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Robert Parry is a longtime investigative reporter who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for the Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. He founded Consortiumnews.com in 1995 to create an outlet for well-reported journalism that was being squeezed out of an increasingly trivialized U.S. news media.
Regarding Robert Parry’s essay today on Obama’s West Point speech yesterday: excellent, probing analysis, as always. Yet the comparison to JFK is troublesome in the sense that, as fine as Kennedy’s rhetoric on the issue of peace might seem, his policies in Southeast Asia, and also in South America (especially toward Cuba), not to mention his build-up of nuclear arms using the false claim that the Soviets presented a serious and immediate threat to U.S. security, directly contradict his lofty words. In that way, sadly, JFK and Obama appear to be very much alike.
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The invitation by Pope Francis to Israeli and Palestinian leaders to come to the Vatican for peacemaking underscores the importance, and especially the immediate relevance, of the ideas found in “Common Lands, Common Ground; The indigenous agenda, Israel, Palestine and breaking the post-Oslo Peace Accords logjam” @ http://goo.gl/XZIKoa Prime Minister Netanyahu’s concern, as expressed in his recent interview with Bloomberg, that “something must be done to prevent the collapse of Israel as a Jewish-majority democratic nation,” is also clearly addressed.
I believe most of our CONSORTIUMNEWS readers understand that a majority of the comments are just personal opinions. That said, it’s a good idea to suggest that article responders, try and adopt phrases like; “in my opinion” or “I suspect that” or “the gossip from the streetwise say” this writing style may help avoid misunderstandings often found in “off the cuff remarks”. It’s too bad that our mainstream news papers don’t have a similar policy to preface their articles. For example; “sources say, but we’re not sure of their veracity”, As of late, newspapers just spout misinformation by avoiding, wherever possible, ACTUAL NAMES FOR THEIR SOURCES. This gradual change over the last two decades has severely jeopardized a thing called, credibility and you know what? the major news outlets don’t seem to give a hoot! From all those soft ball questions at White House press briefings to duck and cover responses that hide behind the old “National Security” excuses, anything, in lieu of proper responses directed to an unworthy group now nicknamed, presstitutes. It gets worse!, who could forget the well publicized congressional interrogation of Ollie North where Rep. Jack Brooks was cut off from further inquiry by the Chair. In the last analysis, let’s not get too riled up about racial slurs, bigots, sexists, religious animosities, because these emotional outbursts are as common as arm pits. As I’ve just pointed out, there are much hotter things on the front burner these days such as a compromised press, secrecy stamped onto endless numbers of government documents, a Deep State covering up what our citizens are untitled to know and what cannot be justifiably protected by closed senatorial hearings and or deliberately blocking legitimate FOIA requests.