The Lovable Man?

In its original German form – Liebermann – the name means "lovable man." It is hard to imagine a name less appropriate for the new deputy prime minister of Israel. He is not lovable, neither in his personality nor in his views – and that is the...

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When Sterling Bowed
to the Dollar

As writers note, the Suez Canal crisis 50 years ago marked the last hurrah of the British Empire. Significantly, it also spelled the demise of the pound sterling. When it broke away from the gold standard in 1931, the pound was the reserve currency throughout half the...

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Prison Planet

The evil nature of our enemies has, it turns out, certain advantages – at least when secret imprisonment and torture are at stake. The Bush administration has proved adamantly unwilling to talk to, or deal with, the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,...

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The Neocons, Undaunted

You have to give the neoconservatives credit for tenacity. Any other political or ideological group saddled with their record would crawl off into the shadows to expire without fanfare. Not the neocons. Vampire-like, they rise from the crypt of Bush's "global...

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Terror, Torture Fine for Some

President George W. Bush has promoted himself as single-mindedly tough on terrorists and those who protect them. "We make no distinction between those who committed these acts and those who harbor them," he told the nation on Sept. 11, 2001. But while Arab suspects...

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The Neocons’ Nadir?

Less than a week from midterm elections that are expected to bring at least one house of Congress under Democratic control, neoconservatives, whose foreign policy ideas dominated most of the first half of the administration of U.S. George W. Bush, are having a hard...

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Who’s Afraid of
an Iranian Bomb?

At the height of the epic Battle of Britain in 1940, when British airmen were killed at an appalling rate ("never was so much owed by so many to so few"), an official in charge of propaganda had a bright idea to raise morale. On the walls at the Royal Air Force bases...

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Snake Oil and the
Midterm Elections

So we are in the trenches of another election season, and if you peer closely you can see the explosions on the horizon. I've yet to be convinced the Democrats have the capacity to take back Congress, and to tell you the truth I don't really care if they do. Not only...

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Move Over, GI Joe and
Han Solo

It's hard even to remember anymore the true state of the U.S. military as the Vietnam War ground toward its bloody end. By the late 1960s, the statistics flowing back to Washington about the American war machine were enough to give any general nightmares. Drug-taking...

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