Lessons Learned – or Not

On March 5, 1970, the United States became a party to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which declared, in Article IV, that "Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also cooperate in contributing alone or together with other States or...

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How Not to Win Friends and Influence People

The United States sells death, destruction, and terror as a fundamental instrument of its foreign policy. It sees arms sales as a way of making and keeping strategic friends and tying countries more directly to U.S. military planning and operations. At its simplest,...

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Why So Many Mercenaries in Iraq?

Just now it's Blackwater USA that's in the spotlight due to the shooting that left 17 Iraqis dead on September 16, and a history of being more aggressive than most in their duties of guarding U.S. diplomats and other various hangers-on. The Iraqi government, in a...

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White House Hopes to Avert Major Rift With Turkey

A resolution recognizing as "genocide" the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in the former Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago has gained the sponsorship of a majority of members in the US House of Representatives. But it has also drawn heavy criticism from...

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Five Years Later, We Can’t Forgive or Forget

This week marks the fifth anniversary of the congressional vote granting President George W. Bush unprecedented war-making authority to invade Iraq at the time and circumstances of his own choosing. Had a majority of either the Republican-controlled House or the...

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The Korean Failure as a Model for Iraq

Amidst the smoking ruin of the Bush administration's Iraq policy comes yet another vision of the future: Iraq like Korea. A half century hence American forces will remain on patrol along the Euphrates. It's a profoundly stupid idea, but then, no other...

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The Huckabee Horror

The most recent GOP presidential debate, held in Dearborn, Michigan, this time, was mostly a very dull affair. Hardly any of the usual entertaining histrionics: even the naturally theatrical Rudy seemed unusually subdued. As the soft buzz of the television blended in...

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US Asked to Curb Military Excesses in Iraq

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations has asked the United States to help prevent military excesses by multinational troops and private security firms accused of using indiscriminate force against civilians in Iraq. "The US government should take steps to ensure...

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