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The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on "fear" of President Barack Obama and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism." The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/33866.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6971683.ece?print=yes

Besides waging direct or proxy wars against elusive enemies on multiple fronts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, the Philippines, and Sudan, Yemen is now a new front in America's "war on terror" under a president, who as a candidate, promised diplomacy, not conflict, if elected.

The claim that Western embassy staff are being withdrawn from Yemen because of an alleged threat of a terrorist attack is utter rubbish. The embassies are being evacuated ahead of a major strike against Yemen's anti-government rebels by the US and its ally, the authoritarian government in Sana'a.

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/imperium/2010/01/201014122549187202.html

Bush administration officials came up with all kinds of ridiculously offensive rationalizations for torturing prisoners. It’s not torture if you don’t mean it to be. It’s not torture if you don’t nearly kill the victim. It’s not torture if the president says it’s not torture.

In effect, the Supreme Court has granted the government immunity for subjecting people in its custody to terrible mistreatment. It has deprived victims of a remedy and Americans of government accountability, while further damaging the country’s standing in the world.

Anyone who doubts the degree of executive branch pliability in this realm needs to consider this: The party that urged the Supreme Court not to grant the victims’ appeal because the illegality of torture was not “clearly established” was the Obama Justice Department.

http://s.nyt.com/u/A8U

Some in the United States and abroad say the legitimization of torture, the trampling of civil liberties, the violation of international law, and a dubious declaration of war that claimed more than 4,000 American and 100,000 Iraqi lives are not just miscalculations but crimes. War crimes, in fact. "The administration did more than commit crimes," argues Scott Horton, an expert on international law and contributing editor of Harper's magazine. "It waged war against the law itself."

Can a country that has allowed the rule of law to be flouted continue as a credible democracy, setting an example to ordinary citizens and claiming the moral high ground in the international community? Says British international lawyer Philippe Sands: "At some point the dam will break, the wall of impunity will be breached, and someone will be investigated. Whether it's the lawyers or the ultimate decision-makers I don't know. But history teaches that these things don't go away."

The permanent danger of torture through human history is that it can be used by the torturers to manufacture or "create" evidence through confession. In fact, this has always been the prime function of torture: not to discover something that the torturers did not know beforehand, but to force a victim to tell the torturers what they were already convinced was true.

When neoconservatives, at the peak of their hubris, bragged that they could create reality, they weren't kidding. Torture is the most effective means of creating reality because of this dynamic. What better evidence is there that someone was an al Qaeda member than that he confessed to it? And torture can get victims to confess to anything if they are tormented enough.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/01/posts-of-the-year-they-tortured-a-man-they-knew-to-be-innocent-october-1-2009.html

The US interrogator told Fouad al-Rabiah: "There is nothing against you. But there is no innocent person here. So, you should confess to something so you can be charged and sentenced and serve your sentence and then go back to your family and country, because you will not leave this place innocent."

This was not a statement from the transcripts of the Nuremberg trials, nor archival evidence from one of Stalin's gulags. This was a statement made by an agent of this government less than seven years ago to a detainee. The enormity of that is nearly incomprehensible. But even worse -- far worse -- is the fact that the Obama administration would nevertheless still seek to convict based on the resulting confession.

To those of us who read that passage and who vowed and make it our vocation to serve and protect the Constitution of the United States, that fact is a gut-punch. For me and my colleagues, it literally took our breath away. It makes one wonder how far down into the abyss we have allowed ourselves to drop. And whether there is the political will to find our way out.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/01/email-of-the-year-october-2-2009.html

Historically, the default strategy for wars that lack a plausible victory narrative is attrition. When you don’t know how to win, you try to outlast your opponent, hoping he’ll run out of troops, money and will before you do. Think World War I, but also Vietnam. The revival of the counterinsurgency doctrine, celebrated as evidence of enlightened military practice, commits America to a postmodern version of attrition.

Americans today do not have a clue when, where or how their war will end. The Long War, as the Pentagon aptly calls it, has no coherent narrative. When it comes to defining victory, U.S. political and military leaders are flying blind. How does this end? The verdict is already written: The Long War ends not in victory but in exhaustion and insolvency, when the United States runs out of troops and out of money.

http://enduringamerica.com/2010/01/02/afghanistan-and-the-long-war-obama-tell-me-how-this-ends/