Special Report: Since journalist Gary Webb died in 2004, the story that destroyed his life has slowly come into clearer focus, revealing how President Reagan’s beloved Contras really were enmeshed in cocaine trafficking. On this ninth anniversary of Webb’s suicide, new corroboration has emerged, reports Robert Parry.
![U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivers remarks on Syria at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 30, 2013. [State Department photo]](http://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/kerry-syria-remarks-300x199.jpg)
Exclusive: The United States nearly went to war with Syria last summer after a rush to judgment over a mysterious sarin attack. Now, several months later, reporter Seymour Hersh shows how the case was spun, writes Robert Parry.
The Christmas season celebrates the regal myth of Jesus – his supposedly miraculous birth and royal lineage as a king of kings – but that loses sight of the historical Jesus and his revolutionary message of justice for the poor and powerless, as Rev. Howard Bess reflects.
The Saudi-Israeli alliance opposes a diplomatic settlement with Iran over its nuclear program because the deal could kill hopes for enlisting the U.S. military in one more violent regime change in the Middle East, as the Independent Institute’s Ivan Eland explains.
Exclusive: The U.S. government’s relationship with Nelson Mandela was often strained, from the CIA’s hand in his imprisonment to Ronald Reagan’s veto of a sanctions bill aimed at getting him freed, lost history that must now be reconciled, writes Robert Parry.
Economic sanctions have notched some successes, like freeing Nelson Mandela and ending South Africa’s apartheid, but other sanctions have lost sight of practical reforms and become destructive ends in themselves, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes about Iran.
In theory, pretty much everyone claims to like investigative journalism, even government officials. But the reaction is different when reporters expose troubling facts, especially if they make a favored country or politician look bad. Yet, that is what’s needed, says Norman Solomon.
From Editor Robert Parry: In late August 2013, the United States was poised on the brink of another Mideast war. The facts were murky about a chemical weapons incident in Syria on Aug. 21, but most American pundits and politicians were blaming the Syrian government.
From the Archive: The latest Christmas tradition is for Fox News and the Right to work “the base” into a lather over a supposed “War on Christmas,” but there is a larger message in how right-wing propaganda creates “victimhood,” as Robert Parry noted in 2005.
Despite America’s over-the-top, month-long celebration of baby Jesus – topped off with a government holiday ignoring the Constitution’s separation of church and state – Fox News and the Right have conjured up a “war on Christmas,” now as much a tradition as eggnog, Nat Parry notes.
Exclusive: Saudi Arabia and Israel see Iran as their worst enemy, but that obsession is allowing al-Qaeda to reassert itself in the Middle East, especially in war-torn Syria, and that could open the West to a new round of terrorist attacks, writes Robert Parry.
The neocons are working overtime to overturn President Obama’s agreement with Iran to constrain but not eliminate its nuclear program. They are even referencing Munich in what ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar says is some very bad history.
Exclusive: The U.S. intelligence community vacuums up vast amounts of data, but it has one agency, World News Connection, that gives back information to the public – except that the service is getting shut down at year’s end, notes ex-intelligence analyst Elizabeth Murray.
From Editor Robert Parry: My friendship with Robbie Conal, the brilliant Los Angeles-based poster artist, goes back to his first poster, depicting a skeleton in a suit on a camouflage backdrop over the words “Contra Cocaine,” which Robbie said was inspired by my early work on the subject.
The U.S. list of “terrorist” states has long been a sick joke, most notably by including Cuba (for domestic political reasons) and excluding Saudi Arabia (for financial reasons). Now, the list is undercutting policy goals, notes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Exclusive: The 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination saw a mainstream media blackout of nearly all evidence of conspiracy in that case. But New York Magazine went even further, mocking the proven Contra-cocaine scandal as a “conspiracy theory,” Robert Parry writes.
The neocons are testing their remaining strength in Official Washington by firing off rhetorical bombs against President Obama and his interim agreement with Iran to constrain its nuclear program, including absurd comparisons to Hitler and Munich, writes Lawrence Davidson.
Even as more Americans accept gay marriage and reject discrimination against people over sexual orientation, bullying remains a serious problem in the nation’s schools where teachers do not do enough to protect LGBT students, write Laura Finley and Joseph Schroer.
From Editor Robert Parry: “Black Friday” – the day after Thanksgiving – is the traditional start of the Christmas buying season with billions of dollars spent on merchandise. We would modestly encourage readers of Consortiumnews to consider purchases of our books as well.
Exclusive: The U.S. Supreme Court will rule on the right of a corporation owned by abortion opponents to assert its freedom of religion on health insurance, trumping a woman’s choice of birth control, another chance for the Right to expand corporate rights, says Robert Parry.
U.S. pundits cheer when some African warlord or East European brute is dragged before an international tribunal, but not at the thought of justice being meted out to George W. Bush or other architects of post-9/11 torture and aggressive war on Iraq, as John LaForge notes.
The unpredictable Afghan leader Hamid Karzai has issued new demands for the U.S. to meet if it wants to keep a smaller military force in Afghanistan after 2014, creating a possible route for the U.S. to finally end its longest war, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Exclusive: The neocons won’t give up on their agenda for more “regime change” in the Middle East, as they lash out at President Obama for daring to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program rather than use it as an excuse for more hostilities, writes Robert Parry.
From Editor Robert Parry: Our end-of-year fund drive is always our most important, because it sets the parameters for how ambitious our investigative projects will be in the New Year. We are hoping to raise $35,000. Please contribute what you can.
Exclusive: The intensive media coverage of the half-century anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s murder was long on hype and emotion but short on explaining how revolutionary JFK’s foreign policy was in his extraordinary support for Third World nationalists, as Jim DiEugenio explains.
Official Washington’s still influential neocons are livid over President Obama’s interim nuclear deal with Iran and will keep up their sabotage fight. But the pact marks an important fork in the foreign policy road, showing that the U.S. government can still put American interests first, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes.
Exclusive: The Saudi-Israeli alliance hoped to sink a deal between Iran and world powers that limits but doesn’t end Iran’s nuclear program, so the deal’s signing in Geneva is both a defeat for that new alliance and a victory for President Obama and diplomacy, writes Robert Parry.
In 1968, the public anger over the Vietnam War tempted GOP presidential nominee Richard Nixon to sabotage Democratic peace talks to seal his victory, a dirty trick that Saigon-based journalist Beverly Deepe nearly exposed before American voters went to the polls.
The U.S. Constitution mandates the federal government to provide for the country’s “general Welfare,” but the Right’s self-proclaimed “constitutionalists” object to any efforts to curb the catastrophic threat of global warming, as Lawrence Davidson notes.
The Grand Irony may be that Earth is the only spot in the Universe where intelligent life evolved, and it then made the Earth unlivable, the ultimate crisis in an age of an ossified order that poet Phil Rockstroh addresses.
The half-century anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s murder has prompted retrospectives on his presidency but also remembrances of what the shocking act meant to people who lived through it. Journalist Richard L. Fricker reflects on how that day changed his life.