The Anniversary From Hell

Four years ago, the United States invaded Iraq. It's the anniversary few want to remember; and yet, for all the disillusionment in this country, getting out of Iraq doesn't exactly seem to be on the agenda either. Not really. Here's a little tip, when you want to...

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Iraq as a Cauldron of State Terrorism

When it comes to surging in Iraq, it's "encouraging" out there. So the president tells us ("Yet even at this early hour, there are some encouraging signs…"); so Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, the surge commander in Baghdad, tells us ("[It's] too early to discern...

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Guantánamo Is Not a Prison

Once upon a time, our offshore prison at Guantánamo was the sort of place where even an American National Guardsman, only pretending to be a recalcitrant prisoner "extracted" from a cell for training purposes, could be beaten almost senseless. This actually...

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Will Iraq Become the Democrats’ War?

Nothing reminds us more of how much the American constitutional system has been transformed, of just how extreme the "imperial presidency" has become, than Congress' generally woeful record in the second half of the last century and in the first years of this one to...

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Will We Suffer from the Iraq Syndrome?

In recent days, we've have two reports on timing, when it comes to the future of the president's "surge" plan for Baghdad. According to Richard A. Oppel of the New York Times, "The plan, which calls for 17,000 additional troops in Baghdad, will continue until at least...

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Talking Points for the Next War

At 10:16 p.m. on March 19, 2003, after copious military preparations in the Persian Gulf region and beyond, after months of diplomatic maneuvers at the United Nations, after a drumbeat of leaked intelligence warnings and hair-raising statements by top U.S. officials...

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Surging Into
Catastrophe in Iraq

U.S. casualties, which are at a post-invasion high: According to an Associated Press analysis, more American troops were "killed in combat in Iraq over the past four months – at least 334 through Jan. 31 – than in any comparable stretch since the war began";...

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