To Tame Tehran: “These developments create opportunities for Western leaders well beyond U.N. votes. First, and most obviously, the United States must take advantage of the current climate to further isolate and marginalize Ahmadinejad and his cabal and hold them responsible for the crisis. Calls for constructive engagement with Iran’s president are wrong; such overtures [...]

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The Blog | Matthew Yglesias: Think Again: Iran is a Problem, Not an Emergency | The Huffington Post: “With the latest breakdown in negotiations between Iran and the European Union, the years-long steady drip of Persia-related punditry has become a flood over the past month. Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer fretted on January 17 that [...]

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How U.S. used Iraqi wives for ?leverage? – Conflict in Iraq – MSNBC.com: “But documents describing two 2004 episodes tell a different story as far as short-term detentions by local U.S. units. The documents are among hundreds the Pentagon has released periodically under U.S. court order to meet an American Civil Liberties Union request for [...]

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Fight the West cannot win : Mail & Guardian Online: ” cannot see how all this confrontation will stop Iran doing whatever it likes with its nuclear enrichment. The bombing of carefully dispersed and buried sites might delay deployment. But given the inaccuracy of US bombers, the death and destruction caused to Iran?s cities would [...]

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U.S. ‘outsourced’ torture, investigator says – International Terrorism – MSNBC.com: “‘Deprived of their liberty and all rights’?On the other hand, it has been proved that individuals have been abducted, deprived of their liberty and all rights and transported to different destinations in Europe to be handed over to countries in which they have suffered degrading [...]

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U.S. ‘outsourced’ torture, investigator says – International Terrorism – MSNBC.com: “STRASBOURG, France – The head of a European investigation into alleged CIA secret prisons in Europe said Tuesday there was evidence the United States outsourced torture to other countries and it was likely European governments knew about it.But Swiss senator Dick Marty said there was [...]

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Daily Times – Site Edition: “Unless policy makers are prepared to take into account the fact that Iran is no minor player in the Central Asia-Middle Eastern scene, and that its influence extends deep into Shia Iraq and in places like Palestine, Jordan and Syria, we are likely to witness a repeat of the same [...]

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The Sentinel: “O’Connell points out that, while neoconservatives advocate several months of bombing Iran ? two or three months, at least, of bombing purported ‘nuclear’ sites in Iran, those sites are all in residential neighborhoods. Supposing the administration were to bomb millions of Iranians, for two or three months, as neoconservatives are proposing, O’Connell wonders. [...]

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TIME.com: Slamming Its Doors on the World — Jan. 23, 2006 — Page 2: “writers for posting subversive material online, handing them jail terms ranging from a few days to 14 years. Last June, following Ahmadinejad’s surprise election, the government launched a fresh onslaught, this time against the websites and blogs themselves. Using keyword filters [...]

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Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | US army in Iraq institutionally racist, claims British officer: “A senior British officer has criticised the US army for its conduct in Iraq, accusing it of institutional racism, moral righteousness, misplaced optimism, and of being ill-suited to engage in counter-insurgency operations.The blistering critique, by Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, who was [...]

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