Last few days

FYI: I'm still preoccupied elsewhere. Things will probably only get worse over the next few weeks, in terms of distractions.

Here's some material from the last few days:

* David Corn files a report from yesterday's informal hearing before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee on Iraq war intelligence. Amongst others, Paul Pillar, Michael Smith, Joseph Cirincione, & Lawrence Wilkerson spoke openly about how intel was manipulated and how propaganda was churned out by, chiefly, the office of the Vice President and the Feith-led OSP. Whether these testimonies will lead to anything is doubtful, but at least there's some discussion. I haven't seen movement on this issue since Conyers was mucking about.

* Things are so bad in Baghdad that even a mandated curfew can't stop the violence.

* Time's Tony Karon and the BBC's Paul Reynolds examine what's behind the Iraqi amnesty and reconciliation plan.

* Troop reductions in Iraq? Stop snickering. At the moment, there are more contradictions in news reports about the alleged drawdown than you can shake a stick at.

* So the official number of Iraqis killed in the war can now be pushed up to 50K, still an undoubtedly low-balled figure. Gabriele Zamparini adds some useful context.

* $320 billion for Iraq. Yeah, that money could have been used more wisely.

* Chris Floyd breaks down the latest revelations in the press about Iran that show the Bushists to be as mendacious, and potentially opportunistic, as ever. See also: Deborah Campbell on "Nukes and double standards."

* The Ledeen-Ghorbanifar-neocon nexus is still hard at work trying to precipitate a coup in Iran, reports Laura Rozen.

* Ho hum. Israel's "retaliating" again in Gaza. See more from the LA Times about what's happening on the ground.

* I've long found ignorance of what's happened in East Timor over the last ~30 years to be rather common, even amongst folks you'd expect to know about such things. If you're one of those lacking knowledge, let me recommend checking out John Pilger's classic documentary, "Death of a Nation," which is now available at ICH.

* CJR's Dan Schulman seems to be alone in asking, "What Happened at Al Jazeera's Kabul Bureau?"

* In the LA Times, Jonathan Turley explains what's wrong with abusing programs like SWIFT in a practice of bank monitoring that was revealed by the NY Times at the end of last week. When examined in the context of the general snooping trends of the Bush administration, Turley contends, such activity illustrates "the greatest danger that can face a free society: a government cloaked in secrecy [seeking] total information on its citizens."

* On a related front, William Greider has a short piece on the real money laundering scandal, the one that does not get any attention.

* "Terrorists" in Miami! Gasp! And, no, not those terrorists. They don't count.

* American society is becoming increasingly atomized, contends a major new sociological study.

* LA Times: Greenland is melting at alarming and seemingly unpredictable rates. You may not care, but your grandchildren probably will.

* The pharmaceutical industry sure has a nice racket going on.

* Lenin has an insightful post on class warfare in the US.