Remembering Afghanistan

The hype surrounding the 9/11 Commission and Richard Clarke’s testimony is mostly superficial and overly partisan. Americans argue whether George W. Bush or Bill Clinton was the stronger president against terrorism, when in fact neither did anything to stop al...

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Revering the Big Men

Many Chinese revere Hitler. This may seem unfathomably irrational to Europeans, especially when coupled with the intense dislike most Chinese have for all things Japanese, but it fits in with the Revere the Big Man Effect that dominates vast aspects of Chinese...

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Thought Control for Middle East Studies

A band of neoconservative pundits with close ties to Israel have mounted a campaign against American scholars who study the Middle East. Martin Kramer, an Israeli-American and former director of the Dayan Center for Middle East Studies at Tel-Aviv University, has led...

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Fallujah Deflates Washington’s Optimism

April Fools' Day is traditionally one of good-natured mischief, but not this year. Indeed, U.S. President George W. Bush's trademark smirk, which normally fits the day's spirit almost to a T, was nowhere to be seen Thursday. The reason was clear enough: Iraq suddenly,...

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Missing the Point on the New Terror

I can't deny that it has been fun to see all the Bushies pushed on the defensive or jolted into attack mode so dramatically that you can't help but discern just how insecure and vulnerable they are – as are most people who are at least dimly aware that they have...

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Lessons of Fallujah

In a scene that conjures memories of Mogadishu, Somalia, where Americans were murdered and dragged through the streets, the grisly killing of 4 American private security guards in Fallujah has reverberated throughout the Western media, giving rise to two reactions:...

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Rummy’s Rules for War

WASHINGTON – Just before Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld testified before the 9-11 Commission last week, reporters were handed his prepared statement. Unlike statements by other witnesses during the hearings, his came with an attachment – a stack of papers...

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Long Live NATO

The cold war is long over, but with the support of U.S. supremacists in both parties NATO lives on as America's global cop. Seven more nations are joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and three more Central European nations have their applications...

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With Friends Like Uzbekistan…

This week's outburst of apparently Islamist-related violence, which has killed more than 40 people in two major cities in Uzbekistan in the past three days, could spur renewed attention to the strategically located Central Asian country's deplorable human rights...

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