Neocon propagandists are skilled at reframing current and historical events in ways that promote their ideological agenda. For them, it’s a case of the ends justify the “facts,” as happened again when Chuck Hagel dared praise President Eisenhower’s handling of the 1956 Suez crisis, ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes.
Partly as a spillover from the U.S.-backed ouster of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, armed Islamists have asserted control of sparsely populated northern Mali, causing France to dispatch soldiers to the region. But does this new conflict affect U.S. interests, asks ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
France, which governed what is now Syria after World War I, has stepped forward as the first Western power to recognize the opposition as the legitimate government. But the future course of the Syrian civil war remains dangerous and complicated, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Much of Europe has swallowed the bitter medicine of austerity on orders from conservative economic theorists, only to find that the supposed cure has made matters worse. Now, elections in France and Greece indicate that Europeans want a new approach that stimulates growth, ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes.
Propaganda often involves taking the words of an adversary out of context and making them seem far worse or more dangerous than they are. When the news media joins in the distortion, the public can easily be stampeded into confrontation or war, a dilemma that ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar addresses.
The Standard & Poor’s rating agency has downgraded European countries in a move that may force the governments to crack down more on their populations and divert more money to wealthy investors, thus helping the super-rich short-circuit what’s left of democracy, Danny Schechter reports.
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