A War of Convenience?

"Instead they said they had planned a series of small, nonfatal blasts -- a 'publicity stunt,' one defendant said -- to protest British and American foreign policy in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East."

Guantanamo Watch

Charmaine Noronha writes for the Associated Press: "Lawyers for a Canadian prisoner at Guantanamo Bay released excerpts of videotaped interrogations Tuesday, providing a first-ever glimpse into the secretive world of questioning enemy combatants at the isolated U.S. prison in Cuba.

"The 10 minutes of video -- selected by Omar Khadr's Canadian lawyers from more than seven hours of footage recorded by a camera hidden in a vent -- shows a 16-year-old Khadr weeping, his face buried in his hands, during the 2003 interrogation that took place over four days.

"The video, created by U.S. government agents and originally marked as secret, provides insight into the effects of prolonged interrogation and detention on the Guantanamo prisoner. . . .

"Khadr also tells his interrogator that he was tortured while at the U.S. military detention center at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where he was first detained after his arrest in 2002.

"Later on in the tape, a distraught Khadr is seen rocking, his face in his hands.

"'Help me,' he sobs repeatedly in despair."

No Torture Questions

At Bush's hastily scheduled press conference this morning -- his first in over two-and-a-half months -- not a single reporter asked him about torture. It's understandable that the primary focus was on the economy. But couldn't someone have at least asked whether he still maintains that the U.S. hasn't tortured detainees? And if he does, how he defines torture?

Bush on the Economy

The housing market is in crisis, oil is at record highs, the dollar is at record lows, the Dow is down, retail sales growth is weak, inflation is rearing its head, GM is cutting jobs and benefits -- but Bush took to the podium today for yet another round of economic cheerleading.

"The economy's growing, productivity is high, trade is up," said the same president who recently admitted that he had kept private his concerns about progress in Iraq in 2006 because he didn't want to demoralize the troops.

"I think the system basically is sound. I truly do," he said. "And I understand there's a lot of nervousness, but the economy's growing, productivity's high, trade's up, people are working -- it's not as good as we'd like. . . .

"All I can tell you is we grew, in the first quarter. . . .