An Ally I Can Do Without

If you need any more proof of how badly the occupation in Iraq is going, look no further than a couple of recent articles in those hotbeds of Bush-bashing, the Weekly Standard and the American Spectator. Neocon Pollyanna Fred Barnes, writing in the former last week,...

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Their ‘Battle Stations’ Were No Defense

When terrorists plan to strike America, should they call in advance and make reservations? If not - if they aren't specific about time and place - should President George W. Bush and the rest of the federal government be held blameless for failing to stop them? That's...

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Americans Slaughtering Civilians in Fallujah

I knew there was very little media coverage in Falluja, and the entire city had been sealed and was suffering from collective punishment in the form of no water or electricity for several days now. With only two journalists there that I'd read and heard reports from,...

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Vengeance, Time, and US Idiocy

Here's a story from Arabic folklore. A man returned to his village after an absence of several days. He met his best friend, and they sat down to drink tea. "Do you remember the man who offended me 25 years ago?" the man asked his friend. "Sure." "Well, I killed him...

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Dark Suspicions About 9/11

Condoleezza Rice's much-anticipated testimony before the 9/11 Commission was widely touted as having deflected the critique proffered by former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke – that the Bushies were too fixated on Iraq to pay much attention to Al Qaeda. A...

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The Price of Stability

The Guangzhou Daily is the flagship of China’s newspaper industry. Launched just after Liberation by the Guangzhou Party Committee, the Daily spent 40 years as a Party organ, toeing the Party line, bringing the CPC’s views to the people. The Daily was the...

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One, Two, Many Messes

While the United States does not look quite yet like the "pitiful, helpless giant" that tortured Richard Nixon's imagination during the Vietnam War, the past week's events seem to have moved it very much in that direction. The week, which was supposed to...

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Illusion of the Profound in Political Strategy

MOSCOW – A year ago, U.S.-led coalition forces toppled the statute of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. The past two years have seen a remarkable shift in U.S. foreign policy. Parallel to this shift is Russia's changing foreign policy under President Vladimir Putin. It...

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