Category: Obama Administration

How Mandela and S. Africa Were Freed

History often recounts events through the tales of “great men,” but that is rarely the complete story. South Africa’s overturning of white supremacy is a case in point, not just the personal triumph of Nelson Mandela but the victory of a…

Obama Urged to Show Restraint on Ukraine

Across Official Washington and the mainstream U.S. media, there is a rush to restart the Cold War with all its black-and-white propaganda, ignoring Russia’s understandable concerns and portraying the “U.S. side” as always right. But some U.S. intelligence veterans urge a more adult…

Why Neocons Seek to Destabilize Russia

Exclusive: Any propaganda war starts by planting stories that your target is getting rich, whether he is or isn’t, the latest move in demonizing Vladimir Putin. But the larger question is what might happen if the neocons succeed in destabilizing nuclear-armed Russia,…

Tolerating Israel’s Land Grabs

Secretary of State John Kerry’s Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have reached their predictable collapse, but the U.S. news media still shies away from blaming Israeli intransigence and expansionism nor advocating stern action against the land grabs, as Lawrence Davidson explains.

Marshall Islands v. Nuclear States

Even as the U.S. government threatens to attack Iran if it moves toward building one nuclear bomb, U.S. leaders and those of other nuclear states  — have ignored their treaty obligation to work toward nuclear disarmament, a point made in…

Pope Francis Signals Eased Moral Strictures

For decades, the Catholic Church has alienated many followers with its rigid stance on sexual behavior and marriage. But there are indications that Pope Francis is seeking a less judgmental approach toward these issues, as moral theologian Daniel C. Maguire…

John Kerry’s Sad Circle to Deceit

Exclusive: Secretary of State John Kerry is framing the Ukraine narrative to make the U.S. side despite neo-Nazis overthrowing an elected president the good guys and Russians the bad guys. But Kerry’s strident propaganda is a sad ending to a career…

The Iron Law of Oligarchy Returns

America likes to think of itself as a land of the Great Middle Class with a government “of, by and for the people.” But that reality has changed drastically over the past several decades, as money and power have created a…

Hamas and the Tyranny of Labels

Israel is using the latest rapprochement between the PLO and Hamas as the newest excuse to reject peace talks. The charge is that Hamas is “terrorist” although the same label has been applied to the PLO and indeed to some…

Beneath the Ukraine Crisis: Shale Gas

Exclusive: Behind the geopolitics pitting Russia against the West and the ethnic tensions tearing Ukraine east and west another backdrop for understanding this deepening conflict is the big-money competition for Ukraine’s oil and natural gas, writes Nat Parry.