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Charles Babington / Washington Post:
White House Working to Avoid Wiretap Probe — But Some Republicans Say Bush Must Be More Open About Eavesdropping Program — At two key moments in recent days, White House officials contacted congressional leaders just ahead of intelligence committee meetings that could have stirred demands …
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Steven R. Hurst / Associated Press:
Bin Laden Vows Never to Be Captured Alive — CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden promised never to be captured alive and declared the United States had resorted to the same "barbaric" tactics used by Saddam Hussein, according to an audiotape purportedly by the al-Qaida leader that was posted Monday on a militant Web site.
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Francis Fukuyama / New York Times:
After Neoconservatism — As we approach the third anniversary of the onset of the Iraq war, it seems very unlikely that history will judge either the intervention itself or the ideas animating it kindly. By invading Iraq, the Bush administration created a self-fulfilling prophecy …
Associated Press:
Navy Counsel Issued Warning On Torture — The Navy's general counsel warned Pentagon officials two years before the Abu Ghraib prison scandal that circumventing international agreements on torture and detainees' treatment would invite abuse, according to a published report.
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Tim Golden / New York Times:
Senior Lawyer at Pentagon Broke Ranks on Detainees — One of the Pentagon's top civilian lawyers repeatedly challenged the Bush administration's policy on the coercive interrogation of terror suspects, arguing that such practices violated the law, verged on torture and could ultimately expose senior officials …
Discussion:
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Arianna Huffington / The Huffington Post:
Russert Watch: The Mary Matalin Horror Show — Meet the Press has been jumping all over the schedule. Sure, they're using the excuse of some sporting event in Italy, but we know the real reason is they're trying to elude Russert Watch. But there we were — if a little foggy — at 6 a.m. …
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Assaf Uni / Haaretz:
France arrests gang suspected in killing of Parisian Jew — PARIS - The French police arrested late Thursday night most of the members of the gang that abducted, tortured and murdered Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Jew from Paris. — Hundreds of SWAT officers raided apartments in Bagneux and arrested 12 people.
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Jeff Jacoby / Boston Globe:
When fear cows the media — THE PHOENIX is Boston's leading ''alternative" newspaper, the kind of brash, pull-no-punches weekly that might have been expected to print without hesitation the Mohammed cartoons that Islamists have been using to incite rage and riots across the Muslim world.
Thom Shanker / New York Times:
Elite Iraqi Unit Seeks Footing as It Fills U.S. Boots — AREA IV, Iraq — The three helicopters took off after midnight from this Special Operations base outside Baghdad, bound for a rural community where a man suspected of being a ringleader of the insurgency was hiding in a compound marked on military maps as Objective Hades.
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Karl Vick / Washington Post:
A Bomb-Builder, 'Out of the Shadows' — Syrian Linked to Al Qaeda Plots Describes Plan to Attack Cruise Ship in Turkey — ANTALYA, Turkey — Right up to the hot August night his apartment exploded, Louai Sakka's neighbors took him for a newlywed. The lanky Syrian was not seen …
Discussion:
Rantingprofs
Jimmy Carter / Washington Post:
Don't Punish the Palestinians — As the results of the recent Palestinian elections are implemented, it's important to understand how the transition process works and also how important to it are actions by Israel and the United States. — Although Hamas won 74 of the 132 parliamentary seats …
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Booman Tribune
Agence France Presse:
Hugo Chavez to Condi Rice: 'Don't mess with me, girl' — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez launched a new verbal attack against US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, bluntly warning her "don't mess with me, girl." — Responding to remarks before the US Congress last week in which Rice called Chavez a …
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Cornelia Dean / New York Times:
At a Scientific Gathering, U.S. Policies Are Lamented — ST. LOUIS, Feb. 18 — David Baltimore, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist and president of the California Institute of Technology, is used to the Bush administration misrepresenting scientific findings to support its policy aims, he told an audience of fellow researchers Saturday.
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Bad Attitudes
Andrew Stuttaford / The Corner on National …:
BLAIR'S BRITAIN: THE COMING DISASTER? — This, via, the Sunday Telegraph, is what Patrick Sookhdeo, director of Britain's Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity has to say about the way that the neocons' favorite prime minister has contributed to the disastrous manner in which Islamic opinion in the UK is developing:
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Associated Press:
Recruiting Hispanics for Kentucky Coal Mines Raises Debate — COAL RUN, Ky., Feb. 18 (AP) — Charlie Bearse, the president of Sidney Coal, was expressing an opinion that many in these mountains secretly share. The problem was, he put that opinion in writing.
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