Category: Human Rights

An Unheeded Warning on Iraq War

A decade ago, with neocons at the policy controls, the U.S. government was hell-bent on invading Iraq and few Washington power figures were brave enough to get in the way. A direct appeal to FBI Director Robert Mueller was one example…

Perverting the Constitution for Power

Exclusive: The U.S. Supreme Court’s right-wingers are making bizarre arguments for gutting the Voting Rights Act, suggesting their real goal is to allow more suppression of minority voters and thus elect a Republican president who will keep the right-wingers as the Court’s majority, writes Robert Parry.

The Catholic Church’s Lost Hope

A half century ago, the Catholic Church had a chance for reform in the Second Vatican Council, with a young advocate in Joseph Ratzinger. But reactionary popes shunted reform aside, with Ratzinger later joining them as Pope Benedict XVI. That lost hope has put…

Asking, Who Was Jesus?

Over the centuries, Christian churches and allied rulers have tortured and killed countless fellow Christians for deviating from doctrinal claims about Jesus’s divine identity. But the historical record that exists indicates that those doctrines were tragically wrong, writes Rev. Howard Bess.

Bradley Manning’s Uncommon Courage

With the Iraq invasion’s tenth anniversary just days away, one of its darkest legacies is how the perpetrators escaped accountability and how the innocent and the truth-tellers suffered punishment, including Pfc. Bradley Manning who acknowledges trying to expose war crimes, writes Marjorie Cohn.

The Neo-Confederate Supreme Court

Exclusive: The Right’s desperation over U.S. demographic changes has spread to the U.S. Supreme Court where its five Republican partisans appear ready to tear up the most important part of the Voting Rights Act and thus clear the way for suppressing…

A Looming Crisis in Israel/Palestine

Israeli repression of the Palestinians and Palestinian resistance toward the Israelis have laid the groundwork for another possible outbreak of disorder, a new intifada, which would present challenges to both sides and to the Obama administration, says ex-CIA analyst Paul…

Courting Catastrophe in Syria

In the 1980s, the U.S. and its Saudi allies teamed up to funnel money and weapons to Afghan Islamists whose bloody “victory” set the stage for the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Now, the same team is heading back to work supporting…

Making ‘Other America’ Fail

Exclusive: Behind today’s fight over government spending is a bigger struggle for U.S.  democracy’s future, pitting the traditional white-ruled country against a new multicultural nation, or the Right’s Real America against Other America. To win, Real America must make Other America fail, says Robert…

Framing the Torture-Drone Debate

The neocons have lost ground within the Executive Branch, but continue to wield great influence in Congress and Washington opinion circles. That sway is revealed in the framing of debates on President George W. Bush’s power to torture and President Obama’s use…