Napoleon in the White House

The standard right-wing myth when it comes to Vietnam is that "the politicians" sold out the military and lost a war that could have been won. Civilian interference with the strategy and tactics employed by military professionals led to U.S withdrawal from Vietnam,...

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Broken Army, Broken Empire

The insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan have thus far cost fewer U.S. lives than the Filipino insurgency of 1899-1902. Yet Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker warned Congress last week the U.S. Army "will break" without more troops. We started this war...

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Holy Warriors Set Sights
on Iran

Over the past 20 years, the U.S. Christian right has evolved into one of the most powerful grassroots organizing forces within the Republican Party, and a host of Christian Zionists have taken a well-earned seat at the foreign policy table. At the same time, their...

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Good Evening, Vietnam

Although Vietnam flooded instantly back into American consciousness as the invasion of Iraq was launched in March 2003 – along with its ancient vocabulary from "hearts and minds" to "quagmire" (or the deeply referential "Q-word") – for the Bush...

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End of the Strongmen

The era of the Middle East strongman, propped up by and enforcing Western policy, appears well and truly over. His power is being replaced with rule by civil war, apparently now the American administration's favored model across the region. Fratricidal fighting is...

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Another Year,
Another Iraq Plan

At this time last year, the Pentagon was hinting that troop levels in Iraq would be reduced. Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that two combat brigades scheduled for combat tours would not be deployed to Iraq. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of...

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Top 10 Things Not to Do in Iraq

Ever since the Iraq Study Group (ISG) issued its recommendations, the debate in Washington has swirled around what to do about the mess in Iraq. Unfortunately, both the recommendations of the study group and the contradictory inclinations of the Bush administration...

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Person of the Year: Ahmadinejad

Since 1927, the year Lindbergh flew the Atlantic in his single-engine Spirit of St. Louis, Time has devoted its final cover of the year to the Man of the Year. The Lone Eagle was first. In the 1930s and 1940s, FDR was the Man of the Year three times. Stalin, Truman,...

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