Tag: Chemical Weapons

Why We Need Consortiumnews

From Editor Robert Parry: In late August 2013, the United States was poised on the brink of another Mideast war. The facts were murky about a chemical weapons incident in Syria on Aug. 21, but most American pundits and politicians were blaming…

Fixing Intel Around the Syria Policy

Exclusive: Senior U.S. intelligence analysts disagreed with the Obama administration’s certainty that the Syrian government was behind the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack, but that dissent was suppressed amid the rush to a near war, reports Robert Parry.

NYTimes Mentions Israeli Nukes

Exclusive: The U.S. press is very tolerant of Israeli cross-border attacks inside Syria, like the latest one against a military target in Latakia. Israel’s nuclear arsenal usually goes unmentioned, too. But the New York Times surprisingly deviated from that pattern, notes…

Treating Anti-Syria Charges as Flat-Fact

Exclusive: More than two months after the chemical weapons attack near Damascus, President Obama has still not released any proof to support his allegations blaming the Syrian government. But the New York Times has embraced the accusations as flat fact,…

How US Pressure Bends UN Agencies

Exclusive: Lost in the celebration over the Nobel Peace Prize to the UN agency eliminating the Syrian government’s chemical weapons is the question of who was really behind the Aug. 21 poison-gas attack near Damascus. Relevant to that mystery is the recent U.S.…

Comparing Obama to Kissinger

Neocons and other war hawks criticized President Obama for not launching a military assault on Syria, but his decision to apply coercive diplomacy instead fits with many other U.S. precedents and showed a much defter touch than heavy-handed tactics used by…

Time for Proof on Syrian CW Attack

World attention has moved to the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons, but the evidence on the Aug. 21 attack near Damascus remains hidden and in dispute, causing a group of former U.S. intelligence professionals to ask Moscow and Washington to…

Dangerous Addiction to Secrecy

Exclusive: After decades of mutual suspicions, the U.S. and Iranian governments appear headed toward face-to-face contacts. But mutual trust still awaits truth-telling about important facts that defined the relationship — and that may require breaking a dangerous addiction to secrecy, says Robert…

The Better-Than-Worst Syria Option

The neocons still dominate Official Washington’s policy debates so it shouldn’t be a surprise that President Obama’s move toward diplomacy over intervention in Syria would draw criticism and denunciation. But sometimes the best course is the simply the one that’s…

Forgetting the Threat from Nukes

In recent weeks, international attention has focused on the apparent use of chemical weapons in Syria. But nuclear weapons represent an even greater threat to human life, and the countries possessing these fearsome weapons continue to press ahead in modernizing them,…