Juan Cole reports that the U.S. has compromised and allowed
Islamic law into Iraq's constitution. But that should not be a surprise
since we did the same thing in Afghanistan. Afghanistan's constitution
also calls for an Islamic Republic according to Cole. Here is
an excerpt from the Afghanistan constitution provided by Cole:
Chapter I The State
Article 1 [Islamic Republic]
Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic, independent, unitary and indivisible state.
Article 2 [Religions]
(1) The religion of the state of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is the sacred religion of Islam
(2) Followers of other religions are free to exercise their faith and perform their religious rites within the limits of the provisions of law.
Article 3 [Law and Religion]
In Afghanistan, no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam . . .
Article 131 [Shia Law for Shia Followers]
(1) Courts shall apply Shia school of law in cases dealing with personal matters involving the followers of Shia Sect in accordance with the provisions of law.
(2) In other cases if no clarification by this constitution and other laws exist and both sides of the case are followers of the Shia Sect, courts will resolve the matter according to laws of this Sect. '
Think Progress offers a guide to the Plame affair with
21 connected Bush administration officials.
New York Times reporter Judith Miller will not be receiving a Conscience in Media award.
Conservative blog ProfessorBainbridge.com worries that Bush has blown it for the conservative movement. He also says the Iraq War uses our troops as fly paper:
"The trouble with Bush's justification for the war is that it uses American troops as fly paper. Send US troops over to Iraq, where they'll attract all the terrorists, who otherwise would have come here, and whom we'll then kill. This theory has proven fallacious. The first problem is that the American people are unwilling to let their soldiers be used as fly paper. If Iraq has proven anything, it has confirmed for me the validity of the Powell Doctrine."
BloggersBlog.com
reports that the U.S. Government now offers RSS Feeds.
Frank Rich says Cindy Sheehan is being "swift boated" by the Bush administration but that the public isn't buying the Sheehan "crackpot" attacks. Rich also explains how Sheehan's son Casey Sheehan died -- a story the media often avoids.
Specialist Sheehan was both literally and figuratively an Eagle Scout:
a church group leader and honor student whose desire to serve his
country drove him to enlist before 9/11, in 2000. He died with six
other soldiers on a rescue mission in Sadr City on April 4, 2004,
at the age of 24, the week after four American security workers had
been mutilated in Falluja and two weeks after he arrived in Iraq.
This was almost a year after the president had declared the end of
"major combat operations" from the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln.
Cindy Sheehan has left Crawford temporarily to attend to her mother who has suffered a stroke. Sheehan plans to
return to the protest which continues in Crawford without her and is edging closer to Bush's ranch. Meanwhile, President Bush continues to
tie the Iraq War to 9/11 despite the lack of evidence.
Former President Bill Clinton is taking on childhood obesity through a
partnership with the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association.
Political Books: President Bush's
summer reading list includes a book about salt. Some of the
authors on the reading list are not Bush fans. Madeline Albright has inked
a two book deal. Bob Woodward's book about Deep Throat
did not do as well as hoped -- but he hit the New York Times list anyway. And several authors, including Stephen King and Nora Roberts, are auctioning off character names on eBay to raise money for the First Ammendment Project (FAP).
