Alon Ben-Meir, born to an Iraqi Jewish family and a longtime negotiator between Israelis and Arabs, has faced accusations of over-optimism on the possibilities of peace but has now reluctantly concluded that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has no interest in…
Campaign 2016, Constitution, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Intelligence, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
Making Gitmo Today’s Spandau Prison
Obstructionists in Congress continue to play to baseless public fears and harmful prejudices by blocking President Obama’s plan for finally closing the Guantanamo Bay prison, instead making it a modern-day version of Spandau Prison, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Campaign 2016, Constitution, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Intelligence, Lost History, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, Secrecy, The Bush-43 Administration
Sanders the ‘Realist’; Hillary the ‘Neocon’
Exclusive: Sen. Sanders finds himself on the defensive in his uphill primary fight against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in part because he shies away from defining himself as a “realist” and asking if she is a “neocon,”…
Constitution, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Lost History, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing
Dissing George Washington for Reagan
Exclusive: Was Ronald Reagan a greater American leader than George Washington? That is the impression one gets when historic “Washington National Airport” is redubbed “Reagan National.” Are Americans really that anti-historical to have forgotten Washington’s significance, asks Robert Parry on…
The GOP’s ‘Pitchfork’ Rebellion
Exclusive: As Democrats show signs of falling in line behind the party’s establishment candidate (Hillary Clinton), the Republicans remain in rebellion casting aside one establishment favorite after another and making populist-billionaire Donald Trump the frontrunner, writes James W Carden.
Slouching Down a March of Folly
The threats from Turkey and Saudi Arabia to mount a full-scale invasion of Syria create the potential for a modern-day “march of folly” into World War III by drawing NATO and the U.S. into a direct military confrontation with Russia…
Campaign 2016, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Lost History, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
Kosovo Chaos Undercuts Clinton ‘Success’
Exclusive: President Bill Clinton’s Kosovo war of 1999 was loved by neocons and liberal hawks the forerunner for Iraq, Libya, Syria and other conflicts this century but Kosovo’s political violence and lawlessness today underscore the grim consequences of those strategies…
Campaign 2016, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Lost History, Obama Administration, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
KLA Country (A Forewarning from Kosovo)
From the Archive: President Clinton’s 1999 air war on Serbia supposedly to stop genocide in Kosovo became the model for neocon/liberal hawk “humanitarian” wars this century. But as Kosovo descends again into political violence the war also foreshadowed what can…
Clinton’s Experience: Fact and Fantasy
From the Archive: Hillary Clinton’s win in Saturday’s Nevada caucuses and her big lead in South Carolina restore her status as Democratic frontrunner but lingering doubts about her honesty and her coziness to Big Money continue to dog her path…
Holding the EU Together
Stressed by a long recession and a new refugee crisis, the European Union granted extraordinary concessions to London to keep Great Britain from splitting away from the Continent, but the glue holding the fragile union together may increasingly be an…
Campaign 2016, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
Fearing Sanders as ‘Closet Realist’
Exclusive: To Washington’s neocons like David Ignatius, Sen. Sanders should be disqualified as a presidential candidate for being a “closet realist.” Sanders seems not to accept their forced “regime change” in Syria, nor their plans for more “nation building” like the neocon handiwork in…
Turkey’s Perilous Crossroad
Turkey is at a dangerous crossroad, having plunged down the bloody route of “regime change” in Syria and getting drawn deeper into conflicts with Kurds, Iran and Russia. Can President Erdogan return to the more peaceful path he once followed,…
America’s Slide toward Failed State
The blanket refusal of Senate Republican leaders to consider President Obama’s choice to succeed Justice Scalia reflects a descent of the United States toward the kind of dysfunctional failed state that Washington normally upbraids, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Campaign 2016, Foreign Policy, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
How the Democratic Party Got Lost
Though the political odds still favor Hillary Clinton, her stumbling candidacy and dependence on vast sums of special-interest money reflect the weaknesses of the Democratic Party, which lost its way in the 1980s and 1990s, forgetting its historic role as…
Campaign 2016, Foreign Policy, Health Reform, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
The Big Issue Is Big Money
The biggest falsehood of Hillary Clinton’s campaign is to call Bernie Sanders a “single-issue” candidate, since he has actually addressed many issues. But Michael Winship says there’s some truth in the charge because Sanders has identified Big Money as the root…
Feeling the Bern Across America
Many political pundits see Bernie Sanders’s New Hampshire landslide as a fluke and look to Hillary Clinton’s Southern “firewall” to bring the Democratic race back to its expected course. But Lisa Pease has examined the Sanders campaign and sees an…
Campaign 2016, Constitution, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Intelligence, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
Hillary Clinton and the Dogs of War
Former Secretary of State Clinton grudgingly admits her Iraq War vote was a “mistake,” but it was not a one-off misjudgment. Clinton has consistently stood for a war-like U.S. foreign policy that ignores international law and relies on brinkmanship and military force,…
Campaign 2016, Constitution, Health Reform, Human Rights, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing
Which Democrat Stood for Civil Rights?
The conventional wisdom is that Hillary Clinton is more committed to the African-American community than Bernie Sanders and thus deserves the black vote but Clinton supported the drive toward mass incarceration, vowing to bring young “super-predators to heel,” as Marjorie…
Campaign 2016, Constitution, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Intelligence, Lost History, Obama Administration, Politics, Secrecy, The Bush-43 Administration
Hillary Clinton’s Hypocrisy on Dissent
Exclusive: Hillary Clinton says she’s a great defender of American veterans, but when Army vet (and ex-CIA analyst) Ray McGovern was assaulted for silently protesting one of her speeches, she did nothing and newly released emails show she rebuffed an adviser’s…
Campaign 2016, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
Risking Nuclear War for Al Qaeda?
Exclusive: The risk that the multi-sided Syrian war could spark World War III continues as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and U.S. neocons seek an invasion that could kill Russian troops — and possibly escalate the Syrian crisis into a nuclear showdown, amazingly to protect Al Qaeda terrorists,…