Iraq’s highest appeals court upheld former President Saddam Hussein’s death sentence and said he must be hanged “within 30 days.” Good. Just don’t put Basra’s serious crimes unit in charge of the execution. That unit, like many police forces in Iraq, was infiltrated by militias and criminal elements, the New York Times reported. British and Iraqi soldiers attacked the unit’s station Monday and rescued 127 prisoners, many of whom had been tortured. “The serious crimes unit was at the center of death squad activity,” said British military spokesman Maj. Charlie Burbridge.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
It’s been a tough month for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The latest bad news: Iran’s oil export revenues are plummeting.
CNN reports that oil revenue has been declining at up to 12 percent a year, mostly because of Iran’s neglect of its oil infrastructure and perceived hostility to foreign investment. If the trend continues, oil revenue could disappear by 2015.
In a report written for the National Academy of Sciences, author Roger Stern said that if the United States can “hold its breath” for a few years, it may find a cash-strapped Iran quite a bit less belligerent than it is now — an excellent reason, he says, to put off any plans to take on Iran militarily.
Posted by Dave Knadler
All was not forgiven after Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., got out of the way of the nomination to the federal bench of Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Janet Neff last week. The New York Times editorialized: “Whether someone has attended a same-sex commitment ceremony is not a worthy litmus test to impose on someone seeking an important office. Whether someone holds hateful views toward gay people certainly is.”
Newsday opined: “In the annals of politicians using the federal judiciary as a foil to advance their own careers, the shenanigans of Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) will earn a special spot in the section dedicated to bigoted fools.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Premarital sex is the norm for most Americans and has been for decades, according to a new study by the Guttmacher Institute. An overwhelming majority of Americans — 9 in 10 people, men and women — told researchers that they had sex before marriage. The figure remains steady even for older Americans raised in the 1940s and 1950s, which casts doubt on theories of a golden age of chastity in America.
One of the study’s authors, Lawrence Finer, called this a “reality check” to those opposing sex education, including the Bush administration, which has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into abstinence-only programs.
“It would be more effective,” Finer said, “to provide young people with the skills and information they need to be safe once they become sexually active — which nearly everyone eventually will.”
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Some conservative pundits are huffing about the Iraq Study Group’s recommendation that the Bush administration negotiate with Syria and Iran. But President Reagan showed that negotiating with your enemy isn’t a sign of weakness, nor does it require abandoning your ideals. As Abraham Sofaer of the Hoover Institution noted in a commentary in the Wall Street Journal: “The arguments against negotiating with Syria and Iran were also made against negotiating with the Soviet Union, and by some of the same people. . . . President Reagan challenged Soviet behavior by supporting groups fighting communist intervention, building the military, strengthening NATO, condemning human-rights violations, commencing a missile-defense program, and conveying the message of freedom in every way possible. George Shultz supported these efforts but sought to negotiate with the Soviets in an attempt to increase stability, reduce nuclear weapons, attain freedom for oppressed groups, and enhance understanding.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
