Weekend Reads: 04/25/2009

DoD
Their Government at Work: (Chinese?) Hackers Steal terabytes worth of information from the U.S. relating to the new Joint Strike Fighter

President Obama
The President's Bad Move regarding Banking Executives

President Obama did the political equivalent of asking his mother-in-law how much he owed her for Thanksgiving dinner — and moved the discussion away from social responsibility, and into the pay-for-effort market, where the negotiations for spoils now dominate the discourse.

Interrogation Methods
Much media of late has been discussing the recently declassified and released memos relating to the issue of "harsh interrogation techniques," and the U.S. use of waterboarding on individuals who planned the 9/11 attacks. Below are some key resources that have been released. Take some time to get familiar with the actual source material; then perhaps we'll have a discussion here of what the reports say vs. what the media reports vs. public perception vs. your opinion. Or something like that.

• “Inquiry Into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody” (263 pp.), compiled by the Senate Armed Services Committee in November but only released in April, may be found HERE.
• “Communist Control Techniques” (124 pp.), written by the CIA in 1956 and originally classified as Secret, may be found HERE. (This is the report cited in “In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Inquiry Into Their Past Use” (New York Times) available HERE.)
• An analysis of harsh interrogation technique legal rationale as prepared by the U.S. Select Committee on Intelligence available HERE.

Some suggested commentary on this issue:
Wall Street Journal Article

After analyzing the memos, David Rivkin and Lee Casey concluded in The Wall Street Journal, "The four memos on CIA interrogation released by the White House last week reveal a cautious and conservative Justice Department advising a CIA that cared deeply about staying within the law. Far from 'green lighting' torture--or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees--the memos detail the actual techniques used and the many measures taken to ensure that interrogations did not cause severe pain or degradation."

The Heritage Foundation Article

Set the record straight; publish all key memos.

Karl Rove Note

"Decision to Release Interrogation Memos"
Read the documents provided below. "You'll be reassured about the precautions the Bush administration took to guarantee compliance with the federal prohibition on torture. You might even characterize its diligence as overcautious."

Blast from the Past
I think I mentioned in a different setting that we had recently watched some "old" movies, like Red Dawn, Hackers, and War Games. In War Games, if you recall, the kid hacks WOPR, plays a game--which turns out to be a DoD simulation, which nearly starts a nuclear war. Obviously there's more to the story (but I won't ruin it for you--go rent it), but it must have been a scary proposition for that time (as well as now) that someone could hack a government system and trick the U.S. into launching nuclear weapons based on false information. Well, you may not know that this nearly happened, for real.
Back in 1980, the U.S. "detected" nuclear missiles launched from submarines. B-52 bombers had their engines running, land-based missile crews were put on high alert, and the Pacific Command airborne command took off, to prepare to pass messages to U.S. warships. Although THIS REPORT doesn't say we actually got to the point where someone had to push the button, like "Leo's"

ASIDE:(I love how the stuff we watch is so related. The reluctant Air Force officer, John Spencer, in the movie later plays Leo in "The West Wing" TV series. Now, we watch a show with "Josh" from "The West Wing".)

dilemma in War Games. However, can you imagine coming that close to retaliating to a perceived nuclear launch, only to find out that there was a computer glitch?