Tag: Barack Obama

Obama and Fast-Moving Global Crises

The three big international crises Ukraine/Russia, Israel/Gaza and Iran/nuclear mark a choice for President Obama, stick with Israel and the old alignments or shift toward more cooperation with Russia and Iran. But the pieces on this global chessboard are fast moving, says…

The Human Price of Neocon Havoc

Exclusive: Neocons are the “masters of chaos” as they destabilize disfavored governments around the world. But real people pay the price as we’ve seen with Israel’s slaughter of four boys on a Gaza beach and an apparent shoot-down of a Malaysian airliner over war-torn Ukraine,…

The Whys Behind Israel’s Gaza Slaughter

The Israeli bombardment of Gaza is getting the usual sympathetic treatment from Official Washington, which even excuses Israel’s killing of civilians who are near Hamas militants by claiming that Hamas is using them as “human shields,” as Vijay Prashad explained to Dennis J Bernstein.

Obama’s Failure to Rein in CIA and NSA

Despite Barack Obama’s promises during the 2008 campaign to reform the U.S. intelligence community, he has continued to tolerate its abuses, enable its excessive secrecy and indulge its bone-headedness, as ex-CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman explains.

An All-Seeing, All-Knowing Being

A decade ago, exposure of President George W. Bush’s Total Information Awareness scheme brought assurances that it had been shelved, but its Orwellian intent was only shifted to the NSA and it now gives the U.S. government nearly god-like powers,…

Hillary Clinton’s Corporatist Party

Many Democrats seem set on Hillary Clinton getting a cakewalk to the party’s presidential nomination, but her neocon-style foreign policy and her cozy ties to Wall Street might give rank-and-file Democrats some pause, as Jeff Cohen suggests.

Why the Honduran Children Flee North

Much of the violence driving thousands of unaccompanied children from Honduras to the U.S. can be traced to the past decades of U.S. military and economic interference in Honduras, including ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s support for a 2009 coup, Adrienne Pine tells…

No Lessons Learned at the NYT

Exclusive: Mistakes were made on the Iraq War in 2003 and lessons have been learned, the New York Times says, but those lessons haven’t carried over to the Times’ deeply biased coverage of the crises in Syria and Ukraine, reports…

Plunging toward Armageddon in Israel

Exclusive: The latest cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence is pulling the region and the world deeper into a grotesque crime of religious-inspired slaughter, but U.S. politicians can’t see beyond their narrow self-interests, writes former U.S. diplomat William R. Polk.

Caving In to Israeli Intransigence

Despite major Palestinian concessions for a peace deal, Israel’s dominance over the U.S. Congress and President Obama’s fear of political retribution enabled right-wing Prime Minister Netanyahu to sink negotiations and open the way into a new cycle of violence, as Stephen…