Author: Consortiumnews.com

How Misread Cables Fed Iran Hysteria

Official Washington saw how bad intelligence led to the disastrous Iraq War, but U.S. analysts and “experts” like David Albright charged down the same path on Iran’s alleged nuclear program. Again, key “evidence” collapsed under scrutiny, Gareth Porter wrote for Inter Press…

Where the Real ‘Iran Threat’ Lies

The endless double standards demonstrated by U.S. pols and pundits toward U.S. “friends” vs. “enemies” have created a wildly distorted frame for a public trying to distinguish between genuine threats and propaganda themes, as Lawrence Davidson found regarding Iran.

Big Media Again Pumps for Mideast Wars

Exclusive: Official Washington’s neocons still influence U.S. foreign policy despite their Iraq War disaster. Forever pushing what they view as Israel’s strategic needs, the neocons now are stoking fires of war against Iran and Syria by piling on old and new arguments, reports…

Fear Itself: Democrats Duck FDR’s Lessons

The lessons of Franklin Roosevelt are relevant today, especially the need for an activist government to “promote the general Welfare” by investing in infrastructure and combating the power of “organized money.” But many Democrats shy away from the debate, says Beverly…

Hugo Chavez’s Legacy at Risk

Exclusive: Over the past generation, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez changed the political dynamics of Latin America with a socialist experiment that spread the wealth and improved the lives of the poor. But nearly a year after Chávez’s death, his movement is…

Is US Military Spinning Out of Control?

The United States was built on the idea of civilian control of the military, but as the burden of fighting overseas wars is carried disproportionately by a sliver of the population that control seems to be slipping, as ex-CIA analyst…

Neocons Seek New Ultimatum on Syria

Exclusive: The Washington Post’s neocon editors are pushing for another U.S. military ultimatum against a Muslim country in the Mideast. Citing discredited “evidence” pinning the Aug. 21 Sarin attack on the Syrian government, the Post wants President Obama to re-issue a war…

Worse Than Orwell

President Obama has promised reform of the NSA’s mass collection of data on virtually all Americans and much of the world. But his proposals are limited and his speech failed to offer clemency to Edward Snowden who made the public…

The ‘Persecuted’ Rich

Nazi metaphors should be avoided except in the most extreme cases of human cruelty. But that metaphor is especially obscene when today’s pampered rich, like billionaire Tom Perkins, compare themselves to persecuted Jews, as Bill Moyers and Michael Winship observe.

Reading Iran All Wrong

U.S. foreign policy elites often speak in their own echo chamber of acceptable thought and thus grow more and more detached from the real world. Such a case is the recent punditry about Iran, as Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann…