Making an Example of
Ehren Watada

The people running the Iraq war are eager to make an example of Ehren Watada. They've convened a kangaroo court-martial. But the man on trial is setting a profound example of conscience – helping to undermine the war that the Pentagon's top officials are so eager...

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The Pentagon vs.
Press Freedom

We often hear that the Pentagon exists to defend our freedoms. But the Pentagon is moving against press freedom. Not long ago, journalist Sarah Olson received a subpoena to testify next month in the court-martial of U.S. Army Lt. Ehren Watada, who now faces...

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The Headless Horseman of the Apocalypse

President Bush may be a headless horseman. But the biggest problem is what he rode in on. Martin Luther King Jr. had a good name for it 40 years ago. "The madness of militarism." We can blame Bush all we want – and he does hold the reins right now...

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Powell, Baker, Hamilton – Thanks for Nothing

When Colin Powell endorsed the Iraq Study Group report during his Dec. 17 appearance on Face the Nation, it was another curtain call for a tragic farce. Four years ago, "moderates" like Powell were making the invasion of Iraq possible. Now, in the guise of...

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Is the USA the Center
of the World?

(Author's note: Some things don't seem to change. Five years after I wrote this column in the form of a news dispatch, it seems more relevant than ever.) WASHINGTON – There were unconfirmed reports yesterday that the United States is not the center of the world....

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It’s Happening Again

The lead-up to the invasion of Iraq has become notorious in the annals of American journalism. Even many reporters, editors, and commentators who fueled the drive to war in 2002 and early 2003 now acknowledge that major media routinely tossed real journalism out the...

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The New Media Offensive Against Withdrawal

The American media establishment has launched a major offensive against the option of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. In the latest media assault, right-wing outfits like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page are secondary. The heaviest firepower is...

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Saddam’s Unindicted Co-Conspirator

Saddam Hussein has received a death sentence for crimes he committed more than a year before Donald Rumsfeld shook his hand in Baghdad. Let's reach back into history and extract these facts: On Dec. 20, 1983, the Washington Post reported that Rumsfeld "visited...

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The Pundit Path for Death in Iraq

No one knows exactly how many Iraqi civilians have died from the war's violence since the invasion of their country. The new study from public health researchers at Johns Hopkins University estimates that the number of those deaths is around 601,000, while saying the...

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Welcome to the Nuclear Club

Moments after hearing about North Korea's nuclear test, I thought of Albert Einstein's statement that "there is no secret and there is no defense; there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the...

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