Exclusive: Guatemala has begun a politically difficult process to make human rights violators of the 1980s accountable for their crimes, including genocide inflicted on Indian villages, but the United States still heaps praise on the killers’ chief American accomplice, Ronald…
Category: Secrecy
Spanish Front in War on Truth
Those who want true democracy favor a well-informed public, but those who simply want power understand that a smart electorate is a dangerous thing, so they seek out and destroy truth-tellers, as is now happening to a crusading judge in…
UK Silences Iran’s Press TV
During the Iraq War, the U.S. took aim at AlJazeera. Now, as the information wars heat up between the West and Iran, British regulators have ordered Iran’s Press TV off the air, a move that Danny Schechter says further limits public information about…
Israel Tamps Down Iran War Threats
Exclusive: For months, Israeli hardliners and their neocon allies in the United States have been beating the war drums over Iran. But apparent resistance to war from President Obama has brought a softening of rhetoric in Israel, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern…
Web Sites Protest ‘Anti-Piracy’ Bills
Exclusive: An unprecedented protest is sweeping the Internet against proposed U.S. legislation that critics contend goes too far in punishing Web sites where copyrighted content might get posted. Wikipedia and other major Internet sites have blacked out pages as a…
Silencing Donahue and Anti-War Voices
Amid the war fever over Iraq in 2002, legendary talk show host Phil Donahue returned to television with an MSNBC program that allowed antiwar voices to speak but his corporate chieftains soon pulled the plug, a shameful moment in U.S.…
Muscling What’s Left of Democracy
The Standard & Poor’s rating agency has downgraded European countries in a move that may force the governments to crack down more on their populations and divert more money to wealthy investors, thus helping the super-rich short-circuit what’s left of democracy,…
Herding Americans to War with Iran
Exclusive: The murder of a fifth Iranian scientist on the streets of Tehran had all the earmarks of an Israeli-sponsored assassination. The killing also worsened tensions at a moment when the momentum toward war with Iran seems unstoppable, reports Robert…
The Enduring Shame of Guantanamo
On President Obama’s second full day in office, he promised to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, but then encountered fierce resistance from Congress, leading to a humiliating retreat underscored now by the prison’s tenth anniversary — and by renewed worldwide…
How Propaganda Targets Iran
America’s Founders saw press freedom as a key check on government dishonesty, but today’s media has become a powerful ally of official lies by funneling sophisticated propaganda especially in support of war, as Lawrence Davidson notes about the hysteria over Iran.