U.S. hardliners on Iran keep making their case, ratcheting up the pressure for sterner and sterner action against Iran’s nuclear program. But some of the claims – though accepted by the major American news media – have dubious origins, as Gareth Porter reported for Inter Press Service.
As American neocons continue to walk the United States toward another war in the Middle East, this time with Iran, they have been laboring to come up with rationales, including alarmist scenarios of what a nuclear-armed Iran might do geopolitically, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.
As U.S.-Iran tensions gain a dangerous momentum – with an Iranian court just giving a death sentence to an alleged CIA spy – neocon-dominated Washington has jumped on the bandwagon toward war. But the Independent Institute’s Charles V. Peña says the underlying assumptions deserve more scrutiny.
Though a decade into history, the events of 9/11 still have a powerful tug on the emotions of Americans, especially New Yorkers whose lives were profoundly changed, as Michael Winship observed after a preview of “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.”
America’s Founders saw press freedom as a key check on government dishonesty, but today’s media has become a powerful ally of official lies by funneling sophisticated propaganda especially in support of war, as Lawrence Davidson notes about the hysteria over Iran.
In an election year, as many U.S. politicians compete to out-macho one another over fighting a new war with Iran, there is little self-reflection on whether the American side bears its own share of guilt in this troubled bilateral relationship, as Winslow Myers observes.
After years of American-led sanctions followed by a U.S. invasion and long occupation, Iraq is a shattered society with sectarian tensions again on the rise, but the Independent Institute’s Ivan Eland says the United States should resist the impulse to return militarily.
Neocons and their political allies are often called “chicken hawks” because few have fought in the wars that they’ve advocated, which means America’s chief war proponents have very little concept of the short- and long-term consequences for soldiers, what ex-CIA official Paul R. Pillar describes.
Exclusive: Though voicing “serious reservations” about encroachments on civil liberties in a military authorization bill, President Obama signed the law anyway to avoid a nasty veto fight with Congress. But ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern says courage, not timidity, is what’s needed at such moments.
Exaggerated coverage of a dubious report by the International Atomic Energy Agency about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program has spurred a rush toward a new war in the Middle East, but ex-U.S. intelligence officials urge President Obama to resist the pressures and examine the facts.
Towards an Investigative 'War Chest' -- To expand our coverage of issues of war and peace, we are trying to build a $100,000 "war chest," believing honest information is the best way to avoid war.
