Even as the Islamic State’s “caliphate” in Syria collapses, the U.S. government is keeping about 2,000 soldiers in-country despite lacking any legal right to be there, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar discusses.
Trump’s Illegal Syrian Mission Creep
Silencing of Courageous Documentaries
Historically, documentaries have told important truth in powerful ways and often challenging powerful groupthinks, but such brave films are becoming an endangered species, explains John Pilger.
Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Lost History, Obama Administration, The Bush-43 Administration, Trump Administration
North Korea’s Understandable Fears
By escalating threatening rhetoric — and staging provocative military maneuvers — President Trump may believe he can intimidate North Korea into capitulation but history would tell you something else, writes David William Pear.
Trump, N. Korea & the Phony ‘Terror List’
Seeing what happened to the leaders of Iraq and Libya, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un won’t surrender his nuclear bombs – and getting put on the U.S. “terrorism list” won’t change that, as Independent Institute’s Ivan Eland explains.
Trump’s Lethal Decision on Jerusalem
President Trump has won praise from Christian Zionists and many staunch supporters of Israel for declaring Jerusalem Israel’s capital, but critics say it only makes peace a more distant goal, reports Dennis J Bernstein.
Campaign 2016, Foreign Policy, Intelligence, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Trump Administration
Russia-gate’s Litany of Corrections
Exclusive: As much as the U.S. mainstream media insists that the Russia-gate scandal is growing, what is undeniably growing is the list of major corrections that news outlets have been forced to issue, reports Robert Parry.
National Democrats Resist Reforms
Still refusing to face why Donald Trump and the Republicans won in 2016, the national Democratic Party rebuffs proposals from progressives to make the party more democratic and less corporate-dominated, writes Norman Solomon.
The Corruption of College Athletics
The U.S. likes to view itself as the epitome of sports integrity, but beyond its own professional and amateur doping scandals, there is the institutionalized corruption around U.S. college athletics, reports Lawrence Davidson.
Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Intelligence, Lost History, Obama Administration, The Bush-43 Administration, Trump Administration
When Washington Cheered the Jihadists
Exclusive: Official Washington helped unleash hell on Syria and across the Mideast behind the naïve belief that jihadist proxies could be used to transform the region for the better, explains Daniel Lazare.
Capitalism’s Failure of the Flesh
A bitter irony of modernity is that the age-old dream of freeing people from work’s tedium has been answered by robots, but capitalism has turned that “freedom” into a barren life with little left to lose, writes poet Phil Rockstroh.
Campaign 2016, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Media, Politics, Religion, Right Wing, Secrecy, Trump Administration
Missing the Significance of Israel-gate
Amid the U.S. mainstream media’s hyping of Russia-gate, there has been much less attention given to what some call “Israel-gate,” evidence that Israel was wielding much more behind-the-scenes influence, reports Dennis J Bernstein.
Trump’s Scheme to Carve Up Palestine
President Trump’s big idea for Israeli-Palestinian peace was the “outside-in” plan in which Israel’s new Saudi allies would squeeze the Palestinians until they accepted a bogus “state,” as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.
Constitution, Human Rights, Intelligence, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, Secrecy, Trump Administration
Russia-gate’s Reach into Journalism
The investigation to somehow blame Russia for Donald Trump’s election has now merged with another establishment goal of isolating and intimidating whistleblowers and other dissidents, as Dennis J Bernstein describes.
Franken’s Opportunism on the Iraq War
Sen. (and former comedian) Al Franken was a rising Democratic Party star before sexual harassment allegations brought him down to earth, but was he really ever a progressive hero, asks William Blum at Anti-Empire Report.
Year-End Fund Goal Set at $50,000
From Editor Robert Parry: We are setting our Year-End Fund Drive target at $50,000, an amount needed to continue our independent journalism which has been challenging misguided conventional wisdom for 22 years.
Roy Moore and the Triumph of Partisanship
Partisanship has reached such extremes in U.S. politics that Republicans are prepared to brush aside multiple allegations that Roy Moore preyed on teen-age girls to keep a Democrat from winning in Alabama, writes Michael Winship.
The Tangled Threads of Russia-gate
Exclusive: Once a Washington groupthink takes hold, as it has in the fervent belief about Russia-gate, respect for facts and logic fly out the window since all these important people can’t be wrong, writes Robert Parry.
Apparent Election Theft in Honduras
In 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton excused a coup in Honduras to stop a possible second term by a progressive president, but the U.S. now sits by as a right-wing president steals a second term, says Rick Sterling.
Foreign Policy, Intelligence, Lost History, Secrecy, The Bush-43 Administration, Trump Administration
Cherry-picking Toward War with Iran
In trying to rally American hostility toward Iran, CIA Director Pompeo and other U.S. officials are engaging in the same kind of distorted intelligence that led to the catastrophic Iraq invasion, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Constitution, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Lost History, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Trump Administration
Edward R. Murrow’s Timeless Warnings
As the Russia-gate hysteria expands, it is coming to resemble the McCarthyism of the 1950s, except this time liberals and progressives are promoting the insidious “guilt by association,” as Michael Milillo describes.