Tag: Vietnam War

Hypocritical Righteousness on Syria

Secretary of State John Kerry waxed eloquent about the need to punish national leaders who violate international law. He meant Syria’s Bashar al-Assad but his lecture could have applied to American officials who enabled the invasion of Iraq, including himself, just one…

Should We Fall Again for ‘Trust Me’?

Exclusive: Forgetting lessons from the Tonkin Gulf to the Iraq War, the U.S. news media has mostly elbowed past doubts about whether the Syrian government launched the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack and now is focused on the political drama…

The Risk from Distorting Intelligence

The Obama administration’s emotional reaction to the alleged chemical attack in Syria may be understandable given the human toll, but the high-level clamor for action put pressure on intelligence analysts assessing the evidence. It also could have distorted their judgments, as ex-CIA analyst…

How Truth Can Save Lives

From the Archive: A vengeful U.S. military has sentenced Pvt. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for disclosing unpleasant truths about the Afghan and Iraq wars and other government deceits. Manning’s bravery inspired ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern in 2010…

No Reckoning over Agent Orange

Official Washington often lectures other countries on the need for accountability, especially when governments have engaged in war crimes. Yet, one of the clearest cases of a U.S. war crime the mass spraying of Vietnam with Agent Orange has escaped…

Scooping ‘the Boys’ of Vietnam Press

Exclusive: During her seven years covering the Vietnam War, Beverly Deepe Keever broke through the male-dominated world of war reporting and nearly changed history with her discovery that Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign was sabotaging the Paris peace talks, notes Don…

Fixing US Democracy with Facts

From Editor Robert Parry: In our 18 years, Consortiumnews.com has had one priority: to chart a truthful history of the United States and its role in the world. In doing so, we have examined key chapters of that history so…

US Vets Join Gitmo Hunger Strike

Of the 166 detainees still at the Guantanamo Bay prison, 104 are on a hunger strike that has lasted over four months as they protest indefinite detentions without trial or even charges. They have now been joined by several U.S.…

Escaping Justice for Cambodian Deaths

Exclusive: Very few participants in the mass slaughters across Indochina in the 1960s and 1970s have faced meaningful accountability, whether in Washington, Vietnam or Cambodia. Another Khmer Rouge official, Ieng Sary, escaped justice when he died of natural causes while…

The Spark that Ignited the Vietnam War

Exclusive: A half-century ago, religious clashes in Vietnam — leading to a dramatic photo of a Buddhist priest burning himself alive — shocked the U.S. government and drove it deeper into the morass of the Vietnam War, a confluence of religion and…