The German equivalent to the Department of Homeland Security has designed a Trojan to help spy on the computers of terror suspects. Spiegel International writes about the debate:

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble insists that such cyber spying would only be carried out in a handful of exceptional cases and would only target those suspected of planning terror attacks. Nevertheless, a debate has erupted in the press as to whether Schäuble -- known for his provocative, America-esque anti-terror tactics -- may have once again overstepped his bounds.
In July, the minister ruffled feathers with suggestions that Germany should consider targeted assassinations of suspected terrorists.

Reuters reports that according to one German paper the proposed law even allows temporary computer spying without a court order.

The Atlantic Community presents a comparative overview of the most discussed strategies for Iraq.

We cut right to the point on suggested troop numbers, reconstruction plans, ideas for diplomatic initiatives and for solving domestic problems as well as suggestions for the time after the withdrawal of most US troops.

Get the lowdown on the original Baker-Hamilton report, a standout strategy from a presidential candidate, a few maverick think tankers, and that Bush Administration favorite, the Surge: "Iraq: Who's Got the Best Plan?" At this link you also have the option to download a concise matrix of these plans as a PDF file.

We would appreciate your thoughts on these plans or any other plan you would like to see implemented. Criticism and other feedback is also appreciated. Registration for commenting on Atlantic Community is real fast and provides networking opportunities as well.

Two Iraqi mothers tell CNN they turned to prostitution to help feed their children: "It's a taboo that no one is speaking about," says Yanar Mohammed, head and founder of the Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq, and adds:

"There is a huge population of women who were the victims of war who had to sell their bodies, their souls and they lost it all. It crushes us to see them, but we have to work on it and that's why we started our team of women activists." Her team pounds the streets of Baghdad looking for these victims often too humiliated to come forward.
"Most of the women that we find at hospitals [who] have tried to commit suicide" have been involved in prostitution, said Basma Rahim, a member of Mohammed's team. The team's aim is to compile information on specific cases and present it to Iraq's political parties -- to have them, as Mohammed puts it, "come tell us what [they] are ... going to do about this."
Rahim tells the heartbreaking story of one woman they found who lives in a room with three of her children: "She has sex while her three children are in the room, but she makes them stand in separate corners." According to Rahim and Mohammed, most of the women they encounter say they are driven to prostitution by a desperate desire for survival in the dangerously violent and unforgiving circumstances in Iraq.

Historical analogies are always dangerous. George Will makes one nevertheless in the Washington Post:

After the First World War, politics in Germany's new Weimar Republic were poisoned by the belief that the army had been poised for victory in 1918 and that one more surge could have turned the tide. Many Germans bitterly concluded that the political class, having lost its nerve and will to win, capitulated.

The two well-known sociologists Richard Sennett and Saskia Sassen claim that their colleagues are being persecuted for the crime of sociology and in the name of the war on terror. Their op-ed in The Guardian has the headline: "Guantánamo in Germany." Yeah, right...
They also claim that the "state of emergency prevails" in Germany, France and the US: "The laws meant for real threats are invoked to counter shapeless fear."

"It has not been lost on us that the road to Washington passes through Baghdad, and we happily took note that the U.S. was the first to react to [Kouchner's] visit with praise," a French Foreign Affairs Ministry official told TIME of this first voyage to Iraq by a government official from France since the war began. (...)
Given the situation today, says one French intelligence official, "it looks clear U.S. forces have at least a decade ahead of themselves just to stabilize and secure Baghdad forget about the rest of Iraq for now."