Exclusive: Libya remains a nation shattered by political chaos and bloody terrorism, a result of the U.S.-backed “regime change” in 2011 that Secretary of State Clinton championed and once saw as her crowning foreign policy achievement, even the basis for a…
The Right’s Made-up ‘Constitution’
From the Archive: Many Americans, especially Tea Partiers and Neo-Confederates, either haven’t read the U.S. Constitution or insist on distorting its plain language which established federal supremacy over the states and empowered the central government to “provide for the general Welfare,” as Jada…
Environment, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Intelligence, Lost History, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
Toward a Rational US Strategy (Part 2)
Special Report: The ultimate madness of today’s U.S. foreign policy is Official Washington’s eager embrace of a new Cold War against Russia with the potential for nuclear annihilation. A rational strategy would seek alternatives to this return to big-power confrontation, writes ex-U.S. diplomat William…
Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Intelligence, Lost History, Obama Administration, The Bush-43 Administration
Toward a Rational US Strategy (Part 1)
Special Report: Current U.S. foreign policy is driven by neoconservative ideologues and tough-talking “liberal interventionists” who spread chaos and death around the world while failing to serve real American interests. It’s time for a fundamental rethinking, writes former U.S. diplomat William…
Game of Chicken with Iran
In lock-step with Israeli hardliners, U.S. neocons continue their campaign to block a nuclear deal with Iran even if the tight restrictions would serve broad American interests and avert another Mideast war. That has left Secretary of State Kerry in…
Gay Marriage and Western Muslims
The evolution of thought on gay marriage shows how religions can adapt to humanistic trends of society, but religious fundamentalists refuse to budge from ancient prejudices, a challenge confronting not only Judaism and Christianity but Islam, as ex-CIA officer Graham…
Confronting Southern ‘Victimhood’
Exclusive: Many white Southerners are getting their backs up again over demands that the Confederate flag and other symbols of slavery be removed. But the core problem is that the South never admitted that slavery and then segregation were wrong, instead…
Finessing the Iran-Sanction Issue
Despite discouraging headlines about last-minute troubles facing the nuclear deal with Iran, negotiators have devised a clever way of sidestepping the touchy issue of when Iran would get sanctions relief — by delaying the actual signing until initial steps have…
Turkish Voters Rebuke Erdogan
A surprise election setback for Turkish President Erdogan’s party reflected growing public resistance to his dictatorial style, his aggressive behavior toward Turkey’s neighbors and an economic downturn, as Alon Ben-Meir explains.
Was Turkey Behind Syria Sarin Attack?
From the Archive: Turkey’s history of “deep state” intelligence may have resurfaced in 2013, according to journalist Seymour Hersh, as Turkish-backed, Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists learned to make sarin and may have used it in Syria to trick the U.S. into joining that civil war, as Robert Parry…
On the Trail of Turkey’s Terrorist Grey Wolves
From the Archive: Turkey, as a NATO country near Russia’s border, developed a powerful “deep state” where intelligence operatives, terrorists and gangsters crossed paths and shared political alliances, a grim reality that author Martin A. Lee explored in 1997 and…
Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Intelligence, Media, Obama Administration, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
Neocons Urge Embrace of Al Qaeda
Exclusive: The latest neocon gambit is to build support for “regime change” in Syria by downplaying the evils of Al Qaeda, rebranding it as some sort of “moderate” terrorist force whose Syrian affiliate is acceptable to Israel and supported by Saudi Arabia. But…
Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Intelligence, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Religion, Right Wing
Selective Outrage on ‘Terrorism’
America’s view of “terrorism” is distorted by politics and bias, with intense hostility toward the Islamic variety but with much more tolerance of other forms, such as Cuban “anti-communist” violence and right-wing extremist murders, as underscored by a new study examined…
Shaking Off the Symbols of Racism
A century and a half after the Civil War, many U.S. politicians still pander to Confederate sympathizers and hesitate to object to the South’s racist symbols, an attitude shaken by the murders of nine African-Americans in a Charleston church, as William Loren…
Forgetting Reagan’s Worst Scandal
The mainstream U.S. media shies from direct criticism of conservative icon Ronald Reagan, so the history of the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages deal often gets forgotten even amid discussions about the U.S. policy against negotiating with terrorists, as Sam Husseini notes.
Turkey’s Troubling War on Syria
In Syria, the war to overthrow the secular government in Damascus has attracted Islamic militants from around the world, but they have relied on funding and support from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and perhaps most importantly Turkey, where an election reflected…
Campaign 2016, Constitution, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Intelligence, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, Secrecy, The Bush-43 Administration
War on Whistleblowers, After Obama
The war on whistleblowers has injected fear of prosecution into all honest communications between national security officials and reporters, meaning that the public instead gets a steady diet of U.S. government lies, propaganda and self-serving rhetoric, a problem addressed by…
Was Race a Factor in Sterling Case?
President Obama’s war on whistleblowers grinds on with ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling dispatched to a federal prison in Colorado, far from his home and family. In Sterling’s case, there’s also the disturbing issue of race, as Norman Solomon explains.
The Nitwits Are in Charge
Exclusive: Pundit Thomas Friedman laments that the new Cold War isn’t funny enough for him, but there really isn’t anything funny about the U.S. plunging into an unnecessary nuclear showdown with Russia over Ukraine while Friedman and his fellow VIPs misreport what’s happening, writes…
Why Turkey’s Erdogan Stumbled
In his rise to power, Turkish President Erdogan won popular support by showing independence in foreign affairs but then got caught up in his own grand ambitions, including support for violent “regime change” in Syria, setting the stage for an electoral…