Relax, Mitt: Guantánamo’s Not Closing

As the presidential election season heats up, Republican candidates have opted for "Guantánamo-forever" policy positions. Retiring Republican Senator Chuck Hagel recently complained that the notorious detention facility – once the proud public face of the...

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Greenspan’s Oil Claim in Context

Before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, discussion of Iraqi oil was largely taboo in the American mainstream, while the "No Blood for Oil" signs that dotted antiwar demonstrations were generally derisively dismissed as too simpleminded for serious debate. American...

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Freedom as Theft

Let's take a trip down memory lane. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is America's highest civilian award, ranking second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor. According to its official Web site, the medal "is reserved for individuals the president deems to have...

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Glued to Our Seats in the Theater of War

Has anyone noticed that our commander-in-chief no longer plays dress up? He hasn't done so for a while and that's no small thing. It's a phenomenon that came and went almost without comment in the media. I don't remember the first time I noticed that George W. Bush...

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The Iranian Conundrum

Be careful what you wish for – that might be the catch phrase for American relations with Iran since the CIA helped overthrow the elected government of that country in 1953 and installed the young shah in power. Much of our present world – and many of our...

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American Exceptionalism Meets Team Jesus

[Note to TomDispatch readers: After a long break, this is the 13th in a series of interviews at the site. The previous 12 were collected in the book Mission Unaccomplished: TomDispatch Interviews with American Iconoclasts and Dissenters.] He's a man who knows...

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Imperial Autism

The former Cockney flower-girl-turned-elegant- English-speaker Eliza Doolittle caught something of our moment in these lyrics from My Fair Lady: "Oh, words, words, words, I'm so sick of words…. Is that all you blighters can do?" Of course, all she had to do was...

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Launching Brand Petraeus

[Note for Readers: This is the third in TomDispatch's "by the numbers" series, leading up to this week's White House "Progress Report" from the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker. The first, in July, was "Iraq by...

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Soft Crimes Against Democracy

We live with an administration whose concept of domestic "freedom" went out with those "freedom fries," briefly sold at the cafeterias of the House of Representatives. The Bush team has quite literally been a force for darkness. For those who remember the "memory...

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