Exclusive: Zingers are often the most memorable moments in presidential debates, but they are rarely spontaneous. In 1992, aides to President George H.W. Bush prepped him with insults intended to question Bill Clinton’s patriotism but the script went awry, reports Robert Parry.
Silence of the Drones
Exclusive: Even as the United States has withdrawn from Iraq and has begun to wind down the Afghan War, the lethal reach of the U.S. military has been extended into other countries through Predator drones. What is less known is…
Iran Signals New Tone
If President Obama wins a second term, Iran is signaling it would be ready for improved relations with the United States and the West. One sign of that shift in attitude was the toned-down speech by Iran’s President Ahmadinejad at…
The Burden of Pentagon Spending
The last decade’s surge in military spending has added to America’s debt while having a dubious impact on U.S. security. The upcoming elections now pit President Obama, who is calling for reductions, against Mitt Romney, who is calling for more…
Method to Netanyahu’s Wackiness?
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s gimmick of hoisting a crude drawing of a bomb to illustrate the alleged Iranian nuclear threat has prompted derision and has distracted from his claims about existential threats. But perhaps he was more interested in another kind…
Israel’s Strategic ‘Dead End’
The expectation at the annual UN General Assembly has been for Iran’s President Ahmadinejad to come across as wacky while the U.S. media lauds Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu for his seriousness, except that the script went differently this year, as Flynt…
Consortiumnews.com, Human Rights, Intelligence, Lost History, Media, Obama Administration, Politics, Right Wing
In Case You Missed…
Some of our special stories in August followed the strange twists and turns of Campaign 2012, the prospects for war with Iran, and the role of government in improving lives and solving problems.
Netanyahu Backs Off on Iran
Exclusive: While Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was belligerent in tone at the UN, he signaled a retreat on substance, postponing his threatened attack on Iran’s nuclear sites. That suggests he is reading the U.S. polls and thinks he may have to deal…
Romney’s Curious View of Freedom
Exclusive: Election 2012 is a choice between two visions for America’s future and also a contest between two versions of the U.S. past. Mitt Romney and the Tea Party draw from a national narrative that claims the Framers opposed a…
Obama Carefully Defends Free Speech
In defending freedom of speech at the UN, President Obama addressed a variety of audiences, especially the world’s Muslims angry over an offensive video, but he also didn’t want to rile up his political opponents at home. That kept some…
The Fuzzy Line of Terrorism
The Obama administration’s plan to remove a group of violent Iranian émigrés from the U.S. terror list suggests a readiness to pursue the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend strategy that put the United States on the side of Osama bin Laden and Islamic extremists in…
Robert Parry’s Upcoming Book
From Journalist Robert Parry: As I’m putting the finishing touches on my new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, we are also facing a financial crisis at Consortiumnews.com. So I would like to make a proposal that combines these two developments.
The Price of US Interventionism
Mitt Romney and his neocon advisers want to confront the Muslim world with a “credible military threat” as if more American “tough-guy-ism” will quell the region’s anti-Americanism. But the reality is that the long history of U.S. intervention has engendered the…
Netanyahu’s ‘Red Line’ on Obama
President Obama has infuriated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by rejecting his demand for a “red line” on war with Iran if it achieves the “capability” to build a nuclear weapon. The clash has led Netanyahu to brazenly intervene in…
Dark Days Ahead in Afghan War
When President Obama took office, he retained George W. Bush’s military high command and then let himself be trapped into an expanded counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan. But the strategy isn’t working and the current prospect is for an eventual Taliban…
Americans Sour on Endless War
The Right thinks it has a winning issue in mocking President Obama for “leading from behind” on international crises like last year’s uprising in Libya. But a new study finds Americans leery of more war, supportive of diplomacy and eager…
Iran Reaffirms Offer on Nukes
In his swan song to the UN General Assembly, Iran’s term-limited President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is stirring up the usual media outrage with remarks on gays, freedom of speech and Israel. But the West still ignores a substantive Iranian proposal on uranium enrichment,…
A March of Folly Toward Iran
Tough-guy posturing in Washington continues to push the United States toward another collision course in the Middle East, as two politically motivated actions ratcheted up tensions with Iran. Ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar sees troubling parallels with the march of folly…
Buying Off the ‘Terrorist’ List
The label “terrorist” has been bent to political use so often the word has lost any semblance of objective meaning. American politicians and pundits like to hurl it against perceived enemies, but now it appears a group can escape the…
‘Lucky’ Voters Can Pick Romney
Exclusive: Mitt Romney’s political struggles are testing the patience of the Republican presidential nominee and his wife Ann, who tells Americans that they should know how “lucky” they are that her husband is offering himself as the nation’s savior. Romney’s…