The Torturer’s Apprentice

Addressing the use of torture Wednesday, President George W. Bush played to the baser instincts of Americans as he strained to turn his violation of national and international law into Exhibit A on how "tough" he is on terrorists. His tour de force brought...

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Poll Finds Waning Faith in Intervention

Five years after 9/11, the U.S. public is considerably less enthusiastic about projecting military power abroad, according to a major new survey, the first of a spate of polls that are likely to released in the run-up to Monday's fifth anniversary of the attacks on...

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How Human Rights Watch Lost Its Way in Lebanon

The measure of a human rights organization is to be found not just in the strides it takes to seek justice for the oppressed and victimized but also in the compromises it makes to keep itself out of trouble. Because of the business that human rights defenders are in,...

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EU and Iran Find Their Roles Reversed

Scheduled talks between Javier Solana, high representative for the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy, and Iran's National Security Adviser Ali Larijani were postponed Wednesday over disagreements on the nature of the exchange – would the parties...

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The GOP, RIP

For a good 75 years, the Republican Party has been the party of conservatism, the anointed vehicle for the hopes and dreams of those who believe in limited government and seek to preserve the legacy of the Founding Fathers. No more. It hasn't been true for quite a...

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War on Terror Leaves
World in Turmoil

Five years after U.S. President George W. Bush launched his "global war on terrorism" (GWOT), the world has become more unsafe, more divided, more strife-prone, more paranoid, and ironically, more vulnerable to terrorism. The Middle East, the globe's most volatile...

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The Korean Imbroglio: Disengage and Ignore

You have to wonder what America has done to deserve to be stuck in Korea. What curse are we suffering under? On the one side are the South Koreans, whom we have defended for five decades. Large numbers think more highly of China and North Korea than of America; many...

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Bush Yields to Geneva Conventions on Detainees

In a major victory for the State Department and career military lawyers, the Pentagon Wednesday released a new Army field manual that requires all detainees held by the U.S. military, including suspected terrorists, to be treated according to the Geneva Conventions....

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Backtalk Sept 7 2006

Cooking Intelligence Again In his article dated Aug. 29, 2006, Gordon Prather states that the "International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors had been allowed back into Iraq (in 2000, 2001, and 2002) to inspect all the remaining nuclear-related sites in Iraq –...

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What Is Victory?

President Bush says we must achieve victory in Iraq. What is "victory?" The dictionary defines it as defeating an enemy or an opponent. Under this definition, the problem becomes simply knowing what it means to defeat the enemy. Consider history. We were...

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