On September 23rd, Ashraf Qazi, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, has “expressed deep concern that efforts towards ensuring human rights and fundamental freedoms could be undermined” by the death penalty as administered by Iraqi courts.
The Central Criminal Court of Iraq has conducted 1,537 trials of individuals accused of crimes against the Iraqi government and/or the Multi-National Force-Iraq. Sentences ranging from light imprisonment to death have been meted to 1,309 defendents.
Robert Kaplan had a great–required– reading–type article in the LA Times last week.
The key graph:
“Iran’s power structure, armed with an admirable Persian gift for subtlety and manipulation, has restricted its own domestic organs of dissent so that it is well positioned to lay siege to media and political elites elsewhere.”
“Al Qaeda Increasingly Reliant on Media” the New York Times headline reads–as if it were some kind of revelation, maybe to they NYT editors it is.
But for peope who actually understand terrorism, it is old news.
On September 27th, the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) released a poll of Iraqi opinion – a sequel to its poll of January, 2006. The PIPA study contains findings to hearten both partisans and opponents of the administration’s Iraq policy. Iraqis express a strong, but qualified, rejection of the presence of U.S. troops, and a strong, but qualified, acceptance of the new order that those troops have wrought.
“Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.” (Page 2, Declassified Key Judgments, National Intelligence Estimate)
Duh.
Democrats are crowing about a new National Intelligence Estimate that, somewhere in all its pages, says that the U.S. is a larger target of terrorism now, because of the war in Iraq.
Less than two weeks have passed since the five-year-anniversary of 9/11, when we were attacked by terrorists, and the liberals are pretending that September 11th, through the Spring of 2003 did not exist.
Of course, this NIE could be faulty, just like a previous NIE.
As the whole world now knows, Mark Mazetti of the New York Times leaked selected findings of a classified National Intelligence Estimate (Sept. 23, 2006: “Spy Agencies Say War Worsens Terrorist Threat.”)
Pajamas Media is pointing out how few reporters covering Iraq are actually out in the field.
When I was embedded with a Marine infantry platoon in the Summer of 2005, I only saw a handful of reporters pass through Fallujah.
The Battle for Baghdad rages on. Some of the indices of coalition progress are positive:
Other indices were poor.