Friday, December 31, 2010

A Zoo of Our Own Making

By Phil Rockstroh
December 31, 2010

In an age, when nature is besieged and the political landscape blighted, and one stands, stoop shouldered and wincing into the howling wasteland of epic-scale idiocy extant in the era, a solitary person can feel lost ... marooned inside an increasingly isolated sense of self.

Read on.

Birth of Pakistan's Islamic Extremism

By Alvaro Vargas Llosa
December 31, 2010

Hardly a day goes by without news about the penetration of the Pakistani state by Islamic fanaticism and the connection between that country’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate and radical groups in Afghanistan, including the Taliban.

Read on.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

The Coming War over the Constitution

By Robert Parry
December 30, 2010

Despite a few victories in the lame-duck session of Congress, Democrats and progressives should be under no illusion about the new flood of know-nothingism that is about to inundate the United States in the guise of a return to “first principles” and a deep respect for the U.S. Constitution.

Read on.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The US Media Hit on Helen Thomas

By Danny Schechter
December 29, 2010

In 1960, I co-founded a student magazine at Cornell University called Dialogue. I was a wannabe journalist, fixated on emulating the courageous media personalities of the times from Edward R. Murrow to a distinctive figure I came to admire at Presidential press conferences, a wire service reporter named Helen Thomas.

Read on.

Argentina's Dapper State Terrorist

By Marta Gurvich
December 29, 2010 (Originally published August 19, 1998)
Read on.

Hungary's Embrace of Propaganda

By Abby Martin
December 29, 2010

Naomi Wolf's book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, argues that there are ten steps common to every state that has made the transition into fascism.

Read on.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Obama's Fear of the Reagan Narrative

By Robert Parry
December 28, 2010

At a closed-door White House meeting this month, President Barack Obama justified his repeated concessions to the Right as necessitated by its success over three decades in selling Ronald Reagan’s anti-government message to broad sectors of the American public.

Read on.

Trying More Carrots with Iran

By Ivan Eland
December 28, 2010

Although the recently released WikiLeaks secrets document the well-known animosity of Iran’s neighbors to the radical Islamist regime — with their hopes for a U.S. attack on the nation over its nuclear enrichment program — talks to end the Iranian effort will continue.

Read on.

Monday, December 27, 2010

America's Slide toward Totalitarianism

By Abby Martin
December 27, 2010

In George Orwell’s 1984, Britain is depicted as a totalitarian police state that is ruled by the Party, or Big Brother – an enigmatic, ubiquitous elite that controls society through heavy surveillance, nationalist propaganda and historical revisionism.

Read on.

America's Dangerous Self-Deceptions

By Lawrence Davidson
December 27, 2010

Benjamin Disraeli once labeled Britain’s government "an organized hypocrisy." That was in circa 1845. Things have not changed much and by now hypocrisy might well be seen as a common sin of democratic government.

Read on.

Friday, December 24, 2010

The Christian Myth of Jesus's Birth

By the Rev. Howard Bess
December 24, 2010

The Advent season is a fun time. For many Christians, it is the happiest season of the year. The joy comes from the anticipation: “Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king.”

Read on.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

An Echo of the 'War on Christmas'

By Michael Winship
December 23, 2010

In the snows of yesteryear, far away from Don’t Ask Don’t Tell or START treaties or the War on Christmas, I see the movie house of my youth, the Playhouse Theater on Chapin Street, the only one in my small hometown -- except for a nearby drive-in that closed during the winter.

Read on.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

WikiLeaks and the Fight for Privacy

By Nat Parry
December 23, 2010

Everyone should enjoy a basic right to privacy, according to one of the more compelling arguments against WikiLeaks’ “megaleak” of over 250,000 diplomatic cables.

Read on.

Is Barack Obama the Problem?

By Robert Parry
December 22, 2010

Despite some recent victories like repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” many on the American Left are feeling a cumulative disgust toward President Barack Obama, not just for his generally timid policy choices but – even more so – for his failure to articulate and fight for progressive values.

Read on.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Replacing 'They Decade' with Can-Do

By Mort Rosenblum
December 21, 2010

America's “They Decade” is ending, and it is time to heed Edmund Burke. Evil happens when good men do nothing.

Read on.

US Anti-War Resistance on the Rise

By Kevin Zeese
December 21, 2010

Mike Ferner, the president of Veterans for Peace, was speaking outside the White House calling for a “culture of resistance” against U.S. wars. His organization was leading a protest outside the White House at the same moment that President Obama was inside announcing the continuation of the Afghanistan War.

Read on.

Monday, December 20, 2010

WikiLeaks and the Secrets that Deceive

By Danny Schechter
December 20, 2010

In the days of Stalin’s Russia, not only would dissidents “disappear” but images of officials at the May Day reviewing stands would be erased from photographs when their political stars fell.

Read on.

Thoughts at the White House Fence

By Ray McGovern
December 20, 2010

“Show me your company, and I’ll tell you who you are,” my grandmother would often say with a light Irish lilt but a heavy emphasis, an admonition about taking care in choosing what company you keep.

Read on.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

What Christmas Owes to Abolitionists

By William Loren Katz
December 19, 2010

Before Christmas emerged as a commercial success, it led a checkered social life. In the 13 American colonies and the early days of the United States, it was known as a festival of heavy drinking and brawling.

Read on.


Saturday, December 18, 2010

Losing Afghan Hearts and Minds

By Gareth Porter
December 18, 2010

The Obama administration's claim of "progress" in its Afghan war strategy is based on the military seizure of three rural districts outside Kandahar City in October. But those tactical gains have come at the price of further exacerbating the basic U.S. strategic weakness in Afghanistan – the antagonism toward the foreign presence shared throughout the Pashtun south.

Read on.

Barack Obama's Lost Principles

By Lawrence Davidson
December 18, 2010

When President Obama ran for the presidency, his rhetoric was distinctly progressive. He is a very good orator and a superior debater and so we can be forgiven for taking the rhetoric seriously.

Read on.

Curiosities Abound in Assange Case

By Dennis Bernstein
December 18, 2010

DB: Let me get your overview here of Julian Assange and what is happening to him. How do you see this?

Read on.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Hitler's Shadow Reaches toward Today

By Robert Parry
December 17, 2010

The U.S. government protected Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie in the years after World War II and later unleashed the infamous Butcher of Lyon on South America by aiding his escape from French war-crimes prosecutors, according to a new report issued by the National Archives.

Read on.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Journalists Are All Julian Assange

By Robert Parry
December 16, 2010

Whatever the unusual aspects of the case, the Obama administration’s reported plan to indict WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for conspiring with Army Pvt. Bradley Manning to obtain U.S. secrets strikes at the heart of investigative journalism on national security scandals.

Read on.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

A Treasonous Christmas Eve Truce

By Gary Kohls
December 14, 2010

In World War I, as happens to be true in most wars, the Christian church leadership joined in the patriotic fervor with very un-Christ-like, nationalistic and racial/religious superiority stances.

Read on.

Rabbis' Decree Reveals Anti-Arab Bias

By Lawrence Davidson
December 14, 2010

On Dec. 7, some 50 Israeli rabbis issued a "decree" forbidding their Jewish fellow citizens from "renting or selling homes or land to Arabs and other non-Jews." The "decree" was soon endorsed by an additional 250 Israeli rabbis.

Read on.

'Giant' Holbrooke Failed on Afghan War

By Ray McGovern
December 14, 2010

President Barack Obama hailed Richard Holbrooke, who died Monday, as “one of the giants of American foreign policy.” The President’s kudos reflected the Establishment gravitas that Holbrooke, the special envoy overseeing U.S. policies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, had acquired in his long career — fact and reason to the contrary.

Read on.

Monday, December 13, 2010

WikiLeaks and the Power of Truth

By Rory O'Connor
December 13, 2010

What do Richard Nixon, Liu Xiaobo and Julian Assange have in common?

Read on.

The War to Silence WikiLeaks

By Elliot D. Cohen
December 13, 2010

It's curious that Sweden, the most sexually liberal nation in the world enlisted Interpol to hunt down Julian Assange on sexual charges stemming from a broken or unused condom.

Read on.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Bush v. Gore's Dark American Decade

By Robert Parry
December 12, 2010

Ten years ago, the United States stood at a crossroads though the dimness of the future made it hard for many to see which path led toward a brighter day and which headed toward disaster. But then, a partisan Republican majority of the U.S. Supreme Court made the choice for the nation.

Read on.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

How the Right Shapes US 'Reality'

By Lawrence Davidson
December 11, 2010

There is a postmodern position that states "reality is a social construct." In other words, individuals and groups have their own realities and, according to the postmodernists, one reality is as true as another.

Read on.

Big Media's Curious Nixon Judgment

By Robert Parry
December 11, 2010

When Richard Nixon’s presidential library this week released tapes of him making bigoted remarks about blacks, Jews and various ethnic groups, major American news outlets jumped at the juicy details, recounting them on NBC's Nightly News, in the New York Times and elsewhere.

Read on.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Demanding American Exceptionalism

By Don Monkerud
December 10, 2010

A plethora of wannabe presidential candidates is beating the drum again for American exceptionalism, a warmed-over rehash of bravado, jingoism, and chauvinism.

Read on.

Thursday, December 09, 2010

Big Media's Guilt in Gary Webb's Death

By Robert Parry
December 9, 2010

It’s been six years since I received the shocking news that journalist Gary Webb had committed suicide with his father’s pistol.

Read on.

Wall Streeters Line Up for Big Bonuses

By Danny Schechter
December 9, 2010

Go, Wall Street, Go!

Read on.

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

What's Behind the War on WikiLeaks

By Ray McGovern
December 8, 2010

WikiLeaks has teased the genie of transparency out of a very opaque bottle, and powerful forces in America, who thrive on secrecy, are trying desperately to stuff the genie back in.

Read on.

Obama Aids His Enemies on Tax Deal

By Michael Winship
December 8, 2010

There’s this old joke about the French Revolution. A group of prisoners is lined up before the guillotine. One by one, their heads are lopped off. Then, the next man is put in place. The lever is pulled, but the blade stops just inches above his neck.

Read on.

Who's Right? Obama or the 'Base'?

By Robert Parry
December 8, 2010

When President Barack Obama lashed out at the liberal base of the Democratic Party – condemning many on the Left as “sanctimonious” purists – he underscored how profoundly his actions have alienated some of his past supporters and how little he understands why.

Read on.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Getting Sensible about the Koreas

By Ivan Eland
December 7, 2010

Why does the U.S. government’s foreign policy often hinge on the naïve and moralistic expectation that other countries should act against their own interests? Wouldn’t a more realistic U.S. foreign policy be better for everyone concerned?

Read on.

Monday, December 06, 2010

How Jesus's Message Was Hijacked

By the Rev. Howard Bess
December 6, 2010

The great religious divide in the world today is not a divide between Christianity and other religions, but rather within Christendom.

Read on.

Ellsberg Calls for Boycott of Amazon

By Daniel Ellsberg
December 6, 2010

I hope you will join me and others in boycotting Amazon -- inconvenient as that may be -- to provide some counter-pressure to efforts by Senator Lieberman and the Administration to demonize, hound, block and prosecute Wikileaks, and ultimately to control whistleblowing and dissent on the Internet.

Read on.

Killing the Goal of 'Open Diplomacy'

By Lawrence Davidson
December 6, 2010

Given the ahistorical nature of the public mind, few people will recall that as the United States prepared to enter World War I, American citizens were quite exercised over the issue of "open diplomacy."

Read on.

Saturday, December 04, 2010

CIA Dodges Guilt for Peru Tragedy

By Melvin A. Goodman
December 4, 2010

Last month, the Central Intelligence Agency released a blistering inspector general’s report that dissected a secret drug interdiction program in Peru that was responsible for the death of an American missionary and her infant daughter in 2001.

Read on.

The US Empire Targets Iran

By William Blum
December 4, 2010

One of the most common threads running through the WikiLeaks papers is Washington's manic obsession with Iran.

Read on.

Friday, December 03, 2010

Gitmo Detainees Given Risky Drug

By Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye
December 3, 2010

The Defense Department forced "war on terror" detainees arriving at the Guantanamo Bay prison to take a high dosage of a controversial antimalarial drug, mefloquine, an act that an Army public health physician compared to subjecting the prisoners to “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Read on.

Thursday, December 02, 2010

NYT Stokes Fear of Iran

By Ray McGovern
December 2, 2010

From the very large photo dominating page nine of the New York Times of Nov. 29, you can just tell from the look on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s face, not to mention the endless ranks of military officers standing in rows behind him, that Iran is determined to build a nuclear weapon. Anyone can tell. It’s obvious, right?

Read on.

The Right's Power of Media Money

By Robert Parry
December 2, 2010

In assessing what went wrong with the U.S. political process over the past few decades, it’s easy to see the broad outlines of the right-wing Republican ascendancy and the liberal-left Democratic decline, an imbalance that has now left the nation incapable of doing much besides waging endless wars, bailing out too-big-to-fail banks, slashing taxes for the rich, and running massive deficits.

Read on.

A Full-Body Scan for the US Empire

By Phil Rockstroh
December 2, 2010

As many wags have noted, the disclosures of WikiLeaks have subjected the U.S. Empire and its operatives to their own version of a full-body scan.

Read on.

Flush Republicans Play Hardball

By Michael Winship
December 2, 2010

Bees in Brooklyn are producing honey that’s bright red in color. Or, as The New York Times described it, “an alarming shade of Robitussin.”

Read on.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

NYT Takes US Side in Iran Missile Flap

By Gareth Porter
November 30, 2010

A diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks provides a detailed account of how Russian specialists on the Iranian ballistic missile program refuted the U.S. suggestion that Iran has missiles that could target European capitals or intends to develop such a capability.

Read on.

The Painful History of US-Iran Distrust

By Danny Schechter
November 30, 2010

The building was smaller than I remembered. The fading images in my mind were grainy: angry crowds, students marching, flags burning, chants of “Death to America,” and Americans diplomats in blindfolds.

Read on.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Behind Benedict's Shift on Condoms

By Daniel C. Maguire
November 29, 2010

There is nothing new about the recent shift of Pope Benedict on condom use. It is also no novelty when conservatives in the church say no shift is happening at the very moment it is happening.

Read on.

Cables Hold Clues to US-Iran Mysteries

By Robert Parry
November 29, 2010

Newly released U.S. diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks show that the Obama administration, like its predecessors, has played a double game with Iran’s Shiite government, mixing public offers of reconciliation with secret collaboration on hard-line strategies favored by its Sunni Arab rivals and Israel.

Beck v. Assange, or Fiction over Fact

By Lawrence Davidson
November 29, 2010

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Young Christians Desert US Churches

By the Rev. Howard Bess
November 28, 2010Read on.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Petraeus Duped by Afghan Imposter

By Gareth Porter
November 25, 2010

The revelation that the man presumed to be a high-ranking Taliban leader, who had met with top Afghan officials in reconciliation talks, was an imposter sheds new light on Gen. David Petraeus's aggressive propaganda about the supposed Taliban approach to the Hamid Karzai regime.

Read on.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Is the Right Flipping on US Security?

By Michael Winship
November 24, 2010

To paraphrase that cult movie classic, Eating Raoul, frisk me, pat me down, make me write bad checks. If it keeps my flight from falling out of the sky, do what you must. Just don't expect breakfast in the morning and a thank you note.

Read on.

On Korea, Here We Go Again!

By Robert Parry
November 24, 2010

If American journalism should have learned one thing over the years, it is to be cautious and skeptical during the first days of a foreign confrontation like the one now playing out on the Korean Peninsula. Often the initial accounts from the “U.S. side” don’t turn out to be entirely accurate.

Read on.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Bush Gloats Over Dan Rather's Ouster

By Robert Parry
November 23, 2010

George W. Bush, in his memoir Decision Points, says he was shown a copy of a purported memo about his shirking of his National Guard duty before a story citing the document appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes-2,” and the former president gloats over the resulting controversy that cost the jobs of anchor Dan Rather and his star producer Mary Mapes.

Read on.

Pat-Down Fury vs. Perfect Security

By Ivan Eland
November 23, 2010

After the initial hysterical security response to the 9/11 attacks — inane measures included posting 19-year-old National Guardsmen with automatic weapons at crowded airports and the temporary discontinuation of electronic tickets — lasting security augmentation entailed hardening of aircraft cockpit doors and beefing up passenger screening in airports.

Read on.

Monday, November 22, 2010

A Dark Humor Pervades US Politics

By Don Monkerud
November 22, 2010

A U.S. senator has an affair with the treasurer of his election campaign and political action committee. He then gives her a no-interest loan of $40,000, and pays $15,000 for her children's private school tuition. After their affair becomes public, he fires her, gives her husband a lucrative lobbying job to keep him quiet, and his parents give her $100,000 as a "gift."

Read on.

Iran-Nuke NIE Stopped Bush on War

By Ray McGovern
November 22, 2010

Why should George W. Bush have been “angry” to learn in late 2007 of the unanimous judgment of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon four years earlier? Seems to me he might have said “Hot Dog!” rather than curse under his breath.

Read on.

America's 'Christian Nation' Myth

By the Rev. Howard Bess
November 22, 2010

While people came to the American continent for many reasons, one prominent reason was to find a place to escape religious persecution. Sadly, those who were persecuted because of their faith often became the persecutors.

Read on.

Obama's Frantic Mideast Peace Gamble

By Lawrence Davidson
November 22, 2010

The U.S. government acknowledges that it is actively negotiating with Israel the price of a proposed 90-day cessation of settlement activity on the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem). It is reported that the Israelis are demanding two things be given them free of charge: 20 stealth fighters (worth $3 billion) and the release of the spy, Jonathan Pollard.

Read on.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Iranian Nuke Documents May Be Fake

By Gareth Porter
November 21, 2010

The most important intelligence documents used to argue that Iran had a covert nuclear weapons research and development program in 2003 turn out to have a fatal flaw: the technical drawings depict a reentry vehicle that had already been abandoned by the Iranian missile program in favor of an improved model.

Read on.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

George W. Bush: Dupe or Deceiver?

By Robert Parry
November 20, 2010

George W. Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, is without doubt a self-serving defense of his presidency – and Bush’s own words condemn him as a liar – but there is another nagging question that surrounds this curious book: Has the U.S. media/political system become so polluted with falsehoods that even people at the top now believe the propaganda?

Read on.

Friday, November 19, 2010

A Prince Pursues Ecological 'Harmony'

By Stuart Sender and Julie Bergman Sender
November 19, 2010

When we began production on HARMONY, people would understandably ask us about “The Prince.” But as HRH The Prince of Wales has insisted, HARMONY: A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT OUR WORLD has never been about “The Prince,” but rather about “The Principles.”

Read on.

US Consumers Urged to Splurge

By Danny Schechter
November 19, 2010

Funny how, back in 1929, we had a black Thursday and then a Black Friday as the market crashed, plunging the country into a depression. Now we have every retailer in every mall in America on their knees praying for a prosperous “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving.

Read on.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

The World's Crisis in War Reporting

By Don North
November 18, 2010

At this complex and dangerous moment in history, we must recognize that journalists around the world are failing in their duty as watchdogs of the people and that – combined with economic stresses – the traditional role of journalism is diminishing.

Read on.

Did GOP's Cantor Cross Line on Israel?

By Lawrence Davidson
November 18, 2010

Zionists of all stripes incessantly complain about anti-Semitism. They tell us that it is on the rise and that is why Israel is so important.

Read on.

US Military at Ease over Gay Soldiers

By Michael Winship
November 18, 2010

Although I grew up in a small town, I live in the West Village of Manhattan, New York City, just three blocks from Christopher Street and the Stonewall Inn, where in 1969 a police raid led to angry demonstrations that marked the start of the gay rights movement.

Read on.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Obama's No-Win Afghan Quandary

By Bruce P. Cameron
November 17, 2010

As President Barack Obama looks toward his promised December review of the Afghan War, he faces tough options – both military and political – including whether he will risk sinking his own presidency to sustain a war long bungled by George W. Bush.

Read on.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Will Bush's Book Burnish His Legacy?

By Ivan Eland
November 16, 2010

As George W. Bush does a rash of media interviews to promote his new book, Decision Points, some people — even his post-Katrina nemesis, hip-hop star Kanye West — have begun to mute their criticisms of his presidency.

Read on.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Time to Apologize to Plame/Wilson

By Robert Parry
November 14, 2010

During the scandal known as “Plame-gate,” it became an article of faith in many Washington power centers that CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson wasn’t “covert” and thus there was no “underlying crime” when the Bush administration intentionally blew her cover.

Read on.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Dogmatism in an Age of Complexity

By Judith J. Johnson
November 13, 2010

We have all known people (some of whom we may be related to, or voted for) who act as if they're the sole expert on a topic.

Read on.

The UN and the Hypocrisy of Power

By Lawrence Davidson
November 13, 2010

The United Nations celebrated its 65th birthday (1945 to 2010) on Oct. 24, having lasted 27 years longer than its predecessor, the League of Nations, which was started in 1919 and didn’t formally shut down until 1946 although it had failed years earlier in its primary goal of preventing a second world war.

Read on.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

WikiLeaks Ban or Global Secrecy Act?

By D.H. Kerby
November 11, 2010

Sen. John Ensign, a Nevada Republican, has proposed amending the Espionage Act specifically to target WikiLeaks and other media organizations that “publish the name” of anyone “helping in our efforts against terrorism.”

Read on.

Yemeni Drone Strikes' Risky Fallout

By Gareth Porter
November 11, 2010

The drone war that has been anticipated in Yemen for the last few months has been delayed by the failure of U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) to generate usable intelligence on al Qaeda there.

Read on.

Angry Voters of a Decaying Empire

By Phil Rockstroh
November 11, 2010

Once again, partisan Democrats are reeling in shock and humiliation, boggled by a familiar scenario -- the sheer velocity of their reversal of fortune and the Republican right's perennial ascendency.

Read on.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

GOP Victory Derails High-Speed Trains

By Michael Winship
November 10, 2010

Now that an entire week or so has passed, it’s possible to make a cool, complete and objective assessment of the meaning of the 2010 vote. Thus, ladies and gentlemen, it becomes clear what this election was all about: jobs.

Read on.

CIA Officer Duck Video-Torture Case

By Jason Leopold
November 10, 2010

Nearly three years after he was appointed to investigate the destruction of at least 92 interrogation videotapes, some showing two “war on terror” detainees being tortured by CIA interrogators, Special Prosecutor John Durham has decided he lacks sufficient evidence to bring charges.

Read on.

The Hard Lessons of Election 2010

By Robert Parry
November 10, 2010

Election 2010 was a victory for corporatist Republicans even more so than Tea Party radicals, a stunning resurgence for the Establishment GOP that says as much about weaknesses among Democrats and the Left as it does about strengths on the Right.

Read on.

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Intrusive Airport Searches Miss Point

By Charles V. Peña
November 9, 2010

Security guru Bruce Schneier defines the term security theater as “security measures that make people feel more secure without doing anything to actually improve their security.

Read on.

Krystallnacht and Christianity

By Gary Kohls
November 9, 2010

I am what could be called a cradle Christian.

Read on.

Monday, November 08, 2010

Jesus's Teachings and the Tea Party

By the Rev. Howard Bess
November 8, 2010

According to the Luke gospel, after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptizer, he withdrew for 40 days to think, ponder, and pray.

Read on.

Olbermann's Exile: The Back Story

By Danny Schechter
November 8, 2010

Alex Gibney's new film “CLIENT # 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer" shows how the former Governor's indictments and criticisms of many Wall Street firm's led to counterattacks and pushback from powerful people.

Read on.

Sunday, November 07, 2010

Bush Boasts of Waterboard Order

By Ray McGovern
November 7, 2010

Former President George W. Bush continues to be beyond shame. Those favored with an advance copy of Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, say it paints a picture of a totally unapologetic Bush bragging, for example, about authorizing the CIA to waterboard 9/11 “mastermind,” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Read on.

Saturday, November 06, 2010

Can Dems Reenergize Youth Vote?

By William John Cox
November 6, 2010

In one of the most striking political comebacks in U.S. history, the Republican Party marched in lockstep to victory in the midterm elections and seized control of the House of Representatives and state houses across the nation.

Read on.

Weak Left Led to Democratic Defeat

By Lawrence Davidson
November 6, 2010

It has only been a few days since the Nov. 2 elections and already the media in all its forms is awash with analyses expressing hallelujahs and curses.

Read on.

Zenyatta Races for History

By Lisa Pease
November 6, 2010

The horseracing world is holding its collective breath for a true superstar.

Read on.

Friday, November 05, 2010

America, Losing Hearts and Minds

By Jada Thacker
November 5, 2010

The current cover of The Nation sports a tagline: “Losing Hearts and Minds – a Report from Afghanistan.”

Read on.

Taking America Back to the Gilded Age

By William Loren Katz
November 5, 2010

In 2010, with the blessing of a five-to-four U.S. Supreme Court decision, unlimited money from anonymous corporate sources was allowed to call the nation’s political tune and decide the fate of American candidates for office.

Read on.

Thursday, November 04, 2010

A Radical Change in Conservatism

By Daniel C. Maguire
November 4, 2010

"Conservative" can mean a lot of things, even good things, but today "conservative" has sunk to the moral basement.

Read on.

Why JFK Would Disdain Yemen Raid

By Lisa Pease
November 4, 2010

It was rather horrifying to wake to hear that the Obama administration is considering sending hunter-killer teams into Yemen in hopes of seeking out and killing suspected terrorists.

Read on.

Petraeus Winked at Iraq War Abuses

By Gareth Porter
November 4, 2010

The revelation by Wikileaks of a U.S. military order directing U.S. forces not to investigate cases of torture of detainees by Iraqis has been treated in news reports as yet another case of lack of concern by the U.S. military about detainee abuse.

Read on.

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Darker Economic Days Likely Ahead

By Danny Schechter
November 3, 2010

The Election is over. The Dems were thumped. They lost the House, even if they still have the Senate by a hair. Barney Frank will be back but not Alan Grayson or Russ Feingold.

Read on.

US Voters Drink Reaganism's Kool-Aid

By Robert Parry
November 3, 2010

Already weakened by three decades of slow arsenic poisoning from Reaganism, the United States ordered up a new dose of Ronald Reagan’s special “government is the problem” elixir in Election 2010 – and it is hard to envision how this willing victim will soon, if ever, recover.

Read on.

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Putting a Brake on Unwise US Wars

By Ivan Eland
November 2, 2010

For proponents of American liberty, a volunteer military has always been preferable to conscription.

Read on.

Jon Stewart's Movement for Sanity

By Michael Winship
November 2, 2010

Mistakes were made.

Read on.

Election Day 2010: Some Past Stories

Comment on our reprise of some recent election-themed stories.

Monday, November 01, 2010

The Seduction of Susan Rice

By Lawrence Davidson
November 1, 2010

Dr. Susan Elizabeth Rice, who earned a doctorate of philosophy at Oxford in 1990, is United States Ambassador at the United Nations. She is a professional diplomat and foreign policy consultant as well as a protégée of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Read on.

Taking a Stand for Sanity

By Robert Parry
November 1, 2010

Jon Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity” drew one of the largest crowds in the recent history of Washington – packing 11 city blocks of the National Mall and spilling over into side streets that were nearly impassable – yet it was treated by the mainstream U.S. news media as something of an annoying joke.

Read on.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Iranian Students Ask About 1980

By Robert Parry
October 30, 2010

Eight days ago, a group of Iranian student activists asked me to respond to some questions about the October Surprise case, allegations that Ronald Reagan’s campaign in 1980 sabotaged President Jimmy Carter’s attempts to free 52 Americans then held hostage in Iran.

Read on.


Friday, October 29, 2010

Does Sanity Matter?

By Robert Parry
October 29, 2010

As satire has done through the ages, Jon Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity” has found a comedic way to focus national attention on a serious issue: Will the United States begin acting like a responsible force in the world or will it continue to wander off into its own ghastly dreamscape?

Read on.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Did Rove's Protege Puff-up Resume?

By Richard L. Fricker
October 28, 2010 (Originally posted April 3, 2007)

Little Rock’s interim U.S. Attorney J. Timothy Griffin – already at the center of a firestorm over whether the White House has put politics ahead of prosecutorial integrity – made claims about his experience as an Army lawyer that have been put in doubt by military records.

Read on.

WPost's Blinders on Afghan War

By Robert Parry
October 28, 2010

Sometimes when perusing the Washington Post’s editorials, you have to wonder if the editors read their own newspaper’s reporting or perhaps they just look at what reinforces their preconceived opinions – as just occurred regarding Afghan War progress.

Read on.

Explaining US Military's Cultural Divide

By Paul R. Pillar
October 28, 2010

An op-ed by Diane Mazur, a law professor at the University of Florida, addresses an infrequently discussed aspect of civil-military relations in the United States: the status of Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs, which are missing from a good many elite colleges and universities in the Northeast, and specifically in the Ivy League.

Read on.

How Wall Street Plans to Party On

By Michael Winship
October 27, 2010

I attended a screening this week of Alex Gibney’s new documentary, Client 9. It’s the story of the rise and fall of New York State Gov. Eliot Spitzer, brought down by imperial hubris and a reckless penchant for ladies of the evening.

Read on.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

WPost Downplays Iraq War Crimes

By Robert Parry
October 26, 2010

The judges at Nuremberg after World War II had a much deeper understanding of the horrors of war than the neocon editors at the Washington Post do. Assessing the barbarity unleashed by the Nazis, the Nuremberg Tribunal identified “war of aggression” as “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

Read on.

Creating a Lawless Executive Branch

By Lawrence Davidson
October 26, 2010

One of the cases the U.S. Supreme Court will take up in its 2011 session is Ashcroft vs. al-Kidd, in which President George W. Bush’s first Attorney General, John Ashcroft, insists that he should have legal immunity for his acts while in office, including the use of material witness warrants to detain Muslims during Bush’s “war on terror.”

Read on.

The US Empire's Halloween Frights

By Phil Rockstroh
October 26, 2010

Because, at this time of the year, we take pleasure in being frightened, let's shuffle through the U.S. Empire's House of Horrors.

Read on.

Monday, October 25, 2010

ADL Sidles Up to Anti-Muslim Bigots

By Morgan Strong
October 25, 2010

For decades, the Anti-Defamation League was a respected voice against anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry. However, over the past several decades, especially under the leadership of Abraham Foxman, the ADL has transformed itself into an advocacy group on behalf of Israeli government policies, even feeding anti-Islamic prejudices.

Read on.

Undercounting the Iraq War Dead

By Nicolas J S Davies
October 25, 2010

The documents on the U.S. War in Iraq published by WikiLeaks contained data on 15,000 Iraqis killed in incidents that were previously unreported in the Western media or by the Iraqi Health Ministry, and therefore not counted in compilations of reported Iraqi war deaths by Iraqbodycount.org.

Read on.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Records Cast Doubt on Iraq 'Surge'

By Robert Parry
October 24, 2010

Besides offering new details about the horrors that George W. Bush’s invasion unleashed on Iraq – where a severed head could be casually tossed into a busy intersection – the nearly 400,000 pages of secret U.S. military records released by WikiLeaks show that a variety of factors beyond Bush’s much-touted “surge” in 2007 contributed to the gradual drop in violence.

Read on.

WikiLeaks and Assange Honored

From Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence
October 24, 2010

It seems altogether fitting and proper that this year’s award be presented in London, where Edmund Burke coined the expression “Fourth Estate.” Comparing the function of the press to that of the three Houses then in Parliament, Burke said:

Read on.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

A Perjurer on the US Supreme Court

By Robert Parry
October 23, 2010

In late 1998, when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying under oath about a sexual affair, many on the Right insisted that the issue wasn’t the sex but the perjury. They are now confronted with a parallel case in which U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas quite clearly perjured himself to get his seat on the bench.

Read on.

Mystery of American Political Madness

By Bernard Weiner
October 23, 2010

Your recent e-mail, wondering "what the f--- is going on" these days, questioning whether we Americans have taken "more than your usual amount of stupid pills," is well deserving of a considered response.

Read on.


Friday, October 22, 2010

The Financial Puzzle Behind 9/11

By David DeGraw
October 22, 2010

During the 1980s and early ’90s, the CIA worked in partnership with BCCI in what was, at the time, the agency’s largest covert operation ever, pumping an estimated $10 billion into funding the Afghan mujahedeen. Through this operation, Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network was formed. Bin Laden had accounts in BCCI and ran CIA/BCCI-funded camps.

Read on.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Is Israel Poisoning the Peace Talks?

By Lawrence Davidson
October 21, 2010

Michael Oren is the Israeli ambassador to the United States. This means he stands in a line of foreign diplomats who are often quite out of the ordinary.

Read on.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Tea Party Thuggery as Election Nears

By Michael Winship
October 20, 2010

One of the most memorable moments in television coverage of American politics came during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968.

Read on.

A Clash Over 'Lesser-Evil' Voting

By Robert Parry
October 20, 2010

It seems I upset a lot of people with my recent article looking at the four previous times in modern U.S. politics when many on the Left chose to punish the Democrats by casting ballots for third parties or not voting, a tactic under consideration again this year.

Read on.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Obama's Feckless Afghan Escalation

By Ivan Eland
October 19, 2010

The talk in Washington of late has been Bob Woodward’s book Obama’s Wars. The books are piled in the front of every bookstore in town, and people are whispering in the usual “inside baseball” way, about who in the Washington security bureaucracies dissed whom to Woodward.

Read on.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Who Will Save Trapped Americans?

By Danny Schechter
October 18, 2010

In all of our current economic issues, there is always a “back story, a deeper context” that is usually missing, “disappeared” like those Salvador Allende supporters in Chile in the l970’s who wanted to empower workers, not just rescue them when they get buried in a deep hole.

Read on.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Could a Leak Have Stopped 9/11?

By Coleen Rowley and Bogdan Dzakovic
October 17, 2010

There were a lot of us in the run-up to Sept. 11 who had seen warning signs that something devastating might be in the planning stages. But we worked for ossified bureaucracies incapable of acting quickly and decisively.

Read on.


California Voters Take on the Drug War

By Kevin Zeese
October 17, 2010

The great divide between politicians and the people is showing itself in California where polls show the voters support Proposition 19 and where the mainstream politicians mostly oppose it.

Read on.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Lost Faith in CIA Intelligence Analysts

By Melvin A. Goodman
October 16, 2010

President Harry S. Truman created the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947 to ensure that the policy community would have access to independent intelligence analysis that was free of the policy advocacy of the State Department and the Defense Department.

Read on.

Friday, October 15, 2010

'RED': A High-Brow Spy Caper

By Lisa Pease
October 15, 2010

Ever wonder what happens to CIA assassins after they retire? Screenwriters (and brothers) Jon and Erich Hoeber decided to find out, to hilarious effect.

Read on.

Pentagon Releases Tally of Dead Iraqis

By Rory O'Connor
October 15, 2010

In July, the United States military issued its largest release of raw data on deaths during the Iraq war. The Pentagon tallied almost 77,000 Iraqis – both civilians and security forces – as having died in the carnage between January 2004 and August 2008.

Read on.

The 'Teach-the-Dems-a-Lesson' Myth

By Robert Parry
October 15, 2010

If my e-mail inbox is any indication, many American progressives plan to use the Nov. 2 election as an opportunity to “teach the Democrats a lesson” by either not voting or casting ballots for third parties, even if this contributes to the expected Republican (and Tea Party) landslide.

Read on.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Treating Detainees Like Guinea Pigs

By Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye
October 14, 2010

In 2002, as the Bush administration was turning to torture and other brutal techniques for interrogating "war on terror" detainees, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz loosened rules against human experimentation, an apparent recognition of legal problems regarding the novel strategies for extracting and evaluating information from the prisoners.

Read on.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Leakers, Beware the Corporate Media

By Ray McGovern
October 13, 2010

The following is a Code-Orange Advisory to patriotic truth-tellers, sometimes called whistleblowers or leakers: It is anachronistically naïve to expect the New York Times or other organs of today’s Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) to publish classified material like the Pentagon Papers without their first clearing it with the government.

Read on.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Foreclosure Fraud's Outrage Gap

By Danny Schechter
October 12, 2010

The other day, during an interview on Al Jazeera, I was asked if I was frustrated because my warnings and worries about the financial meltdown and foreclosure crisis, first aired in 2006, have been ignored so long.

Read on.

Awe of Military vs. Free Speech

By Ivan Eland
October 12, 2010

The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a case where the father of a fallen serviceman is suing members of a church over its picketing of military funerals with signs that say, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “God Killed Your Sons,” and “Thank God for 9/11.”

Read on.

Saturday, October 09, 2010

Islamophobia's Scholarly Godfather

Nabil Al-Khowaiter
October 9, 2010

While it may appear that Islamophobia is a new phenomenon in America – the result of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington – its roots can be traced back to the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, followed by the Arab oil embargo and a quadrupling of gas pump prices.

Read on.

Friday, October 08, 2010

Obama's Mission Impossible

By Danny Schechter
October 8, 2010

With the midterm election less than a month away and the economic crisis unabated, the Obama Administration may be at a crossroads.

Read on.

Thursday, October 07, 2010

A Long History of America's Dark Side

By Peter Dale Scott and Robert Parry
October 7, 2010

There is a dark -- seldom acknowledged -- thread that runs through U.S. military doctrine, dating back to the early days of the Republic.

Read on.

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Indian Genocide and Republican Power

By Thomas J. DiLorenzo
October 7, 2010

The real culture of violence in the American West of the latter half of the 19th Century sprang from the U.S. government’s policies toward the Plains Indians. It is untrue that white European settlers were always at war with Indians, as popular folklore contends.

Read on.

What a GOP Majority Would Mean

By Don Monkerud
October 6, 2010

Under the Republican Party's blueprint for America, BP will no longer be required to clean up the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; the F.D.A. will not restrict the new diabetes drug Avandia just because it's unsafe; and donors will be allowed to keep their contributions to political campaigns secret.

Read on.

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Petraeus's New Afghan War Ploy

By Ivan Eland
October 5, 2010

Although David Petraeus, the top American commander in Afghanistan, recently peddled the notion that senior Taliban chieftains had made contact with senior Afghan government officials about the possibility of starting reconciliation talks, such talk of peace in our time is likely to be hype.

Read on.

An Inside Look at the Afghan Debacle

By Melvin A. Goodman
October 5, 2010

Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars offers a disturbing account of President Barack Obama's lack of leadership and the flawed decision-making practices of his national security team.

Read on.

Monday, October 04, 2010

The Bigot Whisperers of the Right

By Phil Rockstroh
October 4, 2010

I was born, at slightly past the midpoint of the 20th Century, in the Deep South city of Birmingham, Alabama -- "The Heart of Dixie."

Read on.

The Enduring Battle with Chaos

By the Rev. Howard Bess
October 4, 2010

In the Sixth Century B.C.E., amid the power of the Babylonian empire – with a group of defeated Israelites living there in exile – the questions of how the earth began and how it might end were not subjects of speculation or interest, for Babylonians or Israelites.

Read on.

Sunday, October 03, 2010

A Gentle March for American Unity

By Danny Schechter
October 3, 2010

I have been marching on Washington — and covering marches for more years that I can remember. As a kid, I was part of the original March on Washington back in ’63. It was for jobs and freedom.

Read on.

Guatemala: A Test Tube of Repression

By Robert Parry
October 3, 2010

Last week’s grotesque revelation about American public health doctors infecting nearly 700 Guatemalans with venereal disease to test penicillin from 1946-48 marked just the start of the U.S. government’s post-World War II abuse of that Central American country.

Read on.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Obama's Hypocrisy on Torture

By Jason Leopold
October 2, 2010

This week, in a burst of stunning hypocrisy, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that imposes sanctions on Iran for human rights abuses and targets eight Iranian government and military officials who are blamed for the torture, abuse and murder of citizens who protested Iran’s 2009 presidential election.

Read on.

Friday, October 01, 2010

What a Burned Pentagon Book Reveals

By David Swanson
October 1, 2010

The Pentagon spent $50,000 of our money to buy up the first edition of Operation Dark Heart by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and destroy every copy.

Read on.

Finally, Israel Lobby Gets Challenged

By Lawrence Davidson
October 1, 2010

Two news articles have recently appeared, each discussing a different approach to overcoming the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobby that presently has enough clout to substitute its own parochial interests for the U.S. national interest.

Read on.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

CIA Analysts Shut Out on Afghan War

By Ray McGovern
September 30, 2010

Thumbing through Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars, I should not have been surprised that the index lacks any entry for “intelligence.”

Read on.

Fear Still Erodes American Liberties

By Danny Schechter
September 30, 2010

There is a saying I may be twisting in the retelling to the effect of what you do unto others will be done onto you. In Karmic terms, it boils down to what goes around cones around.

Read on.

Our Unheeded Warnings to Obama

By Robert Parry
September 30, 2010

In the days after Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, we published a three-part series warning him of dangers ahead. However, the new President chose to ignore all our warnings. So nearly two years later, it might be a good time to assess whether our concerns were valid or not.

Read on.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Israeli Commandos Accused of Murder

By Gareth Porter
September 29, 2010

The report of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla released last week shows conclusively that U.S. citizen Furkan Dogan and five Turkish citizens were murdered execution-style by Israeli commandos.

Read on.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Mystery of a 'Disgraced' War Reporter

By Don North
September 28, 2010

War changes – and often harms – not only its combatants but its eyewitnesses, including the war correspondents with their unique job of getting as close as possible to a conflict, reporting what they see, and somehow surviving to tell about it.

Read on.

Rove's Money Tramples Democracy

By Kevin Zeese
September 28, 2010

In this first post-Citizens United election, voters are the victims of a crime against democracy that the government seems unable, or unwilling, to stop despite it occurring right before our eyes.

Read on.

The Neocons' 'Democracy' Fraud

By Ivan Eland
September 28, 2010

American policymakers love to see purple thumbs in the developing world, especially in countries in which the United States has undertaken “nation-building” projects (read: invasions and occupations).

Read on.

Monday, September 27, 2010

How Bush Holdovers Trapped Obama

By Robert Parry
September 27, 2010

President Barack Obama trapped himself in the morass of Afghanistan by his post-election decision to show bipartisan continuity and to keep in place George W. Bush’s military command structure, particularly Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus.

Read on.

Must Christianity Dominate America?

By the Rev. Howard Bess
September 27, 2010

One of the great sins of Christianity over the centuries is that it has sought dominance over believers in other religions as well as non-believers.

Read on.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Big Media Won't Forgive Colbert

By Jeff Cohen
September 26, 2010

Let's face it: Some in the Washington press corps still resent Stephen Colbert because he so brilliantly lampooned them to their faces at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner over their coziness with the Bush White House.

Read on.

New FBI Raids in 'War on Dissent'

By Coleen Rowley
September 26, 2010

The war on dissent, rather than terrorism, continued full steam with FBI SWAT teams breaking down doors at 7 a.m. Friday morning and raiding the homes of several anti-war leaders and activists in Minneapolis, Chicago and possibly a couple other Midwest cities.

Read on.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Obama's Anti-historical UN Speech

By Lawrence Davidson
September 25, 2010

On Sept. 23, as President Obama took his turn at the United Nations’ podium, there were a world of problems to address but, not unexpectedly, he chose to concentrate on the Middle East.

Read on.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Petraeus Cons Obama on Afghan War

By Ray McGovern
September 24, 2010

One thing that comes through clearly in Bob Woodward’s new book, Obama’s Wars, is the contempt felt by Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, toward President Barack Obama.

Read on.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Testing the Value of Truth

By Rory O'Connor
September 23, 2010

On Aug. 29, 2008, just prior to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, presidential candidate John McCain announced he had chosen Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Read on.

The No-Longer Endless Summers

By Danny Schechter
September 23, 2010

As the November election approaches, the White House seems to be ending its Rip Van Winkle-like slumber and has begun crawling out of the bubble of its own making. Many fear it’s a bit late.

Read on.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Losing Ahmadinejad's Translation

By Lawrence Davidson
September 22, 2010

Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was at the United Nations on Tuesday to address the Millennium Development Goals Summit. What he had to say was, as usual, a mixed bag of worthwhile insights and questionable assertions.

Read on.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Ed Newman, a Newsman's Newsman

By Michael Winship
September 21, 2010

I was in London last week when news came of the death of the great NBC newsman Edwin Newman, 91 years old.

Read on.

Colin Powell's Tolerance of Murder

By Robert Parry
September 21, 2010

Former Secretary of State and retired four-star Gen. Colin Powell has returned as the Washington media's favorite oracle, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to tell President Barack Obama, the Republican Party and the nation what they should be doing. That has been followed by media figures like MSNBC’s Chris Matthews swooning at the revealed wisdom from the ultimate Wise Man.

Read on.

Monday, September 20, 2010

How Gen. Petraeus Deceived Obama

By Gareth Porter
September 20, 2010

In interviews in recent weeks, Gen. David Petraeus has been taking a line on what will happen in mid-2011 that challenges President Barack Obama’s announced intention to begin a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by that date.

Read on.

TNR's Peretz Reveals Mideast Bigotry

By Lawrence Davidson
September 20, 2010

Martin Peretz is editor-in-chief of The New Republic, a position he acquired by simply buying the magazine in 1974. Although he resold it to a group of investors in 2002, they were, and apparently remain, his ideological soul mates for he continues to this day to be the magazine’s top editor.

Read on.

Friday, September 17, 2010

A Campaign to Free Bradley Manning

By Ann Wright
September 17, 2010

Bradley Manning is accused of telling the truth.

Read on.

Lee Hamilton, the Un-Wise Man

By Robert Parry
September 17, 2010

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius has become the latest voice of influence to sing the praises of former Rep. Lee Hamilton, who is almost universally hailed in U.S. power circles as a modern-day Wise Man, a Democratic centrist who shuns partisanship and puts love of country over politics.

Read on.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Nixon's Vengeful War on Marijuana

By William John Cox
September 16, 2010

In 1971, President Richard Nixon appointed Pennsylvania Gov. Raymond P. Shafer to chair a national commission to report on the effects of marijuana and other drugs and recommend appropriate drug policies. Though Shafer was a former prosecutor and was known as a "law and order" governor, he did not give Nixon the alarmist findings that the President wanted.

Read on.

The Great Muslim Scare

By Lawrence Davidson
September 16, 2010

In 1951, American working-class intellectual Eric Hoffer described those he called the “true believers,” people who start out alienated from their present conditions and suffering feelings of insecurity and uncertainty about the direction of their lives and communities.

Read on.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

America's Decoupling from Reality

By Robert Parry
September 15, 2010

As Election Day 2010 approaches – as the United States wallows in the swamps of war, recession and environmental degradation – the consequences of the nation’s three-decade-old decoupling from reality are becoming painfully obvious.

Read on.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Great Britain's Brave New World

By Danny Schechter
September 14, 2010

London looks pretty much like it did the last time I was here except for all the closed stores and businesses I passed on the way to the War and Media Conference that brought me here.

Read on.

GOP Leaders Embrace Ugly Intolerance

By Michael Winship
September 14, 2010

Gentlemen, start your defibrillators. To baby boomers like me it gives the heart a bit of jolt to realize that 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the presidential campaign between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon.

Read on.

Rory Kennedy's "The Fence"

By Lisa Pease
September 14, 2010

Rory Kennedy's upcoming HBO documentary “The Fence” (“La Barba”) presents a compelling argument that the border fence, the subject of the film, is an ill-conceived and expensive mistake.

Read on.

Has US Empire Benefited the World?

By Ivan Eland
September 14, 2010

In a recent column, Thomas Friedman, probably the most influential “internationalist” — read: proponent of U.S. interventionism in faraway places — has finally discovered that the United States must soon turn inward and put domestic economic growth first because of its massive public debt, huge federal budget deficit, and looming fiscal crisis caused by a dramatic automatic escalation in entitlements spending.

Read on.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Marijuana 'Prohibition' on CA's Ballot

By Kevin Zeese
September 13, 2010

Since the founding of the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1973, 15 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana.

Read on.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

US Hypocrisy Hobbles Human Rights

By Lawrence Davidson
September 12, 2010

On Aug. 23, Israel’s most prestigious human rights organization, B’Tselem released a short report on the condition of water supplies in the Gaza Strip.

Read on.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Would Jesus Hate Muslims?

By Rev. Howard Bess
September 11, 2010

Early in the 21st century, America is being gripped by xenophobia, the fear of strangers or foreigners, or more broadly the fear of the unfamiliar.

Read on.

America's Excessive Fear of the World

By Jonathan Schwarz
September 11, 2010

The question of whether America is safer today is sort of strange, for two reasons.

Read on.

After 9/11, Making Matters Worse

By Melvin A. Goodman
September 11, 2010

The terrorist attacks on Washington and New York City nine years ago extracted a terrible price in terms of blood and treasure. Unfortunately, the U.S. reaction to 9/11 has also extracted a terrible price with no end in sight.

Read on.

NYT Pushes Confrontation with Iran

By Robert Parry
September 11, 2010

Apparently having learned no lessons from the Iraq WMD debacle, the New York Times is pushing for a heightened confrontation with Iran, slipping into the same kind of hysteria that it and other major U.S. news organizations displayed in 2002 and 2003.

Read on.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Hillary's Imperial Dream Meets Reality

By Danny Schechter
September 10, 2010

Oh, Hamid, Oh Hillary: How your worlds converge and diverge.

Read on.

Islam Basher Claims to Unmask Cleric

By Robert Parry
September 10, 2010

Last month, Steve Emerson, a propagandist with close ties to Israel’s Likud and America’s neocons, went on a national radio program and claimed that Islamic cleric Feisal Abdul Rauf would likely not “survive” Emerson’s disclosure of supposedly radical comments that Rauf made a half decade ago.

Read on.

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Toning Down the 9/11 Tirades

By Michael Winship
September 9, 2010

This past Sunday was beautiful, bright and warm, not unlike the sky blue day when those two airliners hit the World Trade Center in 2001, just a mile or so from where I live. That day, a Tuesday, was a bit hotter, a bit more humid, yet just as sunny and promising.

Read on.

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

The Value of Real Journalism

By Mort Rosenblum
September 8, 2010

The University of Colorado is scrapping journalism for communications. At least, I think they are.

Read on.

Iraq Pullout v. the Base Temptation

By Ivan Eland
September 8, 2010

As President Obama gave a self-congratulatory speech about keeping his campaign promise to remove U.S. combat forces from Iraq by the end of August, he accomplished this feat by merely redefining the mission of the 50,000 combat-trained U.S. forces remaining there to “advising and assisting” Iraqi forces.

Read on.

Why the Israeli Boycott Is Growing

By Lawrence Davidson
September 8, 2010

On Sunday, the Israel newspaper Haaretz published an article with the headline "Anti-Israel Economic Boycotts are Gaining Speed" and with the subtitle, "the sums involved are not large, but their international significance is huge."

Read on.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Petraeus Spins the Afghan War Mess

By Barbara Koeppel
September 7, 2010

A few weeks ago, Gen. David Petraeus pulled off a flawless remake of Gen. William Westmoreland’s 1967 performance in which the Vietnam War commander detected “light at the end of the tunnel” – just months before the Viet Cong launched its Tet offensive, proving the resistance was very much alive and well.

Read on.

Banksters Steal Away with the Loot

By Danny Schechter
September 7, 2010

Ben Affleck’s next movie, “The Town,” is set in Charlestown, Massachusetts, known for the battle of Bunker Hill and dubbed in the past by tabloid TV as “hell’s half acre” for all the crimes that take place there.

Read on.

Monday, September 06, 2010

Blair Reveals Cheney's War Agenda

By Robert Parry
September 6, 2010

Ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s new memoir offers the expected rationalizations for his joining in an illegal, aggressive war against Iraq, even to the point of quibbling about the death toll. But Blair does reveal how much more war was favored by Vice President Dick Cheney and the neocons.

Read on.

Sunday, September 05, 2010

Must the Bible Remain 'Holy'?

By the Rev. Howard Bess
September 5, 2010

Christianity is in a great state of flux, exceeding even the diversity that came out of the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago. Today’s upheaval is fostered by the Internet and its free flow of information and opinions.

Read on.

Saturday, September 04, 2010

CIA's 'Red Cell' Hypocrisy on Terror

By Robert Parry
September 4, 2010

The Central Intelligence Agency has scoffed at an internal memo that cites a few terrorist acts by some American citizens as possibly causing foreign nations to see the United States as an “exporter of terrorism.” The CIA notes that the paper came from its “red cell” analysts who are assigned to “think outside the box” to “provoke thought.”

Read on.

Friday, September 03, 2010

Recession Snuffs Out New Media Hope

By Danny Schechter
September 3, 2010

When your life and your work is as entwined as mine has been – fusing the personal and the political over all these years – it may be stretching things to consider yourself unemployed, but that’s what I am as Labor Day approaches.

Read on.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Posturing on the PanAm 103 'Bomber'

By William Blum
September 2, 2010

The British government recently warned Libya against celebrating the one-year anniversary of Scotland's release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Libyan who's the only person ever convicted of the 1988 blowing up of PanAm flight 103 over Scotland, which took the lives of 270 largely Americans and British.

Read on.

WikiLeaks and Defining 'Journalism'

By D.H. Kerby
September 2, 2010

There is a strong intuition among the American people that there is a fundamental difference between publishing a secret for all the world to read and secretly informing an enemy of a secret.

Read on.

Will US Really Prosecute WikiLeaks?

By Ivan Eland
September 2, 2010

The U.S. Justice Department is apparently considering prosecuting Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, which is a Web site that publishes classified documents from governments, under the rarely used Espionage Act of 1917.

Read on.

The Afghan Pincer Attack on Obama

By Melvin A. Goodman
September 2, 2010

The "double envelopment" or pincer movement is a classic military maneuver that finds the flanks of the opponent under simultaneous attack from the opposing forces.

Read on.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

How the Right Still Frames Iraq

By Robert Parry
September 1, 2010

President Barack Obama’s instruction to “turn the page” on the Iraq War has set off a new wave of frustration on the American Left, which believes that the architects of this war of aggression should face some accountability for the death and destruction.

Read on.

Obama Sugarcoats Iraq War Realities

By David Swanson
September 1, 2010

Lies aren't used just to start wars, but also to escalate them, continue them, and even reduce or end them. And we got a pile of war lies from President Barack Obama on Tuesday evening.

Read on.

Beck's Washington Monument Myth

By Jonathan Schwarz
September 1, 2010

I realize this isn't breaking news, but...listening to Glenn Beck is the mental equivalent of falling into a vat of Karo syrup. You thrash around, can't get out, and feel like you're going to die in the most insipid way possible.

Read on.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Beck and the American Know-Nothings

By Michael Winship
August 31, 2010

Watching Glenn Beck's performance Saturday at his "Restoring Honor" rally in Washington, DC, I thought of the novelist Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry, the charlatan evangelist who seduces most of those around him with his hearty backslapping and false piety.

Read on.

War on Terror: Greatest Covert Op Ever

By Douglas Valentine
August 31, 2010

The politics of terror are the greatest covert operation ever.

Read on.

What Obama Won't Say Tonight

By Ray McGovern
August 31, 2010

My Fellow Americans,

Read on.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Obama vs. the Generals

By Rory O'Connor
August 30, 2010

On Feb. 27, 2009, barely a month after entering the White House, President Barack Obama revealed his plans for completing the combat portion of America’s ongoing military involvement in Iraq.

Read on.

Why US Media Is Soft on Wall Street

By Danny Schechter
August 30, 2010

When you connect the dots in your writing or look for deeper explanations behind the decisions of policymakers, market makers and media-makers, it’s easy to be dismissed as a conspiracy nut.

Read on.

The Christian Right Needs 'Enemies'

By the Rev. Howard Bess
August 30, 2010

At the heart of American Christian Fundamentalism is a basic religious dualism that is obsessed with a never-ending struggle between Good and Evil. These Christian fundamentalists must always have an “enemy” with whom to fight.

Read on.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Hawks Box in Obama on Afghan War

By Ray McGovern
August 26, 2010

Just back from Afghanistan, Marine Commandant, Gen. James Conway held a news conference to add his voice to the Pentagon campaign to disparage the July 2011 date President Barack Obama set for U.S. troops to begin leaving Afghanistan.

Read on.

Karl Rove Exploits Corporate Money

By Kevin Zeese
August 26, 2010

In the last week Democrats were gloating about how little money the Republican Party had in its campaign coffers. The Republican National Committee has just over $5 million in the bank for the final stretch of the 2010 midterm election campaign and is carrying over $2 million in debt.

Read on.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

At War with American Workers

By Michael Winship
August 25, 2010

Among the many TV ad jingles sadly cluttering my brain since childhood (although useful in trivia contests) is the one that went, "The finest apples from Apple Land/Make Mott's Apple Sauce taste grand!"

Read on.


Twisting Palestinian Arms for Peace

By Lawrence Davidson
August 25, 2010

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has announced that direct "negotiations" between Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas will begin on Sept. 2. It is reported that Abbas agreed to these talks only after heavy pressure from both the United States and the European Union.

Read on.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Christian Nationalism's War with Islam

By Rev. Howard Bess
August 24, 2010

An underlying issue in the dispute over a proposed Islamic center near the site of 9/11’s Ground Zero is the emergence of Christian nationalism, which embraces a vision of the world in which every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Christ is Lord.

Read on.


Making a 'Mosque' a 'Wedge' Issue

By Ivan Eland
August 24, 2010

The American media, and to a lesser extent the world media, focus on symbolism at the expense of underlying reality. And sometimes they can’t even make sense of the symbolism.

Read on.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Turning Iraqi Cities into Slums

By Adil E. Shamoo
August 23, 2010

Iraq has between 25 and 50 percent unemployment, a dysfunctional parliament, rampant disease, an epidemic of mental illness, and sprawling slums. The killing of innocent people has become part of daily life.

Read on.

Fiddling While the US Economy Burns

By Danny Schechter
August 23, 2010

We know we live in hard times that are on the verge of getting harder with 500,000 new claims for unemployment last week, a recent record.

Read on.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Transocean Questioned on Burma Deal

By Thomas Maung Shwe
August 20, 2010

U.S.-Swiss drilling company Tranoscean has admitted it is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury over its “operations in Myanmar [Burma]”. The probe comes amid intense public scrutiny since its rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico.

Read on.

Spinning the US Failure in Iraq

By Robert Parry
August 20, 2010

When I watched the last U.S. combat battalions leave Iraq on Wednesday night, I couldn’t help but recall the scene when the last Soviet troops departed Afghanistan on Feb. 15, 1989. In both cases, the two governments soft-pedaled the hard truth about the strategic defeats that the withdrawals represented.

Read on.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Tea Partiers' Historical Fictions

By Jada Thacker
August 18, 2010

Today’s adherents to the Tea Party movement claim to share common cause with American “Sons of Liberty” rowdies who, on Dec. 16, 1773, dumped about 90,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor.

Read on.

Do Religions Reject Gay Marriage?

By Daniel C. Maguire
August 18, 2010

Through much of history, especially prior to the Fourteenth Century, many Christians did not share the view that marriage was a reward for being heterosexual, nor that a same-sex union was objectionable.

Read on.

Mosque Furor Endangers US Troops

By Robert Parry
August 18, 2010

For years, the American Right and neocons have been quick to accuse critics of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars of endangering American troops – by causing disunity, exposing counter-terror techniques, etc. – but these war enthusiasts are now the ones putting the lives of U.S. soldiers in jeopardy.

Read on.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Letting the Banksters 'Settle'

By Danny Schechter
August 17, 2010

Another day, another bank in the news -- with the settlement blues.

Read on.

Making the US Look Small to the World

By Alvaro Vargas Llosa
August 17, 2010

New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission was right not to designate the building at 45 Park Place, two blocks from Ground Zero, a historical landmark.

Read on.

Old-Time Bigotry Alive in America

By Michael Winship
August 17, 2010

As citizens of the nation continue through the summer, distracting themselves from difficult truths by howling at the moon and one another, I spent this past weekend in Manhattan seeing revivals of two classic period pieces of American theater.

Read on.

The Truth about Pat Tillman's Death

By Rory O'Connor
August 17, 2010

Of the many lies George W. Bush told us about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some were larger but none worse than that told about the death of Pat Tillman.

Read on.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Behind a Lethal Israel-Lebanon Clash

By Lawrence Davidson
August 16, 2010

On Aug. 3, violence erupted along Lebanon’s southern frontier, followed almost simultaneously by verbal assaults against Lebanon from the U.S. House of Representatives. Lebanon soon lost, at least temporarily, $100 million in U.S. military aid. What is this all about?

Read on.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

How Truth Can Save Lives

By Ray McGovern
August 15, 2010

If independent-minded Web sites, like WikiLeaks or, say, Consortiumnews.com, existed 43 years ago, I might have risen to the occasion and helped save the lives of some 25,000 U.S. soldiers, and a million Vietnamese, by exposing the lies contained in just one SECRET/EYES ONLY cable from Saigon.

Read on.

Friday, August 13, 2010

US Staggers Toward Dysfunction

By Danny Schechter
August 14, 2010

Financial journalist Charles Gasparino whose career trajectory took him from Newsweek to CNBC to Fox News was on with Bill O’ Reilly doing what the host of the fact-less Factor likes to do the most: promote Fox News.

Read on.

Gut-Check Time for Progressives

By Don Monkerud
August 13, 2010

Hopes for change are turning to disappointment as Congress fails to meet goals for a progressive agenda.

Read on.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

A Neocon Preps US for War with Iran

By Ray McGovern
August 12, 2010

I guess I was naïve in thinking that The Atlantic and its American-Israeli writer Jeffrey Goldberg might shy away from arguing for yet another war — this one with Iran — while the cauldrons are still boiling in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Read on.

Why Israel Wants a US War with Iran

By Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett
August 12, 2010

Amid widespread skepticism that sanctions will stop Tehran's nuclear development and grudging, belated recognition that the Green Movement will not deliver a more pliable Iranian government, a growing number of commentators are asking the question, "What does President Obama do next on Iran?"

Read on.

Don't Try These GOP Alibis at Home

By Robert Parry
August 12, 2010

Unless you’re a member of the Bush Family or some other well-connected Republican, it’s not advised that you try the alibis that cleared Ronald Reagan’s campaign in the 1980 October Surprise case. You also would need to make sure that the “investigators” were lame-brained or weak-kneed Democrats.

Read on.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Manning, Khadr: Cases of Conscience

By Lawrence Davidson
August 11, 2010

At present there are two young men sitting in prison who have never met but are nonetheless intimately connected.

Read on.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The Mosque, the Wall, and America

By Michael Winship
August 10, 2010

The current fight over the building of an Islamic study center near Ground Zero in Manhattan is reminiscent of another battle nearly 30 years ago. Then, too, ignorance, rage and prejudice threatened to destroy the creation of something intended to help mend a grievous wound and foster understanding and reconciliation.

Read on.

The Dual Realities of Israel/Palestine

By Lawrence Davidson
August 10, 2010

On Aug. 5, 2010 Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, citing a Fars (Iran) news service story, reported that a non-governmental organization in Iran had "launched a Website with cartoons on the Holocaust aimed at undermining the historic dimensions of the mass murder of Jews."

Read on.

Hard Choices in Iraq and Afghanistan

By Ivan Eland
August 10, 2010

As President Obama pooh-poohed as old news the many WikiLeaks documents showing the sad state of the conflict in Afghanistan, the chief executive also began an entire month of crowing about keeping his campaign promise to “bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end.”

Read on.

Monday, August 09, 2010

Is Anti-Tax Rage Fueled by Racism?

By Jay Diamond
August 9, 2010

The momentum, the mass and the driving force behind the anti-tax, anti-government cult of the last 30 years has been RACISM.

Read on.

Sunday, August 08, 2010

Lack of Jobs Kills Hope of Recovery

By Danny Schechter
August 9, 2010

In Washington, the Obama economic team has sprung a leak. First, Budget Director Peter Orszag, the calculating numbers savant, bailed. And now, “distinguished” economist Christina Romer, the only woman in that inner circle boys club has quit too.

Read on.


Reflections on the Ninth of August

By Gary G. Kohls
August 8, 2010

On the 9th of August 1945, an all-Christian B-29 bomber crew took off from Tinian Island in the South Pacific with the blessings of Catholic and Protestant chaplains.

Read on.

Pfc. Manning and the Value of Truth

By Ray McGovern
August 8, 2010

We are living in a liminal time, that is to say we live on the threshold. So much that we have taken for granted is passing.

Read on.

Friday, August 06, 2010

Letting Torturers Go Free

By Sherwood Ross
August 6, 2010

Although U.S. officials have attributed the torture of Muslim prisoners in American custody to a handful of maverick guards or limited to a few “high-value detainees,” such criminal acts were widely perpetrated, likely involving large numbers of military personnel, a book by a survivor suggests.

Read on.

October Surprise Cover-up Unravels

By Robert Parry
August 6, 2010

Not to belabor a point, but some die-hard defenders of the October Surprise cover-up continue to insist that there is real evidence debunking the now overwhelming case that Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign interfered with President Jimmy Carter’s negotiations to free 52 American hostages then held in Iran.

Read on.

Thursday, August 05, 2010

The Pleasantly Surprising 'Green Zone'

By David Swanson
August 5, 2010

I expected to be disappointed by "Green Zone.” I mean the movie, not the chunk of Baghdad we've spent seven years and trillions of dollars killing over a million people to steal for an "embassy" containing 21 buildings on 104 acres.

Read on.

Accusation of October Surprise Lying

By Robert Parry
August 5, 2010

Lawrence Barcella, who was chief counsel of the October Surprise investigation, has accused me of lying about him when I wrote that he decided to “hide” a report from the Russian government that contradicted his conclusion of “no credible evidence” that Ronald Reagan’s campaign sabotaged President Jimmy Carter’s attempts to free 52 Americans held hostage in Iran in 1980.

Read on.

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Is Iran, like Iraq, 'Asking for War'?

By William Blum
August 4, 2010

If and when the United States and Israel bomb Iran (marking the sixth country so blessed by Barack Obama) – and this sad old world has a new daily horror show to look at on their TV sets – and we then discover that Iran was not actually building nuclear weapons after all, the American mainstream media and the benighted American mind will ask: "Why didn't they tell us that? Did they want us to bomb them?"

Read on.

Palin, Summers and the Crisis of Kitsch

By Phil Rockstroh
August 4, 2010

Given the level of cultural absurdity at large, both the commercially tormented landscape and the mass media dominated mindscape of the United States seem a Gogol goof-take.

Read on.

George Shultz's Counterfeit 'Coin'

By Robert Parry
August 4, 2010

Official Washington’s favorite quote from the Iran-Contra scandal was from Secretary of State George Shultz who famously assured congressional investigators that “trust is the coin of the realm.” What is never acknowledged is that Shultz's coin was counterfeit, that he then lied through his teeth.

Read on.