Exclusive: Over the past decade, as the United States has focused on Middle East “terrorism,” its traditional sphere of influence in Latin America has spun further out of the U.S. orbit, with major regional countries coalescing around areas of cooperation.…
Misreading History into Wars
Official Washington’s “tough-guy-ism” often cites historical precedents, like Hitler at Munich or the Rwanda genocide, as simplistic justifications for new wars. President Obama’s two new national security appointees Susan Rice and Samantha Power seem prone to that mistake, notes ex-CIA…
How Wall St. Bailed Out the Nazis
Exclusive: The amoral calculations of Wall Street insiders guided Washington’s post-World War II decision to give many Nazi war criminals a pass if they’d help in the Cold War against the world’s socialist movements. CIA Director Allen Dulles was just…
Hitler’s Shadow Reaches toward Today
From the Archive: U.S. history took a dark turn in the aftermath of World War II as the Truman administration judged the Soviet Union and socialism bigger threats than the remnants of Nazism and other right-wing ideologies. So, Official Washington protected…
Manning: Guilty of Aiding Democracy
Because democracy is dependent on an informed electorate, political control in advanced societies like the United States has focused on selective dissemination of information and ideological spin. A whistleblower like Pvt. Bradley Manning disrupts that process, says Norman Solomon.
To Russia With Love
It was surely odd to see right-wing Republican Dana Rohrabacher speaking positively about Russia, but perhaps he was influenced by actor Steven Seagal — or maybe animosity toward Islamists now tops old grudges toward Moscow, a question that ex-CIA analyst…
Constitution, Human Rights, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Religion, The Bush-43 Administration
Selective Definition of ‘Terrorism’
Terrorism once had an objective meaning: an act of violence against civilians to achieve a political goal. But it’s since been transformed into a bigoted curse word aimed broadly at Muslims, while rarely applied to politically motivated violence by other…
‘Dark Money’ Plot Behind IRS ‘Scandal’
The flap over a few IRS bureaucrats clumsily trying to identify the many right-wing groups abusing a tax-exempt status remains the “big story.” But the news media continues to miss the bigger scandal, the tricks used to create vast pools of “dark money”…
The Manning Trial’s Real Defendant
Exclusive: The trial of Pvt. Bradley Manning for leaking classified documents is a test of values in the American Republic. The case pits a democracy’s need for knowledge against the government’s insistence on secrecy, a moral balancing act assessed by religious…
Dangerous Precedent of Drone Wars
President Obama has promised to put tighter restrictions on his use of lethal drones in U.S. counterterrorism attacks, but even if he follows through, there’s no guarantee that some future president won’t cite the precedents of the past decade to…
Human Rights, Lost History, Media, Obama Administration, Religion, Right Wing, Secrecy, The Bush-43 Administration
Moral Imperative of Bradley Manning
Exclusive: Official Washington still glorifies George W. Bush’s “successful surge” in Iraq while ignoring the wanton slaughter inflicted on Iraqis. So, there remains a high-level desire to harshly punish Pvt. Bradley Manning for exposing the horrific truth about that and…
Hypocrisy Reigns in Terrorism Report
For decades, the U.S. State Department’s reports on human rights and terrorism have been exercises in hypocrisy. The reports have been used as clubs against “enemies” and as excuses for “allies.” The latest terrorism report fits that sorry and dishonest…
Human Rights, Intelligence, Lost History, Media, Obama Administration, Right Wing, Secrecy, The Bush-43 Administration
Manning’s ‘Secrets’ v. Over-classification
Exclusive: The U.S. government wants to lock away Pvt. Bradley Manning for life because he released hundreds of thousands of classified documents that he believes revealed war crimes and other wrongdoing. But overlooked is how much damage over-classification does to the…
The Other Side of the IRS ‘Scandal’
If Occupy Wall Street had a national plan to flood the IRS with illegal claims for tax-exempt status and some IRS clerks had run a search for “occupy,” they would probably get a bonus and the story would be Occupy’s “criminal conspiracy.”…
Regret over Gary Webb’s Demise
Exclusive: For several decades, mainstream U.S. journalists have fled from the career-threatening label “liberal,” even to the point of destroying honest colleagues who got in the crosshairs of the Right. The story of the late Gary Webb and his Contra-cocaine…
A New Front in War on Wikileaks
With Private Bradley Manning’s leak trial about to start and with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange still holed up in the Ecuador Embassy in London, “We Steal Secrets,” a new big-budget documentary purports to explain the controversy but has more the…
Ecocide and the Soul of a Nation
At the front of the political madness enveloping the United States are anti-government, anti-science extremists who reject evidence of global warming and block any response to this existential threat. But the disconnect between environmental destruction and today’s humanity goes deeper,…
America’s Long History of Bloodletting
Americans like to think of themselves as peace-loving, but their history belies that self-image. From the genocidal wars against Native Americans through the current multi-front “war on terror,” the United States has been fighting and killing for most of its…
Bad Mind-Reading on Iran
Propagandists often speculate about the evil intentions of some rival state and then bait anyone who suggests that the other side is just looking out for its own interests or harboring its own fears. This propaganda technique has been honed into a fine…
The Folly of ‘Self-Regulation’
The recent loss of human life in Bangladesh sweatshops and the 2008 Wall Street meltdown that devastated the world’s economy should demonstrate that relying on corporate executives to “self-regulate” is a deadly and dangerous way to protect the broader society, as Michael Winship…