Links ahoy

* Nat Hentoff thinks Jane Mayer's recent essay, "Outsourcing Torture," is the "most important piece run by The New Yorker since John Hersey's internationally resounding essay on what we did to Hiroshima in Japan with the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare." It should, therefore, be spread far and wide, in the hopes that it will actually trigger some kind of palpable response to the torture that the President, much of Congress, and a wide segment of the American public seem to endorse.

* From Bagram to Abu Ghraib to today: In related pieces, Emily Bazelon investigates how torture in Afghanistan has long been overshadowed by what's going on in Iraq, while Tom Wright revisits the Abu Ghraib (non)scandal, one year later.

* A killing caught on tape? That's A-OK, too.

* It looks like the horrors of Fallujah are being reinscribed on Ramadi as residents flee in response to repeated military assaults.

* As a report by the Democratic staff of the House Budget Committee estimates that the bill for the Iraq war will reach between $461 and $646 billion by 2015, David Isenberg says there are a variety of hidden costs that aren't calculated in those figures.

* Frontline's controversial documentary, "A Company of Soldiers," is available for viewing online.

* We Aren't Fighting to Win Anymore?! We never were, says Michael Gaddy.

* I agree with Matt Taibi. Kurt Andersen's New York essay on Iraq, "When Good News Feels Bad," is the "most shameful, vicious piece of horseshit I have seen anybody write about this terrible war."

* Make way for democracy in the Middle East! If only it were that simple, writes Juan Cole in the LA Times.

* All hail Walid Jumblatt, savior of the warbots!

* Since Hariri's assassination, there's been a steady drumbeat of calls for Syria to get out of Lebanon. Ahmed Amr has no problem with that, as long as Israel gets out of Syria, too.

* Following the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, much of the euphoria over the Sharm a-Sheikh summit has receded. The current climate of relations between the Israeli and Palestinian leadership looks, according to Ali Abunimah, "ominously like the failed Oslo peace process."

* The Guardian's Chris McGreal reports on the release of a new study that charts the costs of Israel's settlement policies. Published by the Adva Centre, the report notes that military and construction expenditures divert funds away from Israel's social welfare programs, increase poverty and inequality, and foment political instability. In related news: "Gaza 'out,' West Bank 'in'"

* A new report from the UN Population Division says the world's population will increase by a staggering 40 percent to 9.1 billion in 2050. Virtually all of the growth will come in the developing world, particularly in the poorest countries of the Global South. However, this population explosion will not be seen in much of sub-Saharan Africa, where the ravages of AIDS will stall population growth between 2005 and 2020.

* Gene Gerard holds Bush's feet to the fire on his bogus promises to fight the global AIDS pandemic. Meanwhile, in the US, the HIV infection rate has doubled among blacks in the last decade.

* Summarizing their research findings, Steve Freeman and Josh Mitteldorf assert in In These Times that examinations of the exit polls of the 2004 Presidential election provide strong evidence of corruption and fraud.

* The 160-page Luntz playbook on how to keep Republicans in power makes for some interesting reading. Searchable version, here.

* Michael Miller of Public Domain Progress hacks through the chaff to find the wheat of the Choicepoint controversy.

* Holly Sklar decodes what's behind the ideologically-loaded "ownership society." Bush's proposals, she claims, will green light socially irresponsible business practices.

* Eric Boehlert wonders why the mainstream media ignored the Gannon/Guckert scandal.