Category: Human Rights

Help Us Build Investigative ‘War Chest’

From Editor Robert Parry: I often hear the complaint that Consortiumnews is not devoting enough attention to some story of particular importance to that reader. And I must admit the criticism is often valid, but the explanation is mostly our…

Stuck in a Job at the End of the World

Very little sympathy is felt for Air Force personnel assigned to fire nuclear missiles that could end all life on the planet. But their grim, boring and existentially absurd job has eroded staff morale so much that their collapsing competence…

The Jackie Robinson Republicans

That Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey were Republicans when they shattered baseball’s color barrier in 1947 is only surprising if you consider the changed GOP after its Southern Strategy and unsubtle appeals to racism, leading to demonizing the first black president.…

Justice at a Guatemalan Crossroads

The genocide conviction of Guatemala’s ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt has put respect for human rights at a crossroads, with one option to reverse the judgment and another to expand the investigation to Rios Montt’s accomplices in Guatemala and the U.S., journalist Allan…

Racism and the American Right

Exclusive: From the start of the Republic to today’s Republican ranting against Barack Obama, racism has been a central element of the American Right. But this ugly feature of U.S. history has often come concealed behind words praising traditions, liberty…

Reagan and Argentina’s Dirty War

Exclusive: The 87-year-old ex-Argentine dictator Jorge Videla died Friday in prison where he was serving sentences for grotesque human rights crimes in the 1970s and 1980s. But one of Videla’s key backers, the late President Ronald Reagan, continues to be…

Argentina’s Dapper State Terrorist

From the Archive: Ex-Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, who died Friday in prison at 87, saw the Dirty War that killed some 30,000 people as an intellectual exercise in exterminating subversive thought even across generations by transferring babies of the…

Boston Suspect’s Writing on the Wall

Exclusive: Hiding and near death, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev reportedly scrawled on the inside of a boat that he did what he did to avenge innocent Muslims killed by U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a rare look…

The Sad Lesson of Alan Hart

Sailing against a strong prevailing wind is not easy, certainly not like breezing along with the wind to your back. Author Alan Hart discovered that truth in criticizing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, but his acceptance of defeat should not…

The Real Benghazi Scandal

The Republican fixation on Benghazi “talking points” has obscured the bigger scandal of last September’s fatal attacks, the CIA’s use of the consulate as an operational base without sufficient security. That failure underscores a series of other unexamined intelligence failures,…