By embracing false or unproven allegations about foreign adversaries, U.S. policymakers may believe they are looking tough or pleasing some important constituent group. But they are also creating a situation that can get out of hand and get lots of…
Author: Consortiumnews.com
Skating to the Financial Abyss
Even as another potential Great Depression looms, the U.S. political/media system seems incapable of addressing the crisis and devising coherent answers. Instead, the old partisan and lobbying games dominate the political world and obsession with trivia commands the news media’s…
Three Deadly War Myths
Exclusive: The U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have involved myths pleasing to Official Washington — about its own wisdom and the evil of the enemy — but these false narratives have caused President Barack Obama and other U.S. policymakers to base decisions on illusion rather…
Ellsberg on Pentagon Papers Release
On the 40th anniversary of Daniel Ellsberg leaking the Pentagon Papers, the Nixon presidential library is touting its release of the entire set, including a section on Vietnam peace talks that Ellsberg withheld to avoid disrupting the negotiations. The misimpression…
Can Obama Escape from Afghan War?
Holdovers from the Bush administration, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus, boxed President Obama into a counterinsurgency “surge” during the 2009 policy review for Afghanistan. Now, Obama has a chance to go in a different direction, but…
Neocons Spin Two ‘Lost’ Wars
Exclusive: The looming U.S. defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan represent a threat to the political fortunes of America’s neocons — if they get blamed for the disasters. However, if they can hang the failures around President Obama’s neck, the two lost wars…
Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 Strategy Explained
Before his murder last month, Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad detailed how al-Qaeda leaders used the 9/11 attacks to induce “cowboy” President George W. Bush to blunder foolishly into the invasions of two Muslim countries, thus advancing an al-Qaeda strategy to discredit the region’s…
Asian Alliance Supplants US Empire
While Official Washington grapples with how slowly to draw down troops in Afghanistan and debates whether to complete the pullout from Iraq by year’s end a new alliance of Asian states is expanding into the vacuum left by America’s decaying…
Gen. Keane Keen on Iran Attack
Exclusive: In Washington, retired Gen. Jack Keane is widely praised for his role in promoting the Iraq War “surge” in 2007 and he is now seeking an escalation of tensions with Iran. However, at a Fordham event in New York,…
American Exceptionalism’s Hypocrisy
U.S. politicians often speak of “American exceptionalism” as some God-given grant of special status that puts the United States above the rules that apply to other nations. In geo-politics, this concept has meant that international law is enforced against countries…