How Not to Ban Torture in Congress

Alfred McCoy, an expert on the CIA and its history of torture, has some actual news – the sort that's been sitting unnoticed right in front of our collective, reportorial eyes. Last year's clash between John McCain and the Bush administration over the senator's...

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Democracy Not an Export Item

In a new film, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, comedian Albert Brooks is dispatched to South Asia by humorless Bush administration officials to look for, well, comedy in the Muslim world. Trying to cope with the depressing reality of a post-Sept. 11 world in...

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The Adulation of Ignorance

After three years of war in Iraq, reporting and debate continue to ignore the key fact: The U.S. invasion was a mistake. President Bush himself acknowledges this. He says the war was based on intelligence and the intelligence was wrong. So, then, what is right about...

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The Long War

Every four years, the Pentagon releases its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), more accurately the Quadrennial Defense Rubberstamp. Usually, it offers the same, more of the same or less of the same. That is true of this QDR as well, with one interesting exception....

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Rotten in Denmark

The publication of 12 cartoons in Jyllands-Posten, a Danish right-wing newspaper, that caricatured the prophet Muhammad was clearly a provocation – and it has had its intended effect. The editor responsible claims the genesis of the cartoons was the alleged...

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How Conservatives Went Crazy

What happened to a formerly conservative press to reduce it to political partisanship and warmongering? Specifically, I have in mind National Review and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. When I was associated with National Review, the magazine understood that...

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Who’s the Bigger Hawk, George or Hillary?

There aren't many elected officials in Washington who want to throw the gauntlet down on Iran more than Hillary Clinton. The New York senator believes the president has been too soft on the militant Islamic country, claiming that Bush has played down the threat of a...

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Juggernaut Gathering Momentum: Next Stop, Iran

What President George W. Bush, Fox News, and the Washington Times were saying about Iraq three years ago they are now saying about Iran. After Saturday's vote by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report Iran's suspicious nuclear activities to the UN...

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