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The Nine Circles of Hell! – all the news that gives you fits in print – for Friday, October 1, 2010, including seven bonus stories on the situation in Pakistan, and one on the army suicides, are:

Supreme Court to rule if church has right to picket soldier’s funeral

US researchers infected hundreds of Guatemalans with STDs

Fort Hood soldiers keep killing themselves

War costs “may be more of a crisis than Medicare, Social Security”

Anti-war activists targeted by FBI were really Palestinian activists

NATO supply trucks attacked in retaliation for airstrikes in Pakistan

Euro terror plot was “a load of old rubbish” to justify drone attacks

Britain to go before European Court for invading Internet privacy

40% of calories consumed by kids are the unhealthiest calories

Supreme Court to rule if church has right to picket soldier’s funeral
The Washington Post
(9/30/10)

Church’s protests at military funerals a free-speech test for Supreme Court

A filmmaker several years ago tracked Shirley Phelps-Roper and her family members as they went about praising God for killing U.S. soldiers and picketing their funerals – their way of putting the nation on notice about the Almighty’s wrath.

He called the documentary “The Most Hated Family in America,” and Phelps-Roper had only one real regret.

“If he had just called it, ‘The Most Hated Family in the World,’” she said. In the last hours of the last days, she explained, Jesus said his chosen will be “hated by all men.”

Phelps-Roper, along with her father, the Rev. Fred W. Phelps, and other family members who make up Westboro Baptist Church, may yet get their wish.

The family’s inflammatory picketing – “Thank God for dead soldiers” is a favorite sign – has prompted more than 40 state legislatures and Congress to pass laws. Next week, the Supreme Court takes up the battle over how the Phelpses spread their message: that the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality has drawn God’s condemnation.

It creates an only-in-America quandary: whether the freedom of speech is so powerfully woven in the nation’s fabric that it protects one family’s right to vile and hurtful protest at the very moment of another family’s most profound grief.

Albert Snyder, whose son Matthew’s 2006 funeral in a little town in northern Maryland is at the center of the case, says that right cannot possibly exist.

“It is an insult to every American who has died for the freedom of speech,” Snyder said in a recent interview. “No one in the history of the nation has ever protested like this. Don’t tell me that my son died for that.”

Snyder’s was one of about 200 families who say the funerals of their loved ones were disrupted by Westboro’s protests. A Baltimore jury ruled that Westboro had to pay Snyder $10 million for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The judges called the Phelps protest “distasteful and repugnant” but protected by the Constitution as “imaginative and hyperbolic rhetoric.”

Margie J. Phelps, another daughter and a lawyer who will argue the church’s side before the Supreme Court, called the case “the ultimate litmus test” for America’s belief in free speech …

The (Snyder’s) brief, written by longtime Supreme Court practitioner Walter Dellinger, argues that the Phelpses have a right to free speech but not to “hijack (a) private funeral as a vehicle for expression of their own hate.” Such willful attempts to insult and invade privacy are not constitutionally protected, they say.

But the Phelpses are supported by a broad coalition of media organizations and First Amendment scholars. They say ruling against the church would undermine the core protections of the First Amendment and open speakers to liability when the listener disagrees with the message.

The same groups are quick to disassociate themselves from the “vile” and “repulsive” words of Westboro.

“This case tests the mettle of even the most ardent free speech advocates because the underlying speech is so repugnant,” the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said in its brief.

Roy T. Englert Jr., a frequent Supreme Court practitioner not involved in the case, said there are really only two possibilities for the court.

“Either the court is going to make some new First Amendment law that says funerals are different, which certainly would be a popular position,” Englert said. “Or the court is going to say, ‘Let’s take the most obnoxious speech in America today, and let’s reaffirm that even obnoxious speech is protected.’ ”

US researchers infected hundreds of Guatemalans with STDs
NBC News
(10/1/10)

U.S. to apologize for STD experiments in Guatemala

U.S. government medical researchers intentionally infected hundreds of people in Guatemala, including institutionalized mental patients, with gonorrhea and syphilis without their knowledge or permission more than 60 years ago.

Many of those infected were encouraged to pass the infection onto others as part of the study.

About one third of those who were infected never got adequate treatment.

On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius offered extensive apologies for actions taken by the U.S. Public Health Service.

“The sexually transmitted disease inoculation study conducted from 1946-1948 in Guatemala was clearly unethical,” according to the joint statement from Clinton and Sebelius. “Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health. We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices” …

The episode raises inevitable comparisons to the infamous Tuskegee experiment, the Alabama study where hundreds of African-American men were told they were being treated for syphilis, but in fact were denied treatment. That U.S. government study lasted from 1932 until press reports revealed it in 1972.

The Guatemala experiments, which were conducted between 1946 and 1948, never provided any useful information and the records were hidden.

They were discovered by Susan Reverby, a professor of women’s studies at Wellesley College, and were posted on her website.

According to Reverby’s report, the Guatemalan project was co-sponsored by the U.S. Public Health Service, the NIH, the Pan-American Health Sanitary Bureau (now the Pan American Health Organization) and the Guatemalan government. The experiments involved 696 subjects — male prisoners and female patients in the National Mental Health Hospital.

The researchers were trying to determine whether the antibiotic penicillin could prevent early syphilis infection, not just cure it, Reverby writes. After the subjects were infected with the syphilis bacteria — through visits with prostitutes who had the disease and direct inoculations — Reverby notes that it is unclear whether they were later cured or given proper treatment.

Reverby, who has written extensively about the Tuskegee experiments, found the evidence while conducting further research on the Alabama syphilis study.

Fort Hood soldiers keep killing themselves
The Washington Post
(10/1/10)

Four suicides in a week stun Fort Hood

Fort Hood’s leaders have tried nearly everything to stop the suicides. There are support groups and hotlines, counseling sessions and Reiki healing therapies, and strict assessment guidelines for commanders.

But the soldiers keep killing themselves. This past weekend, four more were dead at the Texas post, all of them decorated veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, three of them sergeants, two of them fathers of young children.

All four appear to have shot themselves, according to preliminary reports gathered for the Army’s Suicide Prevention Task Force. Their deaths, which did not appear to be related, came within a few days of a visit from the Army’s vice chief of staff, who reiterated his urgent plea for hurting soldiers to seek help.

“Every one of these is tragic,” said Maj. Gen. William Grimsley, who commands Fort Hood, the nation’s largest Army post. “It’s personally and professionally frustrating as a leader” …

So far, 104 Army troops have killed themselves this year, a rate that eclipses the one in the civilian world. The rate at Fort Hood, where 14 suicides already are confirmed this year and six other deaths are under investigation, is nearly four times that of the civilian population.

Grimsley said he saw no indication that the increase in suicides is related to November’s mass shooting, when an Army psychiatrist allegedly opened fire inside the post and killed 13 people.

A thick Army report on the crisis two months ago points to several causes, including troops being so busy fighting two wars in 10 years that they don’t take time to focus on their mental health and a rise in crime and substance abuse. The Army has concerns that the force is becoming “increasingly dependent on both legal and illegal drugs,” according to the report.

Soldiers “tell us again and again we are failing,” the chief of psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Medical Center said at a military medicine symposium last week. They fear losing their security clearance and losing promotions if they seek help, said Col. John Bradley, and they don’t have confidence that the military can provide the necessary care.

“They don’t trust us. They believe we speak with forked tongues,” added retired Col. Charles Hoge, a former psychiatrist at Walter Reed, who was also at the symposium.

At the same time, in what the Army has begun to call “an era of persistent conflict,” soldiers are increasingly culturally, socially and physically isolated from the rest of the country, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in a blunt speech Wednesday at Duke University. Such a small fraction of the nation’s 350 million people serves in the all-volunteer force that the divide between military and civilian life is widening.

“Whatever their fond sentiments for men and women in uniform, for most Americans, the war remains an abstraction – a distant and unpleasant series of news items that do not affect them personally,” Gates said.

All of these factors are on full display in the Texas town just outside sprawling Fort Hood. Killeen is an Army company town, and its crime rate rises when the brigades come home, with more arrests for domestic violence, assault, and drunk and disorderly conduct. The skills that keep soldiers alive in war make them dysfunctional in civil society. So the suicides are no longer shocking.

But the quartet in one weekend rocked Fort Hood.

• The Boston Globe story, “Joint Chiefs chairman warns of rise in military suicides,” reports:
  The nation’s top military officer said yesterday that he expects suicides by service members, already alarmingly high, and other family crises to increase in the coming months as large numbers of troops return to their bases after years of multiple deployments.
  “I think we are going to see a significant increase in the challenges that we have in terms of our families,’’ Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor …
  “The emergency issue right now is suicides,’’ Mullen said. “We had five suicides in the Army last weekend.’’
  And there are a variety of other well-documented problems facing a ground force that has been stretched thin in recent years, including post-traumatic stress disorder and other problems that have not yet manifested themselves, he said.
  “I think we are going to see a growth in that before we see a decline,’’ Mullen said.

War costs “may be more of a crisis than Medicare, Social Security”
Stars and Stripes
(9/29/10)

Study: Wars could cost $4 trillion to $6 trillion

The authors of the book “The $3 Trillion War” noted in a conference call on Wednesday that when they first released their findings two years ago, the estimates were widely criticized as being too high. Now, the researchers believe they may have been too low.

(Past This is Hell! guest) Joseph Stiglitz, who received the 2000 Nobel Prize for Economics, and Linda Bilmes, a public policy professor at Harvard University, said the number of veterans seeking post-combat medical care and the cost of treating those individuals is about 30 percent higher than they initially estimated. That, combined with increases in the cost of military medical care and the lagging economy, will likely push the true long-term cost of the war over the $4 trillion mark.

“This may be more of a crisis than the Medicare and Social Security problems we have looming,” said House Veterans Affairs Chairman Bob Filner, D-Calif. “It rivals both in the potential impact. This is another entitlement we’ve committed ourselves to, and it could break the bank.”

In a conference call with reporters, Bilmes said about 600,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have already sought medical treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and 500,000 have applied for disability benefits. That’s about 30 percent higher than initial estimates for care, and could cost the department nearly $1 trillion in costs for  the current wars alone.

Anti-war activists targeted by FBI were really Palestinian activists
Al Jazeera
(9/29/10)

FBI targets US Palestine activists

Tracy Molm sometimes has a hard time paying rent, so it came as a surprise when American security forces banged on her door at 7am one morning, and searched her apartment under suspicions she provided material support to a terrorist organisation.

Warrants indicate that investigators believe Molm and at least seven other activists from the Minnesota anti-war committee and other groups provided material support to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), groups the US considers terrorist organisations.

“My assumption is that material support means money and guns, but they [police] wouldn’t explain anything,” Molm told Al Jazeera. “I think the real thing is that they are trying to intimidate those of us who are standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Colombia.”

Activists from Minneapolis and Chicago have been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury investigation in October, after coordinated police raids on September 24.

Despite the searches and seizures of computers, cheque books, mobile phones, documents and photographs, Molm and other activists have not been charged with committing a crime …

Bernardine Dohrn, a law professor at Northwestern University in Chicago, thinks the police are trying to do one of two things. “Either it is a fishing expedition, as there is not enough evidence to indict [formally charge] anyone; or it is an attempt to suppress political activity. Neither are good news,” she said.

As a legal scholar, Dohrn worries about the vague nature of national security laws instituted after the September 11, 2001 attacks on US targets.

“If you write articles, is that material support [for terrorists]? If you contribute resources for computers or healthcare clinics in occupied territories, or territories resisting government control, is that material support?”

She says grand jury investigations, the legal manoeuvre activists are facing, represent a way to “circumvent other constitutional protections.”

People who appear before a grand jury “cannot bring in a lawyer. It is the prosecutor, you [the person being investigated] and a group of grand jurors … in short it is a coercive method to get information.”

Jessica Sundin, a clerical worker at the University of Minnesota, also had her belongings taken by security forces in the coordinated searches and seizures. Like Molm, she denies providing material support to any group and says she has done nothing illegal or unethical.

She believes that the “biggest task of our anti-war movement [in the US] is to educate our own people.”

In that spirit, Molm and other American activists travelled to Palestine in 2004 to see the conditions there for themselves. “Every day people [in occupied lands] go through checkpoints with guns pointed at their heads and they have this horrendous situation, but they continue to live and laugh,” she said.

“The occupation of Palestine is as brutal as it is because US tax dollars, my tax dollars, support that. Sending people there to bring back [personal] accounts and pictures is important to building solidarity.”

Israel, the power responsible for occupying Palestinian land, received $2.55bn in American military aid in 2009, according to the US State Department. That number is expected to increase to $3.15bn per year from 2013 to 2018.

“I don’t know why it would be a crime to have a scarf with the Palestinian flag on it, but they [police] took that,” she said.

As for Colombia, the country has received at least $5bn in US military aid since 1999.

Amnesty International USA, a human rights group, said it “has been calling for a complete cut off of US military aid to Colombia for over a decade due to the continued collaboration between the Colombian Armed Forces and their paramilitary allies.”

NATO supply trucks attacked in retaliation for airstrikes in Pakistan
Al Jazeera
(9/30/10)

Nato lorries set ablaze in Pakistan

Tankers carrying supplies for Nato troops in Afghanistan have been set on fire by unidentified assailants in the Pakistani town of Shikarpur in Sindh province, officials say.

The incident on Friday came a day after Pakistani authorities blocked a supply route for Nato troops, angered by the killing of three Pakistani soldiers in airstrikes by Nato helicopters …

The three Pakistani soldiers were killed on Thursday in two cross-border strikes as Nato troops were chasing anti-government fighters in Pakistan’s northwestern Kurram region.

Hours later, Pakistani authorities halted tankers carrying supplies for the Nato forces passing through the Khyber tribal region on the Afghan border.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from the the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, said the blocked route is a “very crucial part of the supply chain because most of the aviation fuel [for Nato aircraft] goes through Pakistan”.

“It’s that aviation fuel that’s used in combat missions inside Afghanistan,” he said.

• The Associated Press story, “Dozens of NATO oil tankers attacked in Pakistan,” waits until paragraph 13 to mention the NATO incursion into Afghanistan. The AP refers to the attacks as ‘alleged.’ However, the AP calls the attackers ‘Islamist militants as early as paragraph five. The AP also mentions a poll that “show many Pakistanis regard the United States as an enemy,” without mentioning that the most recent poll (that was posted in yesterday’s Nine Circles of Hell!) which shows Pakistanis are anti-Taliban, anti-al Qaeda and anti-drone. The article then seems to contradict itself by saying, “There is a risk, albeit small, that militant attacks could one day seriously squeeze supplies,” while three paragraphs later it reports, “A lengthy closure of Torkham would place intense strain on the U.S.-Pakistani relationship and hurt the Afghan war effort”:
  Suspected militants in southern Pakistan set ablaze more than two dozen tankers carrying fuel for foreign troops in Afghanistan on Friday, highlighting the vulnerability of the U.S.-led mission a day after Pakistan closed a major border crossing …
  Islamist militants occasionally attack NATO supply tankers in Pakistan, mostly in the northwest where their influence is stronger. Thursday’s strike was in Sindh province, far from the border, and might be taken as a sign that the insurgents are expanding their reach …
  Pakistani security forces provide guards for the trucks and tankers in the northwest, but generally do not do so in south and central Pakistan, where attacks are rare. Pakistani security officials had warned after two alleged NATO helicopter incursions last weekend that they would stop providing protection to NATO convoys if it happened again.
  In Brussels on Friday, Pakistani Ambassador Jalil Abbas Jilani met with NATO leaders and lodged a formal protest over the border incursions. In Pakistan, government officials said they had to take a stand.
  “If the NATO forces keep on entering into Pakistan and carrying out attacks, then (the) only option we have – we should stop the movement of the containers,” Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said.
  Opinion polls show many Pakistanis regard the United States as an enemy, and conspiracy theories abound of U.S. troops wanting to attack Pakistan and take over its nuclear weapons. The Pakistani government has to balance its support for the U.S. war in Afghanistan – and its need for billions of dollars in American aid – with maintaining support from its own population …
  There is a risk, albeit small, that militant attacks could one day seriously squeeze supplies. But the overriding concern is that hosting the supply routes gives Islamabad immense leverage in its relationship with Washington. The United States cannot force Pakistan to, say, crack down on militants in the northwest behind attacks in Afghanistan because Islamabad holds a trump card: it can cut off most of the supplies to the war whenever it wants.
  Pakistan said two NATO choppers fired on one of its border posts in the northwest’s Kurram tribal region, killing three Pakistani soldiers Thursday. NATO said its helicopters entered Pakistani airspace and hit a target only after receiving ground fire. The alliance expressed condolences to the families of the soldiers and said it would investigate the incident.
  It was the third alleged incursion by NATO helicopters into the northwest in the last week.
  A lengthy closure of Torkham would place intense strain on the U.S.-Pakistani relationship and hurt the Afghan war effort. But that is seen as unlikely, as neither Islamabad nor Washington can afford a meltdown in ties at a crucial time in the 9-year-old war.

• Later, the AP pushes up the NATO incursion to paragraph six and drops the word ‘alleged’ in their story, “Second attack on NATO convoy in Pakistan.” However, the AP still shoe-horns in the phrase ‘Islamist militants’ despite any confirmation and only supposition:
  Assailants in Pakistan launched two separate attacks Friday on vehicles carrying fuel for NATO and American forces in Afghanistan, highlighting the vulnerability of the U.S.-led mission a day after Pakistan closed a major border crossing.
  A truck driver and his assistant were burned alive in the second attack on a single tanker in the parking lot of a restaurant in southeastern Baluchistan province, said police officer Mohammad Azam. He said “anti-state elements” were behind the attack.
  That term could refer to Islamist militants or separatist rebels active in the region.
  Earlier Friday, suspected militants torched 27 tankers carrying oil for troops in Afghanistan in Sindh province …
  The Pakistani government shut the Torkham border crossing in the northwest on Thursday in apparent protest of a NATO helicopter incursion that killed three of its soldiers on the border. It kept open the Chaman crossing in Baluchistan, where it seemed likely the vehicles attacked Friday were heading.

• Earlier, the Bloomberg BusinessWeek story, “Pakistan Blocks NATO Supplies After Deadly Air Strike,” mentioned the NATO incursion in paragraph two, without the word ‘alleged’:
  Pakistan blocked the passage of supplies for NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan after an air strike killed three of its soldiers, government officials in its northwestern border region said.
  The North Atlantic Treaty Organization acknowledged its forces entered Pakistan’s airspace as part of a raid on insurgents and responded to small arms fire, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement. NATO and Pakistani officials are investigating the incident …
  The incident underscores tensions between the U.S. and Pakistani armed forces after the American military escalated the number of missile strikes against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants in northwest Pakistan’s tribal region this month. Today’s incident took place in Pakistan’s Upper Kurram region.
  NATO forces called in air support for a raid on insurgents in Paktia province, an eastern Afghan region bordering Pakistan. The NATO aircraft “received what the crews assessed as effective small-arms fire” from within Pakistan.
  Pakistani authorities cited an incursion by two helicopters at a border outpost manned by six soldiers.

• Meanwhile, The Washington Post article, “U.S. tense over Pakistan,” gives a good rundown of the US government’s view of what’s happening in Pakistan. However, it also quotes Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik saying of the US, “we will have to see if we are allies or enemies.”:
  U.S. officials pointed to recent signs that Pakistan’s powerful army and opposition parties are positioning themselves to install a new civilian government to replace President Asif Ali Zardari and his prime minister in the coming months. In a meeting with them Monday, army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani “conveyed the concerns of the people” in no uncertain terms, according to a senior Pakistani security official.
  “There’s a fair degree of disarray,” said one of several administration officials who discussed the increasingly tense situation on condition of anonymity. “The government can’t really handle the crisis of the flood, and there’s lots of political jockeying” as government and opposition figures look for advantage in a potential new lineup.
  U.S. officials indicated that the administration has begun to contemplate the effects of a change, engineered through Zardari’s resignation as head of his political party, the dissolution of the current coalition government, or a call for new elections under the Pakistani constitution, rather than any overt action by the military. Some suggested that a new, constitutionally-approved government that was more competent and popular, and had strong military backing, might be better positioned to support U.S. policies.
  None of the officials had a clear sense of who might head such a government. Although Nawaz Sharif, head of the leading opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League, has grown increasingly outspoken in his criticism of Zardari, U.S. and Pakistani officials and analysts said it was unlikely he would be interested in taking over the government at this point.
  “The best outcome here is that the instability will be taken advantage of by the military in ways that aren’t bad, getting rid of lots of cronies” who currently fill government positions, the administration official said.
  From the U.S. point of view, he said, the worst-case scenario would be an attempt by Pakistan’s Supreme Court to oust Zardari by revoking his immunity from prosecution in a dated Swiss money-laundering case that could render his 2008 election illegal and throw the government into chaos. Scheduled to rule last Monday, the court has postponed action for two more weeks.
  “If things happen in a constitutional way, there is no burning issue here,” a second U.S. official said. “At the end of the day, we’re committed to a civilian government and a constitutional process. . . . But if the [political] crisis becomes a distraction” to the war effort or crucial flood reconstruction, “or becomes destabilizing and brings people into the streets – something that could very well happen – that’s not a good thing.”
  Pakistan has privately agreed to the highly unpopular U.S. drone attacks against suspected terrorists and insurgents but publicly denounces them. U.S. officials have said they understand that the criticism is necessary for a beleaguered government that worries about appearing too close to the Americans.
  But a sharp September spike in the attacks, along with the helicopter incursions over the past week, have sent public and media criticism soaring and strained relations both publicly and privately.
  “It’s been building up,” a senior Pakistani government official said of the bad feelings. “On the one hand, there is a genuine comfort level and a feeling of partnership – at least on the surface. But the Pakistan government and military are feeling very frustrated. They feel they are doing all they can in a very complicated domestic setup – a fragile democracy, more fragile after the floods – and that the U.S. doesn’t really care about anything besides [its own] needs. They are not true partners” …
  The Pakistani parliament unanimously condemned the attacks and Interior Minister Rehman Malik said of the Americans, “we will have to see if we are allies or enemies.” The foreign ministry statement said that Pakistan’s ambassador to Brussels had been instructed to lodge a strong protest at NATO headquarters …
  It was unclear whether any senior U.S. officials in Washington had contacted their Pakistani counterparts on Thursday to discuss the incident. CIA Director Leon Panetta, in Islamabad this week on a previously scheduled visit, met with Zardari on Thursday. A statement from Zardari’s office said the president had told Panetta that “the government of Pakistan strongly disapproves any incident of violation of its sovereignty.”
  The Obama administration’s Pakistan policy has its own domestic difficulties. Many in Congress have grown impatient with what they see as the administration’s coddling of Pakistan despite its foot-dragging against the militant sanctuaries. Human rights organizations have cited the Pakistani military for abuses in its fight against domestic insurgents, criticisms that are likely to increase with the emergence on YouTube this week of a video that purports to show Pakistani soldiers summarily executing a row of blind-folded men in civilian dress.
  U.S. law prohibits assistance to any foreign military units shown to have engaged in such abuses. A U.S. official suggested it was the least of the administration’s current worries on Pakistan, but said that if the video were authenticated it “could be fairly cataclysmic.”
  A Pakistani intelligence official said the video was being investigated by “experts,” but expressed skepticism about its authenticity. “Anyone could wear the military uniforms and carry out such an act to malign the army,” the official said.

• But The News takes this a step farther with their story, “Crazy Musharraf demands constitutional role for Army,” which seems to be mainly lifted from the Agence France Presse report, “Musharraf warns of new military coup in Pakistan”:
  Seeking a constitutional role for the Army, former military ruler Pervez Musharraf has warned the country is at risk of a new coup, as he prepares to launch his own bid for power.
  He said the Army should be given a constitutional role in the turbulent politics of the nuclear-armed nation, where the government is struggling to tackle rampant militancy and a crumbling economy.
  Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999 and stood down in 2008, says Army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani could be forced to intervene against the unpopular President Zardari …
  The 67-year-old former president, now living in self-imposed exile in London, said similar “pressures” in his first year as Army chief had led him to launch the coup against then prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
  He told the Intelligence Squared debating forum the solution was to give the Army a constitutional role in governing the nation. “The situation in Pakistan can only be solved when the military has some role,” he said. “If you want stability, checks and balances in the democratic structure of Pakistan, the military ought to have some sort of role.”
  Musharraf insisted he would go back eventually, saying: “When I see what is happening in Pakistan I think there is a bigger cause, and when there is a bigger cause you have to take risks.”
  “In the last one year Pakistan was going down and a number of people, including politicians, women, men came to me telling me ‘Why are you not acting? Are you going to act for Pakistan’s good?’” Musharraf told the forum.
  Musharraf refused to say when he would return to Pakistan, where he could face treason charges and where he admitted that his own life could be at risk from militants, who twice tried to kill him when he was in power.
  Answering a question, he said he was satisfied he had provided enough security for Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in Rawalpindi.

• Al Jazeera provides video of Musharraf’s first step back in power in, “Musharraf to launch new party.”

Euro terror plot was “a load of old rubbish” to justify drone attacks
CBS News
(9/29/10)

Beware of Governments Trumpeting Terror Threats

According to reports attributed to security forces, al Qaeda affiliated groups have been planning Mumbai-style commando attacks in western Europe – and only strikes using unmanned U.S. drones in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan have derailed those attacks by targeting the terror cells which have been planning them. The Mumbai attacks, organized by a terror group in Pakistan, killed more than 170 people in 2008 …

Tellingly in this case, neither Britain nor Germany – two of the allegedly targeted countries – have raised their security alert levels. France raised its level half a click (to “reinforced red”) earlier this month because of the perceived increased threat from North African jihadists angry over French attempts to ban the wearing of the burqa by Muslim women. French authorities have received several phoned-in bomb threats in the past weeks, including two at the Eiffel Tower. All were hoaxes. There’s even speculation in the French press that President Nicolas Sarkozy, currently unpopular over other domestic issues, knows the suggestion of a public security threat can do wonders for your poll ratings.

In any event, al Qaeda doesn’t generally issue warnings.

There has been an increase in unmanned drone strikes in Pakistan lately and that is being tied to the story of this new threat. But others in the security establishment are wondering, again quietly, whether the new alleged threat is being used as a cover for a drone offensive in Pakistan, one that is understandably unpopular with the Pakistani population (which often becomes collateral damage in the strikes) and with the unstable Pakistani government.

Germany’s interior minister said Wednesday that there are “no concrete pointers to imminent attacks in Germany … the current pointers do not warrant a change in the assessment danger level.” German intelligence sources have told news outlets there that the plot was an “aspiration” but “no substantial plans and no explosives.”

Meanwhile, a well-informed British source went so far as to tell CBS News he’s been told by law enforcement officials that the reports of a foiled plot are, “a load of old rubbish which have been planted to justify the increased drone attacks taking place in the tribal areas” of Pakistan.

The information on the plots is reportedly coming from three German-Pakistani dual nationals who have been arrested and are being questioned. The reliability of their information is suspect. People wanting to kill you is different from people are actively planning, organizing the teams, securing the weaponry and implementing plans to kill you.

Another thing: moving to higher threat alert levels would start to cost money. More security personnel would have to be put on duty. Closing train stations and airports even temporarily costs a fortune. Terror groups can have a destabilizing effect without actually blowing anything up.

Britain to go before European Court for invading Internet privacy
Daily Mail
(9/30/10)

Internet snoops put Britain in the dock

Britain is being taken to court for flouting European rules on internet privacy after ignoring warnings about online snooping for 18 months.

The move was announced, following complaints from internet customers that they were being targeted in ‘behavioural advertising’ campaigns.

Now, Britain faces being hauled before the European Court of Justice where it could be fined millions of pounds a day until it brings its controls into line.

Alex Deane, of Big Brother Watch, said: ‘It is humiliating that we have to rely on the European Commission to point out the problems with Britain’s privacy laws.

What is clear is that UK internet users were being regularly snooped on to help companies target advertising, which amounts to a massive intrusion on our online privacy’ …

Campaigners said it made Britain the worst offender on snooping in Europe.

The European Commission launched the so-called ‘infringement procedure’ against Britain in April last year. But, because the loophole has not been closed, it announced it was seeking legal redress.

40% of calories consumed by kids are the unhealthiest calories
ABC News
(10/1/10)

Junk Food Nearly Half of Kids’ Calorie Intake

Researchers from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md. analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and found that nearly 40 percent of calories consumed by children ages 2 to 18 were empty calories, the unhealthiest kind of calories.

Half of these calories came from just six foods:

Soda
Sugary fruit drinks
Grain desserts, such as cake, cookies and donuts
Dairy desserts such as ice cream
Pizza
Whole milk, which is far fattier than skim.

“Consumption of empty calories far exceeded the corresponding discretionary calorie allowance for all sex–age groups,” wrote the researchers, led by nutritionist Jill Reedy.

“This number is staggering and depressing,” said Kelly Brownell, professor of psychology, epidemiology and public health at Yale University.

While the findings don’t surprise many nutrition experts, they say the reasons kids consume so many empty calories are complex. The push for healthier foods over the past few years has helped a little, but they say there are still many obstacles to changing eating habits for the better — including a lack of physical activity, parental and peer influences, and marketing by the food industry.

“Empty-calorie foods are manufactured by the food industry to be maximally palatable,” said Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center in Derby, Conn.

“I don’t see a solution unless we have serious limits on advertising of foods that damage the health and reduce the longevity of today’s children,” said Dr. Walter Willett, chair of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

But the picture is complex, said Connie Diekman, director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis. Many kids — and their parents — simply do not know what they ought to be eating.