Exclusive: Rather than encourage a healthy, wide-ranging debate on world affairs, the mainstream U.S. news media prevents any serious deviation from Official Washington’s war-loving “group thinks,” a task undertaken by CBS’ Steve Kroft in a hostile interview with President Obama, reports Robert Parry.
Category: Foreign Policy
Ronald Reagan’s Bloody ‘Apocalypto’
From the Archive: As grotesque as it is to honor Christopher Columbus who set in motion a hemisphere-wide genocide against the indigenous population, it is also sickening to honor Ronald Reagan who aided and abetted genocide against Guatemalan tribes just last…
How CNN Shapes Political Debate
Exclusive: CNN was happy to add a right-wing questioner for the Republican debate but won’t add a progressive for the Democratic debate, another sign of how the “mainstream media” shapes what’s acceptable in political discussion, a lesson that ex-CIA analyst…
Obama’s Two-Faced Foreign Policy
Exclusive: President Obama’s Syrian strategy is getting roundly denounced as incoherent, which while true is really a reflection of his failure to fully break with neocon-style interventionism even when he realizes the futility of the strategy, writes Robert Parry.
How Do-Gooders Can Do Bad
“Human rights” organizations have become purveyors of bloody chaos as they advocate Western big-power military attacks on weak countries in the name of “responsibility to protect” one of several purportedly well-intentioned strategies gone awry as Coleen Rowley and Diana Johnstone describe.
The Afghan Lesson in Syria
Russian President Putin’s decision to escalate military support for the Syrian government brings to mind earlier interventions in Afghanistan that went badly but that cautionary history and the changed Syrian dynamic also raise the prospects for negotiations, says ex-CIA analyst…
Collateral Damage/Stuff Happens
President George W. Bush (and his successor Barack Obama) have lamented “collateral damage” in Afghanistan and Iraq and Jeb Bush shrugs off a domestic mass shooting as “stuff happens” but the tragedies have a common denominator: glorification of war and cultural acceptance of violence,…
What Are the Syrian Options?
Official Washington is in a blind rage over Russia’s military intervention in Syria in support of the Assad regime, but the changed dynamic may offer useful options if U.S. policymakers can just look clearly at the crisis, as ex-CIA official…
Secrecy of Obama’s TPP Trade Deal
The “free trade” advocates managed to jolt the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement back to life and declared success, but now must walk the giant TPP trade deal past the Congress and other legislatures. Michael Winship explains why he thinks the “monster” should…
Obama Boots Syrian Peace Chance
Exclusive: President Obama thinks he can appease the neocons and liberal hawks by talking tough about Syria and Russia but in doing so he is throwing away a promising opportunity to resolve the Syrian conflict, plus he still gets bashed by Official…