NewsTrust - War in Iraq - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

End O'Potamia

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Oct. 25 (Comedy News) - Republicans have different reasons for disliking Barack Obama's radical decision to do the thing George Bush signed an agreement to do.

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The Unwisdom of Elites

Mon, 09 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - May. 09 (Opinion) - The past three years have been a disaster for most Western economies. The United States has mass long-term unemployment for the first time since the 1930s. Meanwhile, Europe’s single currency is coming apart at the seams. How did it all go so wrong?

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Shock Doctrine, U.S.A.

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Feb. 25 (Opinion) - Madison, Wis., is looking a lot like Baghdad in 2003, with government officials exploiting fiscal crises for fun and profit.

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Afghan girls' education backsliding as donors shift focus to withdrawal

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Annie Kelly - Feb. 24 - Report by 16 NGOs says Afghanistan's progress in education threatened by poverty, insecurity and a lack of investment A new report is warning that hard-won progress in girls' education in Afghanistan, heralded as one of few success stories of the last nine years, is increasingly under threat as international interest in reconstruction efforts ebbs away. The High Stakes report, released on Thursday by 16 aid agencies including Oxfam and Care International, says that the hard-won and expensive gains in girls' education are at risk of being destroyed as the international community turns away from development to focus on national security agendas and the timetable for troop withdrawal. Education has long been held up as a shining example of reconstruction in Afghanistan. Donors have ploughed approximately $1.9bn into rebuilding the Afghan education system since 2001. The Back to School campaign , launched in 2002 as a joint Afghan government/UN Initiative, was labelled an "inspiration" ...

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Ike was right all along: The danger of the military-industrial complex

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Rupert Cornwell - Jan. 17 (Opinion) - If you doubt, half a century on, that Dwight Eisenhower had it right, then consider the advertisements on WTOP, the Washington region's all-news radio station. Every big metro area in the US has one, where car dealerships tout their bargains, and fast food chains promote a new special offer.

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Was Obama Ungracious to Bush Last Night? Or Too Gracious?

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Magazine - By Dan Amira - Sep. 01 (Comment) - Going into last night's Oval Office address on the end of the combat in Iraq, one of the big questions was how much credit President Obama would give to former President Bush for the surge that made withdrawal from a reasonably stable Iraq even possible. Obviously, Obama was a big opponent of the surge. Would he be admitting that he was wrong by thanking Bush for his tough decision? Does it even make any sense to thank Bush for fixing a disaster he helped to create in the first place? (Where is Bush, by the way? Is he hibernating to save up energy for his impending book-publicity marathon?) Ultimately, here's how Obama tackled the issue.

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The Obama Speech

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Joe Klein - Aug. 31 (Opinion) - "...this speech was a necessary ceremony of the presidency, if a thankless one. The commentators will say the President didn't transcend. His critics will say that he refused to acknowledge the "success" of the surge. But he also refused to indulge in relitigating the stupidity that launched the war."

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Gen. David Petraeus bails out Obama

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Policy - By Tom Ricks - Jun. 24 (Opinion) - My second big concern is what happens to Iraq now. As readers of this blog know, I am very worried about trends there. If Iraq begins to fall apart, and Petraeus is busy in Kabul, who is going to step on? At the very least, they should consider extending General Odierno's time there.

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They Fled from Our War

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Alisa Roth, Hugh Eakin - Apr. 27 (Review) - what was once a middle-class society without democracy may for some time to come be a democracy without a middle class

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Europe’s honeymoon with Obama is over

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Boston Globe - Apr. 06 (Opinion) - Europe’s honeymoon with Obama is over

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CIA drone attacks produce America's own unlawful combatants

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Gary Solis - Mar. 12 (Opinion) - In our current armed conflicts, there are two U.S. drone offensives. One is conducted by our armed forces, the other by the CIA. Every day, CIA agents and CIA contractors arm and pilot armed unmanned drones over combat zones in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including Pakistani tribal areas, to search out and kill Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. In terms of international armed conflict, those CIA agents are, unlike their military counterparts but like the fighters they target, unlawful combatants. No less than their insurgent targets, they are fighters without uniforms or insignia, directly participating in hostilities, employing armed force contrary to the laws and customs of war. Even if they are sitting in Langley, the CIA pilots are civilians violating the requirement of distinction, a core concept of armed conflict, as they directly participate in hostilities.

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Another Step Forward for Iraq

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By Fouad Ajami - Mar. 03 (Opinion) - A democratic country is emerging that answers neither to Sunni Arab states nor Iranians.

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Fiscal Scare Tactics

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Feb. 04 (Opinion) - Fear-mongering on the deficit as part of the Republican political strategy could end up doing as much harm as the fear-mongering on weapons of mass destruction.

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Obama's Big Sellout

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Dec. 12 (Opinion) - Elected in the midst of a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation and unchecked greed, Obama had a clear mandate to rein in Wall Street and remake the entire structure of the American economy. What he did instead was ship even his most marginally progressive campaign advisers off to various bureaucratic Siberias, while packing the key economic positions in his White House with the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. This new team of bubble-fattened ex-bankers and laissez-faire intellectuals then proceeded to sell us all out, instituting a massive, trickle-up bailout and systematically gutting regulatory reform from the inside.

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New world disorder: The age of uncertainty

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Rupert Cornwall - Dec. 07 (Opinion) - When the century opened, America, whether one liked it or not, was in charge. Now, no one is. Not long ago, a President in Washington talked of a 'new world order'. Today, there seems less order than ever, merely an array of jostling states and collections of states, whose interests on occasion coincide, but more often do not.

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How many Muslims has the U.S. killed in the past 30 years?

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Foreign Policy - By Stephen M. Walt - Nov. 30 (Opinion) - Vvirtually all of the Muslim deaths were the direct or indirect consequence of official U.S. government policy. By contrast, most of the Americans killed by Muslims were the victims of non-state terrorist groups such as al Qaeda or the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Americans should also bear in mind that the figures reported above omit the Arabs and Muslims killed by Israel in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. Given our generous and unconditional support for Israel's policy towards the Arab world in general and the Palestinians in particular, Muslims rightly hold us partly responsible for those victims too.

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Afghanistan Using Persuasion and Jobs to Disarm Taliban

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Dexter Filkins - Nov. 28 - The U.S. is underwriting a program that not only seeks to disarm Taliban but also enlist tribal leaders’ support by having them involved in the choice of development projects for where the jobs are offered.

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Whaddaya Mean Obama Hasn't Done Anything?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Esquire - By John H. Richardson - Nov. 03 (Comment) - A blow-by-blow breakdown of the young president's first year reveals that today's frustration stems not from a lack of policy so much as a lack of common ground. Therein lies the myth of the American center.

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Iraq on the Edge

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Joost R. Hiltermann - Oct. 29 (Opinion) - For the occasional visitor such as myself, various methods exist to measure America's standing in Iraq, Iraqi suspicions and aspirations, and progress in the transfer of power, but none prove as illuminating as the checkpoints into and throughout Baghdad's Green Zone, that diminishing symbol of the Bush administration's ambitions.

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As the Commander in Chief Deliberates, Frustration Builds Within the Ranks

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Elisabeth Bumiller - Oct. 20 - Active and retired military officers say there is concern that President Obama is moving too slowly on deciding on troop levels for Afghanistan.

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Why They’re Mad

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Howard Kurtz - Sep. 22 (Opinion) - Maybe journalists have been asking the wrong question. In probing why a chunk of the country seems so ticked off at Barack Obama, we've explored possible motivations ranging from racism to programmatic concern about the public option. We have examined whether Obama is trying to do too much and whether he's on TV too much. But perhaps the sense of anger and unease is more deep-rooted than that, and not limited to Glenn Beck conservatives.

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Fear was no excuse to condone torture

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Miami Herald - By Charles C. Krulak, Joseph P. Hoar - Sep. 15 (Opinion) - In the fear that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Americans were told that defeating Al Qaeda would require us to ``take off the gloves.'' As a former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps and a retired commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command, we knew that was a recipe for disaster. But we never imagined that we would feel duty-bound to publicly denounce a vice president of the United States, a man who has served our country for many years. In light of the irresponsible statements recently made by former Vice President Dick Cheney, however, we feel we must repudiate his dangerous ideas -- and his scare tactics.

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Will we really be out of Iraq by the end of 2011?

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Fred Kaplan - Aug. 01 (Opinion) - Even as the official focus shifts to the war in Afghanistan, a debate has erupted over the endgame in Iraq. It is universally seen as an endgame; we are getting out. The issue is how quickly, how completely, and, if some troops are left behind, what they should and should not do.

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One Newspaper, Many Checkbooks

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Clark Hoyt - Jul. 19 (Opinion) - Lindsey Hoshan, a freelance journalist in Palo Alto, Calif., hopes to sell a multimedia slide show and maybe an article to The Times about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a mass of floating plastic trash caught in swirling currents in a stretch of ocean twice the size of Texas. But first, she has to get there. To help finance a $10,000 reporting trip aboard a research vessel, Hoshaw has turned to Spot.Us, a Web site where reporters appeal for donations to pay for their projects. If she can raise $6,000 before the September departure date — so far, only about $1,600 has come in — she will take out a loan for the rest, she said. The Times has told Hoshaw that it might pay about $700 for the pictures, more if it also buys a story.

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What will happen when U.S. combat troops withdraw from Iraq?

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Fred Kaplan - Jun. 27 (Opinion) - So, is all hell about to break loose in Iraq? By June 30, all U.S. combat troops are scheduled—in fact, they're required—to be withdrawn from all of Iraq's cities, towns, and villages.

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