Will Obama End Pay-to-Play
in Mideast Policy?

The incoming Obama administration is scrambling to distance itself from the scandal emanating from the president-elect's home state. It is still too early to tell how much Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's alleged attempt to sell the president-elect's Senate seat in...

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Israel’s ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ Card

The powerful Israel Lobby, with its support of the Iraq war and its insistence that Iran be denuclearized, by force if necessary, is a major constituent of the War Party in the United States. Some Americans who wish to remake the Middle East also believe that...

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Monday: 24 Iraqis Killed, 36 Wounded

Updated at 6:31 p.m. EST, Dec. 15, 2008At least 24 Iraqis were killed and 36 more were wounded in the latest violence. No Coalition deaths were reported. Meanwhile, an Iraqi journalist has become a hero to many Iraqis a day after throwing his shoes at U.S. President...

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The Crisis-Mongers

Did you, too, get that frisson of déjà vu when you first heard about the bank bailout and its rationale? If you don't hand over untold trillions of dollars in the next five minutes, the economy is going to explode. This was how the PATRIOT Act got rammed...

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From the Top,
as We Suspected

Of course it would hardly do to consider a report [.pdf] from a congressional committee the last possible word on a past event or series of events. What makes a report this week from the Senate Armed Services Committee last Thursday of special interest is that it was...

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Sunday: 1 Iraqi Killed, 19 Wounded

Updated at 9:15 p.m. EST, Dec. 14, 2008U.S. President Bush made a secret to Baghdad, where he met with Prime Minister Maliki and President Talabani to sign the new security agreement between the two countries. Meanwhile, the Iraqi Defense Ministry said that the...

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Saturday: 7 Iraqis Killed, 9 Wounded

At least seven Iraqis were killed and nine were wounded in the latest round of violence. No Coalition deaths were reported, but U.S. Secretary Gates is in Iraq to facilitate the change in direction that a security agreement will mean for U.S. troops. U.S. Defense...

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Nuke Umbrellas

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, someone "close" to President-elect Obama told them that the Obama-Biden-Hillary administration intends to offer Israel a "nuclear umbrella." Now, you know what an ordinary umbrella is. And if you can find...

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