What Caught My Eye Today

CIA - CIA Director Michael Hayden, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee behind closed doors, failed to answer central questions about the destruction of secret videotapes showing harsh interrogation of terror suspects. The hell you say. Today's hearing came as a former CIA agent who was part of the interrogation team went public with his account, saying the waterboarding of a top al-Qaida figure was approved at the top levels of the U.S. government. According to the former agent, waterboarding of terror suspect Abu Zubaydah got him to talk in less than 35 seconds. The technique, which critics say is torture, probably disrupted "dozens" of planned al-Qaida attacks. Well here's an interesting dilemma. On one hand you have questionable tactics--probably amounting to torture--being employed to obtain information and on the other you have evidence suggesting that these tactics may well have thwarted dozens of terrorist attacks. What is a moralist to do? Can it be said that the ends justify the means or that the needs of the many outweigh the rights of the few? Difficult questions to be sure. However, one question seems simple enough. If waterboarding is considered torture and torture is deemed illegal by the U.S., who gave the order to break the law?

2008 Presidential Campaign - This is what happens when you make the mistake of becoming a front runner for your party's presidential nomination. The U.S. shouldn't try to kill Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Mike Huckabee declared when he first ran for office. No women in combat anywhere. No gays in the military. No contributions in politics to candidates more than a year before an election. His statements are among 229 answers Huckabee offered as a 36-year-old Texarkana pastor during his first run for political office in 1992. Now that he's a front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, he's being asked anew about some of the views and comments he expressed in that survey. He said he wouldn't retract answers in which he advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased funding for finding a cure and said homosexuality could pose a public health risk — though he said he might phrase his answers "a little differently." Huckabee's vocal opposition to gay marriage and abortion have attracted evangelical Christians' support and vaulted him to the top of the field in Iowa. But some of his earlier comments offer a harder-edged presentation of those stances than he has presented as he's tried to portray himself as a conservative who won't "scare the living daylights" out of moderates and independents. Speaking strictly for myself, I can confidently say 'too late, Senator.' That said, I applaud the man for resisting the urge to flip-flop on his views in hopes of pandering to moderates. First of all, he probably still holds those views that he spoke so emphatically about back in 1992. Secondly, given what Huckabee said, he would likely have a snowball's chance in hell convincing anyone that he had changed his views. Huckabee is entitled to his opinions and I'm sure he has a lot of folks that agree with him. I just don't happen to be one of them. And unless I'm very much mistaken, it certainly appears that the Christian conservatives may have finally found a candidate that they can rally behind. Certainly not good news for the other GOP contenders.

Global Warming - Hopefully this U.N. Climate Change Conference will end soon. I'm not sure how much more doomsday news I can take. An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years. Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data. Melting of sea ice and Greenland's ice sheets also alarms scientists because they become part of a troubling spiral. White sea ice reflects about 80 percent of the sun's heat off Earth. When there is no sea ice, about 90 percent of the heat goes into the ocean which then warms everything else up. Warmer oceans then lead to more melting. Scientists in recent days have been asking themselves these questions: Was the record melt seen all over the Arctic in 2007 a blip amid relentless and steady warming? Or has everything sped up to a new climate cycle that goes beyond the worst case scenarios presented by computer models? I'm reminded of a a classic REM song, "It's the end of the world, and I feel fine." I suppose there is a bright side to all this. Based on these latest predictions, we'll all be dead and gone long before Iran can develop a working nuclear bomb.

Algeria - Lest you may have thought otherwise, Al-Qaida appears to be alive and well, despite the progress being made against it in Iraq. Two truck bombs set off in quick succession sheered off the fronts of U.N. offices and a government building in Algeria's capital Tuesday, killing at least 26 people and wounding nearly 200 in an attack claimed by an affiliate of al-Qaida. The bombs exploded 10 minutes apart around 9:30 a.m., devastating the U.N. refugee agency and other U.N. offices. Although it is thought to have only several hundred fighters, the al-Qaida affiliate has resisted security sweeps to organize suicide bombings and other attacks as its shifts its focus from trying to topple the government to waging holy war and fighting Western interests. Al-Qaida has been urging attacks on French and Spanish interests in North Africa. In September, Osama bin Laden's chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, called for jihad in North Africa to "cleanse (it) of the children of France and Spain." Today's date — Dec. 11 — suggested an Islamic terror link. Al-Qaida has struck on the 11th in several countries, including the Sept. 11, 2001, attack in the U.S. Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa claimed responsibility for attacks last April 11 that hit the Algerian prime minister's office and a police station, killing 33 people. Dec. 11 itself has meaning for Algerians. On that date in 1960, pro-independence demonstrations were held against the French colonial rulers. Yet another example of why it is so difficult to wage a war on terrorism. You aren't fighting a sovereign state with easily identified borders. Rather, you are fighting an idealogy and a rather flawed one at that. I'm not sure there is a manual that you can refer to on this one. I think we're learning as we go.