From Editor Robert Parry: We’ve made headway toward achieving the $10,000 “challenge grant,” but we still have about one-fifth of the way to go. It would be a waste to leave that matching money on the table.
Let’s Not Leave Money on the Table
Human Rights, Intelligence, Lost History, Media, Obama Administration, Secrecy, The Bush-43 Administration
Truman’s True Warning on the CIA
Exclusive: National security secrecy and a benighted sense of “what’s good for the country” can be a dangerous mix for democracy, empowering self-interested or misguided officials to supplant the people’s will, as President Truman warned and ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern…
Mandela, MLK and Jesus
The death of Nelson Mandela offers Christians a chance to reflect on the great protest leader at the center of their religion, the historical Jesus, with his anger at ostentatious wealth and his disdain for social inequality, as Rev. Howard Bess reflects.
Snowden’s Leaks Doom NSA’s Snooping
After long claiming to welcome a robust debate on NSA surveillance, President Obama found the debate more robust and more substantive than he expected, especially after the leaks by Edward Snowden, as Danny Schechter explains.
NYT Replays Its Iraq Fiasco in Syria
Exclusive: Much like the Iraq WMD fiasco in 2002-03, the New York Times has taken sides in the conflict in Syria and is ignoring evidence that undercuts its indictment of the Assad regime as the guilty party in the Aug. 21 Sarin attack outside Damascus,…
Lost in an Anthropocene Wonderland
The Anthropocene Epoch dating from when human activity began to have a significant impact on the global ecosystem is crashing toward a disastrous end amid melting icecaps, rising sea levels and dying species, but the human race can’t stop its…
The Moral Cancer of Gitmo
Mired in politics as well as the emotions of fear and revenge, the Guantanamo Bay prison remains a cancer on the American conscience. Yet, the Obama administration has taken only halfhearted and piecemeal efforts to close it, John LaForge says.
How Boycotts Can Help Israel
When South Africa was ruled by white supremacists and faced boycotts, Pretoria’s defense was that many black-ruled African states were worse and apartheid shouldn’t be singled out. Now, Israel is advancing a similar argument, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar…
Unjust Aftermath: Post-Noriega Panama
Special Report: Twenty-four years ago, the United States invaded Panama to capture Gen. Manuel Noriega on drug charges. Operation Just Cause promised the country a new day free of dictatorship and drug-tainted corruption, but it didn’t work out that way,…
Behind Colin Powell’s Legend: Panama War
From the Archive: Though largely forgotten, the brief U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 established key precedents that would reappear in later conflicts from the Persian Gulf and Kosovo to Afghanistan and Iraq policies shaped, in part, by Gen. Colin Powell,…
Contras, Dirty Money and CIA
From the Archive: On Dec. 20, 1989, President George H.W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama to arrest Gen. Manuel Noriega on drug charges. The U.S. news media viewed the assault as a case of Bush seeking justice, but there…
WPost Slips Behind Amazon’s Cloud
Technology moguls many involved with high-tech U.S. intelligence projects are deploying their fortunes to buy up or start up media entities that give them control of the tone and content of journalism, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and his Washington Post,…
If You Believe the Government, ‘You’re Stupid’
Americans are taught the myth that their democracy is safeguarded by an independent press. But the government and other powerful entities have long mastered the art of manipulating the major media, even to the point of bluntly telling reporters the…
No War Over Rocks
U.S. foreign policy remains captive to unipolar hubris, enforced by neocon pundits who demand military interventions to solve the world’s problems. But this kneejerk response is particularly crazy when applied to Asian disputes over rocks far at sea, says Independent Institute’s…
Falling Short on ‘Challenge Grant’
From Editor Robert Parry: We’re in danger of falling short on our $10,000 “challenge grant” which we hoped would go a long way toward meeting our end-of-year fundraising goal. So, if you can help with a tax-deductible donation to Consortiumnews.com…
Constitution, Lost History, Obama Administration, October Surprise, Politics, Right Wing, The Bush-43 Administration
Judge Leon’s Dirty Climb to the Bench
Exclusive: Civil libertarians are cheering federal judge Richard Leon for his ruling against the NSA’s massive surveillance program and that’s all to the good but Leon’s route to the bench followed a twisted course of partisan investigations and one historic…
Playing Deadly Games with ‘Gun Rights’
Pro-gun extremists routinely edit out of the Second Amendment its stated purpose of having “a well-regulated militia” maintain state “security.” The tampering lets them pretend the Founders would be okay with slaughters like the Newtown massacre, as Bill Moyers and Michael Winship…
The Blacklisting of Noam Chomsky
An odd aspect of modern American life is that even with 24-hour news and its roster of blathering pundits, many creative thinkers with valuable insights are blacklisted from mainstream media, perhaps most notably Noam Chomsky who turned 85 on Dec. 7,…
Latin America Finds Its Footing
Exclusive: While the U.S. and Spain have wallowed in the Great Recession swamp, Latin America has begun breaking free of the old order that bogged down progress. Now, the region is restructuring relations with its old international masters, as Andrés Cala explains.
Wisdom in Restraint on Syria
The neocons are still beating the drums for U.S. military intervention in Syria, now supposedly for humanitarian reasons. But as horrific as the Syrian violence is it’s clear that President Obama’s restraint last summer averted making the mess even worse, says…