Exclusive: The Right’s policy nostrums are failing across the board from free-market extremism to austerity as a cure for recession to continuing the old health-care dysfunction leaving only an ideological faith that this is what the Framers wanted. But that…
Greasing the Capitol’s Locked Gears
The Permanent ‘War on Terror’
Over the past dozen years, the “war on terror” has taken a profound toll on U.S. constitutional protections and democratic principles, a process that continues despite President Obama’s promise last May that “this war like all wars must end,” as…
America’s Upside-Down Morality
Exclusive: Pvt. Bradley Manning has prostrated himself before his court-martial judge, apologizing for leaking documents on U.S. government wrongdoing and referencing his psychological problems as reasons for mercy. The sad spectacle underscores how upside-down American morality now is, says Robert…
A Method to Egypt’s Madness
Blaming Obama for Syrian Mess
’42’ and 44
How Congress Overlooked NSA Spying
Edward Snowden’s leaks about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs might have been avoided if more members of Congress had done their duty to stay informed about these classified activities, rather than get distracted by the fluff of politics, says…
Who Benefits from the Various ‘Wars’?
The ‘Do-Something’ Myth in Syria
Struggling for Peace in Colombia
Exclusive: Normally, peace negotiators end a conflict first and then examine the war crimes later. But the long-running civil war in Colombia has such a secretive and brutal history that efforts to cease the fighting began with an investigation of the slaughter, writes Andrés…
The Moral Imperative of Activism
Exclusive: Today’s crises endless war, environmental catastrophe, desperate poverty and more can seem so daunting that they paralyze action rather than inspire activism. But the imperative to do something in the face of injustice defines one’s moral place in the…
No Reckoning over Agent Orange
A Cold War Bias Toward Russia
How US Hubris Baited Afghan Trap
Scoring Points Over a Terror Threat
Though it’s summer, Official Washington’s factionalism never takes a vacation. The neocons are in workaholic mode, claiming the precautionary closure of some U.S. embassies proves al-Qaeda remains a major threat, despite the fact that no terror attack has actually happened, as ex-CIA analyst Paul…
Would Jesus Drop the Nagasaki Bomb?
Pinning Argentine Bombing on Iran
“Defectors” are among the most unreliable intelligence sources since they have an obvious motive for discrediting their former governments, but still have been allowed outsized roles in whipping up hysteria against Iraq in 2003 and now against Iran, as Gareth…
Iran/Iraq ‘Defectors’ and Disinformation
Manning’s Upside-Down Punishment
The cruel irony of how the United States has addressed post-9/11 war crimes, including President Bush’s invasion of Iraq and his use of torture, is that no major government official has been held accountable, yet whistleblowers have faced harsh reprisals,…