As the American/Israeli war drums beat more loudly over Iran, the U.S. public is being told that this time the warnings about nuclear weapons are right, that no one should listen to Iranian denials, that ratcheting up tensions toward war is the only way. But William Blum recalls the similar false certainty about Iraq.
There’s a “Lucy-yanks-the-football-away-from-Charlie-Brown” quality to how Americans are handled each time a new war with a foreign “enemy” is being sold. There’s a slightly varied pitch and the public belatedly learns it’s been conned, as is now happening with Iran, notes ex-U.S. intelligence analyst Elizabeth Murray.
Though the U.S. military is no longer inflicting large-scale slaughters in Afghanistan and Iraq, the more selective “drone” campaigns continue to kill the families and neighbors of the targets, a reality that is stirring more anti-Americanism in the region, as Lawrence Davidson notes.
Exclusive: The U.S. press corps and “independent” American weapons experts got almost everything wrong about Iraq’s purported WMD before the U.S. invasion in 2003. Now, much the same cast is returning to interpret dubious intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program, reports Robert Parry.
Exclusive: American neocons are accusing President Barack Obama of “losing” Iraq with his final troop withdrawal – and some anti-war activists are encouraged by his possible strategy shift away from combat in Afghanistan. So, is there a sea change underway in the course of the U.S. ship of state, asks Robert Parry.
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cites her personal climb to power as a shining example of how civil rights benefited a worthy African-American, but her Faustian bargain for success within George W. Bush’s administration meant death for many Iraqis, notes Lawrence Davidson.
Exclusive: A curious feature of the American Left is its resistance to recognize its own successes. So, even as President Barack Obama is bringing the eight-year U.S. occupation of Iraq to an end, some on the Left refuse to celebrate, as Robert Parry reports.
Exclusive: In two months, the Iraq War – at least the eight-year U.S. phase – will be over. President Barack Obama promises the last troops will be home for the holidays. Then, Americans may finally reflect on this bloody imperial disaster. So the neocons are busy rewriting the war’s narrative, Robert Parry reports.
Exclusive: One not-so-funny fact about Washington is that nearly all the news media stars who fell for neoconservative falsehoods about Iraq are still around to fall for new ones on Iran, even some like Richard Cohen who briefly regretted his earlier gullibility, notes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
Exclusive: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told President Barack Obama that U.S. troops wouldn’t have immunity from Iraqi laws after December, forcing the last thousands of American soldiers to leave. That signals the end of the Iraq War – and the start of the U.S. battle over what the war’s lessons were, writes Robert Parry.
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