U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel traveled to Afghanistan seeking to reduce tensions between the Afghan government and U.S. Special Forces who face allegations of supporting armed men accused of abusing civilians, as Gareth Porter writes at Inter Press Service.
Despite the Iraq debacle, neocons remain in the driver’s seat setting official U.S. attitudes toward Iran, mixing worst-case assumptions with unrelenting hostility. But national security experts Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett have stood up to this neocon-driven conventional wisdom, says Gareth Porter at Inter Press Service.
In assessing murky terrorism cases in the Middle East, one must take into account the political pressures on investigators and journalists to push the conclusion in a favored direction. That truism has surfaced again in a bombing at the Bulgarian resort of Burgas, says Gareth Porter for Inter Press Service.
One problem in assessing blame for terror attacks in the Middle East is that governments have political interests in linking these outrages to enemies and then pushing that case in public forums. That dynamic may now be influencing the probe of a terror bombing in Bulgaria, reports Gareth Porter for Inter Press Service.
Propaganda aimed at convincing Americans that Iran is pursuing a nuclear bomb continues with more dubious evidence leaked to an ever-gullible U.S. press corps. An AP story highlighted a supposed Iranian computer model of a nuclear explosion but the graph may be forged, says Gareth Porter at Inter Press Service.
As Iran and the Obama administration maneuver toward a deal on Iran’s nuclear program, the Western news media continues to stoke the crisis by hyping Iran’s capabilities, including misreporting the significance of a new report on Iran’s supply of 20-percent enriched uranium, Gareth Porter writes at Inter Press Service.
A back story to the sex scandal that ended David Petraeus’s 14 months as director of the CIA is that his mistress, Paula Broadwell, was an apologist for abusive actions by the U.S. command in Afghanistan. She defended the leveling of an Afghan village deemed uncooperative, Gareth Porter says at Inter Press Service.
The Israeli news media is reporting that in 2010 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Israel’s military onto high alert for an attack on Iran’s nuclear program but was blocked by his military and intelligence chiefs. But the question remains how close to war Israel actually got, writes Gareth Porter for Inter Press Service.
Fourteen years ago, Iran reached out to the United States with an invitation to have U.S. nuclear scientists examine Iran’s nuclear program. However, the Defense Department nixed the plan and possibly missed a chance for avoiding the current crisis, Gareth Porter reports for Inter Press Service.
The outline for a resolution of the Iranian nuclear dispute is coming into focus, perhaps only waiting for the U.S. presidential election to be decided. But suspicions between Iran and the West continue to beset the slow progress toward a resolution, as Gareth Porter noted for Inter Press Service.
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.
