Time and history sometimes intertwine in ways more poetic than linear, such as the multiple crimes associated with the date September 11 and the legacy of bearing witness to suffering that led journalist James Foley to his death in Syria,…
The CIA/MSM Contra-Cocaine Cover-up
Exclusive: With Hollywood set to release a movie about the Contra-cocaine scandal and the destruction of journalist Gary Webb, an internal CIA report has surfaced showing how the spy agency manipulated the mainstream media’s coverage to disparage Webb and contain the scandal, reports Robert…
Obama’s Propagandistic UN Address
Exclusive: The longer President Obama has been in office the less honest he has become, a problem growing more apparent in his second term as he reads speeches containing information that he knows to be false or at least highly…
Argentina v. the Hedge Funds
Exclusive: A battle between Argentina and U.S. hedge funds, which gambled on the country’s defaulted bonds, is raising questions about how far U.S. courts can go in requiring governments to pay and whether developing nations can defy the U.S.-dominated financial system, reports…
Hoping Bombs Will Solve Iraq/Syria Mess
Contradictions beset the U.S. war over Iraq and Syria. The principal target ISIS wouldn’t even exist but for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria have benefited from defections of U.S.-backed “moderates.” But now warplanes and missiles are…
Obama’s Novel Lawyering to Bomb Syria
Exclusive: The U.S. government likes international law when it serves Washington’s purposes, but not when it constrains U.S. desires to use military force. Then, the rules are bent, ignored or subjected to novel lawyering, as President Obama is doing with airstrikes…
War on Terror v. Climate Change
Despite President Obama’s support for global cooperation on the pressing crisis of climate change, he was back at the more destructive and distressing business of cobbling together a new “coalition of the willing” for the latest expansion of the “war…
Obama’s Risks of Escalation
As President Obama launched the first waves of U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State and other targets in Syria, the risks of further military escalation or other expected developments abound, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.
High Cost of Bad Journalism on Ukraine
Exclusive: By driving a wedge between President Obama and President Putin over Ukraine, America’s neocons and the mainstream media can hope for more “shock and awe” in the Mideast, but the U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill, including $1 trillion more on…
How Money Silences Criticism of Israel
Israel’s never-ending persecution of Palestinians is opening a chasm between the world’s public, which is growing disgusted by Israeli behavior, and Western elites who shy from criticism because of career fears and financial dependence, observes Lawrence Davidson.
Neocons Grow Frantic over Iran Progress
With an agreement on constraining Iran’s nuclear program within reach, Official Washington’s neocons are getting apoplectic about the need to rev up new animosities toward Iran, an approach not helpful to real U.S. security needs, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar…
Do One Thing to Help Consortiumnews
From Editor Robert Parry: Over the past 19 years, Consortiumnews has challenged Official Washington’s misguided “group think” from exposing Nixon-Reagan dirty tricks to standing up for journalist Gary Webb to exposing false arguments for war. Now we ask you to…
Human Rights, Intelligence, Lost History, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing, Secrecy
Blocking a ‘Realist’ Strategy on the Mideast
Exclusive: Official Washington’s influential neocons appear back in the driver’s seat steering U.S. policy in the Middle East toward a wider conflict in Syria and away from a “realist” alternative that sought a Putin-Obama collaboration to resolve the region’s crises more peacefully, reports…
The Self-Interest in Climate ‘Denial’
Even in the face of new scientific reports on the escalating dangers from global warming, the “deniers” continue to pick at the now overwhelming data and pick up their checks from oil and other industry groups, write Bill Moyers and…
How Obama’s New War Could Backfire
The political imperative to “do something” against the brutal Islamic State has brought President Obama and congressional majorities together on a plan for a limited U.S. military response, but this strategy could actually make matters worse, says the Independent Institute’s…
Cameras to Detect ‘Abnormal’ Behavior
In the chimerical pursuit of perfect security, Western countries are turning to advanced technology to detect and stop terrorist attacks. But these expensive schemes often fail to deliver greater safety while further eroding personal freedom, as Sander Venema observed in…
Braveheart, Edward I, and Bush
From the Archive: As Scots vote on independence from Great Britain, part of the motivation for those voting “aye” is the brutal history of English repression of Scottish freedom, dating back centuries but fresh in the minds of many Scots,…
Reported US-Syrian Accord on Air Strikes
Exclusive: A problem with President Obama’s plan to expand the war against ISIS into Syria was always the risk that Syrian air defenses might fire on U.S. warplanes, but now a source says Syria’s President Assad has quietly agreed to…
More Neocon Hypocrisy in the Mideast
America’s neocons are now advancing their “regime change” goals in the Mideast by tarring “enemies,” like Syria’s largely secular government, as “Islamist” while shielding “friends” like Saudi Arabia despite its intense religiosity, yet one more double standard, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
The Lost Logic of ‘Perpetual War’
President Obama’s plan to bomb Islamic State targets inside Syria amounts to an expansion of America’s “perpetual war” without either a clear legal basis or a likely expectation of success, as Nat Parry explains.