The U.S. mainstream media avoids the word “coup” when a disfavored leader is ousted, but the silence around Iran’s 1981 coup also may have served Ronald Reagan’s political self-interest in keeping secret his own “coup,” as Mahmood Delkhasteh reflects.
Category: Secrecy
Destroying the Magnitsky Myth
A new documentary blows apart the West’s Russia-bashing narrative about the 2009 death of Sergei Magnitsky, so the response has been to stop the public from seeing the film while calling it Russian “agit-prop,” as Gilbert Doctorow explains.
Mystery of a Little-Known Gitmo Prisoner
President Obama vowed to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but has struggled against congressional resistance and a slow-moving review process, exemplified by the strange case of Haroon al-Afghani, reports Dennis J Bernstein.
How Roy Cohn Helped Rupert Murdoch
From the Archive: The Washington Post’s takeout on Donald Trump’s ties to notorious McCarthyite Roy Cohn mentioned Cohn’s links to Ronald Reagan and Rupert Murdoch, but there is much more to that, reported Robert Parry in 2015.
A Campaign Based on Conspiracy Theory
Conspiracy theories – suspicions without evidence – have become a bane of modern life, but Donald Trump seeks to make them a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, as Todd Gitlin describes.
MH-17 Probe Trusts Torture-Implicated Ukraine
Exclusive: The floundering inquiry into who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014 has relied heavily on a Ukrainian intelligence agency that recently stopped U.N. investigators from probing its alleged role in torture, reports Robert Parry.
Why US Politics and Policy Are Adrift
The U.S. system of politics and public policy is in disarray awash with elites trying to manipulate the public and the public drifting away from any factual grounding, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.
Deflategate Twist: 31 NFL Teams Are Cheating
Exclusive: In pressing ahead with the absurd “Deflategate” case against Tom Brady, the NFL’s 31 rival owners appear to be using a made-up scandal to get an edge on the New England Patriots and — to put it bluntly — cheat, writes Robert Parry.
Democrats Are Now the Aggressive War Party
Exclusive: For nearly a half century – since late in the Vietnam War – the Democrats have been the less warlike of the two parties, but that has flipped with the choice of war hawk Hillary Clinton, writes Robert Parry.
Calling Out Drone War as a War Crime
Night and day, U.S. “pilots” sit in cushioned chairs near Las Vegas, commanding drones on the other side of the planet, tracking and killing people, what retired Col. Ann Wright and other activists call a war crime, writes Dennis J Bernstein.