From Editor Robert Parry: Consortiumnews is now 20 years old. We began in late November 1995 as the first investigative news magazine based on what was then a new phenomenon, the Internet. Our goal was then and still is today…
Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Lost History, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
The Tricky Definition of ‘Terrorism’
The classic definition of terrorism as violence against civilians to make a political point may make sense but the term’s elastic use even applied to attacks on U.S. soldiers operating in foreign lands has transformed the word into an epithet…
Real Questions for President Obama
Part of Official Washington’s problem is that most journalists at least those called on at presidential news conferences represent the same “group think” that pervades the government, meaning President Obama doesn’t get asked truly probing questions, as William Blum notes at Anti-Empire…
Campaign 2016, Constitution, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Lost History, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Secrecy, The Bush-43 Administration
Obama’s Credibility Crisis
Exclusive: Inside Official Washington’s bubble, the Important People believe their “group think” is the envy of the world, but the truth is that their credibility has collapsed to such a degree that their propaganda can’t even match up with the head-chopping videos…
Trump’s Heresy on Israel
The appeal of Donald Trump’s bigoted comments has exposed an unpleasant truth about the Republican Party, which has been flirting with racism since Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy, but his refusal to toe the line on Israel also highlights the groveling…
PBS Joins the MSM’s Syria-Russia Bias
Mainstream U.S. media systematically excludes points of view on world affairs that deviate from Official Washington’s “group think.” With no lessons learned from the Iraq-WMD debacle, the MSM only lets on establishment or right-wing pundits with conformist points of view on crises with Syria and Russia, notes…
Suffering from Global Warming First
Indigenous people who live close to the land are seeing the effects of global warming sooner and more alarmingly than many urban dwellers and thus are demanding a strong voice in the Paris Climate Summit, as Native and Indian leader…
What to Do about the ISIS ‘Caliphate’
While the first necessity in dealing with a threat like ISIS is to finally get Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to cut off its financial and military life lines, the terror group’s claim to a territorial caliphate presents a unique…
A Way Forward on Israel-Palestine
Prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace have rarely looked dimmer with Prime Minister Netanyahu unwilling to make concessions and President Obama incapable of applying pressure, but one option would be to abandon the so-called Quartet and embrace the Arab Peace Initiative, says Alon Ben-Meir.
Campaign 2016, Environment, Foreign Policy, Intelligence, Obama Administration, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
Who Wants to Weaponize Outer Space?
U.S. military hardliners are pushing for military dominance of outer space and U.S. diplomats are blocking international efforts to ban its weaponization but the Obama administration pretends that Russia and China are the problem, as Sam Husseini explains.
Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Intelligence, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, Secrecy, The Bush-43 Administration
Learning to Love the ‘Drone War’
The mainstream U.S. news media is so in the tank on the “war on terror” that it ignores critical information that the American people should know, such as the public complaint from four former Air Force drone operators that the…
Campaign 2016, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Religion, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
When Mass Killings Aren’t ‘News’
The 24/7 coverage of the San Bernardino mass killing, perpetrated by a Muslim husband and wife, has alarmed and frightened Americans, but there is next to no mainstream interest in disclosures about far worse mayhem carried out by the U.S.…
Israel’s ‘Successful’ Defeat on Iran
Israel’s defeat in its bid to get Congress to block President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran may have represented a loss of face, but the fight generated lots of money and set a marker for Obama and his successors on…
Humanity’s ‘Hail Mary’ on Global Warming
The growing crisis over global warming must be addressed seriously now or require risky “geoengineering” strategies as a last resort in the not-too-distant future, a dangerous “Hail Mary” pass for humanity’s survival, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.
How Republicans Shred the Republic
The anti-government ideology that drives today’s Republican Party claims to support the U.S. Constitution but is actually its antithesis. Rather than “We the People” providing for the “general Welfare,” the goal is to starve government and cede all power to the…
NATO Picks a New Fight with Russia
Exclusive: The Obama administration and much of Official Washington have dangerously lost touch with reality, ginning up a costly new Cold War with Russia even as expensive wars continue in Afghanistan and Iraq/Syria. The latest provocation against Russia is to invite…
Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
Obama Ignores Russian Terror Victims
Exclusive: President Obama has displayed a stunning lack of sympathy for the Russian civilians killed in an ISIS plane bombing in Egypt and for two Russian military men slain as victims of U.S. weapons systems in Syria, putting insults toward President…
Campaign 2016, Constitution, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Intelligence, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, Secrecy, The Bush-43 Administration
Global Angst over US Secrecy Fetish
With the reach of U.S. surveillance now global and with the U.S. military deployed all over the world anger at President Obama’s unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers who disclose the U.S. government’s abuses and crimes has gone international, as this Norwegian opinion piece by Victor Wallis shows.
Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Lost History, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
Obama Taunts Putin over Syria
President Obama mocked Russian President Putin for not fixing Syria during the past month and chided him about Moscow’s Afghan quagmire in the 1980s, proving that Obama has either no self-awareness or no sense of irony given the U.S. misadventures in…
The West’s Deadly Mideast Fantasies
Exclusive: Madness or at least self-deception now dominates the West’s approach to the Middle East, with ostensibly rational leaders like Barack Obama and Francois Hollande fueling public hysteria about terrorism and pursuing “regime change” strategies proven to fail, as Mike Lofgren…