This evening's music features blues and r&b singer Bobby "Blue" Bland.

Here are some stories from tonight's post:

Prison Dispatches from the War on Terror: Gitmo Detainee’s Life an “Endless Horror Movie”

Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi, a Yemeni national who has been detained at the American prison facility at Guantánamo Bay since 2002, weighs only 98 pounds. Never charged with a crime, al-Alwi, now 35 years old, is one of many detainees at the camp who have gone on a prolonged hunger strike.

As described in a recent petition submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) by his lawyers, al-Alwi’s mental and physical state is seriously deteriorating after two years on hunger strike, and subsequent force-feeding. ...

Al-Alwi, who has described his strike as “a form of peaceful protest against injustice,” has said that he will not resume eating until there is some sort of legal resolution to his case. Prison officials have responded to his hunger strike by placing him in solitary confinement, denying him access to prescribed medical items and subjecting him to extreme temperatures in his cell.

According to the petition, al-Alwi’s nostril passages have now swelled shut due to the extra large tubes prison authorities have repeatedly forced down his nasal cavity during this feeding process. He also maintains that the force-feeding sessions have led to heavy vomiting and daily blood loss. Shackled to a chair for hours each day during the force-feeding sessions, al-Alwi now suffers severe back pain and other debilitating physical injuries. ...

Describing his brutal treatment by riot guards who come to restrain him for force-feedings, al-Alwi told his lawyers in the petition: “I weigh less than 100 pounds. I wear braces on both ankles, and both wrists, and one around my lower back. I am five foot five … and they claim that I am ‘resisting’ … How can I possibly resist anyone, let alone these men?”

Stepping Up Collaboration With Iran, US Now Directly Backing Tikrit Offensive

Stepping up its de-facto collaboration with Iran, the United States military is now giving direct air support to the Iran-backed offensive by Iraqi forces and Shiite militias on the city of Tikrit, northwest of Baghdad. ...

The U.S. initially did not take part in the attack, with Iranian advisers playing a much more visible role, including Qasem Soleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s overseas unit. ...

The Pentagon confirmed earlier this week that U.S. forces are providing intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance support.

Iraqi President Fouad Massoum claimed on Wednesday that coalition air strikes will soon follow.

This is an interesting article which provides some background about so-called "color revolutions" and how Belarus managed to get itself off of the US' short list for destabilization and revolution. It's worth a click, here's a taste:

'A revolution is impossible in Belarus'

The political year for the Belarusian opposition begins today, on Freedom Day, with a state-sanctioned rally.

The day, which marks the foundation of the Belarusian People’s Republic in 1918, used to bring thousands to the streets of Minsk to oppose the government of Alexander Lukashenko – who has been in power since 1994.

Not anymore. The political opposition is suffering from years of exclusion from public sphere; they have not held a seat in parliament since 1996, they are virtually ignored by state-affiliated media and the government have restricted their right to protest.

The appetite for a revolution has also been quelled by events in neighbouring Ukraine. Belarusians are cautious. The risk of the state collapse, civil strife and Russian interference seems too high. The west, particularly the US, take the same line. Preserving Belarusian independence, not democratisation, has become the highest priority.

Congress tries to fix Medicare ‘doc fix’ before it fixes to leave town

WASHINGTON — With deep pockets and huge memberships, politically influential physician organizations think they’re on the cusp of achieving something they’ve aggressively sought for years: a congressional cure for a Medicare payment system that regularly threatens to cut their fees.

Lobbyists and physicians are working overtime this week as Congress weighs a bipartisan bill to revamp the Medicare payment formula for doctors and put an end to the so-called “doc fix,” temporary patches approved by lawmakers to stave off cuts in the payments.

“We’ve finally got Medicare’s Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula on the ropes,” Texas Medical Association President Austin King wrote to the group’s members earlier this month. “Let’s deliver the knockout punch right now.”

That punch might come Thursday, when the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on revamping the program after an expensive, intense effort by physicians’ groups and their political action committees. ...

“I’ve heard nonstop from doctors without ceasing since I was a candidate in 2011that there needs to be a permanent fix,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. “It has never not been intense. Anything I ever do with physicians – it could be a pediatric, could be an OB-GYN, it could be a researcher – the SGR fix is always the first issue, and sometimes there isn’t a second or third issue.”

Rep. Raúl Labrador, R-Idaho, said, “I’ve heard the argument that if we don’t vote for the doc fix that doctors will campaign against us.”

We’re treating soil like dirt. It’s a fatal mistake, as our lives depend on it

Landowners around the world are now engaged in an orgy of soil destruction so intense that, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, the world on average has just 60 more years of growing crops. Even in Britain, which is spared the tropical downpours that so quickly strip exposed soil from the land, Farmers Weekly reports, we have “only 100 harvests left”.

To keep up with global food demand, the UN estimates, 6m hectares (14.8m acres) of new farmland will be needed every year. Instead, 12m hectares a year are lost through soil degradation. We wreck it, then move on, trashing rainforests and other precious habitats as we go. Soil is an almost magical substance, a living system that transforms the materials it encounters, making them available to plants. ...

The techniques that were supposed to feed the world threaten us with starvation. A paper just published in the journal Anthropocene analyses the undisturbed sediments in an 11th-century French lake. It reveals that the intensification of farming over the past century has increased the rate of soil erosion sixtyfold.

Whenever I mention this issue, people ask: “But surely farmers have an interest in looking after their soil?” They do, and there are many excellent cultivators who seek to keep their soil on the land. There are also some terrible farmers, often absentees, who allow contractors to rip their fields to shreds for the sake of a quick profit. Even the good ones are hampered by an economic and political system that could scarcely be better designed to frustrate them. ...

This is what topples civilisations. War and pestilence might kill large numbers of people, but in most cases the population recovers. But lose the soil and everything goes with it.

Also of interest:

Recommended: In Washington, the Real Power Lies With the Spooks, Eavesdroppers and Assassins

Naomi Klein: Let's kick oil while the price is down – video

A reporter’s journey to My Lai and the secrets of the past. - Seymour M. Hersh