On the Mideast Escalator

While the president's announcement that an additional 20,000 troops would be sent to Iraq dominated the headlines last week, the real story was the president's sharp rhetoric toward Iran and Syria. And recent moves by the administration only serve to confirm the...

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It’s All About Iran

As American troops storm what is, or was, an Iranian consulate – at least that's what the Iraqi government calls it, in spite of American denials – and the president accuses Tehran of arming and aiding Iraqi insurgents, the answer to the question "Why...

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How It All Began

The U.S., after training and egging on the Ethiopians to intervene in the Somali civil war, is now bombing and strafing Somalis. The government "suspects" they might be al-Qaeda. That is a load of horse apples. You can't identify people, much less their politics, from...

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Less Than Zero

On the surface, President Bush's Wednesday night speech adds up to precisely nothing. The president said, "It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq," but the heart of his proposal, adding more than 20,000 U.S. troops, represents no change in strategy....

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Ratcheting up the Nuclear Ante

NEW DELHI – The stunning story by the London Sunday Times alleging that Israel has drawn up plans to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities with nuclear weapons has focused attention on the growing global nuclear danger and on the worsening situation in the Middle...

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A Cure For Yellow Ribbon Patriotism

A man I once knew survived his tour of duty in Vietnam. In the privacy of a rented house trailer he drank alone until he finally had the "courage" to kill himself. I don't know if he saw combat. He never said. I only assumed he had because when he spoke, what he said...

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Bush’s Iraq Plan – Goading Iran Into War

WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush's address on Iraq Wednesday night was less about Iraq than about its eastern neighbor, Iran. There was little new about the U.S.'s strategy in Iraq, but on Iran, the president spelled out a plan that appears to be aimed at...

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