Top Items:
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 …
RELATED ITEMS:
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.
Roger L. Simon / Mystery Novelist and Screenwriter:Fukuyama opts out — Francis Fukuyama gives an excellent overview …
Discussion:
Andrew Sullivan
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 …
Discussion:
The Left Coaster, Obsidian Wings, PoliBlog, AMERICAblog, Bark Bark Woof Woof and The Reaction
RELATED ITEMS:
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.
RELATED ITEMS:
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 …
Jane Mayer / New Yorker:
THE MEMO — How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted. — One night this January, in a ceremony at the Officers' Club at Fort Myer, in Arlington, Virginia, which sits on a hill with a commanding view across the Potomac River to the Washington Monument …
Discussion:
TalkLeft
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. …
RELATED ITEMS:
Steve Soto / The Left Coaster:Matalin Trots Out The J-Word All Too Easily
Discussion:
James Wolcott, Hullabaloo, Booman Tribune, State of the Day, The Heretik and firedoglake
ynetnews.com:
Paris: Gang suspected of killing Jew nabbed — Ilan Halimi, 23-year-old Parisian man, found tied to tree, naked, wounded, with burns covering his body; police arrest 13 suspects, say act not motivated by anti-Semitism — The French police arrested 13 people on suspicion of kidnapping …
RELATED ITEM:
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 …
Discussion:
Booman Tribune
Richard B. Schmitt / Los Angeles Times:
Privacy Guardian Is Still a Paper Tiger — A year after its creation, the White House civil liberties board has yet to do a single day of work. — WASHINGTON — For Americans troubled by the prospect of federal agents eavesdropping on their phone conversations or combing through their Internet records …
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.
Discussion:
Rantingprofs
David T / Harry's Place:
"SERIOUSLY, DOES ANYONE KNOW A BIGGER CRANK IN BRITAIN?" — Last week, I wondered aloud why Neil Clark - a Milosevic apologist and A-Level retakes tutor - was spreading the nonsense that as a teenager, the former president of Bosnia and Herzegovina Alija Izetbegović …
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
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.
Discussion:
Captain's Quarters, Hyscience, Riehl World View, bluestarchronicles …, On The Third Hand, Ed Driscoll.com and Solomonia
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 …
Discussion:
FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog
Wersha Bharadwa / Independent:
Fanatics tell Muslim singer: We'll kill you — Deeyah is forced to hire bodyguards for UK tour after death threats from religious extremists — A Muslim pop singer has been forced to hire bodyguards to protect her during a visit to Britain next month after she received a string of death threats from religious extremists.
Discussion:
Clarity & Resolve
