From the Archive: The real Patriots Day – not the Monday holiday observed in Massachusetts – falls on April 19, honoring the Minutemen who rallied against a British strike at Lexington and Concord in 1775. The British were thwarted, in large part, because of a little known patriot, as Robert Parry recalled in 2011.
Exclusive: New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, who once dubbed himself a “Tony Blair Democrat,” is now a “Mike Bloomberg Independent,” as he seeks a “centrist” challenge to the two parties, even if it might lead to consolidated Republican control of the United States, reports Robert Parry.
From the Archive: Three years ago, President Obama ignored warnings about an Afghan quagmire and followed the advice of Bush administration holdovers into a series of troop “surges” that have cost many lives but not turned around the war, a result that ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern foresaw at the time.
Challenges to science are emerging across the political spectrum – from Christian fundamentalists on the Right to skeptics on the Left who question the inherent good of progress – with one result a growing resistance to vaccinations for children, as Bill Moyers and Michael Winship note.
Major U.S. news outlets spin any event regarding Iran’s nuclear program in the most negative way, now hyping a dispute about conditions for visiting a military site as supposed proof that Iran has something to hide. But Gareth Porter points out that the media is missing key nuances.
Exclusive: American neocons have moved the United States closer to war with Iran via a subtle change in the “red line” phrasing, inserting the word “capability” after the usual threats to take out an Iranian “nuclear weapon.” Now, Sen. Joe Lieberman is making the shift official, reports Robert Parry.
The banality of evil is a common way of explaining why non-descript bureaucrats let their careerism and cowardice lead them into the practice of torture and other human rights crimes endorsed by their superiors. Yet, if these banal operatives are American, they don’t expect to get punished, as David Swanson notes in this guest essay.
U.S. politicians often speak of “American exceptionalism” as some God-given grant of special status that puts the United States above the rules that apply to other nations. In geo-politics, this concept has meant that international law is enforced against countries that offend Washington but not against those in Washington’s good graces, as Lawrence Davidson explains.
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