Exclusive: Republicans are hyping the flap over Benghazi talking points by calling it “worse than Watergate,” a false narrative that Bob Woodward has helped along by ignoring new evidence connecting Richard Nixon’s sabotage of Vietnam War peace talks in 1968 to his political spying in 1971-72, writes Robert Parry.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s arrest for the Boston Marathon bombing prompted calls from Sen. John McCain and three other Republican lawmakers to declare the 19-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen an enemy combatant, a reminder of how the politics of terrorism has distorted American principles, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
In 1961, President Eisenhower warned Americans about the danger of a Military-Industrial Complex diverting public funds into excessive arms manufacturing, but now that influence reaches more broadly into U.S. politics as military contractors flex their muscles on other businesses, as Lawrence S. Wittner describes.
Exclusive: Several U.S. senators rudely questioned Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel for alleged heresies against Official Washington’s orthodoxies, like his strange detection of an Israel Lobby operating on Capitol Hill and his refusal to accept that the 2007 troop “surge” in Iraq won that war, notes Robert Parry.
Exclusive: To win Senate approval as Defense Secretary, former Sen. Chuck Hagel likely will be forced to bow before Official Washington’s cherished myth of the Iraq War’s “successful surge.” To tell the more nuanced truth would open Hagel to another round of neocon attacks, writes Robert Parry.
The well-funded right-wing media has long demonstrated an ability to deflate or inflate scandals depending on their political impact. In the waning days of Campaign 2012, a stunning example of this politicized “journalism” has been the story of the Benghazi “cover-up,” writes William Boardman.
Amid a growing chorus for U.S. intervention in Syria – from both voices on the Right and Left – President Obama is threatening military action if Syria’s unconventional weapons come into play. But the Independent Institute’s Ivan Eland says the risks from a U.S. attack still outweigh the potential benefits.
Exclusive: “Game Change,” the HBO movie on John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin, faults his Republican campaign for its slipshod vetting of the little-known Alaska governor, but leaves out the back story of big-time neocons from D.C. helping position Palin for her surprise rise and Palin manipulating everyone, writes Morgan Strong.
The “three amigos” – John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham – are the Senate’s top war hawks, widely admired by the Washington Post’s editors and other neocon voices. But the senators also were cheerleaders for the Iraq disaster and other dubious exploits, ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar recalls.
From the Archive: HBO’s “Game Change” shows John McCain’s presidential campaign recklessly picking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate and then learning she lacked basic knowledge about the world. However, as Robert Parry reported in 2008, the campaign still went for the jugular against Barack Obama.
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