Month: February 2007

Fit For Trial

It’s a minimalist ruling in the Padilla case, but a clear one:

"This defendant clearly has the capacity to assist his attorneys," Judge Cooke said, adding that Mr. Padilla’s case was "unique" and that "he understands that."

Judge Cooke, who allowed limited testimony from military brig officials during the competency hearing, said her ruling should not be construed as a finding on Mr. Padilla’s claims of mistreatment during his detention and interrogations at a naval brig in South Carolina.

"Those claims are for another day," she said, referring to another pending motion by Mr. Padilla’s lawyers that the charges against him be dismissed because of "outrageous government conduct."

So now the government will make its case. And we may learn a lot.

For Schism

A reader writes:

As a cradle Episcopalian, I share the belief that that the Anglican Communion should be dissolved. The present divide is distracting the churches of the Communion from the core principles of Christianity and fostering greater repression in countries like Nigeria by creating a "burning issue" where none should exist. 

For those of us old enough to remember it, this dispute really started with the ordination of women, an issue still not fully resolved. Repression of women in the "southern communions" is as integral a part of their defense of alleged doctrinal purity as repression of gay people. Much of this arises directly from the evangelical competition between Christianity and Islam in parts of Africa and Indonesia especially. In Nigeria, this competition has direct political and tribal implications as the Christian tribal elite in the south tries to maintain its dominance over the Isamic north. The Anglicans have decided to out-Herod Herod and meet the Islamic challenge by imposing a sort of Sharia that will, supposedly, allow them to share the moral "high ground" with their competitors. 

In the US, many parishes within ECUSA split long ago over the issue of the role of women. We have been here before. In my view, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America is better for having let those voices of repression depart. I say, "Good riddance." While I would never refuse to take the Eucharist with a declared homophobe or misogynist and I continue to pray that we all become more tolerant of one another, the day of reckoning is upon us, and it is better that, as organized churches, we part company and, in the words of St Paul, work out our own salvations.

Chalabi Preens

He’s always worth watching, if not trusting. Money quote from a new interview:

U.S. officials without question represent the strongest force, both politically and military, in Iraq. Therefore, it is not serious to pursue their role as spectators. They will have a significant role to play, and I believe that by the mere factor of being present in the same conference room as the Syrians and the Iranians at this level in Baghdad is very significant. I mean, after all, we tried very hard to get this meeting going last year, almost one year ago. It almost happened then. But then it was foiled at the last minute. One year later, they are back to the same situation, except now it is a multilateral thing — with the U.S. and Iran to sit in the same conference room.

The whole interview is interesting – not least because Chalabi claims some credit for persuading the Shiite militias to hold fire for a while:

You notice that there has been very little activity by the Sadrists in the past six weeks, despite major provocation with bomb attacks and assassinations, kidnappings, that have happened frequently—yet they have not responded. That is a significant factor. This outcome did not happen in a vacuum. There was major effort to persuade the Sadrists. Many people participated in it. There were feted meetings with the mayor of Sadr City—who is not part of the Sadrist movement of the Mahdi Army, but he has authority from them to pursue these meetings — and the multinational force, and political officers from the embassy.

He’s also talking about the Turkish government sending a delegation to Baghdad soon. Hmmm.