But a few days later Muriel, reading over the Seven Commandments to herself, noticed that there was yet another of them which the animals had remembered wrong. They had thought the Fifth Commandment was "No animal shall drink alcohol," but there were two words that they had forgotten. Actually the Commandment read: "No animal shall drink alcohol to excess."

Animal Farm, George Orwell.

"When the system works correctly, psychologists assess 'the character, personality, social interactions and other behavioral characteristics of detainees.' The psychologists . . . do not conduct the interrogations themselves, but instead 'coach and counsel the interrogator in a way that allows him or her to build a relationship with the detainee.'"

So says the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, William Winkenwerder Jr., in an interview with Mark Benjamin last July.

Prisoner 063 was called "unclean" and "Mo"[for Mohammed]. . .He was not told, despite asking, that some of the interrogation took place during Ramadan, a time when Moslems have special obligations. He was not allowed to honor prayer times...Transgressions against Islamic and Arab mores for sexual modesty were employed. The prisoner was forced to wear photographs of "sexy females" and to study sets of such photographs to identify whether various pictures of bikini-clad women were of the same or a different person. He was told that his mother and sister were whores. He was forced to wear a bra, and a woman's thong was put on his head. He was dressed as a woman and compelled to dance with a male interrogator. He was told that he had homosexual tendencies and that other prisoners knew this. Although continuously monitored, interrogators repeatedly strip-searched him as a "control measure." On at least one occasion, he was forced to stand naked with women soldiers present. Female interrogators seductively touched the prisoner under the authorized use of approaches called "Invasion of Personal Space" and "Futility." On one occasion, a female interrogator straddled the prisoner as he was held down on the floor... He was leashed (a detail omitted in the log but recorded by investigators) and made to "stay, come, and bark to elevate his social status up to a dog." He was told to bark like a happy dog at photographs of 9/11 victims and growl at pictures of terrorists... He was shown pictures of the attacks, and photographs of victims were affixed to his body.

In November 2003, an Iraqi guard smuggled a pistol into the U.S. military prison at Abu Ghraib and gave it to a prisoner, Ameen Saeed al-Sheik. Tipped off, military police quickly began a cell-to-cell search. When they reached his cell, Sheik went for the hidden pistol; gunfire was exchanged and a sergeant was hit. According to sworn testimony, the soldiers wrestled the prisoner to the floor and sent him to the hospital with a dislocated shoulder and shotgun wounds to his legs.

When Sheik returned to prison, he was beaten with a baton and his arms were handcuffed over his head, putting stress on his injured shoulder and leg. On a cold night, a medic, Sgt. Theresa Adams, saw Sheik naked and bleeding from a catheter that should have been connected to a bag to prevent infection. According to a sworn statement, the physician on call (who held the rank of colonel) agreed that the hospital had erred in leaving the catheter open but refused to remove it or to transfer Sheik to a hospital. When Adams asked him whether he had ever heard of the Geneva Conventions, the physician answered, "Fine, Sergeant, you do what you have to do; I am going back to bed."

In May 2004, photographs of prisoners being abused at Abu Ghraib shocked the world. When I saw the pictures, a simple question came to mind: Where were the prison doctors, nurses and medics while this abuse was happening?

Based on my review of tens of thousands of pages of declassified government documents, congressional testimony, press accounts and reports by human rights organizations, the answer is clear: Many armed forces physicians, nurses and medics have been passive and active partners in the systematic neglect and abuse of prisoners. At facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the United States often failed to provide prisoners with minimally adequate medical and health systems. Some physicians and psychologists provided information that was used to determine the harshness of physically and psychologically abusive interrogations, which were then monitored by health professionals. Some doctors responsible for the medical records of detainees omitted evidence of abuse from their official reports. Medical personnel who knew of this system of neglect, abuse and torture remained silent.

The most destructive, dangerous president we've ever had

Worse than Richard Nixon. An unprecedented abuse of powers. The most un-American president in the nation's history.

Nat Hentoff does not think much of President Obama.

And now, the famous journalist says it is time to begin looking into impeachment.

Hentoff sees the biggest problem as Obama's penchant to rule by executive order when he can't convince Congress to do things his way.

Former Assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts is making some bold new claims about the Federal Reserve and its official government gold holdings. Dr. Roberts contends,

"They don't have any more gold. That's why they can only give Germany 5 tons of the 1,500 tons it's holding. In fact, when Germany asked for this delivery last year, the Fed said no. But it said we will give you back 300 tons . . . . So, they said we will give you back 20% of what you trusted us to keep for you over the next seven years, but they are not even able to do that."

Dr. Roberts goes on to say, "The stocks of gold at the Bank of England seem to be disappearing. The stocks of many of the gold trusts, such as GLD, are being looted . . . all of this gold is disappearing into Asian markets. The entire West is being drained of gold."

According to Dr. Roberts, this is an inflection point for the gold market.

Dr. Roberts says,

"The reason is: the ability to supply large amounts of gold to the bullion dealers to sell has diminished with the supply of gold and silver. What the Fed did was turn to massive 'naked shorts' of gold futures contracts. They don't have the real gold . . . so they come in and dump contracts, say in a period of 6 minutes, that are three times the amount of gold COMEX has to make delivery. . . . So, it drives down the price of gold. That's how they got the price down from $1,900 to $1,250."

The surgeon general's report could lead to more antismoking initiatives

Turns out, smoking cigarettes can be even deadlier than previously thought. And, according to a report released by the U.S. surgeon general last week, smokers could be paying for the added risks in more ways than one.

The report, released on the 50th anniversary of the first Surgeon General's report on the hazards of smoking, found that the habit is associated with a higher risk of diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, colorectal cancer and erectile dysfunction, in addition to previously well-known conditions such as lung disease, heart attack and stroke. For employers, which are already taking steps to discourage workers from smoking in an effort to lower health costs and improve productivity, the latest evidence showing that smoking is linked to more diseases may cause them to ramp up their antismoking efforts, experts say. "This will only accelerate the movement that we've already seen," says LuAnn Heinen, a vice president at the National Business Group on Health, a non-profit in Washington, D.C. that helps large employers develop health and wellness programs.

Washington - On January 22, 2009 President Obama signed an executive order that the United States Detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Cuba be closed no later than January 22, 2010.

Five years later Guantanamo is still open and it is not clear when it will actually be closed. Until a mass hunger strike in 2013 there seemed little urgency to close the facility. There have been a few detainees released since then and some easing of congressional blocking of transfers.

Of course, many detainees have been in Guantanamo not just five years but over a decade. Mahmud al-Mujahid has been at Guantanamo since January 11, 2002 when it first opened. Just this month the executive ruled that his "continued law of war detention" was "no longer necessary". Many of those cleared for transfer come from Yemen but Obama has yet to release any in spite of demands from Yemen that he do so and protests against their continued imprisonment.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo believes that pro-life activists, along with anti-gay activists and supporters of the Second Amendment, are not welcome in his state.

During a radio interview on Friday, Cuomo pointed out that Republicans were in the midst of a schism, where conservatives worked against moderate Republicans.

"Their problem is not me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves," he said. "Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that's who they are and they're the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York, because that's not who New Yorkers are."

State Republicans blasted his comments, the New York Post reported, even as the governor walked them back on Sunday in an open letter to the newspaper.

The rich and powerful at the World Economic Forum are not as worried as they should be about the gap between rich and poor

Those on the outside might imagine that the business leaders who gather in Davos each year to chew the fat are concerned only about enriching themselves. Critics might imagine that the company bosses, jetting to the World Economic Forum 5,000 feet up in the Swiss Alps in their helicopters, mink-clad trophy wives in tow, are oblivious to the struggles of the poor. But they would be wrong.

As the rich and powerful make their last-minute preparations for their week up the magic mountain, they want the message to be sent out that they understand about inequality. They feel the pain. Truly they do.

The evidence for the "Davos gets it" line comes from the annual risk report compiled by the WEF. It asks 700 of its members what they think will be the most pressing threats to the global economy over the coming decade. Inequality is seen as the most likely risk.

Klaus Schwab, who created the Davos meeting in the 1970s, is pleased about that finding. As a good old-fashioned social democrat, he wants his members to take a history lesson and realise that capitalism cannot survive if income and wealth become concentrated in too few hands. For much of the 20th century, the more far-sighted business leaders realised this. They understood that their workers needed reasonable wages so that they could buy the goods and services they were making. They grasped the idea that a market system in its rawest form was incompatible with democracy and so acquiesced while some of the rough edges were knocked off via progressive taxation, welfare states and curbs on capital. Deep down, they feared that the Russian revolution would provide a template for disaffected workers in the west.

The 2014 World Economic Forum will also probably be talking about threat of internet meltdown, the situation in the Middle East - and the ongoing dearth of women delegates

More than 2,500 of globalisation's movers and shakers gather for their annual four-day mountaintop conclave this week, aware that the world is still being shaken by the events of half a decade ago.

When the World Economic Forum met in Davos in early 2009, it was against the backdrop of the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers a few months earlier, and a contraction in activity that raised fears of a second Great Depression. Since then, hopes of a quick return to business as usual have been dashed by sluggish recovery, an incomplete repair job on banks, rising inequality, growing political alienation and concerns about extreme weather events and internet meltdown.

Klaus Schwab, founder and chairman of the WEF, has told the business executives, academics and government officials attending Davos this year that much remains to be done. "Economic growth patterns, the geopolitical landscape, the social contract that binds people together, and our planet's ecosystem are all undergoing radical, simultaneous transformations, generating anxiety and, in many places, turmoil," he said.

Much also remains to be done if the WEF is to make progress on the gender quotas it set four years ago. Then it told its 100 corporate partners - attracted to the Swiss resort by the opportunities to hammer out business deals behind the scenes - that they could bring a fifth representative only if it was a woman. Yet the percentage of women attending is just 16%.

Saadia Zahidi, head of gender parity and human capital at the WEF, says efforts are being made to push gender up the agenda. This year's theme is "Reshaping the world" and Zahidi points to six sessions, including a key event with Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook and the IMF's Christine Lagarde on on 25 January - though many delegates will have left by then.

The last thing the U.S. should do is become militarily embroiled in the conflict raging again in Iraq. But for Americans to shake their heads in lofty disdain and turn away, as if they have no responsibility for the continued bloodletting, is outrageous. Why? Because America bears a large part of the blame for turning Iraq into the basket case it's become.

The great majority of Americans don't realize that fact. They never did. So much of what the U.S. did to Iraq has been consigned by America to a black hole of history. Iraqis, however, can never forget.

In 1990, for instance, during the first Gulf War, George H.W. Bush, called on the people of Iraq to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein. But when they finally did, after Saddam's forces were driven from Kuwait, President Bush refused any gesture of support, even permitted Saddam's pilots to keep flying their deadly helicopter gunships. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were slaughtered.

[H.W. Bush later denied any responsibility for that uprising, but you can hear his appeal to the Iraqis in a documentary I produced with Michel Despratx, "The Trial of Saddam Hussein."]

Even more devastating to Iraq was the Draconian embargo that the United States and its allies pushed through the U.N. Security Council in August 1990, after Saddam invaded Kuwait.