Romney’s Pretty Little War Speech

Romney is fond of invoking Ronald Reagan and Harry Truman — and now George Marshall — as though their 20th century foreign policy legacies could lend his own cobbled-together worldview some indomitable burnish. But he seems loath to even utter the name of the American...

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Shadow Fighting Erupts Over Gadhafi

CAIRO — Civilians in the town of Bani Walid, 170 km southeast of Tripoli, are facing a humanitarian crisis as Libyan security forces lay siege to the stronghold of Moammar Gadhafi supporters, cutting off water, food, and medical supplies. Local doctors told Amnesty...

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Is a Nuclear Deal With Iran Possible?

In diplomacy, always leave your adversary an honorable avenue of retreat. Fifty years ago this October, to resolve a Cuban missile crisis that had brought us to the brink of nuclear war, JFK did that. He conveyed to Nikita Khrushchev, secretly, that if the Soviet...

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Of Bombs and Comics

My first reaction to Benjamin Netanyahu’s exhibition of comics at the U.N. General Assembly was shame. Shame that the supreme elected representative of my country would stoop to such a primitive rhetorical device, bordering on the childish. (One Israeli commentator...

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Support Our Troops — Bring Them All Home Now

Samuel Johnson said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." H.L. Mencken expanded that definition when he said, "Patriotism, in truth, is the great nursery of scoundrels.… Its chief glories are the demagogue, the military bully, and the spreaders of libels...

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Why Target Iran?

On the front page of a prominent newspaper the news is grim: a Middle Eastern country run by a ruthless dictatorial regime has been secretly developing “weapons of mass destruction.” While in public they deny it, in their underground labs their scientists are busy,...

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Eleven More Executed in Iraq

Iraq conducted a mass execution in which eleven people were put to death. Ten of the individuals were Iraqi, but the last one was from Algeria. Another Iraqi was killed in an attack south of Baghdad. At least eight people were also wounded.
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Coming of Age in a Guantanamo Jumpsuit

Plenty of monikers have been attached to Omar Khadr, one of the most famous Guantanamo Bay detainees – child soldier, terrorist, war criminal, Al-Qaeda family member, security threat. One thing is certain: Khadr’s release last weekend to Canadian custody after...

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