other violence, including the bombing of British tanks, and clashing with Iraq Basra police. UK demands for the release of their soldiers led to fighting between UK and Iraq Basra police. The UK mounted an armed raid, consisting of twelve tanks, and brutally overtook the police station, allowing hundreds to escape and extracting their soldiers. The UK and US is currently in the process of damage control, claiming that the operation was a "rescue" and further attempting to eliminate any other evidence or opposition.

UK official version

Iraqi police had arrested two off-duty British soldiers, and after some negotiations, they were released into British custody.

Sources

Google News

Washington Post,

phillyburbs.com,

Kuna.net,

ABC News (US).

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This article in the Observer is an appropriate study in miniature of how the approach to counter-terrorism currently popular in the Western world is so painfully and obviously retrogressive.
Death in Stockwell: the unanswered questions

What can we learn from the UK response to the London bombings?

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The Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip is here after weeks upon weeks of preparation, both political and physical. The face of the practical task seems trivial: move 8000 people approximately 10km, withdrawing them from settlements (these are marked in red on this map). History, however, weighs heavily on the shoulders of the soldiers involved in forcibly evicting Jewish settlers in the Strip, the settlers themselves, the politicians responsible for developing the plan, the Palestinians still living there, and the Israeli public. But how did it come to this, and why is it happening?

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Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian said yesterday that "China's rise over the past years has not been peaceful" and that "China is not an opportunity, but a threat." This boldly contradicts what many 'unificationists' from Taiwan's opposition parties are saying on the island following the recent high-level visits by opposition party candidates to China. And yet, the threats are real.

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Steven Pearlstein has an article in the Washington Post titled, "Aid Recipients Might Have the Best Ideas About Allocation" which covers alternate methods to allocate aid funding to needy states. The article challenges the orthodoxy that a small group of specialists are the best to determine what to do with donor money. Instead, GlobalGiving is using technology and the "wisdom of the crowds" to produce outcomes that are more efficient. This methodology has political implications, especially for models which incorporate ratification and sortition.

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So you might have heard by now that Karl Rove was named by Newsweek as the source of the leak that outed undercover CIA agent Valerie Wilson Plame.

As of now the internet is a flurry of speculation

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With the rise of ideologies such as paleoconservatives, neolibertarians, and radical centrists, creating a political spectrum model that can describe them all has become more challenging. No longer does the simple left-right axis suffice, nor even the ever popular Nolan Chart. This article proposes a new model that attempts to accurately describe all known ideologies using a three dimensional spectrum.

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In an unbelievable twist of fate, a combination of terrible drug laws, intellectual property laws, and misguided patents and copyrights have come together to prevent me from receiving lifesaving medecine. I need your help to publicize this issue, take it to the mainstream, and let it start the ball rolling to take out this immoral copyright system. The story of the death of my family and my current life-threatening illness, caused in no small part by IP law, is a perfect starting point to bring this into the next level of public discourse. Let's expose the copyright barons for what they are. It's not just me; 200 million others are also infected, and 95% don't know the problem, yet. It could even be you. Let's become lifesavers.

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With the decline in stock returns lately, as a rich white Episcopalian male whose family made it big running liquor during prohibition, I have had a lot of trouble finding good places to put my money. The damn hedge funds are all imploding. Pretty soon, the regulators will be all over them like a plague of locusts.

Anyway, I thought I had found a solution to getting decent returns. Some smart guy in my research department figured out a treatment for glaucoma. Now that we have the patent, we plan to charge $100 a pill for it. Keeping one's sight is priceless, right?

In order to produce the pills, I found a perfect place to build a new pharmaceutical plant in a neighborhood blighted by blue collar workers, but there's this group of minority families (how do they get into this country?) living there that have caused me no end of heartache. They won't sell and keep whining endlessly about "carcinogenic run-off". I have tried bribing the building code enforcers to condemn the houses as uninhabitable. The local police are of no use. I gave them thousands under the table to "persuade" the locals to move. Still, the bastards stuck around. The mayor says he will not give me the tax breaks if I can not get the land.

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