Turkish President Erdogan’s electoral victory opens new risks and some hopes for the region’s future, depending on whether an empowered Erdogan ratchets up his autocratic approach or chooses to ease up on his military adventurism and repression of the Kurds, as…
Category: Obama Administration
Obama’s Double-Standard on Leaks
Though President Obama touts America as a nation of laws and evenhanded justice, there is a blatant double-standard regarding how people are punished for national security breaches whistleblowers are harshly punished but the well-connected get a pass, writes John Hanrahan.
How Ukraine’s Finance Chief Got Rich
Exclusive: Ukraine’s Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko collected at least $1.77 million in bonuses from a U.S.-taxpayer-funded investment project that she ran even as it was losing money, a sign that her image as a paragon of public-interest “reform” may not…
How Technology Kills Democracy
In shutting down whistleblowing and investigative journalism on national security issues, the U.S. government can use its technology to determine who is speaking to whom and then use that metadata as evidence of leaks, a chilling new reality that endangers democracy,…
A New ‘War on Christmas’ Absurdity
A fairly new and thoroughly obnoxious Christmas tradition is for right-wing American Christian fundamentalists to detect some imagined slight and pronounce it part of the “War on Christmas,” with this year’s battle lines drawn around the Starbucks’ winter-themed cups, as…
How Israel Out-Foxed US Presidents
From the Archive: As Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu meets with President Obama, the mainstream media is asking who’s to blame for their chilly relationship. But the problem is not just personal. It goes to Israel’s longstanding efforts to out-fox U.S. presidents,…
Bush-41 Finally Speaks on Iraq War
Exclusive: A dozen years too late, President George H.W. Bush has given voice to his doubts about the wisdom of rushing into the Iraq War, putting much of the blame on President George W. Bush’s “iron-ass” advisers, Dick Cheney and…
On Bended Knee to Netanyahu
Despite Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s in-your-face attempts to sabotage President Obama’s foreign policy, Official Washington’s liberal establishment is on bended knee in an obsequious show of obeisance, apparently in line with Hillary Clinton’s political wishes, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Squandering Peace Hopes in Syria
The Obama administration is so wedded to its false narrative on Syria insisting that the only answer is for Russia to force President Assad to cede power to a largely fictional U.S.-backed “moderate” opposition that new peace talks in Vienna…
Obama’s Risky ‘Mission Creep’ in Syria
Exclusive: President Obama’s plan to dispatch up to 50 Special Forces troops into northern Syria may be a bid to appease Official Washington’s war hawks but it presents a serious risk of “mission creep” if those soldiers and their trainees…