In September, Iraqi civilian deaths were down 52 percent from August and 77 percent from September 2006, according to the Web site icasualties.org. The Iraqi Health Ministry and the Associated Press reported similar results. U.S. soldiers killed in action numbered 43 -- down 43 percent from August and 64 percent from May, which had the highest monthly figure so far this year. The American combat death total was the lowest since July 2006 and was one of the five lowest monthly counts since the insurgency in Iraq took off in April 2004.

Iraq: Better Numbers

The military schedule synchronizes with the political one. By this time next year, if Iraq has not turned the corner, a good guess is that the Republican presidential nominee will be facing a choice: Promise to wind down the war, or lose the election. Whichever choice the nominee makes, the die will be cast.

Democrats have every reason to be angry at Bush's evasion of political accountability for the mess he has made in Iraq. Democrats, Republicans, and all other Americans have every reason to be angry at Bush for making the mess to begin with.

But anger does not justify impatience. If Petraeus says he needs more time, he should get it. If he fails, a course correction won't be long in coming. The 22nd Amendment has seen to that.

Reason Magazine - Be Angry—but Patient

What soldiers call the “battle space”... is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army...

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear....

Two of the authors of this essay were KIA on Monday.

The War as We Saw It - New York Times

This newspaper was not wowed by either man. The spin General Petraeus put on the military achievements of the surge exaggerated the gains. Mr Crocker's claim to see a spirit of sectarian reconciliation bubbling just beneath the surface of Iraq's stalemated politics was even less convincing. But on one point Mr Crocker was surely right. If America removes its forces while Iraq remains in its present condition, the Iraqi future is indeed likely to be disastrous. For that reason above any other, and despite misgivings about the possibility of even modest success any time soon, our own view is that America (and Britain) ought to stay in Iraq until conditions improve.

The Iraq war | Why they should stay | Economist.com

The Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq (released Sept 10, 2007) was the two-part report released by U.S. Army general David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker on progress by the Iraqi government in the ongoing Iraq War.

Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In my two years in the government, I witnessed top officials and bureaucrats in the White House and throughout the administration openly worrying that investigators acting with the benefit of hindsight in a different political environment would impose criminal penalties on heat-of-battle judgment calls. These men and women did not believe they were breaking the law, and indeed they took extraordinary steps to ensure that they didn't. But they worried nonetheless because they would be judged in an atmosphere different from when they acted, because the criminal investigative process is mysterious and scary, because lawyers' fees can cause devastating financial losses, and because an investigation can produce reputation-ruining dishonor and possibly end one's career, even if you emerge "innocent."

Why, then, do they even come close to the legal line? Why risk reputation, fortune, and perhaps liberty? Why not play it safe? Many counterterrorism officials did play it safe before 9/11, when the criminalization of war and intelligence contributed to the paralyzing risk aversion that pervaded the White House and the intelligence community. The 9/11 attacks, however, made playing it safe no longer feasible. . . .

On the other hand:

I deplored the way the White House went about fixing the problem. "We're one bomb away form getting rid of that obnoxious [FISA] court," Addington had told me in his typically sarcastic style during a tense White House meeting in February of 2004.

After 9/11 they and other top officials in the administration dealt with FISA they way they dealt with other laws they didn't like: they blew through them in secret based on flimsy legal opinions that they guarded closely so no one could question the legal basis for the operations.

These are both from the same book. More.

Two views of Bush Administration Civil Liberties Policy

Congressman Brian Baird (D-3 Vancouver, Washington) hosted a town hall tonight at Fort Vancouver High School. It was Baird’s first appearance in front of his constituents since reversing his position on the war. ALTHOUGH he’s been an adamant critic of the war—he voted against the war and the surge—he announced last week that he thinks the surge is working and he wants to give it time.

He spoke in a high school auditorium that was packed with at least 500 people who were overwhelmingly vocal in their opposition to Baird’s new stance. There were also protesters outside calling for Baird to resign.

I also talked to several people as they left the auditorium and asked them if they found Baird—who was there to explain his new position—to be persuasive. To a person, everyone shook their head “no way,” including Doris Holmes, active member of the 18th district Democrats, who said, “He lied. He’s toeing the Bush party line. I can’t believe he’s a Democrat.”

You can follow links through to Baird's editorial if you wish. The bottom line is that this sort of thinking simply isn't allowed in the Democratic party. "I have committed even before setting pen to paper the essential crime that contains all others unto itself."

Rep. Baird Gets Blasted for Iraq war views

The humble mosque would soon move to a hilltop headquarters in Ashland, thanks to financial support from a Saudi Arabian charity known as the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, which has since been shut down by U.S. and Saudi authorities for alleged terror ties. Lawyers for Al-Haramain have denied those charges and have filed suit against the U.S. government seeking to have its name cleared.

"What I didn't expect was that over time my ideas would fall into line with theirs," he said. "I wasn't to shake hands with women. I wasn't to pet a dog. I wasn't to wear shorts that came up above my knees. But conversely, my pants legs couldn't be too long."

In 1999 he left his job at Al-Haramain for law school at New York University. Away from his co-workers, he was free to question the radical doctrines he'd learned in Oregon and meet with others about spirituality, including Christians. A year later, he converted to Christianity and was eventually baptized in the Baptist church.

It was a decision he took extremely seriously because he said his colleagues at Al-Haramain had preached that leaving Islam was punishable by death.

This is the same Al-Haramain that joined the EFF v. AT&T fracas.

Radical Islam in America

What would Thoreau do?

BoingBoing's brief sarcasm about the NYPD quote is worth noting.

Boing Boing: Starbucks, Borders, jail: all

When suspected Al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla was whisked from the criminal justice system to military custody in June 2002, it was done for a key purpose – to break his will to remain silent.

For a month, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been questioning Padilla in New York City under the rules of the criminal justice system. They wanted to know about his alleged involvement in a plot to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb" in the US. Padilla had nothing to say. Now, military interrogators were about to turn up the heat....

In essence, experts say, the US government was trying to break Padilla's silence by plunging him into a mental twilight zone...

The Soviets used isolation and sensory deprivation to identify and discredit political dissidents. US prisoners of war confessed to nonexistent war crimes in the Korean War after similar treatment.

In other words, the U.S. Government attempted to torture a confession out of a U.S. Citizen when he refused to admit to a crime that didn't occur. An admission which would have been in the political interest of the Administration, as it would justify the fear of a nuclear threat from Al'Queda, and demonstrate that the Justice Department was putting a stop to it. Paradoxically, the threat from this particular sort of weapon is mostly psychological. If the Administration were interested in defusing it as a real threat they would do so by educating people about the actual effects of such an attack rather than making misleading statements.
Recall this statement by a judge who was on the Republican Party's short list for Supreme Court nomination until he committed political suicide by issuing this ruling:

The government surely must understand... its actions have left... the impression that Padilla may have been held for these years... by mistake...

Yes, it appears he was held "by mistake." He was held, in my opinion, illegally. And he was destroyed...

"It is clear from examining Mr. Padilla that [the point of irreversible psychological damage] was surpassed."

The actual evidence against him seems to consist entirely of this form. Personally, I think a star recruit would have had more to say on this form. A star recruit probably would have indicated more religious knowledge, might have had some military experience, might have listed a skill other than carpentry, might have indicated an... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

They really did shred the Constitution over a paranoid fantasy...