Month: February 2014

Putin Takes an Olympics Pounding

Russian President Putin, who gained some international stature by helping President Obama avert military strikes on Iran and Syria, is now taking a media pounding over Olympics spending and Russia’s repressive policies on gays and dissent, as Danny Schechter writes.

Playing Roulette with Doomsday

As long as nuclear weapons are on a hair trigger, there’s a chance that an unstable leader or an accident could touch off Armageddon and over time that slim chance rises toward certainty. But the big powers still resist demands that they shed…

Israeli Rabbis Warn Kerry of God’s Wrath

Exclusive: Secretary of State John Kerry’s negotiations to resolve the generations-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict may look like a quixotic pilgrimage into endless frustrations to many. But it is causing worries among nationalists on Israel’s Right, Robert Parry reports.

Obama Ignores Key Afghan Warning

From the Archive:  As the 12-year Afghan War grinds to what many Americans see as failure, ex-Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other hawks won’t admit their counterinsurgency “surge” in 2009 was a waste of lives and money or that U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry…

Shameful History of Jeff Davis Highway

Journalist Robert Parry has become embroiled in a local controversy in Arlington, Virginia, over his suggestion that the name of Confederate President Jefferson Davis be removed from roads in the county in recognition of the evils of slavery and segregation, an…

Should NATO Protect the Palestinians?

Israeli hardliners have long rejected the idea of a foreign peacekeeping force on the West Bank because it might restrict Israel’s freedom to attack Palestinians. But such a proposal is now on the table and has put Prime Minister Netanyahu…

When the CIA’s Empire Struck Back

Exclusive: In the mid-1970s, Rep. Otis Pike led a brave inquiry to rein in the excesses of the national security state. But the CIA and its defenders accused Pike of recklessness and vowed retaliation, assigning him to a political obscurity that…

A Rare Indictment of US Atrocities

Since World War II, the U.S. government has routinely sidestepped blame for the slaughters that have accompanied American foreign policy. One of the few high-profile condemnations occurred when playwright Harold Pinter accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, as…

Ronald Reagan: Worst President Ever?

From the Archive: Ronald Reagan, who was born on Feb. 6, 1911, ranks among the most honored U.S. presidents of modern times with his name etched into public buildings across the country. Even Democrats shy from criticizing his legacy. But…

How Misread Cables Fed Iran Hysteria

Official Washington saw how bad intelligence led to the disastrous Iraq War, but U.S. analysts and “experts” like David Albright charged down the same path on Iran’s alleged nuclear program. Again, key “evidence” collapsed under scrutiny, Gareth Porter wrote for Inter Press…