Lost Decades looks at why the explosion of debt happened through the traditional lens of supply-and-demand. It examines the motivations and situations of people on both side of this debt. Why did demand for debt increase in the United States? The first reason Chinn and Frieden identify is the huge deficits run during the George W. Bush years. These are the trillions spent on the Bush tax cuts, the expansion of Medicare part D and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that weren’t paid for.

A Major Crimes Task Force (MCTF) assisted by the FBI and other US investigators interviewed 77 adult and juvenile detainees. They reported their jailers: forced them to confess to crimes they did not commit, beat them with wooden sticks or subjected them to electric shocks and raped them or sodomized them with objects. Juveniles reported being raped “multiple times by the same person or persons.”

A US State Embassy cable marked “confidential” and published by WikiLeaks reveals details on the detention of juveniles held in “Site 4″ in a Iraq Interior Ministry (MOI) detention complex. The juveniles allege sexual abuse by Iraqi interrogators, specifically that rapes were being used in the prison to induce confessions. The discovery of widespread abuse and torture, according to the diplomat who wrote the cable, is the worst since the infamous Jadriyah “Bunker” facility was discovered in 2005.

The deluge of 9/11 reflections and editorials on the aftermath has been overwhelming. It is tempting to contribute more commentary on how the US has responded to terrorism and what the government has treated as “terrorism” since the attacks. It would be easy to go through incident by incident and point to atrocity after atrocity, loss of liberty after loss of liberty to show that the US has responded in a way that likely brought joy to Islamic extremists seeking to wage war against America. But, as I sit and think about 9/11, how it defined my teenage years and transformation into the writer I am today, I find it more appropriate reflect through some the music the event has inspired.

A short documentary film, “Incident in New Baghdad,” has been earning critical praise and awards as it goes from film festival to film festival. The short tells the story of Iraq war veteran Ethan McCord, a soldier who was at the scene of the “Collateral Murder” incident uncovered by WikiLeaks over a year ago. McCord rescued children, who were injured in the 2007 Apache helicopter attack that killed two Reuters journalists along with a “good samaritan” who tried to rescue the journalists that had been fired upon.

In January 2002, the British government gave instructions to its intelligence agencies debriefing or interrogations prisoners captured in Afghanistan, many of whom were being abused or tortured by their US allies. The agencies asked for legal guidance, and the UK Guardian has now published what that guidance was, posting the original document online.

In July, General David Petraeus was approved as CIA Director by both the Senate Intelligence Committee and then the full Senate, whose vote was an astounding 94-0, astounding because this is a man who was deeply implicated in war crimes, including torture.

While Petraeus’s record on backing both torture and death/terror squads in Iraq had been looked at before, literally no one brought up this record when the Obama administration’s nomination of Petraeus was being sped through the constitutional “advice and consent” process. The failure of any U.S. Senator to ask questions about Petraeus’s record on these matters demonstrates the utter bankruptcy of the two political parties, and even more, of U.S. civil society as a whole.

According to the UK legal charity Reprieve, “the first large array of photographs depicting the devastating impact of US unmanned aircraft (‘drone’) attacks on innocent civilians in Pakistan” goes on display today at at Beaconsfield Art Gallery, 22 Newport Street, London. The show, which displays the work of Noor Behram, a 39 year old photographer from the North Waziristan Agency (NWA), runs until August 5. Reportedly, photos from 28 of 60 drone attack sites visited by Behram can be viewed at the London gallery.

James Jeffrey, the new US Ambassador to Iraq, told reporters that the US would consider a request to keep troops in Iraq beyond the December 2011 deadline for withdrawal. He added that, if the United States does stay, the Iraqis would have to help with security of the troops on the bases. The only thing missing from this transaction is any actual request from the Iraqi government.

Sadly the actions of one person are being used to cast aspersions on the entire Wikileaks organization. CNN is the latest to conflate the man who started the work and the organization itself.