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POPSBusting the Surge Myth Cont.... The Shiitization of Baghdad was thus a significant cause of falling casualty rates. But it is another war waiting to happen, when the Sunnis come back to find Shiite militiamen in their living rooms.
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POPSUK House of Commons: U.S. Goverment Lied to us. Cont... "Britain's denials that its territories have been used for "extraordinary rendition" were dramatically undermined last night after the United Nations claimed that Diego Garcia has been used as a detention centre to hold US suspects. . . . The revelations raise fresh questions about the island's role in the process of extraordinary rendition -- moving suspects to interrogation centres in third-party countries where they are held outside the law -- and why the UK government was apparently unaware that its ally was operating a prison on Diego Garcia to house so-called "high-value detainees"."
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POPSAnother Reading Comprehension FAIL! The Right gets the APS Position Wrong! Another FAIL for the Right (and not a few clippers here). It helps to: 1. Read articles,documents and reports, fully and completely. 2. Reading comprehension is necessary. Otherwise you are wasting everybody's time. 3. The Three Rs are useless if you don't know how to apply them. 4. Denying is not the same as truth telling. Learn the difference!
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POPSAmara; The Case Of The Invisible American War Machine; And What, We Used To Call "Censorship" Cont... Gone is all that nasty documentation of American soldiers imposing themselves on either innocent or opposition-sympathizing Iraqi civilians as embedded photographers were known to relay two or three years back. (In a particularly egregious example, you might even recall the raid in February '07 where the Iraqis -- who were supposed to lead the mission by barely showed up -- caused American Staff Sgt. Hector Leija to pay with his life ... further leading the military to flip out that the NYT dared even document the whole obscene mess.)
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POPSDefending Wes Clark Cont... "Is what Wesley Clark said true? Let's check some other facts: John McCain made claims about progress in security by walking through the streets of Baghdad. But as I recall, he was protected by at least a platoon of American soldiers and helicopters lying overhead. In matters of national security, as General Clark pointed out, "it's a matter of understanding risk," and it's "gauging your opponents;" and it's also a "matter of being held accountable."
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POPSMilitary Matters: Iraq state fantasy The truth about Iraq and 4GW conflicts that the GOP and the Pentagon (and their supporters) don't get: "Because there is no state in Iraq, there is also no government. Orders given in Baghdad have no meaning, because there are no state institutions to carry them out. The governmental positions of Iraqi leaders have no substance. Their power is a function of their relationship to various militias, not of their offices. Maliki has no militia, which means he is a figurehead. "
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POPSPortrait of Courage: Irena Sendler From the article: "In 1943, she was captured by the Nazis and tortured but refused to tell her captors who her co-conspirators were or where the bottles were buried. She also resisted in other ways. According to Felt, when Sendler worked in the prison laundry, she and her co-workers made holes in the German soldiers' underwear. When the officers discovered what they had done, they lined up all the women and shot every other one. It was just one of many close calls for Sendler."
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POPSNeocons and the truth: Bitter enemies to the end From the article: In late 2006, I wrote about virtually identical deceit from this same group, that time with regard to Iraq. On National Review in December of 2006, Ledeen -- just as the Beltway establishment was finally turning against the war in Iraq and in the wake of a lengthy Vanity Fair article identifying the neocons who were to blame -- claimed: "I opposed the military invasion of Iraq before it took place."
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POPSThings Americans don't like to talk about Read the whole article, it is illuminating to say the least. I thought this passage said it best: " If you listen to a lot of conservatives, they'll tell you that the difference between them and us is that conservatives love America and liberals hate America.... They don't get it. We love America just as much as they do. But in a different Way. You see, they love America the way a 4-year-old loves her Mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a 4-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world."
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POPSRice hits U.S. 'birth defect' Quick, somebody call her a American hating person! C'mon! She called you defective! Like you know retarded....America is a retard! No way! How dare she!
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POPSRev. Jeremiah Wright isn't the problem It's not surprising that the right is using Wright to paint Barack Obama as a closet Farrakhan, trying to let the air out of his trans-racial balloon by insinuating that he's a dogmatic race man. But beyond the fake shock and the all-too-familiar racial politics, what the whole episode reveals is how narrow the range of acceptable discourse remains in this country. This is especially true of anything having to do with patriotism or 9/11 -- which have become virtually interchangeable. Wright's unforgivable sin was that he violated our rigid code of national etiquette. Instead of the requisite "God bless America," he said "God damn America." He said 9/11 was a case of chickens coming home to roost. Now we must all furrow our brows and agree that such dreadful words are anathema and that no presidential candidate can ever have been within earshot of them.