Category: The Bush-43 Administration

Excusing Torture, Again

Exclusive: The neocon Washington Post let ex-CIA official Jose Rodriguez, who oversaw waterboarding and other torture and then destroyed the videotaped evidence, make his case that there was no torture, just effective interrogation that helped get Osama bin Laden. But ex-CIA analyst…

Al Gore’s ‘Current TV’ Debacle

Exclusive: Current TV’s core failure was the choice by its founder Al Gore to avoid political conflict in 2005 when President George W. Bush was near the height of his powers. That act of cowardice made the “progressive” network largely irrelevant to…

Why US/Israel Face Sinking Polls

When U.S. and Israeli officials look glumly at international polls showing their declining popularity, they often think that just some better salesmanship will do the trick. But the real problem isn’t the pitch; it’s the product, in this case policies…

Should Afghanistan Be Partitioned?

Exclusive: The Obama administration is weighing options to leave 6,000 to 20,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014. But the prospect for even modest success is undercut by the country’s ethnic divisions and Pashtun hostility to foreign occupiers, says Bruce P. Cameron.

War Spending and the ‘Fiscal Cliff’

The short-term danger of the “fiscal cliff” may be resolved either before or after the New Year, but the longer-term threat to the Republic is the never-ending demand from the Military-Industrial Complex for more and more money to finance war…

Kicking the Vietnam Syndrome

From the Archive: With Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf’s death on Thursday and the declining health of ex-President George H.W. Bush an era of war and intrigue is coming to an end, a time of resurgent U.S. imperialism that saw this warrior seeking peace and the…

NRA Suggests a Police State

Exclusive: The irony of the NRA’s crackpot idea for protecting America’s children by dramatically expanding the use of armed guards is that the proposal would push the U.S. further down the path toward a police state, threatening the “liberties” that…

Bankster Justice Very Much Delayed

After years of tip-toeing around the too-big-to-fail banks despite their key role in devastating the world’s economy the U.S. government has finally signaled a couple of fraud prosecutions. However, the effort is not only way too late, but way too…

An Incurious ‘Zero Dark Thirty’

Exclusive: Zero Dark Thirty, the big-screen chronicling of the manhunt for Osama bin Laden, has been hailed by some critics for its taut storytelling, but it fails to confront the larger questions about 9/11, including the complex history between the…

The Beat-Down of ‘Public Servants’

For several decades, the American Right has heaped contempt on government employees as part of a strategy to delegitimize federal regulation of the private sector, contributing to such disasters as the Wall Street meltdown of 2008. But the beat-down of “public servants” goes…