Expensive Favor

One question Americans should be asking the Bush administration is why it wishes to do such an expensive favor for the Iraqi people. I cannot think of any instance in which the federal government has been willing to spend $1 billion a week and 1,700 lives just to...

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A Thirty Years War?

Back in September 2002 James Webb, assistant secretary of defense and secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration, raised a specter that has come back to haunt us. "The issue before us," he wrote in the Washington Post, "is not simply whether the United States...

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ElBaradei Wins

Despite intense effort by John Bolton and the neocrazies to get rid of him, Mohamed ElBaradei has just been elected to a third term as Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency. A principal function of the IAEA – established in 1957 – is "To...

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US Image Abroad Still Sinking

Two years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Washington's image in Europe, Canada and much of the Islamic world remains broadly negative, according to the latest in a series of surveys of public opinion in 16 countries sponsored by the Pew Global Attitudes Project...

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You Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Trial!

Could the President of the United States ever argue that he has the power and the right – and even the duty – to take any American citizens into custody he chooses, throw them into prison forever, torture them at will, and never even charge them with a...

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Where You Stand Determines What You See

"Where you stand determines what you see, and how you live." That's how Voices in the Wilderness members began our statement explaining why we'd decided to stay in Baghdad during the 2003 Shock and Awe bombing of Iraq. During the long war of the economic...

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Behind the Congressional Gitmo Debate

After last week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the legal status of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the chair of the Committee, Senator Arlen Specter (R-Penn.), says he plans to bring new legislation that would create a detention commission to allow detainees to...

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Censoring the Carnage

At long last, the culminating session of the World Tribunal on Iraq is upon us. As a witness providing testimony, I'm being interviewed by many outlets. Today, one of them was by reporters for one of the larger newspapers in Turkey, Yeni Safak. I'll leave the...

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Smoking Gun Misfiring?

I can certainly sympathize with Michigan Democrat Rep. John Conyers and various of his sympathizers, who sponsored a forum last week in the House to discuss the notorious Downing Street memo and to promote the idea that Congress should conduct an official inquiry into...

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