McChrystal’s Challenge

All Washington is atwitter over a Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal in which the thuggish commander of US forces in Afghanistan and his snarky juvenile-sounding aides (who call themselves “Team America”) deride Vice President Joe Biden – “Joe Bite Me” –...

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Canadian Rendition Probe Expands to US, Syria

The Canadian government has quietly been conducting an international criminal probe of the actions of Syrian and U.S. authorities in the case of Maher Arar, the Canadian who was arrested in 2002 by U.S. officials and then rendered to a Syrian jail where he was held...

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Tuesday: 1 US Soldier, 14 Iraqis Killed; 42 Iraqis Wounded

Updated at 11:43 p.m. EDT, June 22, 2010 At least 14 Iraqis were killed and 42 more were wounded in the latest attacks. A U.S. soldier also died in a non-combat incident. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is considering accepting the resignation of his electricity minister, but he also praised his designee Karim Waleed and said Iraqis should expect more years of disrupted power service even if Waleed resigns.
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Downplaying the Mess of War

"Honor those Who lives did give; But now who pays For those that live?" The best part of America's wars is that, except for limited attacks during WWII, all our conflicts have been fought on somebody else's soil since the battle of Appomattox. This represents good and...

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Obama Is No Superman

As the ecology in the Gulf circles the sticky tar drain of evolution, and countless livelihoods spanning at least four states going down with it, Americans are wondering where their Superman is. The disappointment that President Barack Obama seems stuck in the phone...

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Heard Any Good War Jokes Lately?

The pratfall Dave Petraeus took face-first into his microphone during his farcical testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee last Tuesday channeled the Twix candy bar commercial that asks: “Need a moment?” As the New York Times put it, the Teflon General was...

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Monday: 1 Iraqi Killed, 39 Wounded

Updated at 7:50 p.m. EDT, June 21, 2010 At least one Iraqi was killed and 39 more were wounded in the latest violence. Rioting over power cuts spread to Nasariya were residents attacked police guarding the province’s government compound. Electricity Minister Karim Waheed was forced to resign. Also, Turkish troops are amassing at the border during operations against the PKK.
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Kill the ‘Kill Switch’

Who else but Joe Lieberman would introduce a bill to give the President the power to shut down the Internet with the flick of a switch? I'm afraid of the answer to that question, and you should be, too. However, it's hardly surprising America's premier authoritarian...

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